View source for Central Intelligence Agency

{{Short description|National intelligence agency of the United States}}
{{Redirect|CIA}}
{{Pp-vandalism|small=yes}}
{{Use American English|date=September 2024}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2024}}
{{Infobox government agency
| agency_name     = Central Intelligence Agency
| motto           = <small>(Official):</small> ''The Work of a Nation. The Center of Intelligence.''<br /><small>(Unofficial):</small> And ye shall know the truth and [[Veritas vos liberabit|the truth shall make you free]]<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/ohb-50th-anniversary.html |title=CIA Observes 50th Anniversary of Original Headquarters Building Cornerstone Laying |website=Central Intelligence Agency |access-date=September 18, 2012 |archive-date=March 24, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100324152925/https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/ohb-50th-anniversary.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>
| picture         = Aerial view of the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters, Langley, Virginia - Corrected and Cropped.jpg
| picture_width   = 
| picture_caption = [[George Bush Center for Intelligence]] in [[Langley, Virginia]]
| logo            = Flag of the United States Central Intelligence Agency.svg
| logo_width      = 200
| logo_caption    = Flag of the Central Intelligence Agency
| seal            = Seal of the Central Intelligence Agency.svg
| seal_width      = 200
| seal_caption    = Seal of the Central Intelligence Agency
| formed          = {{Start date and age|1947|9|18}}
| agency_type     = [[Independent agencies of the United States government|Independent]] (component of the [[United States Intelligence Community|Intelligence Community]])
| preceding1      = [[Office of Strategic Services]]<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/history-of-the-cia/index.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070612182023/https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/history-of-the-cia/index.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 12, 2007 |title=History of the CIA |publisher=Central Intelligence Agency |access-date=March 28, 2014}}</ref>
| preceding2      = [[Strategic Services Unit]]
| preceding3      = [[Central Intelligence Group]]
| jurisdiction    = 
| headquarters    = [[George Bush Center for Intelligence]], Langley, Virginia, U.S.
| coordinates     = {{Coord|38|57|07|N|77|08|46|W|type:landmark_region:US-VA|display=inline,title}}
| employees       = 21,575 (estimate){{r|wp20130829}}
| budget          = $15 billion ({{as of|2013|lc=y}})<ref name="wp20130829">{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/black-budget-summary-details-us-spy-networks-successes-failures-and-objectives/2013/08/29/7e57bb78-10ab-11e3-8cdd-bcdc09410972_story.html |date=August 29, 2013 |first1=Barton |last1=Gellman |first2=Greg |last2=Miller |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |title=U.S. spy network's successes, failures and objectives detailed in 'black budget' summary |access-date=August 29, 2013 |archive-date=September 1, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130901013422/http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/black-budget-summary-details-us-spy-networks-successes-failures-and-objectives/2013/08/29/7e57bb78-10ab-11e3-8cdd-bcdc09410972_story.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/cia-budget-unnecessary-secret |title=CIA Budget: An Unnecessary Secret |author-link=Dave Kopel |first=Dave |last=Kopel |date=July 28, 1997 |website=[[Cato Institute]] |access-date=April 15, 2007 |archive-date=February 14, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210214094135/https://www.cato.org/commentary/cia-budget-unnecessary-secret |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://fas.org/sgp/news/1999/11/wp112999.html |title=Cloak Over the CIA Budget |date=November 29, 1999 |newspaper=The Washington Post |via=[[Federation of American Scientists]] |access-date=July 4, 2008 |archive-date=September 16, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180916084055/https://fas.org/sgp/news/1999/11/wp112999.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
| chief1_name     = [[John Ratcliffe (American politician)|John Ratcliffe]]
| chief1_position = [[Director of the Central Intelligence Agency|Director]]
| chief2_name     = [[Michael Ellis (attorney)|Michael Ellis]]
| chief2_position = [[Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency|Deputy Director]]
| chief3_name     = ''Vacant''
| chief3_position = [[General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency|General Counsel]]
| chief4_name     = 
| chief4_position = 
| chief5_name     = 
| chief5_position = 
| chief6_name     = 
| chief6_position = 
| chief7_name     = 
| chief7_position = 
| chief8_name     = 
| chief8_position = 
| chief9_name     = 
| chief9_position = 
| parent_agency   = [[Office of the Director of National Intelligence]]
| child1_agency   = [[Directorate of Operations (CIA)|Directorate of Operations]]
| child2_agency   = [[Central Intelligence Agency Directorate of Science & Technology|Directorate of Science and Technology]]
| child3_agency   = [[Operations Support Branch]]
| parent_department = [[Executive Office of the President of the United States|Office of the President of the United States]]
| website         = {{URL|https://cia.gov}}
}}

