CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY. World War II stimulated the creation of the first U.S. central intelligence organization, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), whose functions included espionage, special operations ranging from propaganda to sabotage, counterintelligence, and intelligence analysis. The OSS represented a revolution in U.S. intelligence not only because of the varied functions performed by a single, national agency but because of the breadth of its intelligence interests and its use of scholars to produce finished intelligence.

In the aftermath of World War II, the OSS was disbanded, closing down on 1 October 1945, as ordered by President Harry S. Truman. The counterintelligence and secret intelligence branches were transferred to the War and State Departments, respectively. At virtually the same time that he ordered the termination of the OSS, Truman authorized studies of the intelligence structure required by the United States in the future, and the National Intelligence Authority (NIA) and its operational element, the Central Intelligence Group (CIG), were formed. In addition to its initial responsibility of coordinating and synthesizing the reports produced by the military service intelligence agencies and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the CIG was soon assigned the task of clandestine human intelligence (HUMINT) collection.

CIA Organization

As part of a general consideration of national security needs, the National Security Act of 1947 addressed the question of intelligence organization. The act established the Central Intelligence Agency as an independent agency within the Executive Office of the President to replace the CIG. According to the act, the CIA was to have five functions: advising the National Security Council concerning intelligence activities; making recommendations to the National Security Council for the coordination of intelligence activities; correlating, evaluating, and disseminating intelligence; performing services of common concern as determined by the National Security Council; and performing "such functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the National Security Council may from time to time direct." The provisions of the act left considerable scope for interpretation, and the fifth and final provision has been cited as authorization for covert action operations. In fact, the provision was intended only to authorize espionage. The ultimate legal basis for covert action became presidential direction and congressional approval of funds for such programs.

The CIA developed in accord with a maximalist interpretation of the act. Thus, the CIA has become the primary U.S. government agency for intelligence analysis, clandestine human intelligence collection, and covert action. It has also played a major role in the development of reconnaissance and other technical collection systems employed for gathering imagery, signals, and measurement and signature intelligence. In addition, as stipulated in the agency's founding legislation, the director of the CIA serves as director of central intelligence (DCI) and is responsible for managing the activities of the entire national intelligence community. As a result, the deputy DCI (DDCI) usually assumes the responsibility of day to-day management of the CIA.

CIA headquarters is in Langley, Virginia, just south of Washington, D.C., although the agency has a number of other offices scattered around the Washington area. In 1991, the CIA had approximately 20,000 employees, but post–Cold War reductions and the transfer of the CIA's imagery analysts to the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) probably reduced that number to about 17,000. Its budget in 2002 was in the vicinity of $3 billion. The CIA consists of three major directorates: the Directorate of Operations (known as the Directorate of Plans from 1952 to 1973), the Directorate of Intelligence, and the Directorate of Science and Technology (established in 1963). In addition, it has a number of offices with administrative functions that were part of the Directorate of Administration until 2000, when that directorate was abolished.

Directorate of Operations

The Directorate of Operations has three major functions: human intelligence collection, covert action, and counterintelligence. The directorate's intelligence officers are U.S. citizens who generally operate under cover of U.S. embassies and consulates, which provides them with secure communications within the embassy and to other locations, protected files, and diplomatic immunity. Others operate under "nonofficial cover" (NOC). Such NOCs may operate as businesspeople, sometimes under cover of working at the overseas office of a U.S. firm. The CIA officers recruit foreign nationals as agents and cultivate knowledgeable foreigners who may provide information as either "unwitting" sources or outside a formal officer-agent relationship.

During the Cold War, the primary target of the CIA was, of course, the Soviet Union. Despite the closed nature of Soviet society and the size and intensity of the KGB's counterintelligence operation, the CIA had a number of notable successes. The most significant was Colonel Oleg Penkovskiy, a Soviet military intelligence(GRU) officer. In 1961 and 1962, Penkovskiy passed great quantities of material to the CIA and the British Secret Intelligence Service, including information on Soviet strategic capabilities and nuclear targeting policy. In addition, he provided a copy of the official Soviet medium-range ballistic missile manual, which was of crucial importance at the time of the Cuban missile crisis.

In subsequent years, the CIA penetrated the Soviet Foreign Ministry, Defense Ministry and General Staff, GRU, KGB, at least one military research facility, and probably several other Soviet organizations. Individuals providing data to the CIA included some stationed in the Soviet Union, some in Soviet consulates and embassies, and some assigned to the United Nations or other international organizations. CIA HUMINT operations successfully penetrated a number of other foreign governments during the last half of the twentieth century, including India, Israel, the People's Republic of China, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Ghana.

The CIA also experienced notable failures. During 1987, Cuban television showed films of apparent CIA officers in Cuba picking up and leaving material at dead drops. It seemed a significant number of Cubans had been operating as double agents, feeding information to the CIA under the supervision of Cuban security officials. CIA operations in East Germany were also heavily penetrated by the East German Ministry for State Security. In 1995, France expelled several CIA officers for attempting to recruit French government officials. From 1984 to 1994, the CIA counterintelligence officer Aldrich Ames provided the Soviet Union and Russia with a large number of documents and the names of CIA penetrations, which resulted in the deaths of ten CIA assets.

CIA covert action operations have included (1) political advice and counsel, (2) subsidies to individuals, (3) financial support and technical assistance to political parties or groups, (4) support to private organizations, including labor unions and business firms, (5) covert propaganda, (6) training of individuals, (7) economic operations, (8) paramilitary or political action operations designed to overthrow or to support a regime, and (9) until the mid-1960s, attempted assassinations. Successes in the covert action area included monetary support to anticommunist parties in France and Italy in the late 1940s that helped prevent communist electoral victories. The CIA successfully engineered a coup that overthrew Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in 1954. In contrast, repeated attempts to eliminate Fidel Castro's regime and Castro himself failed. CIA covert action in cooperation with Britain's Secret Intelligence Service was crucial in restoring the shah of Iran to the throne in 1953, and, by providing Stinger missiles to the Afghan resistance, in defeating the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Such operations subsequently had significant detrimental consequences. The CIA also orchestrated a propaganda campaign against Soviet SS-20 missile deployments in Europe in the 1980s.

