Director of Central Intelligence
Encyclopedia
The Office of United States
Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) was the head of the United States
Central Intelligence Agency
, the principal intelligence advisor to the President
and the National Security Council
, and the coordinator of intelligence activities among and between the various United States intelligence agencies (collectively known as the Intelligence Community
since 1981).
The office existed from January 1946 to April 2005 and was replaced by Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
(D/CIA).
Harry Truman on January 23, 1946, with Admiral Sidney Souers
occupying the position; it thus predates the establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA was created by the National Security Act of 1947
, which also created the National Security Council, while formally defining the duties of the Director of Central Intelligence.
Until April 2005, the DCI also served as the de-facto director of the CIA, and he was often referred to colloquially as the "CIA Director." After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and the subsequent investigation by the 9/11 Commission
, a movement grew to re-organize the Intelligence Community. That movement prompted the creation, on April 21, 2005, of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), whose responsibilities covered heading the Intelligence Community and advising the NSC. The same legislation also created the office of the chief administrator of the CIA, which is headed by separate Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
. The position of DCI then expired.
Porter J. Goss
was the 19th and final DCI to also serve as the director of the CIA.
Rear Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter
was appointed as the first Director of Central Intelligence (i.e., full Director of Central Intelligence ). During his tenure, a National Security Council Directive on Office of Special Projects, June 18, 1948, (NSC 10/2) further gave the CIA the authority to carry out covert operations "against hostile foreign states or groups or in support of friendly foreign states or groups but which are so planned and conducted that any US Government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons." Those operations, however, were initially conducted by other agencies such as the Office of Policy Coordination
. See Approval of Clandestine and Covert Operations and Clandestine HUMINT and Covert Action
for details of the eventual merger of these operations with the CIA, as well as how the equivalent functions were done in other countries.
, it undertook a task that many believed could be accomplished only through an approach similar to the Soviet intelligence agencies, under names including NKVD
, MVD, NKGB, MGB, and KGB
. Those Soviet organizations also had domestic responsibilities.
s in the Bay of Pigs Invasion
of Cuba in 1961, President
Kennedy
discharged and replaced Dulles. Dulles had been an O.S.S. veteran from World War II
. His autobiography is more noteworthy for giving insight into the mindset of key people in the field than it is in giving a detailed description of the CIA and its operations.
exercised greater supervision, and he appointed a Republican
with a general engineer
ing background, John McCone.
McCone, despite a lack of intelligence agency background, is often considered one of the most competent DCIs, and an excellent manager. He directed the CIA during the Cuban Missile Crisis
. The agency stepped up its activity in Southeast Asia under President Lyndon Johnson. McCone resigned from his position of DCI in April 1965, believing himself to have been unappreciated by President Johnson. McCone's final policy memorandum to Johnson argued that expansion of the War in Vietnam would arouse national and world discontent over the war, before it defeated the North Vietnam
ese regime.
ballistic missile submarine
system, had a somewhat short and unhappy tenure as the DCI. His background included no foreign relations
experience, and intelligence experience only concerning naval operations. CIA historians have said "Raborn did not 'take' to the DCI job", in their opinion. Raborn resigned as the DCI on June 30, 1966, having served for only fourteen months. He was then replaced by his deputy, Richard Helms
.
of Cuba in 1961. After falling out with the Kennedys, he was sent off to Vietnam
where he oversaw the coup to overthrow President Ngo Dinh Diem
. Helms was made the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence under Admiral William Raborn
. A year later, in 1966, he was appointed as the Director.
In the early 1970s, partially as a result of the Watergate Affair break-ins under President Richard M. Nixon, the United States Congress
took a more active role in intelligence agencies, as did independent commissions such as the 1975 United States President's Commission on CIA activities within the United States
, also called the Rockefeller
Commission after its chairman. Revelations about past CIA activities, such as assassinations and attempted assassinations of foreign leaders, illegal domestic spying on American citizens, drew considerable Congressional oversight that had not been previously exercised. It was determined, by several investigating committees, that the CIA had given inappropriate assistance to persons affiliated with the White House and the 1972 Nixon reelection campaign. Certain of the individuals involved in the Watergate break-ins had worked, in the past, for the CIA. In an audio tape provoking President Nixon's resignation, Nixon ordered his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, to tell the CIA that further investigation of the Watergate Affair would "open the whole can of worms" about the Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba, and, therefore, that the CIA should tell the FBI to cease investigating the Watergate burglary, due to reasons of "national security".
The ease of Helms's role under President Lyndon Johnson changed with the arrival of President Richard Nixon
and Nixon's national security advisor
Henry Kissinger
. After the debacle of Watergate, from which Helms succeeded in distancing the CIA as far as possible, the Agency came under much tighter congressional control. Nixon, however, considered Helms to be disloyal, and fired him as DCI in 1973. Helms was the only DCI convicted for irregularities in office; his autobiography describes his reactions to the charges.
, that a security camera was installed opposite his official portrait for fear that it would be vandalized. By this time he had a reputation as a tough, forthright, and outspoken administrator. Schesinger's appointment as the Secretary of Defense cut short his service as the DCI. He commissioned reports—known as the "Family Jewels
"—on illegal activities by the Agency.
broke the news of the "Family Jewels" in a front-page article in The New York Times, revealing that the CIA had assassinated foreign leaders, and had conducted surveillance on some seven thousand American citizens involved in the antiwar movement (Operation CHAOS
).
Congress responded to the "Family Jewels" in 1975, investigating the CIA in the Senate via the Church Committee
, chaired by Senator Frank Church
(D-Idaho), and in the House of Representatives via the Pike Committee, chaired by Congressman Otis Pike (D-NY). President Gerald Ford
created the aforementioned Rockefeller Commission
, and issued an Executive Order prohibiting the assassination of foreign leaders.
Colby's tenure as DCI congressional investigations into alleged U.S. intelligence malfeasance over the preceding twenty-five years. Colby cooperated, not out of a desire for major reforms, but in the belief that the actual scope of such misdeeds was not great enough to cause lasting damage to the CIA's reputation. He believed that cooperating with Congress was the only way to save the Agency from dissolution. Colby also believed that the CIA had a moral obligation to cooperate with the Congress and demonstrate that the CIA was accountable to the Constitution. This caused a major rift within the CIA ranks, with many old-line officers such as former DCI Richard Helms believing that the CIA should have resisted congressional intrusion.
Colby's time as DCI was also eventful on the world stage. Shortly after he assumed leadership, the Yom Kippur War
broke out, an event that surprised not only the American intelligence agencies but also the Israelis. This intelligence surprise reportedly affected Colby's credibility with the Nixon Administration. Meanwhile, after many years of involvement, South Vietnam fell to Communist forces in April 1975, a particularly difficult blow for Colby, who had dedicated so much of his life and career to the American effort there. Events in the arms control field, Angola, the Middle East, and elsewhere also demanded attention.
William Colby's death, officially in a boating accident, happened on the same date when a New York prosecutor got permission to set up a grand jury to investigate the role of the CIA in the death of Frank Olson
who worked at Fort Detrick
, Maryland and was involved in chemical warfare research. Frank Olson was one of the experimental subjects in the CIA MKULTRA experiments with LSD
and other drugs. He did not give informed consent for the CIA to experiment on him, as would be ethically required under the medical research principles of the Declaration of Helsinki
. The CIA claimed that he committed suicide by jumping out of a hotel window but the family did not believe this explanation. An autopsy of the remains of Frank Olson had found blunt force trauma to the head, which might have come from the fall, or been inflicted before the fall.
The 1953 medical report done immediately after Dr. Olson’s death indicated that there were cuts and abrasions on the body.
In the summer of 1994,a second autopsy was performed by James Starrs, Professor of Law and Forensic science at the National Law Center at George Washington University, his team searched the body for any cuts and abrasions and didn’t find any.
Professor Starrs found a large hematoma on the left side of Dr. Olson's head and a large injury on his chest. The team concluded that the injury on his head and chest did not happen during the fall. They most likely happened in the room before falling out of the window.
, and a steadfast defender of Nixon) and the Church Committee
investigating whether CIA-ordered foreign assassinations were being directed towards domestic officials, including President Kennedy. Many arguments against Bush's initial confirmation were that he was too partisan
for the office. The Washington Post
, George Will
, and Senator Frank Church
were some notable figures opposed to Bush's nomination. After a pledge by Bush not to run for either President or Vice-President in 1976, opposition to his nomination died down.