The '''Central Intelligence Agency''' ('''CIA'''; {{IPAc-en|ˌ|s|iː|.|aɪ|ˈ|eɪ}}) is a civilian [[intelligence agency|foreign intelligence service]] of the [[federal government of the United States]] tasked with advancing [[national security]] through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and conducting [[covert operation]]s. The agency is headquartered in the [[George Bush Center for Intelligence]] in [[Langley, Virginia]], and is sometimes [[Metonymy|metonymously]] called "Langley". A major member of the [[United States Intelligence Community]] (IC), the CIA has reported to the [[Director of National Intelligence|director of national intelligence]] since 2004, and is focused on providing intelligence for the [[President of the United States|president]] and the [[Cabinet of the United States|Cabinet]].

The CIA is headed by [[Director of the Central Intelligence Agency|a director]] and is divided into various directorates, including a Directorate of Analysis and [[Directorate of Operations (CIA)|Directorate of Operations]]. Unlike the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] (FBI), the CIA has no law enforcement function and focuses on intelligence gathering overseas, with only [[National Resources Division|limited domestic intelligence collection]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=How does the FBI differ from the Central Intelligence Agency? |url=https://www.fbi.gov/about/faqs/how-does-the-fbi-differ-from-the-central-intelligence-agency |access-date=February 22, 2023 |website=Federal Bureau of Investigation |language=en-us |archive-date=February 22, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230222034540/https://www.fbi.gov/about/faqs/how-does-the-fbi-differ-from-the-central-intelligence-agency |url-status=live }}</ref> The CIA is responsible for coordinating all [[Human intelligence (intelligence gathering)|human intelligence]] (HUMINT) activities in the IC. It has been instrumental in establishing intelligence services in many countries, and has provided support to many foreign organizations. The CIA exerts foreign political influence through its paramilitary operations units, including its [[Special Activities Center]]. It has also provided support to several foreign political groups and governments, including planning, coordinating, [[Enhanced interrogation techniques|training and carrying out torture]], and technical support. It was involved in many [[United States involvement in regime change|regime changes]] and carrying out [[terrorism|terrorist attacks]] and planned assassinations of foreign leaders.

During [[World War II]], U.S. intelligence and covert operations had been undertaken by the [[Office of Strategic Services]] (OSS). The office was abolished in 1945 by President [[Harry S. Truman]], who created the [[Central Intelligence Group]] in 1946. Amid the intensifying [[Cold War]], the [[National Security Act of 1947]] established the CIA, headed by a [[Director of Central Intelligence|director of central intelligence]] (DCI). The [[Central Intelligence Agency Act]] of 1949 exempted the agency from most Congressional oversight, and during the 1950s, it became a major instrument of U.S. foreign policy. The CIA employed [[Psychological warfare|psychological operations]] against communist regimes, and backed [[United States involvement in regime change|coups to advance American interests]]. Major CIA-backed operations include the [[1953 Iranian coup d'état|1953 coup in Iran]], the [[1954 Guatemalan coup d'état|1954 coup in Guatemala]], the [[Bay of Pigs Invasion]] of [[Cuba]] in 1961, and the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup in Chile]]. In 1975, the [[Church Committee]] of the [[United States Senate|U.S. Senate]] revealed illegal operations such as [[MKUltra]] and [[Operation CHAOS|CHAOS]], after which greater oversight was imposed. In the 1980s, the CIA supported the [[Afghan mujahideen]] and Nicaraguan [[Contras]], and since the [[September 11 attacks]] in 2001 has played a role in the [[War on terror|Global War on Terrorism]].