Counterintelligence operations conducted by the Directorate of Operations include collection of information on foreign intelligence and security services and their activities through open and clandestine sources; evaluation of defectors; research and analysis concerning the structure, personnel, and operations of foreign intelligence and security services; and operations disrupting and neutralizing intelligence and security services engaging in activities hostile to the United States. Successful counterintelligence efforts have included penetration of a number of foreign intelligence services, including those of the Soviet Union and Russia, the People's Republic of China, and Poland.

Directorate of Intelligence

The Directorate of Intelligence, established in 1952 by consolidating different intelligence production offices in the CIA, is responsible for converting the data produced through examination of open sources, such as foreign journals and Newspapers, and collection of imagery, signals intelligence, and human intelligence into finished intelligence. The finished intelligence produced by the Directorate of Intelligence comes in several varieties whose names are self-explanatory: biographical sketches, current intelligence, warning intelligence, analytical intelligence, and estimative intelligence. A directorate component is responsible for producing the "President's Daily Brief," a document restricted to the president and a small number of key advisers that contains the most sensitive intelligence obtained by the U.S. intelligence community. In addition to producing intelligence on its own, the directorate also plays a major role in the national estimates and studies produced by the National Intelligence Council (NIC), which is outside the CIA structure and reports directly to the director of central intelligence. The NIC consists of national intelligence officers responsible for specific topics or areas of the world.

During the Cold War, a key part of the directorate's work was producing national intelligence estimates on Soviet strategic capabilities, the annual NIE 11-3/8 estimate. Its estimates on the prospects of foreign regimes included both notable successes and failures. The directorate provided no significant warning that the shah of Iran would be forced to flee his country in early 1979. In contrast, from the time Mikhail Gorbachev assumed power in the Soviet Union, CIA analysts noted the difficult path he faced. By 1987, their pessimism had grown, and by 1989, they raised the possibility that he would be toppled in a coup. In April 1991, the head of the Office of Soviet Analysis noted that forces were building for a coup and accurately identified the likely participants, the justification they would give, and the significant chance that such a coup would fail.

Directorate of Science and Technology

The Directorate of Science and Technology (DS&T) was established in August 1963 to replace the Directorate of Research, which had been created in 1962 in an attempt to bring together CIA activities in the area of science and technology. By 1962, those activities included development and operation of reconnaissance aircraft and satellites, including the U-2 spy plane and the Corona satellite; the operation and funding of ground stations to intercept Soviet missile telemetry; and the analysis of foreign nuclear and space programs.

The directorate went on to manage the successful development of a number of advanced reconnaissance systems. The A-12 (Oxcart) spy plane, which operated from 1967 to 1968, became the basis for the U.S. Air Force's SR-71 fleet, which conducted reconnaissance operations from 1968 to 1990. More importantly, the directorate, along with private contractors, was responsible for the development of the Rhyolite signals intelligence satellite, which provided a space-based ability to intercept Soviet and Chinese missile telemetry, and two imagery satellites, the KH-9 and the KH-11. The latter gave the United States the ability to monitor events in real time, that is, to receive imagery of an activity or facility as the satellite was passing over the target area. The successors to the KH-11 and the Rhyolite remained in operation at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

The DS&T has undergone several reorganizations and has gained and lost responsibilities. Both the Directorate of Intelligence and the Directorate of Operations have at times disputed actual or planned DS&T control of various offices and divisions. In 1963, the directorate assumed control of the Office of Scientific Intelligence, which had been in the Directorate of Intelligence. In 1976, all scientific and technical intelligence analysis functions were transferred back to the Directorate of Intelligence. A 1993 reorganization of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) eliminated the semiautonomous role of the directorate in the development and operation of reconnaissance satellites. In 1996, the National Photo-graphic Intelligence Center (NPIC), which had been transferred to the DS&T in 1973, was merged into the Newly created NIMA.

In the early twenty-first century, the directorate responsibilities included the application of information technology in support of intelligence analysts; technical support for clandestine operations; development of emplaced sensor systems, such as seismic or chemical sensors placed near an airbase or chemical weapons facility; the collection of signals intelligence in cooperation with the National Security Agency; and provision of personnel to the NRO to work on satellite reconnaissance development. The directorate also operated the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), which monitors and analyzes foreign radio, television, Newspapers, and magazines.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Mangold, Tom. Cold Warrior: James Jesus Angleton: The CIA's Master Spy Hunter. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991.

Prados, John. Presidents' Secret Wars: CIA and Pentagon Covert Operations from World War II through the Persian Gulf. Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1996.

Ranelagh, John. The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986.

Richelson, Jeffrey T. The Wizards of Langley: Inside the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology. Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 2001.

Rudgers, David F. Creating the Secret State: The Origins of the Central Intelligence Agency, 1943–1947. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000.

Thomas, Evan. The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995.

Woodward, Bob. Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981–1987. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987.

JeffreyRichelson

See alsoIntelligence, Military and Strategic ; Intervention ; Spies .

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was established following world war ii, from which the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as superpowers with vast military might and sharply conflicting world views. To protect the nation's security in all international matters and to ensure continued democracy and freedom for the United States, Congress created the CIA with the National Security Act of 1947 (ch. 343, 61 Stat. 495 [1947]). Gathering information from other countries relevant to national security is a sensitive task requiring considerable secrecy and covert activity. Unlike most other organizations, the CIA receives comparatively little media coverage when it is doing its job well. For this reason, most of the information that reaches the media concerning the CIA is negative.