Bush served as the DCI for 355 days, from January 30, 1976, to January 20, 1977. The CIA had been rocked by a series of revelations, including disclosures based on investigations by the Senate's Church Committee
, about the CIA's illegal and unauthorized activities, and Bush was credited with helping to restore the agency's morale. On February 18, 1976, President Ford issued Executive Order 11905
, which established policy guidelines and restrictions for individual intelligence agencies, and clarified intelligence authorities and responsibilities. Bush was given 90 days to implement the new order, which called for a major reorganization of the American Intelligence Community and firmly stated that intelligence activities could not be directed against American citizens. In his capacity as DCI, Bush gave national security briefings to Jimmy Carter
both as a presidential candidate and as President-elect, and discussed the possibility of remaining in that position in a Carter administration.
's, Turner enjoyed the confidence of the White House, but his emphasis on technical methods of intelligence collection, such as SIGINT
and IMINT
, and his apparent dislike for, and firing of, HUMINT
specialists made him quite unpopular within the CIA. Turner eliminated more than 800 operational positions in what was called the "halloween massacre." This organizational direction is notable because his successor William Casey was seen to have a completely opposite approach, focusing much of his attention on HUMINT. Turner gave notable testimony to Congress revealing much of the extent of the MKULTRA program, which the CIA ran from the early 1950s to late 1960s. Reform and simplification of the intelligence community's multilayered secrecy system was one of Turner's significant initiatives, but produced no results by the time he left office. He also wrote a book on his experience at CIA.
During Turner's term as head of the CIA, he became outraged when former agent Frank Snepp
published a book called Decent Interval which exposed incompetence among senior American government personnel during the fall of Saigon
. accused Snepp of breaking the secrecy agreement required of all CIA agents, and then later was forced to admit under cross-examination that he had never read the agreement signed by Snepp. Regardless, the CIA ultimately won its case against Snepp at the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court forced Snepp to turn over all his profits from Decent Interval and to seek preclearance of any future writings about intelligence work for the rest of his life. The ultimate irony was that the CIA would later rely on the Snepp legal precedent
in forcing Turner to seek preclearance of his own memoirs, which were highly critical of President Ronald Reagan
's policies.
In the documentary Secrets of the CIA Admiral Turner commented the MK ULTRA
project.
"It came to my attention early in my tenure as director, and I felt it was a warning sign that if you're not alert, things can go wrong in this organization."
, particularly its approach to Soviet
international activity. Based on a book, The Terror Network
, Casey believed that the Soviet Union was the source of most terrorist activity in the world, in spite of CIA analysts providing evidence that this was in fact black propaganda
by the CIA itself. Casey obtained a report from a professor that agreed with his view, which convinced Ronald Reagan
that there was a threat.
Casey oversaw the re-expansion of the Intelligence Community, in particular the CIA, to funding and human resource levels greater than those before resource cuts during the Carter Administration. During his tenure restrictions were lifted on the use of the CIA to directly, covertly influence the internal and foreign affairs of countries relevant to American policy.
This period of the Cold War
saw an increase of the Agency's anti-Soviet activities around the world. Notably he oversaw covert assistance to the mujahadeen resistance in Afghanistan
, with a budget of over $1 billion, working closely with Akhtar Abdur Rahman
(the Director General of Pakistan
's Inter-Services Intelligence
directorate). The agency aided Solidarity movement in Poland
, and a number of coups and attempted coups in South
- and Central America
.
Casey was also the principal architect of the arms-for-hostages deal that became known as the Iran-Contra affair
.
Hours before Casey was scheduled to testify before Congress about his knowledge of Iran-Contra, he was reported to have been rendered incapable of speech, and was later hospitalized. In his 1987 book, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward
, who had interviewed Casey on numerous occasions, said that he had gained entry to Casey's hospital room for a final, four-minute long encounter—a claim that was met with disbelief in many quarters, and adamant denial by Casey's wife, Sofia. According to Woodward, when he asked Casey if he knew about the diversion of funds to the Nicaraguan Contras
, "His head jerked up hard. He stared, and finally nodded yes."
in 1991. It defined covert operations as secret missions in geopolitical areas where the United States is neither openly nor apparently engaged. This also required an authorizing chain of command, including an official, Presidential finding report, and the informing of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, which, in emergencies, requires only "timely notification".
on May 14, 1991, confirmed by the United States Senate
on November 5, and sworn in on November 6, becoming the only career officer in the CIA's history (as of 2009) to rise from an entry-level CIA employee to the Director of the CIA.
The final report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters, issued on August 4, 1993, said that Gates "was close to many figures who played significant roles in the Iran/contra affair and was in a position to have known of their activities. The evidence developed by Independent Counsel did not warrant indictment..."
:
Another quotation about his relationship with President Clinton, according to Paula Kaufman of Insight Magazine
:
David Halberstam noted in his book War in a Time of Peace that Clinton chose Woolsey as the CIA director because the Clinton campaign had courted neo-conservatives leading up to the 1992 election, promising to be tougher on Taiwan, Bosnia, and on human rights in China, and it was decided that they ought to give at least one neo-conservative a job in the Administration.
appointed John Deutch
as the Director of Central Intelligence (cabinet rank in the Clinton administration). However, Deutch was initially reluctant to accept this appointment. As the head of the CIA
, Deutch continued the policy of his predecessor R. James Woolsey to declassify records pertaining to American covert operations during the Cold War
. Deutsch put restraints on what he considered to be politically incorrect
agent recruitment and sought to encourage more diversity
at the CIA in order to include more women and minorities in its ranks.
In 1996, the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence issued a Congressional report estimating that: "Hundreds of employees on a daily basis are directed to break extremely serious laws in countries around the world in the face of frequently sophisticated efforts by foreign governments to catch them. A safe estimate is that several hundred times every day (easily 100,000 times a year) DO officers engage in highly illegal activities (according to foreign law) that not only risk political embarrassment to the U.S. but also endanger the freedom if not lives of the participating foreign nationals and, more than occasionally, of the clandestine officer himself."
In this same document, the committee wrote, "Considering these facts and recent history, which has shown that the [Director of the Central Intelligence Agency], whether he wants to or not, is held accountable for overseeing the [Clandestine Service], the DCI must work closely with the Director of the CS and hold him fully and directly responsible to him."
Soon after Deutch's departure from the CIA in 1996 it was revealed that classified materials
had been kept on several of Deutch's laptop computers designated as unclassified. In January 1997, the CIA began a formal security investigation of the matter. Senior management members at the CIA declined to fully pursue the security breach. More than two years after his departure, the matter was referred to the Department of Justice
, where Attorney General Janet Reno
declined to prosecute. She did, however, recommend an investigation to determine whether Deutch should retain his security clearance. President Clinton issued a Presidential pardon on his last day in office.
was appointed the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence
in July 1995. After John Deutch
's abrupt resignation in December 1996, Tenet served as acting director until he was officially appointed the position on July 11, 1997, after a unanimous confirmation vote in the Senate. This had been followed by the withdrawal of Anthony Lake
, whose nomination had been blocked by Republicans
in Senate. While the Director of Central Intelligence has typically been replaced by an incoming Administration ever since President Jimmy Carter
replaced DCI George H. W. Bush
, Tenet served past the end of the Clinton Administration
and through the first term of George W. Bush
.
Tenet embarked on a mission to regenerate the CIA, which had fallen on hard times since the end of the Cold War. The number of new trainee agents recruited each year had fallen to an all-time low, a 25-percent decline from the Cold War
peak. Tenet appealed to the original mission of the agency, which had been to "prevent another Pearl Harbor". The problem was to foresee where danger might come from in the post–Cold War world. Tenet focused on potential problems such as "the transformation of Russia and China", "rogue states" like North Korea, Iran, and Iraq, and terrorism.
In 1999, Tenet put forward a grand "Plan" for dealing with the al-Qaeda
organization. This effort supposedly put the CIA in a better position to respond after the September 11, 2001, attacks. As Tenet expressed it in his book,
On September 15, 2001. Tenet presented the Worldwide Attack Matrix
, a blueprint for what became known as the War On Terror
. He proposed firstly to send CIA teams into Afghanistan to collect intelligence on, and mount covert operations against, al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The teams would act jointly with military Special Operations
units. "President Bush later praised this proposal, saying it had been a turning point in his thinking."
After the September 11, 2001, attacks, many observers criticized the American Intelligence Community for numerous "intelligence failures" as one of the major reasons why the attacks were not prevented. In August 2007, part of a secret report written by the CIA Inspector General
was made public (originally written in 2005 but kept secret). Its 19-page summary states that Tenet knew the dangers of Al Qaeda well before September 2001, but that the leadership of the CIA did not do enough to prevent any attacks. Tenet reacted to the publication of this report by calling it "flat wrong".
