CIA seal
The compass, or star, as some
call it, has sixteen points. These points represents the CIA's
search for intelligence data from all over the world (outside
the United States) and bringing it back to headquarters in
Virginia for analysis, reporting, and redistribution to policy
makers. The compass rests upon a shield which is a symbol for
defense.
History
The Agency, created in 1947 by the National Security Act of 1947
signed by President Harry S. Truman, is a descendant of the
Office of Strategic Services (OSS) of World War II. The OSS was
dissolved in October 1945 but William J. Donovan (aka Wild
Bill), the creator of the OSS, submitted a proposal to President
Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944 calling for a new organization
having direct Presidential supervision, "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." Despite strong opposition
from the military, the State Department, and the FBI, Truman
established the Central Intelligence Group in January 1946.
Later under the National Security Act of 1947 (which became
effective on September 18, 1947) the National Security Council
and the Central Intelligence Agency were established. In its
creation many disposed Nazi operatives were recruited to become
agents, they were offered financial packages and promised to be
exempt from trial for their war crimes committed in World War
II. This was a result of Operation Paperclip. Rear Admiral
Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter was appointed as the first Director of
the Central Intelligence Agency.
In 1949, the Central Intelligence
Agency Act (also called "Public Law 110") was passed, permitting
the agency to use confidential, fiscal, and administrative
procedures and exempting it from many of the usual limitations
on the use of federal funds. The act also exempted the CIA from
having to disclose its "organization, functions, officials,
titles, salaries, or numbers of personnel employed." It also
created a program called "PL-110" to handle defectors and other
"essential aliens" outside normal immigration procedures, as
well as giving those persons cover stories and economic support.
[2] By 1949, the West German intelligence agency
Bundesnachrichtendienst, under Reinhard Gehlen, was under the
CIA's control.
In 1950, the CIA organized the
Pacific Corporation, the first of many CIA private enterprises.
Director Hillenkoetter approved Project BLUEBIRD, the CIA's
first structured behavioral control program. In 1951, the
Columbia Broadcasting System began cooperating with the CIA.
President Truman created the Office of Current Intelligence.
Project BLUEBIRD was renamed Project ARTICHOKE.
During the first years of its
existence, other branches of government did not exercise much
control over the Agency. This was often justified by a desire to
defeat and match the activities of the KGB across the globe, a
task that many believed could only be accomplished through an
equally ungentlemanly approach. As a result, few in government
inquired too closely into CIA activity. The rapid expansion of
the Agency and a developing sense of independence under DCI
Allen Dulles added to this trend.
Things came to a head in the
early 1970s, around the time of the Watergate affair. One
dominant feature of political life during this period were the
attempts of Congress to assert its power of oversight over the
executive branch of government. Revelations about past CIA
activities, such as assassination attempts of foreign leaders
and illegal domestic spying, provided the opportunity to carry
out this process in the sphere of intelligence operations.
Hastening the Agency's fall from grace were the involvement of
ex-CIA agents in the Watergate break-in and President Nixon's
subsequent attempts to use the CIA to stop the FBI investigation
of Watergate. In the famous "smoking gun" tape which led to
Nixon's resignation, Nixon ordered his chief of staff Haldeman
to tell the CIA that further investigation of Watergate would
"open the whole can of worms" about the Bay Of Pigs operation,
and therefore that the CIA should tell the FBI to stop
investigating Watergate because of "national security."
DCI James R. Schlesinger had
commissioned a series of reports on past CIA wrongdoing. These
reports, known euphemistically as "the Family Jewels", were kept
close to the Agency's chest until an article by Seymour Hersh in
the New York Times broke the news that the CIA had been
involved in the assassination of foreign leaders and kept files
on some seven thousand American citizens involved in the peace
movement (Operation CHAOS). Congress investigated the CIA in the
Senate through the Church committee, named after Chairman Frank
Church (D-Idaho) and in the House through the Pike committee,
named after Chairman Otis Pike (D-N.Y.); and these
investigations led to further embarrassing disclosures. Around
the Christmas of 1974/5, another blow was struck by Congress
when they blocked covert intervention in Angola.
The CIA was subsequently
prohibited from assassinating foreign leaders. Further, the
prohibition against domestic spying, which had always been
prohibited by the CIA charter, was again to be enforced, with
the FBI having sole responsibility for domestic investigation of
US citizens .
In 1988, President George H. W.
Bush became the first former head of the CIA to be elected
President of the United States.
Previously, the Director of
Central Intelligence (DCI) oversaw the Intelligence Community
and served as the principal intelligence adviser to the
president, in addition to serving as head of the Central
Intelligence Agency. The DCI's title is now Director of the
Central Intelligence Agency (DCIA), and the Director serves as
head of the CIA.
Today, the Central Intelligence
Agency reports to U.S. Congressional committees but also answers
to the President directly. The National Security Advisor is a
permanent cabinet member responsible for briefing the President
on pertinent information collected from all U.S. intelligence
agencies including the National Security Agency, the Drug
Enforcement Agency, and others. All 15 agencies of the
Intelligence Community are under the Director of National
Intelligence.
Many of the post-Watergate
restrictions on the CIA were removed after the September 11,
2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the U.S. military
hub, the Pentagon. Some critics have charged that this violates
the requirement in the U.S. Constitution that the federal budget
be openly published. However, 52 years earlier, in 1949,
Congress and President Harry Truman had approved arrangements
that CIA and national intelligence funding could be hidden in
the overall U.S. federal budget.
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