All intelligence information collected by the CIA is reported to the national security council, under whose direction the CIA acts. The CIA is headed by the director of central intelligence, who is a member of the president's cabinet and the presidential spokesperson for the agency and the intelligence community. The director and deputy director of the CIA are appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate.

The CIA is headquartered at a 258-acre compound in Langley, Virginia, and maintains twenty-two other offices in the Washington, D.C., area. The main compound includes a printing plant that produces phony documents, such as birth certificates, passports, and driver's licenses, for use by its agents. The plant also produces the President's Daily Brief, an eight-page CIA document that is presented to the president every morning. Another facility is used exclusively for recruiting spies to work for the CIA; another houses the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, which monitors and translates broadcasts from forty-seven countries. Several other facilities recruit officers of the former Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti (KGB)—the State Security Committee for countries in the former Soviet Union, now known as the Russian Federal Security Service—to spy on their own countries. The agency also maintains facilities in 130 countries throughout the world. Of the $28 billion that is budgeted annually to the U.S. Intelligence Committee, $3 billion goes to the CIA. The official number of individuals employed by the CIA is sixteen thousand, but many believe the actual number to be closer to twenty-two thousand.

Although all aspects of the CIA revolve around gathering intelligence and maintaining the security of the nation, the actual responsibilities of the agency are many and varied; they include

• Advising the National Security Council in matters concerning national security
• Gathering and disseminating foreign intelligence (The CIA coordinates with the federal bureau of investigation (FBI) to gather intelligence within the United States.)
• Conducting counterintelligence activities outside of the United States (The CIA coordinates with the FBI to conduct intelligence and counterintelligence activities within the United States.)
• Gathering and disseminating intelligence on the foreign aspects of narcotics production and trafficking
• Conducting other special activities approved by the president.

In its earliest days the CIA operated in a shroud of secrecy. In recent years, however, increased media attention has made the country more aware of CIA activities. Since the mid 1970s, the CIA has received more attention for breaking the law than it has for upholding national security. Four events focused unwanted attention to the CIA: the Church committee hearings, the iran-contra affair, the Aldrich Ames scandal, and the end of the cold war.

The Church Committee Hearings

In 1974, the New York Times broke a story that the CIA had violated its charter by spying on U.S. citizens who openly opposed the vietnam war. An investigation followed, headed by Senator Frank Church (D-ID). Church and his committee uncovered a wealth of damaging information about the agency that went far

beyond the issue of the Vietnam War. The Church committee hearings changed the way the public looked at the agency that is responsible for the security of its country.

The Church committee found that the CIA had been intercepting and reading mail exchanged between the United States and the Soviet bloc. The CIA had records on more than three hundred thousand U.S. citizens who had no ties with espionage or intelligence. The CIA had also conducted LSD tests on unknowing participants, one of whom was driven to suicide. Through the CIA, the United States had tried to assassinate at least five foreign leaders, including Cuban premier Fidel Castro. The CIA had first decided to embarrass the Cuban leader and thereby damage his popularity. To accomplish this, the agency plotted to make Castro's beard fall off by placing thallium salts in his shoes. The agency had a second plot: to give Castro a personality disorder by contaminating his cigars. The agency had even enlisted the help of the mafia in its attempt to assassinate Castro. These shocking disclosures brought demands for closer scrutiny of CIA activities.

Following the Church committee hearings, Congress amended the National Security Act of 1947 in 1980 to require the CIA to inform the House and Senate Intelligence Committees of "significant anticipated intelligence activity." Within six years, however, the CIA found itself in trouble once more for failing to inform Congress of its activities.

The Iran-Contra Affair

On November 3, 1986, the Lebanese magazine Shiraa reported that Robert McFarland, U.S. national security adviser, had come to Iran with a shipment of arms from the United States. This revelation spurred what was ultimately termed the Iran-Contra affair and spoiled an otherwise secret operation.

The CIA had involved itself in a covert action in which arms were shipped to Iran in exchange for the release of hostages. The payments that were received from the Iranians were, in turn, diverted to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels who were fighting the Communist Sandanista regime, at a time when U.S. military aid to the Contras was prohibited by federal law. All of this was done without the knowledge of Congress; the CIA informed neither the House Intelligence Committee nor the Senate Intelligence Committee of its actions. President ronald reagan had not approved the agency's covert activity.

One year after the arms had been sold, william j. casey, director of central intelligence and a cabinet member, asked the president to approve the transaction retroactively. Reagan signed an agreement to that effect, which specified that Congress was not to be told of the approval. John Poindexter, the national security adviser at the time, later testified that he destroyed the only copy of the agreement in order to save President Reagan from political embarrassment.

Despite great media attention and congressional finger-pointing, actual punishments for the Iran-Contra affair were few and lenient. Casey was never indicted in the scandal. McFarland and Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger were brought up on criminal charges, but both were pardoned on Christmas Eve 1992 by president george h.w. bush. All other persons linked to the scandal either were also pardoned by Bush or were punished with small fines, probation, or both, or had their convictions overturned on appeal.

The Ames Scandal

It did not take the CIA long to make its way back into the spotlight. This time, it was not the agency that broke the law, but an individual. On February 21, 1994, Agent Aldrich Ames became the highest-ranking CIA official ever arrested. Ames had been selling U.S. secrets to the Soviet Union.

Ames's responsibilities as a CIA agent included directing the analysis of Soviet intelligence operations and recruiting Soviet agents who would betray those operations. This position put Ames in frequent contact with Soviet officials at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C. Ultimately, Ames began selling U.S. security secrets to the Soviets, a venture that earned him more than $2.5 million before his arrest. Some of this information involved betraying double agents, disclosures that led to the death of at least twelve Soviet and Eastern European spies.