Bob Woodward
, in his book Plan of Attack
, wrote that Tenet privately lent his personal authority to the intelligence reports about weapons of mass destruction
(WMDs) in Iraq
. At a meeting on December 12, 2002, he assured Bush that the evidence against Saddam Hussein
amounted to a "slam dunk
case." After several months of refusing to confirm this statement, Tenet later stated that this remark was taken out of context. (Tenet indicated that the comment was made pursuant to a discussion about how to convince the American people to support invading Iraq, and that, in his opinion, the best way to convince the people would be by explaining the dangers posed by Iraq's WMD i.e., the public relations sale of the war via the WMD, according to Tenet, would be a "slam dunk"). The search following the 2003 invasion of Iraq
by American, British, and other international forces yielded no stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq. Tenet and his Director of Operations resigned at about this same time, and it has been suggested these resignations were in penance over the WMD issue in Iraq.
and later in Europe
. The full details are not known due to the classified nature of the CIA, but Goss has said that he had worked in Haiti
, Santo Domingo
, and Mexico
. Goss, who has said that he has recruited and trained foreign agents, worked in Miami
for much of the time. Goss was involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis
in 1962, telling The Washington Post
in 2002 that he had done some "small-boat handling" and had "some very interesting moments in the Florida Straits."
He served in Congress for 16 years until his appointment as Director of the CIA. While in the House, Goss consistently and emphatically defended the CIA and supported strong budget increases for the Agency, even during a time of tight budgets and Clintonian
slashes to other parts of the intelligence budgets. In mid-2004, Goss took a very strong position, during what had already been announced as his last congressional term, urging specific reforms and corrections in the way the CIA carried out its activities, lest it become "just another government bureaucracy."
After growing pressure, Congress established the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, a joint inquiry of the two intelligence committees, led by Goss and Senator Bob Graham
. Goss and Graham made it clear that their goal was not to identify specific wrongdoing: Graham said the inquiry would not play "the blame game about what went wrong from an intelligence perspective,", and Goss said, "This is not a who-shall-we-hang type of investigation. It is about where are the gaps in America's defense and what do we do about it type of investigation." The inquiry's final report was released in December 2002 and focused entirely on the CIA and FBI's activities, including no information on the White House's activities. Ray McGovern
, a 27-year veteran of the CIA and a frequent commentator on intelligence issues, believed the report showed that Goss gave "clear priority to providing political protection for the president" when conducting the inquiry. Goss chiefly blamed President Bill Clinton
for the recent CIA failures. He confided in a reporter: "The one thing I lose sleep about is thinking what could I have done better, how could I have gotten more attention on this problem sooner." When asked whether he ever brought up his concerns with the administration, Goss claimed he had met three times with Clinton to discuss "certain problems". The upshot? "He was patient and we had an interesting conversation but it was quite clear he didn’t value the intelligence community to the degree President Bush does."
Goss was nominated to become the new director on August 10, 2004. The appointment was challenged by some prominent Democrats). Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV
(D-WV
), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, expressed concerns that Goss was too politically partisan, given his public remarks against Democrats while serving as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Another Democratic member of the committee, Ron Wyden
(D-OR
), expressed concerns that given Goss's history within and ties to the CIA, he would be too disinclined to push for institutional change. In an interview carried out by Michael Moore
's production company on March 3, 2004, Goss described himself as "probably not qualified" for a job within the CIA, because the language skills the Agency now seeks are not languages he speaks and because the people applying today for positions within the CIA's four directorates have such keen technical and analytic skills, which he did not have when he applied to the Agency in the early 60s.
He brought with him five personal staff that were to implement change that became unpopular with CIA professionals. Steve Kappes—the Director of Operations—and his subordinates including Michael Sulick
, Kappes' then-deputy. Although Kappes came back to a responsible position, it has been reported that he quit the Agency rather than carry out a request by Goss to reassign Michael Sulick. Following Goss's departure, both Kappes and Sulick have returned to positions of higher authority in the U.S. Intelligence Community. Kappes is the Deputy Director of the CIA and Sulick was appointed Director of the National Clandestine Service on September 14, 2007.
Speculations on the reason for his departure include a desire to have military agency heads, or, perhaps more likely,
A claim that the black sites existed was made by The Washington Post
in November 2005 and before by human rights
NGOs. US President
George W. Bush
acknowledged the existence of secret prisons operated by the CIA during a speech on September 6, 2006.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) was the head of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
, the principal intelligence advisor to the President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
and the National Security Council
National Security Council
A National Security Council is usually an executive branch governmental body responsible for coordinating policy on national security issues and advising chief executives on matters related to national security...
, and the coordinator of intelligence activities among and between the various United States intelligence agencies (collectively known as the Intelligence Community
Intelligence community
Intelligence community may refer to* Bangladeshi intelligence community* Croatian intelligence community * Israeli intelligence community* Italian intelligence community, see SISMI...
since 1981).
The office existed from January 1946 to April 2005 and was replaced by Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency serves as the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, which is part of the United States Intelligence Community. The Director reports to the Director of National Intelligence . The Director is assisted by the Deputy Director of the Central...
(D/CIA).
History
The post of DCI was established by PresidentPresident of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Harry Truman on January 23, 1946, with Admiral Sidney Souers
Sidney Souers
Sidney William Souers was an American admiral and intelligence expert. He held the posts of:* Director of Central Intelligence, Central Intelligence Group, 1946* Executive Secretary, National Security Council, 1947–1950...
occupying the position; it thus predates the establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA was created by the National Security Act of 1947
National Security Act of 1947
The National Security Act of 1947 was signed by United States President Harry S. Truman on July 26, 1947, and realigned and reorganized the U.S. Armed Forces, foreign policy, and Intelligence Community apparatus in the aftermath of World War II...
, which also created the National Security Council, while formally defining the duties of the Director of Central Intelligence.
Until April 2005, the DCI also served as the de-facto director of the CIA, and he was often referred to colloquially as the "CIA Director." After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and the subsequent investigation by the 9/11 Commission
9/11 Commission
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up on November 27, 2002, "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks", including preparedness for and the immediate response to...
, a movement grew to re-organize the Intelligence Community. That movement prompted the creation, on April 21, 2005, of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), whose responsibilities covered heading the Intelligence Community and advising the NSC. The same legislation also created the office of the chief administrator of the CIA, which is headed by separate Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency serves as the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, which is part of the United States Intelligence Community. The Director reports to the Director of National Intelligence . The Director is assisted by the Deputy Director of the Central...
. The position of DCI then expired.
Porter J. Goss
Porter J. Goss
Porter Johnston Goss is an American politician who was the first Director of National Intelligence and the last Director of Central Intelligence following the passage of the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, which abolished the DCI position...
was the 19th and final DCI to also serve as the director of the CIA.
