On September 18, 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was established as a result of the United States Congress passing the National Security Act of 1947. The act established the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as a separate intelligence organization with the responsibility of obtaining, analyzing, and disseminating intelligence to aid the President and other government officials in making well-informed decisions regarding problems of national security. However, following the creation of the CIA, President Truman anticipated receiving "a sort of daily newspaper, informing him of developments around the world that could impact American policy"(Establishment of the CIA, n.d). But the CIA began conducting covert operations throughout …show more content…
According to Valentine, the CIA's involvement in the war was not just about fighting communism but also about suppressing dissent and maintaining control over the American public. “The FBI used the same kind of illegal operations Phoenix used in Vietnam: spreading lies and using forged documents to break up marriages and otherwise harass people into submission. FBI agents were able to persuade college administrators to prevent dissidents from giving public addresses. There was no evidence that any of them were Soviet agents fomenting armed rebellion; it was their ideas about a just society the FBI was trying to stamp out, along with the First Amendment”(Valentine, 2017, p.289). This proves that what the CIA used and implemented overseas was later integrated into American society to try and control the public. In addition the CIA used the “MK-ULTRA, which operated from the 1950s until the early '60s, was created and run by a chemist named Sidney Gottlieb. Journalist Stephen Kinzer, who spent several years investigating the program, calls the operation the "most sustained search in history for techniques of mind control"(Gross, 2019). This shows the length the CIA was willing to go to control everyone that opposed …show more content…
The act established the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as a separate intelligence organization with the responsibility of obtaining, analyzing, and disseminating intelligence to aid the President and other government officials in making well-informed decisions regarding problems of national security. However, following the creation of the CIA, President Truman anticipated receiving "a sort of daily newspaper, informing him of developments around the world that could impact American policy"(Establishment of the CIA, n.d). But the CIA began conducting covert operations throughout the world. By concealing spies in hostile or enemy territory and overthrowing their governments from within. This is also shown in the JFK film by Oliver Stone which has a scene where a secret agent is talking to Jim Garrison about the secret operations the CIA runs throughout the world and how many countries they have infiltrated and
Charles G Cogan wrote explicitly on congressional oversight of covert actions in 1993. A historian, Cogan is an associate of the Belfer Center’s International Security Program at Harvard’s John F Kennedy School of Government. Prior to Harvard, Cogan served as a CIA operative for 37 years, mostly spent overseas, including his term as the CIA Chief in Paris. His practical career with the CIA and his experiences as an academic in International Security give him a degree of authority over activities conducted by the CIA. In his article, Covert Action and Congressional Oversight.
How 1984 handles their citizens, who go against the Party and how The United States government handle such situation is vastly different, but there are similarities in the ideas and the outcome. One of the past directors of the CIA, William E. Colby felt that the public had the public needed to know what the CIA had done to cover up scandals and spoke about his interactions with Congress. Colby was an active member of the CIA after World War II, and during the Vietnam War, he became the Director of the CIA. Colby was quick to adopt a policy of openness about U.S. intelligence activities to different committees within the government itself, and also, to the citizens of the United States. While Colby revealed the importance of the tasks done
Part two, Covert Action, of Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, by Stephen Kinzer, presents situations in Iran, Chile, South Vietnam, and Guatemala where covert actions were used to abolish governments that the United States claimed had communist influence and intentions. These threats were misguided, but the excuse was used to justify the actions to the public. The true intention of these interventions was to protect American businesses in foreign countries. These interferences are still causing problems for all countries involved.
Before he was an Associate Professor of Government at Armstrong Atlantic State University, William Daugherty was a CIA Officer, one that was a hostage in Iran for 444 days (Washington Post 2006). His 2004 book, Executive Secrets: Covert Action and the Presidency draws on his authority as a former CIA Officer involved in arguably the most infamous American covert action and as an American government professor. The book details the development and execution of covert actions with evaluations, and the Presidency’s aspect of the book deals directly with executive oversight. Daugherty refutes the claims that the CIA is conducting covert actions on its own, assuring that every President since its inception has utilized covert action programs
Additionally, there is another example that proves this claim which can be seen through the Vietnam War: This is known as the Gulf of Tonkin. The year 1964 would mark the formal involvement of the U.S. entering the Vietnam War issued by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Having similar ideas like those of the CIA interventions, the U.S. also had intentions of stopping communism from happening in Vietnam. All starting because of two separate attacks on two US Navy destroyers: “U.S.S Maddox and U.S.S Turner Joy” (Gulf of Tonkin Resolution), the Gulf of Tonkin shows how similar to Operation Cyclone and Pearl Harbor it really was to the idea of increasing military supplies based on both threats of communism and threats of attacks, as well as gaining the support of Americans by justifying these threats as “major problems that must be taken care of all in the name of “protecting and serving our nation”.