The CIA began to search for a mole (a double agent) in 1986, after two intelligence officers at the Soviet Embassy who had been recruited as double agents by the FBI were recalled to Moscow, arrested, tried, and executed. The CIA was jolted again in 1989 when three more of its most valued Soviet double agents met their deaths by firing squad in Russia.

In 1991 the CIA began to work with the FBI in investigating East Germany and other former Warsaw Pact countries for leads to possible moles in the U.S. government. Ames became one of the suspects and was quietly transferred to the CIA's counternarcotics center. Since the FBI was in charge of counterintelligence domestically, Ames fell under its jurisdiction of investigation. CIA officials played down the possibility of one of its key employees being a spy and blocked independent scrutiny by the FBI. Ames continued to betray the CIA and the country.

The CIA was sharply criticized for its unwillingness to consider one of its own a double agent and for its refusal to allow the FBI to investigate the situation. For years, the agency failed to monitor Ames's overseas travel, to question his personal finances, or to detect unauthorized contacts between Ames and Soviet officials. As early as 1989, the CIA had been warned that Ames appeared to colleagues and neighbors to have accumulated sudden wealth. Ames was questioned about the source of the money during a routine 1991 background check. He said he had inherited money from his father-in-law.

From 1985 onward, Ames and his wife Rosario bought a $540,000 house for cash, put $99,000 worth of improvements into the house, purchased a Jaguar, bought a farm and condominium in Colombia, and invested $165,000 in stocks. In one year, they charged more than $100,000 on their credit cards. According to court documents, the Ameses spent nearly $1.4 million from April 1985 to November 1993. All of this took place while Ames's annual CIA salary never exceeded $70,000. According to CIA officials, indications of wrongdoing by CIA employees were often overlooked because supervisors were far too trusting of employees, whom they treated as family.

When Ames got a call to go to his CIA office in the morning of February 21, 1994, he had no inkling that after almost nine years his career of selling secrets to Moscow was about to end. With Ames planning to travel to Russia the next day on CIA business, the FBI believed that it had to act. A block and a half from Ames's house, his Jaguar was forced to the curb, and Ames was arrested by FBI agents.

On April 28, 1994, Ames pleaded guilty to the criminal charges of espionage and tax evasion. He received a sentence of life imprisonment without parole, the maximum sentence he could have expected if convicted after trial.

The End of the Cold War

The importance of the threat imposed by Ames's dealings with the Soviet Union was seemingly diminished with that country's dissolution. But despite the apparent end of the cold war and the break-up of the former Soviet Union, the United States continues to spy on the Russian Republic. The former Soviet Union also continues its own covert activities within the United States.

Some question the continued need for the CIA in the post-cold war era. But supporters need point no further than the war with Iraq to justify continued backing for the agency. The CIA was responsible for supplying intelligence reports that allowed the United States to cripple the Iraqi efforts in the Gulf War with an initial air strike. Without the assistance of the CIA, the war might not have reached such a swift ending. Supporters also argue that it is unfair to criticize a covert organization for its failures when so little attention is given to its successes. When the CIA is functioning efficiently and effectively, its operation is invisible to the country's citizens; it is only in failure that the secrecy of the agency is betrayed to scrutinizing eyes.

Since the end of the cold war, some members of Congress have called for severe cuts in the CIA's budget or dissolution of the agency. President bill clinton said that such ideas are "profoundly

wrong," and that the United States still faces many threats and challenges, including terrorism, drug trafficking, and nuclear proliferation. "I believe making deep cuts in intelligence during peacetime is comparable to canceling your health insurance when you're feeling fine," he said.

September 11th and The Aftermath

Having seemingly lost some of its purpose with the end of the Cold War, the CIA found a new purpose in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001. However, this new purpose came with both criticism and concern as to whether the CIA was up to the challenge of tackling terrorism. There was strong debate after September 11th as to what role the CIA should play, and how it fit in to the new security paradigm.

Like every other domestic and foreign intelligence service in the United States, the CIA was apparently caught by surprise on Sept. 11th. However, there were some who argued that it should not have been. It was shown that the CIA had tracked two of the terrorists from that day at an al Qaeda summit in January 2000. But the CIA did nothing to share the information with other agencies, and both men were allowed to enter the United States. The CIA also told President george w. bush at a briefing in August 2001 that terrorists associated with Osama bin Laden might be planning to hijack a plane. Again, nothing was done with this information.

Although President Bush defended the agency and refused to fire its director, George Tenet, he conceded that the cooperation between the CIA and the FBI could have been better: "In terms of whether the FBI and CIA communicated properly, I think it's clear that they weren't."

further readings

Benjamin, Daniel, and Steven Simon. 2002. The Age of Sacred Terror. New York: Random House.

Curl, Joseph. 2002. "Bush Concedes FBI, CIA Faults, But Doubts Attacks Avoidable." Washington Times (June 5).

Gellman, Barton. 2001. "CIA Weighs 'Targeted Killing' Missions." Washington Post (October 28).

Kessler, Ronald. 1992. Inside the CIA. New York: Pocket Books.

Ranelagh, John. 1986. The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA from Wild Bill Donovan to William Casey. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Rudgers, David F. 2000. Creating the Secret State: The Origins of the Central Intelligence Agency, 1943–1947. Lawrence: Univ. Press of Kansas.

Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949

Jennifer S. Byram

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was created by the National Security Act of 1947. The Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949 (CIA Act) (P.L. 81-110, 63 Stat. 208) was enacted to give the CIA specific authority to carry out the duties assigned to it in 1947. Until the CIA Act, the CIA had been acting without the authorities typically given to other federal government agencies.