List of Directors of Central Intelligence (in chronological order)
| Director | Tenure |
|---|---|
| RADM Rear Admiral Rear admiral is a naval commissioned officer rank above that of a commodore and captain, and below that of a vice admiral. It is generally regarded as the lowest of the "admiral" ranks, which are also sometimes referred to as "flag officers" or "flag ranks"... Sidney Souers Sidney Souers Sidney William Souers was an American admiral and intelligence expert. He held the posts of:* Director of Central Intelligence, Central Intelligence Group, 1946* Executive Secretary, National Security Council, 1947–1950... , USN United States Navy The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S... |
January 23, 1946 – June 10, 1946 |
| LTG Lieutenant General (United States) In the United States Army, the United States Air Force and the United States Marine Corps, lieutenant general is a three-star general officer rank, with the pay grade of O-9. Lieutenant general ranks above major general and below general... Hoyt Vandenberg Hoyt Vandenberg Hoyt Sanford Vandenberg was a U.S. Air Force general, its second Chief of Staff, and second Director of Central Intelligence.... , USA United States Army The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services... |
June 10, 1946 – May 1, 1947 |
| RADM Rear Admiral Rear admiral is a naval commissioned officer rank above that of a commodore and captain, and below that of a vice admiral. It is generally regarded as the lowest of the "admiral" ranks, which are also sometimes referred to as "flag officers" or "flag ranks"... Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter Roscoe Henry Hillenkoetter , born in St. Louis, Missouri, was the third director of the post-World War II U.S. Central Intelligence Group , the third Director of Central Intelligence , and the first director of the Central Intelligence Agency created by the National Security Act of 1947... , USN United States Navy The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S... |
May 1, 1947 – October 7, 1950 |
| GEN General (United States) In the United States Army, United States Air Force, and United States Marine Corps, general is a four-star general officer rank, with the pay grade of O-10. General ranks above lieutenant general and below General of the Army or General of the Air Force; the Marine Corps does not have an... Walter Bedell Smith Walter Bedell Smith Walter Bedell "Beetle" Smith was a senior United States Army general who served as General Dwight D. Eisenhower's chief of staff at Allied Forces Headquarters during the Tunisia Campaign and the Allied invasion of Italy... , USA United States Army The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services... |
October 7, 1950 – February 9, 1953 |
| Allen W. Dulles Allen Welsh Dulles Allen Welsh Dulles was an American diplomat, lawyer, banker, and public official who became the first civilian and the longest-serving Director of Central Intelligence and a member of the Warren Commission... |
February 26, 1953 – November 29, 1961 |
| John McCone John McCone John Alexander McCone was an American businessman and politician who served as Director of Central Intelligence during the height of the Cold War.- Background :... |
November 29, 1961 – April 28, 1965 |
| VADM Vice Admiral Vice admiral is a senior naval rank of a three-star flag officer, which is equivalent to lieutenant general in the other uniformed services. A vice admiral is typically senior to a rear admiral and junior to an admiral... William Raborn William Raborn Vice Admiral William Francis Raborn, Jr., United States Navy was a United States Navy officer, the leader of the project to develop the Polaris missile system, and the 7th Director of Central Intelligence as well as the 5th Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.Born in Decatur, Texas on June... , USN United States Navy The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S... (Ret.) |
April 28, 1965 – June 30, 1966 |
| Richard M. Helms | June 30, 1966 – February 2, 1973 |
| James R. Schlesinger James R. Schlesinger Dr. James Rodney Schlesinger is an American politician. He is best known for serving as Secretary of Defense from 1973 to 1975 under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford... |
February 2, 1973 – July 2, 1973 |
| William E. Colby William Colby William Egan Colby spent a career in intelligence for the United States, culminating in holding the post of Director of Central Intelligence from September 1973, to January 1976.... |
September 4, 1973 – January 30, 1976 |
| George H. W. Bush George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to... |
January 30, 1976 – January 20, 1977 |
| ADM Admiral (United States) In the United States Navy, the United States Coast Guard and the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, admiral is a four-star flag officer rank, with the pay grade of O-10. Admiral ranks above vice admiral and below Fleet Admiral in the Navy; the Coast Guard and the Public Health... Stansfield Turner Stansfield Turner Stansfield M. Turner is a retired Admiral and former Director of Central Intelligence. He is currently a senior research scholar at the University of Maryland, College Park School of Public Policy.... , USN United States Navy The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S... |
March 9, 1977 – January 20, 1981 |
| William J. Casey William J. Casey William Joseph Casey was the Director of Central Intelligence from 1981 to 1987. In this capacity he oversaw the entire United States Intelligence Community and personally directed the Central Intelligence Agency .... |
January 28, 1981 – January 29, 1987 |
| William H. Webster | May 26, 1987 – August 31, 1991 |
| Robert M. Gates Robert Gates Dr. Robert Michael Gates is a retired civil servant and university president who served as the 22nd United States Secretary of Defense from 2006 to 2011. Prior to this, Gates served for 26 years in the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, and under President George H. W.... |
November 6, 1991 – January 20, 1993 |
| R. James Woolsey | February 5, 1993 – January 10, 1995 |
| John M. Deutch John M. Deutch John Mark Deutch is an American chemist and civil servant. He was the United States Deputy Secretary of Defense from 1994 to 1995 and Director of Central Intelligence from May 10, 1995 until December 15, 1996... |
May 10, 1995 – December 15, 1996 |
| George J. Tenet | July 11, 1997 – July 11, 2004 |
| Porter J. Goss Porter J. Goss Porter Johnston Goss is an American politician who was the first Director of National Intelligence and the last Director of Central Intelligence following the passage of the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, which abolished the DCI position... |
September 24, 2004 – April 21, 2005 |
| Position replaced by Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Director of the Central Intelligence Agency serves as the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, which is part of the United States Intelligence Community. The Director reports to the Director of National Intelligence . The Director is assisted by the Deputy Director of the Central... and Director of National Intelligence. |
|
Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, 1947–1950
Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter
Roscoe Henry Hillenkoetter , born in St. Louis, Missouri, was the third director of the post-World War II U.S. Central Intelligence Group , the third Director of Central Intelligence , and the first director of the Central Intelligence Agency created by the National Security Act of 1947...
was appointed as the first Director of Central Intelligence (i.e., full Director of Central Intelligence ). During his tenure, a National Security Council Directive on Office of Special Projects, June 18, 1948, (NSC 10/2) further gave the CIA the authority to carry out covert operations "against hostile foreign states or groups or in support of friendly foreign states or groups but which are so planned and conducted that any US Government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons." Those operations, however, were initially conducted by other agencies such as the Office of Policy Coordination
Office of Policy Coordination
The Office of Policy Coordination was a United States covert psychological operations and paramilitary action organization. Created as an independent office in 1948, it was merged with the Central Intelligence Agency in 1951....
. See Approval of Clandestine and Covert Operations and Clandestine HUMINT and Covert Action
Clandestine HUMINT and Covert Action
National governments deal in both intelligence and military special operations functions that either should be completely secret , or simply cannot be linked to the sponsor...
for details of the eventual merger of these operations with the CIA, as well as how the equivalent functions were done in other countries.
Walter Bedell Smith, 1950–1953
During the first years of its existence, other branches of the U.S. Federal government did not exercise very much supervision over the Central Intelligence Agency. Supposedly justified by the desire to match and defeat Soviet actions throughout the Eastern HemisphereEastern Hemisphere
The Eastern Hemisphere, also Eastern hemisphere or eastern hemisphere, is a geographical term for the half of the Earth that is east of the Prime Meridian and west of 180° longitude. It is also used to refer to Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australasia, vis-à-vis the Western Hemisphere, which includes...
, it undertook a task that many believed could be accomplished only through an approach similar to the Soviet intelligence agencies, under names including NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
, MVD, NKGB, MGB, and KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
. Those Soviet organizations also had domestic responsibilities.
Allen W. Dulles 1953–1961
The rapid expansion of the CIA, and a developed sense of independence under the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Allen Dulles exacerbated the problem of the U.S. Intelligence Community's freedom from independent review. After the armed landing of Cuban exileCuban exile
The term "Cuban exile" refers to the many Cubans who have sought alternative political or economic conditions outside the island, dating back to the Ten Years' War and the struggle for Cuban independence during the 19th century...
s in the Bay of Pigs Invasion
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US government, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The invasion was launched in April 1961, less than three months...
of Cuba in 1961, President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
discharged and replaced Dulles. Dulles had been an O.S.S. veteran from World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. His autobiography is more noteworthy for giving insight into the mindset of key people in the field than it is in giving a detailed description of the CIA and its operations.
John McCone 1961–1965
President John F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
exercised greater supervision, and he appointed a Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
with a general engineer
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
ing background, John McCone.
McCone, despite a lack of intelligence agency background, is often considered one of the most competent DCIs, and an excellent manager. He directed the CIA during the Cuban Missile Crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
. The agency stepped up its activity in Southeast Asia under President Lyndon Johnson. McCone resigned from his position of DCI in April 1965, believing himself to have been unappreciated by President Johnson. McCone's final policy memorandum to Johnson argued that expansion of the War in Vietnam would arouse national and world discontent over the war, before it defeated the North Vietnam
North Vietnam
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam , was a communist state that ruled the northern half of Vietnam from 1954 until 1976 following the Geneva Conference and laid claim to all of Vietnam from 1945 to 1954 during the First Indochina War, during which they controlled pockets of territory throughout...
ese regime.