President Kennedy then ordered an “air-umbrella” at dawn. This plan demolished the U.S military. Because Kennedy was new in office, he wanted to do the “right thing” and make everyone proud that they voted for him. Unfortunately the CIA had created the plans before Kennedy was in office, and they did not share all of the information with him and manipulated him into approving it. The blame for this failure lies with both Kennedy and the CIA.
However, newly released archival materials such as the Venona intercepts show the extent of Communist subversion in pre- and post-war America. There were indeed hundreds of Communists working for Moscow, directly or indirectly, in the United States during the Roosevelt and Truman administrations. The problem that plagued Joe McCarthy was that by the time he surfaced with his accusations in the 1950’s, the key Soviet spy networks had all been closed down. For decades, many people believed that anyone who was accused of being a spy for the Soviets in the '50s was in fact just another innocent victim of the McCarthy’s witch hunt. Although it is true that McCarthy’s witch hunt did ruin the lives of innocent people, the fact is there were witches to be hunted and there had been a threat national security presented by communist spying and subversion in the 1940’s.
During the domination of the Dulles brothers’, regime changes and assassinations were occurring in Iran, Guatemala, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cuba, and the Congo. The CIA’s justification for the regime change and fighting the communists was the belief that communism was going to control the entire world, and of course, to keep the people of America safe. The brothers were able to overthrow regimes in Iran and Guatemala because they were a democratic societies making it simple for covert operations to taint their people, however they were unable to do so in Cuba and Vietnam due to its dictatorship society. Because they ruthlessly implemented their power against these countries, the direction of these countries may have been for the better if they did not interfere. It is necessary to understand what the Dulles brothers did and why they did it because it helps us to understand why the United States act the way it does, and to explore what brought about how America went wrong during the Cold War.
The purpose of this composition is to thoroughly describe how the late Ronald W. Reagan's legacy contributed to the IC, the US militaries, and my development as a leader. On 4 December 1981, President Reagan signed, Executive Order (EO) 12333 - United States Intelligence Activities,
Before Kennedy became president, the CIA had been acting largely unchecked, as their own ruling entity separate from elected officials. Once JFK came to power significant changes to how the CIA were allowed to operate changed. There is clear cut evidence to support the statement that JFK and CIA were not on good terms. In fact, JFK was once quoted by the New York Times saying he wanted “to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds”, following the failed Bay of Pigs operation. There was also the fact that while the CIA had been working for years to overthrow foreign leaders in places like Iran and Guatemala, Kennedy seemed to be purposely undermining what the CIA were doing by going out a taking a diplomatic standpoint.
The counterintelligence movement implemented
However, as time progressed life began to change. A covert, J. Edgar Hoover led program entitled Cointelpro
Some in the government felt threatened by the BPP. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was especially concerned about groups like the Panthers because of their aggressiveness and potential for violence. He introduced the then-secret COINTELPRO to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist, hate-type organizations and groupings, their leadership, spokesmen, membership, and supporters, and to counter their propensity for violence or civil disorder.” COINTELPRO activities included wiretaps, raids, anonymous letters, media infiltration, even murder. The main target was the BPP.
National Security Act of 1947 created centralized postwar national security apparatus (CIA, JCS, DoD, NSC); National Security Agency was created in 1952. The National Security Act was one of the most important pieces of legislation during the Cold War. It laid the groundwork for much of the foreign policymaking that would occur during the following 40 years of the Cold War. There were three main parts to the National Security Act. The first part allowed for streamlining and unifying the nation’s military by joining the Navy Department and War Department under the title of Department of Defense.
In August of 1967 the fbi opened up a counter intelligence program on what they called “Black Extremist” they would use whatever means possible to disrupt black power and civil rights organizations which consisted of spreading disinformation, planting evidence to get Panthers arrested, and infiltrating the party with