PROVISIONS OF THE CIA ACT

The CIA Act authorized the CIA to receive and spend money, administer overseas employees, and protect the confidential nature of CIA activities. The CIA is allowed to purchase supplies and services using procedures established in the Armed Services Procurement Act of 1947, transfer money to and from other government agencies, have employees of other agencies work for the CIA, and spend CIA funds without the same restrictions placed on other agencies. The CIA can send employees to specialized training and pay for that training; pay travel and moving expenses of employees and their families when they are assigned to work abroad, both at the time of assignment and for vacations back to the United States; and provide for medical care for employees working abroad. The Director of Central Intelligence shall protect intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure. Finally, each year the Director of Central Intelligence, with the Attorney General, may admit up to 100 immigrants and their families to the United States to help protect national security, typically granting legal residence to foreign nationals who have worked for the CIA and need to leave their homeland.

While the proponents of the CIA Act characterized it as only providing the same authorities that other agencies enjoyed, the CIA actually has significantly more freedom from legislative restrictions. For example, the CIA can have employees of other agencies temporarily transferred to the CIA, allowing people who work at the CIA to truthfully say they do not work for the CIA. The CIA is exempt from laws requiring agencies to list their organizations, functions, names, titles, salaries, and number of employees, and the Director of the Bureau of the Office of Management and Budget shall not report information about the CIA. The CIA can improve rental properties, acquire land, and construct buildings without the limits placed on other agencies.

Perhaps the most important freedoms relate to financial secrecy. The CIA may exchange funds with other agencies. This allows the CIA to spend money that has not been budgeted to it, which hides the true total the CIA spends. The CIA also can spend that money, "without regard to the provisions of law and regulations relating to the expenditure of government funds," with limited accounting for "confidential, extraordinary, or emergency" spending.

CHALLENGES TO THE ACT

Though the CIA Act passed with a strong majority, there were impassioned arguments against it. The main concerns were about the secrecy provisions and the possibility that CIA agents would work in the United States, spying on U.S. citizens. Some senators stated that the CIA Act would set up a "military gestapo" in the United States. Supporters of the act argued that information about the spending, employees, and actions of the CIA needed to be kept secret, to protect the lives of CIA agents abroad who were likely to be tortured or killed if they were suspected of being U.S. spies. The skeptical senators were told that the Senate Committee on Armed Services had seen confidential information about American intelligence that could not be shared with the full Senate, but every Senator would support the act if they had seen it. The supporters said that the attack on Pearl Harbor might have been prevented if U.S. intelligence had been given these capabilities prior to World War II. They also implied that not supporting the CIA Act was unpatriotic.

EFFECTS OF CIA SECRECY

Continuing concern about the secret activities of the CIA has led to important amendments to the CIA Act. The amendments were designed to increase congressional oversight of the CIA. Congress created the office of the Inspector General of the CIA in 1988. The Inspector General's duties include investigating allegations of misconduct by CIA employees, performing any other investigations or audits that seem useful, and making semi-annual reports to Congress about CIA activities. Over the years, Congress has increased the Inspector General's authority to investigate and make reports several times. If an employee reports an urgent concern to the Inspector General, and is not satisfied with the response, the employee can complain directly to appropriate congressional committees.

The office of the General Counsel of the CIA was created in 1996. The General Counsel is the head lawyer for the CIA, works to ensure that the CIA operates within the law, and defends it from lawsuits. One of the duties of the General Counsel is to review proposed operations to make sure they comply with U.S. laws and treaties.

Dissatisfaction with the secrecy of the CIA has caused most of the litigation about the CIA Act. Many cases involve the interaction between the secrecy provisions of the CIA Act and the disclosure provisions of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Generally, the courts have decided the CIA is exempt from the requirements of the FOIA.

The Supreme Court has decided one case, United States v. Richardson (1974), which challenged the constitutionality of the CIA Act. The plaintiff argued that the CIA Act's secret funding provisions violated the Statement and Account Clause of the Constitution (Article I, section 9, clause 7), which requires the government to publish an account of public expenditures. The Court held that a taxpayer does not have the right to challenge the secrecy provisions in court because the individual is not specifically harmed by the provisions. Because the Court will not allow any taxpayer to maintain a challenge, the secrecy provisions will not be found unconstitutional.

It is difficult to determine the exact impact the CIA Act has had on the United States because so many of the CIA's activities are not publicized. We do not hear about the CIA's successful operations, or the attacks it has prevented. We seldom hear about its failures, unless they are spectacular, like the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, or the Iran-Contra scandal. It is certain that America must have an effective, well-regulated intelligence agency to provide us with information about hostile powers, and the CIA is that agency.

See also: DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY ACT; FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT; NATIONAL SECURITY ACT OF 1947; USA PATRIOT ACT.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949. P.L. 81-110, 63 Stat. 208. Congressional Record, 81st Congress, 1st Session, H.R. 2663 (1949).

Holt, Pat M. Secret Intelligence and Public Policy: A Dilemma of Democracy. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1995.

Kessler, Ronald. Inside the CIA. New York: Pocket Books, 1992.

Warner, Michael, ed. The CIA Under Harry Truman. Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1994.

The Bay of Pigs Invasion

The Bay of Pigs invasion was an attempt by the United States to overthrow Cuban dictator Fidel Castro in 1961. Planned during the presidential administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower and managed by the CIA, the invasion involved approximately 1,500 Cuban exiles who had been trained by the CIA. The exiles were to land at the Bay of Pigs, with air and naval support from the United States, and it was assumed that their arrival would set off a popular uprising that would overthrow Castro. However, President John F. Kennedy, who had taken office three months before the invasion, refused to broaden the conflict by authorizing air strikes, and the Cuban populace stayed behind closed doors. Furthermore, counter to intelligence reports, Cuban troops were stationed nearby and moved quickly to repel the attackers. The invasion was a disaster, with 274 of the exiles killed and the rest captured. While the invasion marked the low point of the entire Kennedy administration, the president acknowledged responsibility for the disaster with such grace that his approval rating rose to more than 80 percent. Kennedy's brother, Robert Kennedy, negotiated with Castro to release the prisoners in December 1962 in exchange for $53 million in food and medical supplies.