William Raborn 1965–1966
Raborn, a distinguished naval officer who directed the design and development of the entire PolarisUGM-27 Polaris
The Polaris missile was a two-stage solid-fuel nuclear-armed submarine-launched ballistic missile built during the Cold War by Lockheed Corporation of California for the United States Navy....
ballistic missile submarine
Ballistic missile submarine
A ballistic missile submarine is a submarine equipped to launch ballistic missiles .-Description:Ballistic missile submarines are larger than any other type of submarine, in order to accommodate SLBMs such as the Russian R-29 or the American Trident...
system, had a somewhat short and unhappy tenure as the DCI. His background included no foreign relations
Foreign policy
A country's foreign policy, also called the foreign relations policy, consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve its goals within international relations milieu. The approaches are strategically employed to interact with other countries...
experience, and intelligence experience only concerning naval operations. CIA historians have said "Raborn did not 'take' to the DCI job", in their opinion. Raborn resigned as the DCI on June 30, 1966, having served for only fourteen months. He was then replaced by his deputy, Richard Helms
Richard Helms
Richard McGarrah Helms was the Director of Central Intelligence from 1966 to 1973. He was the only director to have been convicted of lying to the United States Congress over Central Intelligence Agency undercover activities. In 1977, he was sentenced to the maximum fine and received a suspended...
.
Richard M. Helms 1966–1973
Helms was an OSS and CIA veteran, and the first DCI to have risen through the ranks at CIA. Helms became the Director of the OSO after the CIA's disastrous role in the attempted Bay of Pigs InvasionBay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US government, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The invasion was launched in April 1961, less than three months...
of Cuba in 1961. After falling out with the Kennedys, he was sent off to Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
where he oversaw the coup to overthrow President Ngo Dinh Diem
Ngo Dinh Diem
Ngô Đình Diệm was the first president of South Vietnam . In the wake of the French withdrawal from Indochina as a result of the 1954 Geneva Accords, Diệm led the effort to create the Republic of Vietnam. Accruing considerable U.S. support due to his staunch anti-Communism, he achieved victory in a...
. Helms was made the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence under Admiral William Raborn
William Raborn
Vice Admiral William Francis Raborn, Jr., United States Navy was a United States Navy officer, the leader of the project to develop the Polaris missile system, and the 7th Director of Central Intelligence as well as the 5th Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.Born in Decatur, Texas on June...
. A year later, in 1966, he was appointed as the Director.
In the early 1970s, partially as a result of the Watergate Affair break-ins under President Richard M. Nixon, the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
took a more active role in intelligence agencies, as did independent commissions such as the 1975 United States President's Commission on CIA activities within the United States
United States President's Commission on CIA activities within the United States
The U.S. President's Commission on CIA activities within the United States was set up under President Gerald Ford in 1975 to investigate the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies within the United States...
, also called the Rockefeller
Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller was the 41st Vice President of the United States , serving under President Gerald Ford, and the 49th Governor of New York , as well as serving the Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower administrations in a variety of positions...
Commission after its chairman. Revelations about past CIA activities, such as assassinations and attempted assassinations of foreign leaders, illegal domestic spying on American citizens, drew considerable Congressional oversight that had not been previously exercised. It was determined, by several investigating committees, that the CIA had given inappropriate assistance to persons affiliated with the White House and the 1972 Nixon reelection campaign. Certain of the individuals involved in the Watergate break-ins had worked, in the past, for the CIA. In an audio tape provoking President Nixon's resignation, Nixon ordered his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, to tell the CIA that further investigation of the Watergate Affair would "open the whole can of worms" about the Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba, and, therefore, that the CIA should tell the FBI to cease investigating the Watergate burglary, due to reasons of "national security".
The ease of Helms's role under President Lyndon Johnson changed with the arrival of President Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
and Nixon's national security advisor
National Security Advisor
A National Security Advisor serves as the chief advisor to a national government on matters of security. He or she is not usually a member of the Cabinet but is usually a member of various military or security councils....
Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger
Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and...
. After the debacle of Watergate, from which Helms succeeded in distancing the CIA as far as possible, the Agency came under much tighter congressional control. Nixon, however, considered Helms to be disloyal, and fired him as DCI in 1973. Helms was the only DCI convicted for irregularities in office; his autobiography describes his reactions to the charges.
James R. Schlesinger 1973
On 2 February 1973 he became the Director of Central Intelligence, following the previous director Richard Helms, after he had been fired for his refusal to block the Watergate Affair's investigation. Although his service at the CIA was short, barely six months, it was a stormy one as he again undertook comprehensive organizational and personnel changes. Schlesinger became so unpopular at the CIA Headquarters in Langley, VirginiaLangley, Virginia
Langley is an unincorporated community in the census-designated place of McLean in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States.The community was essentially absorbed into McLean many years ago, although there is still a Langley High School...
, that a security camera was installed opposite his official portrait for fear that it would be vandalized. By this time he had a reputation as a tough, forthright, and outspoken administrator. Schesinger's appointment as the Secretary of Defense cut short his service as the DCI. He commissioned reports—known as the "Family Jewels
Family Jewels (Central Intelligence Agency)
The Family Jewels is the informal name used to refer to a set of reports that detail activities conducted by the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Considered illegal or inappropriate, these actions were conducted over the span of decades, from the 1950s to the mid-1970s...
"—on illegal activities by the Agency.
William Colby 1973–1976
Colby was another intelligence professional who was promoted to the top job. His autobiography was entitled "Honorable Men", and he believed that a nation had to believe such people made up its intelligence service. In December 1974, Investigative journalist Seymour HershSeymour Hersh
Seymour Myron Hersh is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and author based in Washington, D.C. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters...
broke the news of the "Family Jewels" in a front-page article in The New York Times, revealing that the CIA had assassinated foreign leaders, and had conducted surveillance on some seven thousand American citizens involved in the antiwar movement (Operation CHAOS
Operation CHAOS
]Operation CHAOS or Operation MHCHAOS was the code name for a domestic espionage project conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency. A department within the CIA was established in 1967 on orders from President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson and later expanded under President Richard Nixon...
).
Congress responded to the "Family Jewels" in 1975, investigating the CIA in the Senate via the Church Committee
Church Committee
The Church Committee is the common term referring to the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church in 1975. A precursor to the U.S...
, chaired by Senator Frank Church
Frank Church
Frank Forrester Church III was an American lawyer and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a United States Senator from Idaho from 1957 to 1981....
(D-Idaho), and in the House of Representatives via the Pike Committee, chaired by Congressman Otis Pike (D-NY). President Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...
created the aforementioned Rockefeller Commission
United States President's Commission on CIA activities within the United States
The U.S. President's Commission on CIA activities within the United States was set up under President Gerald Ford in 1975 to investigate the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies within the United States...
, and issued an Executive Order prohibiting the assassination of foreign leaders.
Colby's tenure as DCI congressional investigations into alleged U.S. intelligence malfeasance over the preceding twenty-five years. Colby cooperated, not out of a desire for major reforms, but in the belief that the actual scope of such misdeeds was not great enough to cause lasting damage to the CIA's reputation. He believed that cooperating with Congress was the only way to save the Agency from dissolution. Colby also believed that the CIA had a moral obligation to cooperate with the Congress and demonstrate that the CIA was accountable to the Constitution. This caused a major rift within the CIA ranks, with many old-line officers such as former DCI Richard Helms believing that the CIA should have resisted congressional intrusion.
Colby's time as DCI was also eventful on the world stage. Shortly after he assumed leadership, the Yom Kippur War
Yom Kippur War
The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War , also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to 25, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria...
broke out, an event that surprised not only the American intelligence agencies but also the Israelis. This intelligence surprise reportedly affected Colby's credibility with the Nixon Administration. Meanwhile, after many years of involvement, South Vietnam fell to Communist forces in April 1975, a particularly difficult blow for Colby, who had dedicated so much of his life and career to the American effort there. Events in the arms control field, Angola, the Middle East, and elsewhere also demanded attention.
William Colby's death, officially in a boating accident, happened on the same date when a New York prosecutor got permission to set up a grand jury to investigate the role of the CIA in the death of Frank Olson
Frank Olson
Frank Olson was a U.S. Army biological warfare specialist employed at Fort Detrick in Maryland. Believed to have committed suicide in 1953 as a result of depression, it was later revealed that he had been exposed to LSD and other psychoactive drugs as part of experiments, leading some to believe...
who worked at Fort Detrick
Fort Detrick
Fort Detrick is a U.S. Army Medical Command installation located in Frederick, Maryland, USA. Historically, Fort Detrick was the center for the United States' biological weapons program ....
, Maryland and was involved in chemical warfare research. Frank Olson was one of the experimental subjects in the CIA MKULTRA experiments with LSD
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...
and other drugs. He did not give informed consent for the CIA to experiment on him, as would be ethically required under the medical research principles of the Declaration of Helsinki
Declaration of Helsinki
The Declaration of Helsinki is a set of ethical principles regarding human experimentation developed for the medical community by the World Medical Association . It is widely regarded as the cornerstone document of human research ethics...
