Central Intelligence Agency (redirected from CIA controversies)

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).

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Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

Principal intelligence and counterintelligence agency of the U.S., established in 1947 as a successor to the World War II-era Office of Strategic Services. The law limits its activities to foreign countries; it is prohibited from gathering intelligence on U.S. soil, which is a responsibility of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Officially a part of the U.S. Defense Department, it is responsible for preparing analyses for the National Security Council. Its budget is kept secret. Though intelligence gathering is its chief occupation, the CIA has also been involved in many covert operations, including the expulsion of Mohammad Mosaddeq from Iran (1953), the attempted Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba (1961), and support of the Nicaraguan contras in the 1980s.

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Central Intelligence Agency 

(CIA), the principal body of the government of the USA concerned with the gathering of foreign intelligence. Established in 1947, the role of the CIA is defined by the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949. The CIA, relying on legally or illegally obtained intelligence, keeps the leaders of the USA informed of the activities of foreign governments; it also coordinates the work of other American intelligence agencies.

The nucleus of the CIA’s central apparatus, which employs, according to some estimates, at least 10,000 people, includes three major departments: a center for the analysis of intelligence; a directorate of operations, whose activities include the planning of intelligence operations and the analysis of contacts with foreigners; and a directorate of science and technology, which handles such activities as the interception of radio signals and aircraft and satellite surveillance.

Some CIA agents work for the State Department or other agencies connected with foreign policy. The CIA makes extensive use of a variety of intelligence sources, including American diplomatic missions abroad, international scientific, technical, and cultural contacts, tourists, and public organizations. Researchers at more than 100 American universities and colleges, as well as journalists, supply the CIA with information.

The CIA carries out the USA’s covert international activities, which are primarily devoted to supporting reactionary forces throughout the world. The CIA planned the invasion of Cuba by mercenary forces in 1961, encouraged the counterrevolutionary uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968, and played an active role in the USA’s war of aggression in Indochina. Relying heavily on the use of disinformation and slanderous propaganda, it conducts an intensive ideological war against the USSR and other socialist countries and against progressive and peace-loving forces. The CIA finances Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe and helps publish books and pamphlets of, generally, an anticommunist nature.

The CIA has been involved in most of the reactionary coups d’etat and plots in developing countries—notably Guatemala, Indonesia, and Chile—and has planned the assassinations of progressive politicians. The CIA systematically gathers information on American citizens within the USA, although such activity is technically forbidden.

The annual budget of the CIA is not officially published; according to some estimates, it totals $4–5 billion. The director and deputy director of the CIA are appointed by the president of the USA; the appointment must then be confirmed by the Senate. The headquarters of the CIA is located in Langley, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C.

REFERENCE

TsRU glazami amerikantsev: Sbornik materialov zarubezhnoi pressy, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1977.