The agency has been the subject of [[List of CIA controversies|numerous controversies]], including its [[Human rights violations by the CIA|use of political assassinations]], [[Enhanced interrogation techniques|torture]], [[Project Mockingbird|domestic wiretapping]], [[CIA influence on public opinion|propaganda]], [[MKUltra|mind control techniques]], and [[Allegations of CIA drug trafficking|drug trafficking]], among others.

==Purpose==
When the CIA was created, its purpose was to create a clearinghouse for foreign policy intelligence and analysis, collecting, analyzing, evaluating, and disseminating foreign intelligence, and carrying out covert operations.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rudgers |first1=David F. |title=Creating the secret state : the origins of the Central Intelligence Agency, 1943-1947 |date=2000 |publisher=University Press of Kansas |isbn=978-0-7006-1024-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/creatingsecretst0000rudg/page/114/mode/1up?q=%22on+June+20+1946%22|pages=114–115}}</ref>

As of 2013, the CIA had five priorities:{{r|wp20130829}}
* [[Counterterrorism]]
* [[Nonproliferation]] of [[weapons of mass destruction]]
* Indications and warnings for senior policymakers
* [[Counterintelligence]]
* [[cyberwarfare in the United States|Cyber intelligence]]

==Organizational structure==
{{Main|Organizational structure of the Central Intelligence Agency}}
[[File:CIA ORG Structure.svg|thumb|The organization of the Central Intelligence Agency]]
The CIA has an executive office and five major directorates:
* The '''Directorate of Digital Innovation'''
* The '''Directorate of Analysis'''
* The '''Directorate of Operations'''
* The '''Directorate of Support'''
* The '''Directorate of Science and Technology'''

===Executive Office===
{{Further|Director of the Central Intelligence Agency|Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency}}
The [[director of the Central Intelligence Agency]] (D/CIA) is appointed by the [[President of the United States|president]] with [[Senate confirmation]] and reports directly to the [[Director of National Intelligence|director of national intelligence]] (DNI); in practice, the CIA director interfaces with the DNI, [[United States Congress|Congress]], and the [[White House]], while the [[Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency|deputy director (DD/CIA)]] is the internal executive of the CIA and the chief operating officer (COO/CIA), known as executive director until 2017, leads the day-to-day work<ref name="about-cia leadership">{{cite web |url=https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/leadership|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121012191825/https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/leadership/|url-status=dead|archive-date=October 12, 2012|title=Leadership|website=Central Intelligence Agency|date= December 30, 2011 |access-date=January 6, 2018}}</ref> as the third-highest post of the CIA.<ref name="Brennan, Haines, Park">{{cite web|url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/sisterhood-spies-women-crack-code-cia-f2D11594601|title=Sisterhood of Spies: Women crack the code at the CIA  |first1=Robert |last1=Windrem |website=[[NBC News]]|date=November 14, 2013|access-date=January 7, 2018|archive-date=April 8, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220408013640/https://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/sisterhood-spies-women-crack-code-cia-f2D11594601|url-status=live}}</ref> The deputy director is formally appointed by the director without [[United States Senate|Senate]] confirmation,<ref name="Brennan, Haines, Park"/><ref name="Haspel appointment">{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/03/cia-deputy-director-gina-haspel-linked-torture-thailand-black-site|title=CIA deputy director linked to torture at Thailand black site|website=[[The Guardian]]|date=February 3, 2017 |first1=Oliver |last1=Holmes |access-date=January 7, 2018|archive-date=February 3, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170203132358/https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/03/cia-deputy-director-gina-haspel-linked-torture-thailand-black-site|url-status=live}}</ref> but as the president's opinion plays a great role in the decision,<ref name="Haspel appointment"/> the deputy director is generally considered a political position, making the chief operating officer the most senior non-political position for CIA career officers.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://investors.butterfieldgroup.com/current-news/2017/10-06-2017-214238579|title=Meroe Park Joins Butterfield Board|website=[[Butterfield Bank]]|date=October 6, 2017|access-date=January 6, 2018|archive-date=August 16, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200816065800/https://investors.butterfieldgroup.com/current-news/2017/10-06-2017-214238579|url-status=live}}</ref>