. The CIA claimed that he committed suicide by jumping out of a hotel window but the family did not believe this explanation. An autopsy of the remains of Frank Olson had found blunt force trauma to the head, which might have come from the fall, or been inflicted before the fall.
The 1953 medical report done immediately after Dr. Olson’s death indicated that there were cuts and abrasions on the body.
In the summer of 1994,a second autopsy was performed by James Starrs, Professor of Law and Forensic science at the National Law Center at George Washington University, his team searched the body for any cuts and abrasions and didn’t find any.
Professor Starrs found a large hematoma on the left side of Dr. Olson's head and a large injury on his chest. The team concluded that the injury on his head and chest did not happen during the fall. They most likely happened in the room before falling out of the window.
George H. W. Bush 1976–1977
Bush's confirmation as the Director of Central Intelligence was opposed by many politicians and citizens who were still reeling from the Watergate scandal (when Bush was the head of the Republican National CommitteeRepublican National Committee
The Republican National Committee is an American political committee that provides national leadership for the Republican Party of the United States. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican political platform, as well as coordinating fundraising and election strategy. It is...
, and a steadfast defender of Nixon) and the Church Committee
Church Committee
The Church Committee is the common term referring to the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church in 1975. A precursor to the U.S...
investigating whether CIA-ordered foreign assassinations were being directed towards domestic officials, including President Kennedy. Many arguments against Bush's initial confirmation were that he was too partisan
Partisan (political)
In politics, a partisan is a committed member of a political party. In multi-party systems, the term is widely understood to carry a negative connotation - referring to those who wholly support their party's policies and are perhaps even reluctant to acknowledge correctness on the part of their...
for the office. The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, George Will
George Will
George Frederick Will is an American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winner best known for his conservative commentary on politics...
, and Senator Frank Church
Frank Church
Frank Forrester Church III was an American lawyer and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a United States Senator from Idaho from 1957 to 1981....
were some notable figures opposed to Bush's nomination. After a pledge by Bush not to run for either President or Vice-President in 1976, opposition to his nomination died down.
Bush served as the DCI for 355 days, from January 30, 1976, to January 20, 1977. The CIA had been rocked by a series of revelations, including disclosures based on investigations by the Senate's Church Committee
Church Committee
The Church Committee is the common term referring to the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church in 1975. A precursor to the U.S...
, about the CIA's illegal and unauthorized activities, and Bush was credited with helping to restore the agency's morale. On February 18, 1976, President Ford issued Executive Order 11905
Executive Order 11905
Executive Order 11905 is a United States Presidential Executive Order signed on February 18, 1976, by President Gerald R. Ford as an attempt to reform the United States Intelligence Community, improve oversight on foreign intelligence activities, and ban political assassination...
, which established policy guidelines and restrictions for individual intelligence agencies, and clarified intelligence authorities and responsibilities. Bush was given 90 days to implement the new order, which called for a major reorganization of the American Intelligence Community and firmly stated that intelligence activities could not be directed against American citizens. In his capacity as DCI, Bush gave national security briefings to Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
both as a presidential candidate and as President-elect, and discussed the possibility of remaining in that position in a Carter administration.
Stansfield Turner 1977–1981
A U.S. Naval Academy classmate of Jimmy CarterJimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
's, Turner enjoyed the confidence of the White House, but his emphasis on technical methods of intelligence collection, such as SIGINT
SIGINT
Signals intelligence is intelligence-gathering by interception of signals, whether between people , whether involving electronic signals not directly used in communication , or combinations of the two...
and IMINT
IMINT
Imagery Intelligence , is an intelligence gathering discipline which collects information via satellite and aerial photography. As a means of collecting intelligence, IMINT is a subset of intelligence collection management, which, in turn, is a subset of intelligence cycle management...
, and his apparent dislike for, and firing of, HUMINT
HUMINT
HUMINT, a syllabic abbreviation of the words HUMan INTelligence, refers to intelligence gathering by means of interpersonal contact, as opposed to the more technical intelligence gathering disciplines such as SIGINT, IMINT and MASINT...
specialists made him quite unpopular within the CIA. Turner eliminated more than 800 operational positions in what was called the "halloween massacre." This organizational direction is notable because his successor William Casey was seen to have a completely opposite approach, focusing much of his attention on HUMINT. Turner gave notable testimony to Congress revealing much of the extent of the MKULTRA program, which the CIA ran from the early 1950s to late 1960s. Reform and simplification of the intelligence community's multilayered secrecy system was one of Turner's significant initiatives, but produced no results by the time he left office. He also wrote a book on his experience at CIA.
During Turner's term as head of the CIA, he became outraged when former agent Frank Snepp
Frank Snepp
Frank Warren Snepp is a journalist and former chief analyst of North Vietnamese strategy for the Central Intelligence Agency in Saigon during the Vietnam War. Five out of eight years in the CIA, he worked as interrogator, agent debriefer, and chief CIA strategy analyst in the US Embassy, Saigon...
published a book called Decent Interval which exposed incompetence among senior American government personnel during the fall of Saigon
Fall of Saigon
The Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People's Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front on April 30, 1975...
. accused Snepp of breaking the secrecy agreement required of all CIA agents, and then later was forced to admit under cross-examination that he had never read the agreement signed by Snepp. Regardless, the CIA ultimately won its case against Snepp at the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court forced Snepp to turn over all his profits from Decent Interval and to seek preclearance of any future writings about intelligence work for the rest of his life. The ultimate irony was that the CIA would later rely on the Snepp legal precedent
Precedent
In common law legal systems, a precedent or authority is a principle or rule established in a legal case that a court or other judicial body may apply when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts...
in forcing Turner to seek preclearance of his own memoirs, which were highly critical of President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
's policies.
In the documentary Secrets of the CIA Admiral Turner commented the MK ULTRA
Mk Ultra
Mk Ultra was an American alternative band that played between 1994 and 1999. The group formed in the Bay Area in the early nineties and went on to become a hit in local circles. Mk Ultra's career culminated in a national tour in 1999 but came to a rapid end when guitarist John Tyner decided to...
project.
"It came to my attention early in my tenure as director, and I felt it was a warning sign that if you're not alert, things can go wrong in this organization."
William J. Casey 1981–1987
During his tenure at the CIA, Casey played a large part in the shaping of Reagan's foreign policyForeign policy
A country's foreign policy, also called the foreign relations policy, consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve its goals within international relations milieu. The approaches are strategically employed to interact with other countries...
, particularly its approach to Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
international activity. Based on a book, The Terror Network
The Terror Network
The Terror Network was a 1981 book by Claire Sterling which argued that the USSR was using terrorists as a proxy force.In part because of the book, CIA director William J. Casey commissioned a Special National Intelligence Estimate on Soviet support for terrorism...
, Casey believed that the Soviet Union was the source of most terrorist activity in the world, in spite of CIA analysts providing evidence that this was in fact black propaganda
Black propaganda
Black propaganda is false information and material that purports to be from a source on one side of a conflict, but is actually from the opposing side. It is typically used to vilify, embarrass or misrepresent the enemy...
by the CIA itself. Casey obtained a report from a professor that agreed with his view, which convinced Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
that there was a threat.
Casey oversaw the re-expansion of the Intelligence Community, in particular the CIA, to funding and human resource levels greater than those before resource cuts during the Carter Administration. During his tenure restrictions were lifted on the use of the CIA to directly, covertly influence the internal and foreign affairs of countries relevant to American policy.
This period of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
saw an increase of the Agency's anti-Soviet activities around the world. Notably he oversaw covert assistance to the mujahadeen resistance in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, with a budget of over $1 billion, working closely with Akhtar Abdur Rahman
Akhtar Abdur Rahman
General Akhtar Abdur Rahman Khan , born in Rampur, was a 4-star general in the Pakistan Army. He served as Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee from 1987–1988 and as Director-General Inter-Services Intelligence from 1980-1987...
(the Director General of Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
's Inter-Services Intelligence
Inter-Services Intelligence
The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence , is Pakistan's premier intelligence agency, responsible for providing critical national security intelligence assessment to the Government of Pakistan...
directorate). The agency aided Solidarity movement in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, and a number of coups and attempted coups in South
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
- and Central America
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
.
Casey was also the principal architect of the arms-for-hostages deal that became known as the Iran-Contra affair
Iran-Contra Affair
The Iran–Contra affair , also referred to as Irangate, Contragate or Iran-Contra-Gate, was a political scandal in the United States that came to light in November 1986. During the Reagan administration, senior Reagan administration officials and President Reagan secretly facilitated the sale of...
.