The Iran-Contra Affair

The Iran-Contra affair was a complicated scandal of the mid-1980s in which the administration of President Ronald Reagan secretly sold arms to Iran, an avowed enemy of the United States, for use in Iran's war with Iraq. In return, Iran used its influence to help secure the release of American hostages being held in Lebanon by pro-Iranian terrorist groups. Profits from the weapons were then secretly funneled by the CIA to the Contra rebels attempting to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua. All of this was illegal. U.N. sanctions prohibited selling weapons to Iran, as did Congressional legislation. In addition, Congress had expressly forbidden covert U.S. support for the overthrow of the Nicaraguan government. In addition to the funding, the CIA provided the Contras with weapons and training in guerilla tactics (including assassination), and there is evidence that the CIA was involved in drug trafficking to raise additional funds for the Contras. When the story first broke, Reagan repudiated it, claiming, "We did not, repeat—did not—trade weapons or anything else for hostages, nor will we." Reagan later blamed this assertion on incorrect data provided by his staff. He appointed a board called the Tower Commission, headed by former Senator John Tower, to investigate the allegations, and a joint Senate and House committee held four months of televised hearings on the affair. Neither group found the president guilty of a crime; however, both concluded that his inattentive management style had allowed his subordinates to subvert the law. No one prosecuted in the scandal was penalized with anything more than a fine. Criminal indictments against National Security Advisor John Poindexter and Oliver North of the National Security Council were dismissed, and six others who were indicted or convicted of various crimes were pardoned in 1992 by President George H.W. Bush.

CIA Directorate of Science and Technology (DS&T)

█ JUDSON KNIGHT

The Directorate of Science and Technology (DS&T) is one of four directorates within the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It provides support to the CIA mission through research, development, acquisition, and operation of technical capabilities and systems. DS&T also directs the Foreign Broadcast Information Service and the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC). Its most notable work, however, is its task as a "spy shop," in which some of the most innovative surveillance technology in history—the U-2 and A-12 spy planes, or the KH-11 and other satellites of the CORONA program—were first envisioned.

Early History

From the earliest days of CIA, itself created in 1947, scientific and technological support has been an important component of the agency's mission. The earliest ancestor of DS&T was the Office of Reports and Estimates, which in December 1948 merged with the Nuclear Energy Group of the Office of Special Operations to form the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI). The latter would remain the CIA's principal scientific research laboratory until 1962.

In researching his book on DS&T, The Wizards of Langley (2001), intelligence scholar Jeffrey T. Richelson accessed a host of documents that were once highly sensitive, but are now declassified. He posted a number of these at a permanent Web site associated with the George Washington University National Security Archive. One notable early example from the collection is a November 5, 1954, letter from Polaroid chief executive officer Edwin Land to Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Allen Dulles, urging him to develop a specialized aircraft that could fly at high altitudes and obtain ultra-high resolution photographs. From this letter and other early discussions would come the U-2, developed at Lockheed's Skunk Works facility in California.

Other documents from the 1950s show early CIA plans for the deployment of the first spy satellites. At that time, the Air Force had its own satellite project in the works, but the CIA's CORONA, launched in 1959, would prove much more successful, and would outlast the Air Force SAMOS program by a decade. Much less successful were CIA experiments with psychotropic drugs, including LSD, during the period 1949–1963. Richelson excerpted a January 1975 memo, written just before the CIA became the target for a series of congressional investigations, detailing those experiments, including the infamous MKULTRA program.

The 1960s. In 1962, OSI became the Deputy Directorate for Research, whose name was again changed to Deputy Directorate for Science and Technology in 1963. The directorate assumed its present name in 1965. During this period, the agency developed the A-12 Oxcart, which, though successful, never equaled the U-2 for accuracy. Its satellite programs continued to progress, yet as an NPIC photographic interpretation report from August 1962 showed, even the KH-4 satellite did not offer imagery any better than that obtained by the U-2.

A March 1967 memo, from which several details (including the recipient) were excised, provides an illustration of the folly that sometimes befell DS&T. The memorandum describes a project known as "Acoustic Kitty," whereby DS&T attempted to develop a mobile eavesdropping platform using a cat that had been surgically altered by cutting it open, inserting batteries, and wiring its tail to become an antenna. The unfortunate creature was run over by a taxi before it could be trained for its mission.

The 1970s. More indicative of DS&T's involvement in cutting-edge technology was a report from a June 1971 meeting of the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in which President Richard M. Nixon, along Land (still highly involved with the Intelligence Community) and others, discussed the idea of developing a satellite that could return images in real time. Today, of course, such a concept is well known, but in an era when satellites still recorded images on film for viewing days or weeks later, the idea of a satellite that could instantaneously relay images to a ground station seemed farfetched. In December 1976, the vision discussed at this meeting was realized with the deployment of the KH-11 satellite.

Once again, documents selected by Richelson illustrate juxtaposition of scientific triumph with less successful undertakings. Even as KH-11 was being born, DS&T undertook experiments in "remote viewing," or the use of purported psychic knowledge to explore targets of interest that could not be glimpsed by ordinary means. According to a December 1975 report from Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, remote viewers "saw" a number of objects that, as shown by satellite photography, were not at the site in question. After the end of the Cold War, American scientists visiting the site discovered that it was being used to develop a nuclear-powered space rocket and not—as remote viewers had supposed—for underground nuclear tests.

DS&T Today

Information about more recent DS&T activities is necessarily scanty, but these details from the first 30 years of CIA science and technology illustrate the breadth of activities with which it was associated in the past. As of 2003, the DS&T is tasked with collecting, assessing, and exploiting information to assist the agency in the execution of its mission by applying innovative scientific, technical, and engineering solutions to critical intelligence matters.