The Executive Office also supports the [[United States military|U.S. military]], including the [[United States Army Intelligence and Security Command|U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command]], by providing it with information it gathers, receiving information from [[military intelligence]] organizations, and cooperating with field activities. The associate deputy director of the CIA is in charge of the day-to-day operations of the agency. Each branch of the agency has its own director.<ref name="about-cia leadership"/> The Office of Military Affairs (OMA), subordinate to the associate deputy director, manages the relationship between the CIA and the [[Unified Combatant Command]]s, who produce and deliver regional and operational intelligence and consume national intelligence produced by the CIA.<ref>{{cite web |title=CIA Support to the US Military During the Persian Gulf War |website=Central Intelligence Agency |url=https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/gulfwar/061997/support.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070613051112/https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/gulfwar/061997/support.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 13, 2007 |date=June 16, 1997}}</ref>

===Directorate of Analysis===
The '''Directorate of Analysis''', through much of its history known as the '''Directorate of Intelligence''' (DI), is tasked with helping "the President and other policymakers make informed decisions about our country's national security" by looking "at all the available information on an issue and organiz[ing] it for policymakers".<ref name=history>{{cite web|title=Offices of CIA – Intelligence & Analysis – History|url=https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/intelligence-analysis/history.html|publisher=CIA|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130430083353/https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/intelligence-analysis/history.html |archive-date=April 30, 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref> The directorate has four regional analytic groups, six groups for transnational issues, and three that focus on policy, collection, and staff support.<ref name="CIA-DI-ORG">{{cite web |website=Central Intelligence Agency |title=Intelligence & Analysis |url=https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/intelligence-analysis/organization-1/index.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070612191505/https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/intelligence-analysis/organization-1/index.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 12, 2007 |access-date=July 1, 2011}}</ref> There are regional analytical offices covering the [[Near East]] and [[South Asia]], [[Russia]], and Europe; and the [[Asia–Pacific]], [[Latin America]], and [[Africa]].

===Directorate of Operations===
{{Main|Directorate of Operations (CIA)}}
The '''Directorate of Operations''' is responsible for collecting foreign intelligence (mainly from clandestine HUMINT sources), and for covert action. The name reflects its role as the coordinator of human intelligence activities between other elements of the wider U.S. intelligence community with their HUMINT operations. This directorate was created in an attempt to end years of rivalry over influence, philosophy, and budget between the [[United States Department of Defense]] (DOD) and the CIA. In spite of this, the Department of Defense announced in 2012 its intention to organize its own global clandestine intelligence service, the [[Defense Clandestine Service]] (DCS),<ref name=GWUEBB46>{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/dia-to-send-hundreds-more-spies-overseas/2012/12/01/97463e4e-399b-11e2-b01f-5f55b193f58f_story.html |title=DIA to send hundreds more spies overseas |date=December 1, 2012 |last=Miller |first=Greg |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=August 25, 2017 |archive-date=October 13, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171013215504/https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/dia-to-send-hundreds-more-spies-overseas/2012/12/01/97463e4e-399b-11e2-b01f-5f55b193f58f_story.html |url-status=live }}</ref> under the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] (DIA). Contrary to some public and [[mass media|media]] misunderstanding, DCS is not a "new" [[intelligence agency]] but rather a consolidation, expansion and realignment of existing Defense [[Clandestine HUMINT|HUMINT]] activities, which have been carried out by DIA for decades under various names, most recently as the Defense Human Intelligence Service.<ref>Eric Schmitt (April 23, 2012). [https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/24/world/asia/defense-department-plans-new-spy-service.html "Defense Department Plans New Intelligence Gathering Service"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240117014605/https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/24/world/asia/defense-department-plans-new-spy-service.html |date=January 17, 2024 }}, ''[[The New York Times]]''.</ref>