Hours before Casey was scheduled to testify before Congress about his knowledge of Iran-Contra, he was reported to have been rendered incapable of speech, and was later hospitalized. In his 1987 book, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward
Bob Woodward
Robert Upshur Woodward is an American investigative journalist and non-fiction author. He has worked for The Washington Post since 1971 as a reporter, and is currently an associate editor of the Post....
, who had interviewed Casey on numerous occasions, said that he had gained entry to Casey's hospital room for a final, four-minute long encounter—a claim that was met with disbelief in many quarters, and adamant denial by Casey's wife, Sofia. According to Woodward, when he asked Casey if he knew about the diversion of funds to the Nicaraguan Contras
Contras
The contras is a label given to the various rebel groups opposing Nicaragua's FSLN Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction government following the July 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle's dictatorship...
, "His head jerked up hard. He stared, and finally nodded yes."
William H. Webster 1987–1991
Webster came from a legal background, including serving as a Federal judge and as the Director of the FBI. He was expected, with this background, to clear out all legal irregularities at CIA. Repercussions from the Iran-Contra arms smuggling scandal included the creation of the Intelligence Authorization ActIntelligence Authorization Act
The Intelligence Authorization Act was implemented in order to codify covert, clandestine operations and defines requirements for reporting such operations to the Congress...
in 1991. It defined covert operations as secret missions in geopolitical areas where the United States is neither openly nor apparently engaged. This also required an authorizing chain of command, including an official, Presidential finding report, and the informing of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, which, in emergencies, requires only "timely notification".
Robert M. Gates 1991–1993
Gates was nominated (for the second time) for the post of Director of Central Intelligence by President George H. W. BushGeorge H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
on May 14, 1991, confirmed by the United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
on November 5, and sworn in on November 6, becoming the only career officer in the CIA's history (as of 2009) to rise from an entry-level CIA employee to the Director of the CIA.
The final report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters, issued on August 4, 1993, said that Gates "was close to many figures who played significant roles in the Iran/contra affair and was in a position to have known of their activities. The evidence developed by Independent Counsel did not warrant indictment..."
R. James Woolsey 1993–1995
As the Director of Central Intelligence, Woolsey is notable for having a very limited relationship with President Bill Clinton. According to the journalist Richard MiniterRichard Miniter
Richard Miniter is an investigative journalist and author of two New York Times best-selling books, Losing bin Laden and Shadow War....
:
Never once in his two-year tenure did CIA director James Woolsey ever have a one-on-one meeting with Clinton. Even semiprivate meetings were rare. They only happened twice. Woolsey told me: "It wasn't that I had a bad relationship with the President. It just didn't exist."
Another quotation about his relationship with President Clinton, according to Paula Kaufman of Insight Magazine
Insight (magazine)
Insight on the News was an American conservative print and online news magazine. It was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate then owned by the Unification Church, which owned The Washington Times and now owns United Press International and newspapers in Japan,...
:
Remember the guy who in 1994 crashed his plane onto the White House lawn? That was me trying to get an appointment to see President Clinton.
David Halberstam noted in his book War in a Time of Peace that Clinton chose Woolsey as the CIA director because the Clinton campaign had courted neo-conservatives leading up to the 1992 election, promising to be tougher on Taiwan, Bosnia, and on human rights in China, and it was decided that they ought to give at least one neo-conservative a job in the Administration.
John M. Deutch 1995–1996
In 1995, President Bill ClintonBill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
appointed John Deutch
John M. Deutch
John Mark Deutch is an American chemist and civil servant. He was the United States Deputy Secretary of Defense from 1994 to 1995 and Director of Central Intelligence from May 10, 1995 until December 15, 1996...
as the Director of Central Intelligence (cabinet rank in the Clinton administration). However, Deutch was initially reluctant to accept this appointment. As the head of the CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
, Deutch continued the policy of his predecessor R. James Woolsey to declassify records pertaining to American covert operations during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. Deutsch put restraints on what he considered to be politically incorrect
Politically incorrect
The phrase "politically incorrect" may refer to:* Someone or something which does not meet a standard of political correctness* Politically Incorrect, a late-night U.S. political talk show* Politically Incorrect, a German political blog...
agent recruitment and sought to encourage more diversity
Diversity (politics)
In the political arena, the term diversity is used to describe political entities with members who have identifiable differences in their backgrounds or lifestyles....
at the CIA in order to include more women and minorities in its ranks.
In 1996, the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence issued a Congressional report estimating that: "Hundreds of employees on a daily basis are directed to break extremely serious laws in countries around the world in the face of frequently sophisticated efforts by foreign governments to catch them. A safe estimate is that several hundred times every day (easily 100,000 times a year) DO officers engage in highly illegal activities (according to foreign law) that not only risk political embarrassment to the U.S. but also endanger the freedom if not lives of the participating foreign nationals and, more than occasionally, of the clandestine officer himself."
In this same document, the committee wrote, "Considering these facts and recent history, which has shown that the [Director of the Central Intelligence Agency], whether he wants to or not, is held accountable for overseeing the [Clandestine Service], the DCI must work closely with the Director of the CS and hold him fully and directly responsible to him."
Soon after Deutch's departure from the CIA in 1996 it was revealed that classified materials
Classified information in the United States
The United States government classification system is currently established under Executive Order 13526, the latest in a long series of executive orders on the topic. Issued by President Barack Obama in 2009, Executive Order 13526 replaced earlier executive orders on the topic and modified the...
had been kept on several of Deutch's laptop computers designated as unclassified. In January 1997, the CIA began a formal security investigation of the matter. Senior management members at the CIA declined to fully pursue the security breach. More than two years after his departure, the matter was referred to the Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
, where Attorney General Janet Reno
Janet Reno
Janet Wood Reno is a former Attorney General of the United States . She was nominated by President Bill Clinton on February 11, 1993, and confirmed on March 11...
declined to prosecute. She did, however, recommend an investigation to determine whether Deutch should retain his security clearance. President Clinton issued a Presidential pardon on his last day in office.
George J. Tenet 1997–2004
George TenetGeorge Tenet
George John Tenet was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, and is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University....
was appointed the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence
Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
The Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency is a senior United States government official in the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency...
in July 1995. After John Deutch
John M. Deutch
John Mark Deutch is an American chemist and civil servant. He was the United States Deputy Secretary of Defense from 1994 to 1995 and Director of Central Intelligence from May 10, 1995 until December 15, 1996...
's abrupt resignation in December 1996, Tenet served as acting director until he was officially appointed the position on July 11, 1997, after a unanimous confirmation vote in the Senate. This had been followed by the withdrawal of Anthony Lake
Anthony Lake
William Anthony Kirsopp Lake, best known as Tony Lake, is the Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund , author, academic, and former American diplomat, Foreign Service Officer, and political advisor. He has been a foreign policy advisor to many Democratic U.S...
, whose nomination had been blocked by Republicans
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
in Senate. While the Director of Central Intelligence has typically been replaced by an incoming Administration ever since President Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
replaced DCI George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
, Tenet served past the end of the Clinton Administration
Presidency of Bill Clinton
The United States Presidency of Bill Clinton, also known as the Clinton Administration, was the executive branch of the federal government of the United States from January 20, 1993 to January 20, 2001. Clinton was the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second full term...
and through the first term of George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
.
Tenet embarked on a mission to regenerate the CIA, which had fallen on hard times since the end of the Cold War. The number of new trainee agents recruited each year had fallen to an all-time low, a 25-percent decline from the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
peak. Tenet appealed to the original mission of the agency, which had been to "prevent another Pearl Harbor". The problem was to foresee where danger might come from in the post–Cold War world. Tenet focused on potential problems such as "the transformation of Russia and China", "rogue states" like North Korea, Iran, and Iraq, and terrorism.
In 1999, Tenet put forward a grand "Plan" for dealing with the al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
organization. This effort supposedly put the CIA in a better position to respond after the September 11, 2001, attacks. As Tenet expressed it in his book,
How could [an intelligence] community without a strategic plan tell the President of the United States just four days after 9/11 how to attack the Afghan sanctuary and operate against al-QaedaAl-QaedaAl-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
in ninety-two countries around the world?
On September 15, 2001. Tenet presented the Worldwide Attack Matrix
Worldwide Attack Matrix
The Worldwide Attack Matrix is a document describing covert counter-terrorism operations in 80 countries in Asia, the Middle East and Africa created in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It was presented by Central Intelligence Agency director George J. Tenet in a briefing held...