The workforce of DS&T incorporates some 50 different disciplines, ranging from computer scientists to engineers to linguists. These specialists develop, design, evaluate, and deploy highly specialized equipment intended to provide the United States with a significant advantage in intelligence and special operations.

DS&T is involved in a whole range of functions that support the entire intelligence cycle. These activities include collecting information and materials of intelligence value from foreign open sources, developing and deploying collection systems against the most challenging intelligence targets, supporting the National Reconnaissance Office in creating efficient satellite systems, providing state-of-the-art technologies for the clandestine collection of intelligence, and researching and developing advanced technologies to provide and maintain an advantage for the United States. In pursuit of these activities, DS&T in 2001 developed In-Q-Tel, a nonprofit corporation intended to seek information technology solutions to critical needs faced by CIA as a whole.

█ FURTHER READING:

BOOKS:

Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri, and Christopher M. Andrew. Eternal Vigilance? 50 Years of the CIA. Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1997.

Richelson, Jeffrey T. The U.S. Intelligence Community, fourth edition. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999.

——. The Wizards of Langley: Inside the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001.

PERIODICALS:

Goodman, Melvin A. "Science at the CIA." Issues in Science and Technology 18, no. 3 (spring 2002): 90–93.

Mooney, Chris. "Spy Tech." The American Prospect 13, no. 2 (January 28, 2002): 39–41.

Prados, John. "Understanding Central Intelligence." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 58, no. 2 (March/April 2002): 64–65.

ELECTRONIC:

Directorate of Science and Technology. Central Intelligence Agency. <http://www.cia.gov/cia/dst/home.html> (April 24, 2003).

Richelson, Jeffrey T. Science, Technology and the CIA. National Security Archive, George Washington University. <http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB54/index2.html> (April 24, 2003).

SEE ALSO

Antiballistic Missile Treaty
Aviation Intelligence, History
Biochemical Assassination Weapons
CIA (United States Central Intelligence Agency)
CIA, Foreign Broadcast Information Service
Dual Use Technology
Movies, Espionage and Intelligence Portrayals
Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC), United States National
Pseudo Science Intelligence Studies
Psychotropic Drugs
Satellites, Spy
U-2 Spy Plane

Central Intelligence Agency. The National Security Act of 1947 created the National Security Council (NSC), a presidential advisory body. This act also created the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as successor to the World War II Office of Strategic Services, with responsibility for recruiting and controlling agents, conducting covert actions, and providing intelligence assessments. General Walter Bedell Smith, Dwight D. Eisenhower's wartime chief of staff, was director from 1950 to 1953. Director Allen Dulles (1953–1961) enjoyed broad leeway from President Eisenhower, who respected the agency's intelligence assessments and authorized a wide range of covert actions, including coups in Iran and Guatemala to overthrow regimes viewed as hostile to U.S. interests.

Beginning in the 1960s, the CIA faced rising criticism. Failures like the shooting down of a U‐2 spy plane over Russia in 1960 and the disastrous Bay of Pigs operation in 1961 shook official confidence. Conservatives attacked it as a bastion of the liberal establishment— President Richard M. Nixon derided it as “a muscle‐bound bureaucracy” drawn from the “Ivy League and Georgetown set.” Liberals and radicals criticized the CIA's covert actions against Third World states, including its role in recruiting a secret army in Laos and in the overthrow and assassination of Salvadore Allende, the leftist president of Chile, in 1973. A congressional committee under Senator Frank Church of Idaho documented the agency's failures and excesses, while presidents marginalized it and slashed its staff. In violation of the law, the CIA also carried out various domestic operations that figured in the Nixon Era Watergate scandals. Under director William Casey in the Ronald Reagan administration, the CIA participated in the secret and illegal support of the Nicaraguan contras and thus figured in the Iran‐Contra Affair. The arrest of several double agents operating within the agency did further damage.

From the 1970s to the 1990s, the CIA faced persistent attacks for inadequate security; recruitment failures; assessment errors; illegal domestic operations; and the politicization of intelligence, both in overrating Russia's strength and failing to anticipate Soviet actions. In fact, the CIA's record in recruiting agents was respectable, and its officers generally tried to be law‐abiding even when pressured otherwise. Many of the CIA's more dubious undertakings, such as the far‐fetched schemes to assassinate or discredit Cuban premier Fidel Castro, were initiated on instructions from higher up. The CIA often carried out covert operations effectively and resisted efforts to politicize its intelligence assessments, which were often quite good, involving not only agents but also data analysis and technical means such as photographic satellites. An understanding of the CIA is crucial to understanding Cold War America, both at home and abroad.

With the Cold War's end, the CIA faced new challenges as it reoriented its mission. The Agency's reputation suffered in 1994 with the arrest of Aldrich Ames, a high-level CIA employee who for nine years had passed highly secret information to the Soviet Union. In the political fallout from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Agency faced intense criticism for intelligence failings and for a lack of coordination with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other government agencies. In 2004, as a blue‐ribbon national panel investigated the intelligence lapses preceding the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush called for a major revamping of the nation's entire intelligence‐gathering apparatus‐a proposal with serious implications for the CIA's future.
See also Foreign Relations: U.S. Relations with Latin America; Foreign Relations: U.S. Relations with the Middle East; Intelligence Gathering and Espionage.

Bibliography

John Ranelagh , The Agency, 1986.
Christopher Andrews , For the President's Eyes Only, 1995.