This Directorate is known to be organized by geographic regions and issues, but its precise organization is classified.<ref name=NSAEBB>{{cite book |chapter-url=http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB34/13-01.htm |chapter=Defense HUMINT Service Organizational Chart |title=The "Death Squad Protection" Act: Senate Measure Would Restrict Public Access to Crucial Human Rights Information Under the Freedom of Information Act |first1=Thomas S. |last1=Blanton |first2=Michael L. |last2=Evans |first3=Kate |last3=Martin |date=July 17, 2000 |series=George Washington University National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 34 |access-date=January 16, 2008 |archive-date=January 9, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080109140707/http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB34/13-01.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Directorate of Science & Technology===
{{Main|Central Intelligence Agency Directorate of Science & Technology|l1=Directorate of Science & Technology}}
The Directorate of Science & Technology was established to research, create, and manage technical collection disciplines and equipment. Many of its innovations were transferred to other intelligence organizations, or, as they became more overt, to the military services.

The development of the [[Lockheed U-2|U-2]] high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, for instance, was done in cooperation with the [[United States Air Force]]. The U-2's original mission was clandestine [[IMINT|imagery intelligence]] over denied areas such as the [[Soviet Union]].<ref name="Pocock, Chris page 404">{{Cite book |last=Pocock |first=Chris |title=50 Years of the U-2: The Complete Illustrated History of the 'Dragon Lady' |publisher=Schiffer Publishing Ltd |location=Atglen, Pennsylvania |lccn=89012535 |isbn=0-7643-2346-6 |page=404|year=2005 }}</ref>

===Directorate of Support===
{{Main|Organizational structure of the Central Intelligence Agency#Directorate of Support|l1=Directorate of Support}}
The Directorate of Support has organizational and administrative functions to significant units including:
* The '''Office of Security'''
* The '''Office of Communications'''
* The '''Office of Information Technology'''

===Directorate of Digital Innovation===
The Directorate of Digital Innovation (DDI) focuses on accelerating innovation across the Agency's mission activities. It is the Agency's newest directorate. The [[Langley, Virginia]]-based office's mission is to streamline and integrate digital and cybersecurity capabilities into the CIA's espionage, counterintelligence, all-source analysis, open-source intelligence collection, and covert action operations.<ref name="fedscoop.com">{{Cite web| url=https://www.fedscoop.com/new-cia-director-inherits-agency-quickly-developing-cyber-capabilities/| title=New CIA director inherits an agency that is quickly developing cyber capabilities| date=January 27, 2017| access-date=July 25, 2019| archive-date=July 25, 2019| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190725052515/https://www.fedscoop.com/new-cia-director-inherits-agency-quickly-developing-cyber-capabilities/| url-status=live}}</ref> It provides operations personnel with tools and techniques to use in cyber operations. It works with [[information technology]] infrastructure and practices cyber [[tradecraft]].<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/digital-innovation/index.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305040535/https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/digital-innovation/index.html | url-status=dead | archive-date=March 5, 2016 |title = Digital Innovation – Central Intelligence Agency}}</ref> This means retrofitting the CIA for [[cyberwarfare]]. DDI officers help accelerate the integration of innovative methods and tools to enhance the CIA's cyber and digital capabilities on a global scale and ultimately help safeguard the United States. They also apply technical expertise to exploit clandestine and publicly available information (also known as [[open-source intelligence|open-source data]]) using specialized methodologies and digital tools to plan, initiate and support the technical and human-based operations of the CIA.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.cia.gov/careers/opportunities/support-professional/digital-targeter.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170307154405/https://www.cia.gov/careers/opportunities/support-professional/digital-targeter.html | url-status=dead | archive-date=March 7, 2017 | title=Digital Targeter – Central Intelligence Agency}}</ref> Before the establishment of the new digital directorate, offensive cyber operations were undertaken by the CIA's Information Operations Center.<ref>{{Cite web|url = https://theintercept.com/2017/03/08/cias-new-digital-innovation-division-cant-seem-to-keep-its-own-secrets/|title = CIA's New 'Digital Innovation' Division Can't Seem to Keep its Own Secrets| work=The Intercept |date = March 8, 2017|access-date = July 25, 2019|archive-date = July 25, 2019|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190725052511/https://theintercept.com/2017/03/08/cias-new-digital-innovation-division-cant-seem-to-keep-its-own-secrets/|url-status = live | last1=Schwartz | first1=Mattathias }}</ref> Little is known about how the office specifically functions or if it deploys offensive cyber capabilities.<ref name="fedscoop.com"/>