, a blueprint for what became known as the War On Terror
War on Terrorism
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
. He proposed firstly to send CIA teams into Afghanistan to collect intelligence on, and mount covert operations against, al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The teams would act jointly with military Special Operations
SOCOM
SOCOM is an acronym which refers to United States Special Operations Command or one of these related topics:* Firearms for USSOCOM's Offensive Sidearm Weapon System trials:** Heckler & Koch Mark 23 Mod 0** Colt OHWS* Springfield Armory, Inc...
units. "President Bush later praised this proposal, saying it had been a turning point in his thinking."
After the September 11, 2001, attacks, many observers criticized the American Intelligence Community for numerous "intelligence failures" as one of the major reasons why the attacks were not prevented. In August 2007, part of a secret report written by the CIA Inspector General
Inspector General
An Inspector General is an investigative official in a civil or military organization. The plural of the term is Inspectors General.-Bangladesh:...
was made public (originally written in 2005 but kept secret). Its 19-page summary states that Tenet knew the dangers of Al Qaeda well before September 2001, but that the leadership of the CIA did not do enough to prevent any attacks. Tenet reacted to the publication of this report by calling it "flat wrong".
Bob Woodward
Bob Woodward
Robert Upshur Woodward is an American investigative journalist and non-fiction author. He has worked for The Washington Post since 1971 as a reporter, and is currently an associate editor of the Post....
, in his book Plan of Attack
Plan of Attack
Plan of Attack is a 2004 book by the well known US author and investigative reporter Bob Woodward. It was promoted as "a behind-the-scenes account of how and why President [George W.] Bush decided to go to war against Iraq"...
, wrote that Tenet privately lent his personal authority to the intelligence reports about weapons of mass destruction
Weapons of mass destruction
A weapon of mass destruction is a weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to a large number of humans and/or cause great damage to man-made structures , natural structures , or the biosphere in general...
(WMDs) in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
. At a meeting on December 12, 2002, he assured Bush that the evidence against Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
amounted to a "slam dunk
Slam dunk
A slam dunk is a type of basketball shot that is performed when a player jumps in the air and manually powers the ball downward through the basket with one or both hands over the rim. This is considered a normal field goal attempt; if successful it is worth two points. The term "slam dunk" was...
case." After several months of refusing to confirm this statement, Tenet later stated that this remark was taken out of context. (Tenet indicated that the comment was made pursuant to a discussion about how to convince the American people to support invading Iraq, and that, in his opinion, the best way to convince the people would be by explaining the dangers posed by Iraq's WMD i.e., the public relations sale of the war via the WMD, according to Tenet, would be a "slam dunk"). The search following the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
by American, British, and other international forces yielded no stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq. Tenet and his Director of Operations resigned at about this same time, and it has been suggested these resignations were in penance over the WMD issue in Iraq.
Porter J. Goss 2004–2005
During his junior year at Yale, Porter Goss was recruited by the CIA. He spent much of the 1960s—roughly from 1960 until 1971—working for the Directorate of Operations, the clandestine services of the CIA. There he first worked in Latin America and the CaribbeanCaribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
and later in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. The full details are not known due to the classified nature of the CIA, but Goss has said that he had worked in Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
, Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo, known officially as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city in the Dominican Republic. Its metropolitan population was 2,084,852 in 2003, and estimated at 3,294,385 in 2010. The city is located on the Caribbean Sea, at the mouth of the Ozama River...
, and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. Goss, who has said that he has recruited and trained foreign agents, worked in Miami
Miami, Florida
Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...
for much of the time. Goss was involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
in 1962, telling The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
in 2002 that he had done some "small-boat handling" and had "some very interesting moments in the Florida Straits."
He served in Congress for 16 years until his appointment as Director of the CIA. While in the House, Goss consistently and emphatically defended the CIA and supported strong budget increases for the Agency, even during a time of tight budgets and Clintonian
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
slashes to other parts of the intelligence budgets. In mid-2004, Goss took a very strong position, during what had already been announced as his last congressional term, urging specific reforms and corrections in the way the CIA carried out its activities, lest it become "just another government bureaucracy."
After growing pressure, Congress established the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, a joint inquiry of the two intelligence committees, led by Goss and Senator Bob Graham
Bob Graham
Daniel Robert "Bob" Graham is an American politician. He was the 38th Governor of Florida from 1979 to 1987 and a United States Senator from that state from 1987 to 2005...
. Goss and Graham made it clear that their goal was not to identify specific wrongdoing: Graham said the inquiry would not play "the blame game about what went wrong from an intelligence perspective,", and Goss said, "This is not a who-shall-we-hang type of investigation. It is about where are the gaps in America's defense and what do we do about it type of investigation." The inquiry's final report was released in December 2002 and focused entirely on the CIA and FBI's activities, including no information on the White House's activities. Ray McGovern
Ray McGovern
Raymond McGovern is a retired CIA officer turned political activist. McGovern was a Federal employee under seven U.S. presidents over 27 years, presenting the morning intelligence briefings at the White House for many of them.-Early life:...
, a 27-year veteran of the CIA and a frequent commentator on intelligence issues, believed the report showed that Goss gave "clear priority to providing political protection for the president" when conducting the inquiry. Goss chiefly blamed President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
for the recent CIA failures. He confided in a reporter: "The one thing I lose sleep about is thinking what could I have done better, how could I have gotten more attention on this problem sooner." When asked whether he ever brought up his concerns with the administration, Goss claimed he had met three times with Clinton to discuss "certain problems". The upshot? "He was patient and we had an interesting conversation but it was quite clear he didn’t value the intelligence community to the degree President Bush does."
Goss was nominated to become the new director on August 10, 2004. The appointment was challenged by some prominent Democrats). Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV
Jay Rockefeller
John Davison "Jay" Rockefeller IV is the senior United States Senator from West Virginia. He was first elected to the Senate in 1984, while in office as Governor of West Virginia, a position he held from 1977 to 1985...
(D-WV
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...
), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, expressed concerns that Goss was too politically partisan, given his public remarks against Democrats while serving as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Another Democratic member of the committee, Ron Wyden
Ron Wyden
Ronald Lee "Ron" Wyden is the senior U.S. Senator for Oregon, serving since 1996, and a member of the Democratic Party. He previously served in the United States House of Representatives from 1981 to 1996....
(D-OR
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
), expressed concerns that given Goss's history within and ties to the CIA, he would be too disinclined to push for institutional change. In an interview carried out by Michael Moore
Michael Moore
Michael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...
's production company on March 3, 2004, Goss described himself as "probably not qualified" for a job within the CIA, because the language skills the Agency now seeks are not languages he speaks and because the people applying today for positions within the CIA's four directorates have such keen technical and analytic skills, which he did not have when he applied to the Agency in the early 60s.
He brought with him five personal staff that were to implement change that became unpopular with CIA professionals. Steve Kappes—the Director of Operations—and his subordinates including Michael Sulick
Michael Sulick
Michael J. Sulick is an American intelligence officer and served as Director of the U.S. National Clandestine Service from 2007-2010....
, Kappes' then-deputy. Although Kappes came back to a responsible position, it has been reported that he quit the Agency rather than carry out a request by Goss to reassign Michael Sulick. Following Goss's departure, both Kappes and Sulick have returned to positions of higher authority in the U.S. Intelligence Community. Kappes is the Deputy Director of the CIA and Sulick was appointed Director of the National Clandestine Service on September 14, 2007.
Speculations on the reason for his departure include a desire to have military agency heads, or, perhaps more likely,
For many analysts, Goss' departure was inevitable, given the widespread perception that the White House had lost confidence in his ability to reorganise the CIA. Goss' departure appears to have been due, at least in part, to his repeated clashes with John Negroponte who was appointed in 2005 as the US Director of National Intelligence, a new post created to co-ordinate all 16 of the US intelligence agencies in the aftermath of the Al-Qaeda attacks.
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
in November 2005 and before by human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
NGOs. US President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
acknowledged the existence of secret prisons operated by the CIA during a speech on September 6, 2006.
See also
- Office of Naval ResearchOffice of Naval ResearchThe Office of Naval Research , headquartered in Arlington, Virginia , is the office within the United States Department of the Navy that coordinates, executes, and promotes the science and technology programs of the U.S...
- DARPA
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- National Geospatial Intelligence Agency
- Exceptional Collector AwardExceptional Collector AwardThe DCI Exceptional Collector National HUMINT Award is a decoration awarded annually by the U.S. Director of Central Intelligence to recognize individuals and groups for improved Human Intelligence collection and reporting of information that is of significant value to the U.S. intelligence...