John Ferris

Paul S. Boyer

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), independent executive bureau of the U.S. government established by the National Security Act of 1947, replacing the wartime Office of Strategic Services (1942–45), the first U.S. espionage and covert operations agency. While the CIA's covert operations receive the most attention, its major responsibility is to gather intelligence, in which it uses not only covert agents but such technological resources as satellite photos and intercepted telecommunications transmissions. The CIA was given (1949) special powers under the Central Intelligence Act: The CIA director may spend agency funds without accounting for them; the size of its staff is secret; and employees, exempt from civil service procedures, may be hired, investigated, or dismissed as the CIA sees fit. Under the U.S. intelligence agency reorganization enacted in 2004, the CIA reports to the independent director of national intelligence, who is responsible for coordinating the work and budgets of all 15 U.S. intelligence agencies. To safeguard civil liberties in the United States, the CIA is denied domestic police powers; for operations in the United States it must enlist the services of the Federal Bureau of Investigation . Allen Welsh Dulles , director from 1953 to 1961, strengthened the agency and emboldened its tactics.

The CIA has often been criticized for covert operations in the domestic politics of foreign countries. The agency was heavily involved in the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, deeply embarrassing the United States. In 1971 the U.S. government acknowledged that the CIA had recruited and paid an army fighting in Laos. In 1973 the CIA came under congressional investigation for its role in the Pentagon Papers case. The agency had provided members of the White House staff, on request, with a personality profile of Daniel Ellsberg , defendant in the Pentagon Papers trial in 1973, and had indirectly aided the White House "Plumbers," the special unit established to investigate internal security leaks. This direct violation of the National Security Act's prohibition led Congress to strengthen provisions barring the agency from domestic operations.

Its foreign operations came under attack in 1974 for involvement in Chilean internal affairs during the administration of Salvador Allende , and in 1986 it was shown to be involved in the Iran-Contra affair . Diminished in the early 1990s after the end of the cold war , it began rebuilding later in the decade, accelerating the process after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It was subsequently hurt, however, by the revelation that Director George Tenet had insisted, prior to the Iraq invasion of 2003, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, and the quality of the intelligence that it had provided was criticized. One result of the intelligence failures relating to Sept., 2001, and Iraq was the reorganization of 2004, which demoted the director of the CIA and made the CIA one of several agencies overseen by the new position of director of national intelligence.

Bibliography: See publications by the CIA History Staff; see also H. H. Ransom, The Intelligence Establishment (rev. ed. 1970); P. J. McGarvey, CIA: The Myth and the Madness (1972); S. D. Breckinridge, The CIA and the U.S. Intelligence System (1986); J. Ranelagh, The Agency (1986); S. Turner, Secrecy and Democracy; The CIA in Transition (1986); J. Marshall, The Iran-Contra Connection (1987); G. F. Treverton, Covert Action (1987); P. Agee, On the Run (1987); R. Jeffrey-Jones, The CIA and American Democracy (1989); E. Thomas, The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA (1996); T. Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (2007).

CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) (USA) An intelligence agency established to collect, coordinate, and analyse foreign intelligence by the 1947 National Security Act in the executive Office of the President. The CIA grew out of the wartime Office of Strategic Services and the postwar Central Intelligence Group. During the 1950s it developed four subdirectorates: Intelligence, Operations, Science and Technology, and Administration. Under Director Allen Dulles (1953–61) its role was widened to include covert action projects, whereby clandestine projects against non-friendly states would be planned and financed, e.g. against Prime Minister Mossadeq of Iran in 1953 and President Arbenz of Guatemala in 1954. It was deeply involved in the Congo Crisis of 1960. Following the fiasco of the Bay of Pigs operation in Cuba in 1961 Kennedy sought to control its covert action projects, though he continued to use it to develop clandestine plans to eliminate Castro. Kennedy was rumoured to have expressed a wish to dismantle the CIA, but died before showing his hand. Kennedy was not very successful in the reforms which he did institute; the CIA intelligence on Vietnam was riddled with inaccuracy, and the CIA role in Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s helped to poison US relations with that part of the world. Although successful in its efforts to depose President Allende of Chile in 1973, the CIA failed to provide satisfactory intelligence for the Yom Kippur War or the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. CIA equipment and materials also found their way into the hands of the Watergate burglars. During the 1980s, the CIA was implicated in illegal activities in the Iran–Contra scandal, though directed in its role by key staff at the National Security Council. The overall success of the CIA has been difficult to evaluate, as failures attracted more attention than successes. However, the remarkable success of the CIA at breaking the Russian army code contributed to the failure of the October Putsch in 1993. The CIA faced stinging allegations for failing to track town Osama Bin Laden during the 1990s, and for misinterpreting signals that foreshadowed the September 11 attacks. Eventually, in May 2002 President George W. Bush announced the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. This was to take over the role of the CIA and the FBI in preventing terrorist acts on US citizens in the War on Terrorism.

http://www.cia.gov

Central Intelligence Agency CIA an independent U.S. agency responsible to the president through its Director and to the people of the United States through Congressional intelligence oversight committees. It was officially created by President Harry S. Truman in 1947 when he signed the National Security Act, but its history is usually traced back to the Office of Strategic Services active during World War II. The National Security Act charged the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) with coordinating U.S. intelligence activities, as well as correlating, analyzing, and providing that information to the president, the National Security Council, and all the officials responsible for formulating and carrying out U.S. national security policy.

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) US government agency established to coordinate the intelligence activities of government departments and agencies responsible for US national security. Founded in 1947, it played a major role during the Cold War, supporting anti-communist movements. At times the CIA has come under attack for overstepping its mandate and interfering in the internal affairs of foreign nations. Having no domestic jurisdiction, it was severely criticized for its involvement in the Watergate affair. It advises and is directed by the National Security Council (NSC) and should report any action it proposes to take to Congress and gain presidential authorization.

http://www.cia.gov

Central Intelligence Group name borne from January 20, 1946 to July 25, 1947, by the organization which became the Central Intelligence Agency.

CIA • abbr. Central Intelligence Agency.

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) See INTELLIGENCE SERVICES.

CIA Abbreviation of Central Intelligence Agency

CIA see Central Intelligence Agency .

CIA abbr. Central Intelligence Agency.

CIA. See Central Intelligence Agency.

Central Intelligence Agency, see CIA

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