The directorate had been covertly operating since approximately March 2015 but formally began operations on October 1, 2015.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://fcw.com/articles/2015/10/01/cia-digital-directorate.aspx|title=Inside the CIA's new Digital Directorate |first1=Sean|last1=Lyngaas|date=October 1, 2015|website=FCW|access-date=July 25, 2019|archive-date=July 25, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190725052513/https://fcw.com/articles/2015/10/01/cia-digital-directorate.aspx|url-status=live}}</ref> According to classified budget documents, the CIA's computer network operations budget for fiscal year 2013 was $685.4&nbsp;million. The NSA's budget was roughly $1&nbsp;billion at the time.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Gellman |first1=Barton |last2=Miller |first2=Greg |date=August 29, 2013 |title='Black budget' summary details U.S. spy network's successes, failures and objectives |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/black-budget-summary-details-us-spy-networks-successes-failures-and-objectives/2013/08/29/7e57bb78-10ab-11e3-8cdd-bcdc09410972_story.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130901013422/http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/black-budget-summary-details-us-spy-networks-successes-failures-and-objectives/2013/08/29/7e57bb78-10ab-11e3-8cdd-bcdc09410972_story.html |archive-date=September 1, 2013 |access-date=August 25, 2017 |via=[[The Washington Post]]}}</ref>

Rep. [[Adam Schiff]], the California Democrat who served as the ranking member of the [[United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence|House Intelligence Committee]], endorsed the reorganization. "The director has challenged his workforce, the rest of the intelligence community, and the nation to consider how we conduct the business of intelligence in a world that is profoundly different from 1947 when the CIA was founded," Schiff said.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/cia-creates-digital-innovation-directorate-a-7991|title=CIA Creates Digital Innovation Directorate|website=www.bankinfosecurity.com|access-date=July 25, 2019|archive-date=July 25, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190725052515/https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/cia-creates-digital-innovation-directorate-a-7991|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Office of Congressional Affairs===
{{Category more|CIA's relationship with the United States Congress}}
The '''Office of Congressional Affairs''' ('''OCA''') serves as the liaison between the CIA and the [[US Congress]]. The OCA states that it aims to ensure that Congress is fully and currently informed of intelligence activities.<ref>{{cite web|title=Congressional Affairs|url=https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/congressional-affairs|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130806010648/https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/congressional-affairs|url-status=dead|archive-date=August 6, 2013|website=cia.gov|accessdate=10 June 2016|date=26 March 2013}} {{PD-notice}}</ref>

The office is the CIA's primary interface with [[Congressional oversight]] committees, leadership, and members. It is responsible for all matters pertaining to congressional interaction and oversight of US intelligence activities. It claims that it aims to:<ref>{{cite web|title=Who We Are|url=https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/congressional-affairs/who-we-are.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111019174849/https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/congressional-affairs/who-we-are.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=October 19, 2011|website=cia.gov|accessdate=10 June 2016|date=23 January 2013}} {{PD-notice}}</ref>

* ensure that Congress is kept informed of intelligence issues and activities by providing timely briefings and notifications
* facilitate prompt and complete responses to congressional requests for information and inquiries
* maintain a record of the Agency's interaction with Congress
* track legislation that could affect the Agency
* educate Agency personnel about their responsibility to keep Congress fully and currently informed

==Training==
{{Further|CIA University|National Intelligence University|Warrenton Training Center}}
The CIA established its first training facility, the Office of Training and Education, in 1950. Following the end of the [[Cold War]], the CIA's training budget was slashed, which had a negative effect on [[employee retention]].<ref name=campus>{{cite news |last=Wendt |first=Jeff |title=A feature interview with Frans Bax, President, CIA University |newspaper=Today's Campus |url=http://www.todayscampus.com/articles/load.aspx?art=1638 |access-date=June 5, 2013 |archive-date=May 31, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130531065445/http://www.todayscampus.com/articles/load.aspx?art=1638 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=npr>{{cite episode |title=Inside CIA University: Higher Ed for Operatives |series=Morning Edition |series-link=Morning Edition |credits=Host: [[Mary Louise Kelly]] |network=[[NPR]] |air-date=May 28, 2004 |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1914175 |access-date=April 3, 2018 |archive-date=December 6, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171206074612/https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1914175 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In response, Director of Central Intelligence [[George Tenet]] established [[CIA University]] in 2002.<ref name=campus/><ref name=history/> CIA University holds between 200 and 300 courses each year, training both new hires and experienced intelligence officers, as well as CIA support staff.<ref name=campus/><ref name=npr/> The facility works in partnership with the [[National Intelligence University]], and includes the [[Sherman Kent School for Intelligence Analysis]], the Directorate of Analysis' component of the university.<ref name=history/><ref name=learning>{{cite web |title=Life in HR: Learning Resources |website=Central Intelligence Agency |date=February 12, 2013 |url=https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/human-resources/learning-resources.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130429131704/https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/human-resources/learning-resources.html |archive-date=April 29, 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name=training>{{cite web |title=Training Resources |website=Central Intelligence Agency |date=January 23, 2013 |url=https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/intelligence-analysis/training-resources.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070612191020/https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/intelligence-analysis/training-resources.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 12, 2007 |access-date=April 3, 2013}}</ref>

For later stage training of student operations officers, there is at least one classified training area at [[Camp Peary]], near [[Williamsburg, Virginia]]. Students are selected, and their progress evaluated, in ways derived from the OSS, published as the book ''Assessment of Men, Selection of Personnel for the Office of Strategic Services''.<ref name=AOM>{{Cite book |title=Assessment of Men, Selection of Personnel for the Office of Strategic Services |author=The OSS Assessment Staff |publisher=Johnson Reprint Corporation (original printing by Rinehart and Company, Inc.) |orig-date=1948 |year=1969}}</ref> Additional mission training is conducted at [[Harvey Point]], [[North Carolina]].<ref name=nyt88>{{cite news |last=Weiner |first=Tim |author-link=Tim Weiner |title=Is the Explosion-Noisy Base a C.I.A. Spy School? What Base? |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=March 20, 1998 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/20/world/is-the-explosion-noisy-base-a-cia-spy-school-what-base.html |access-date=February 15, 2017 |archive-date=March 25, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140325225636/http://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/20/world/is-the-explosion-noisy-base-a-cia-spy-school-what-base.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

The primary training facility for the Office of Communications is [[Warrenton Training Center]], located near [[Warrenton, Virginia]]. The facility was established in 1951 and has been used by the CIA since at least 1955.<ref name=fasB>{{cite web |last=Pike |first=John |title=Warrenton Station B |website=Federation of American Scientists |year=2001 |url=https://fas.org/irp/facility/warrenton_b.htm |access-date=March 18, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090605143410/https://fas.org/irp/facility/warrenton_b.htm |archive-date=June 5, 2009 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Office of the General Counsel |website=Central Intelligence Agency |date=October 31, 1954 |url=http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/5829/CIA-RDP86B00269R000100110003-5.pdf |access-date=March 27, 2013 |archive-date=May 26, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130526171137/http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/5829/CIA-RDP86B00269R000100110003-5.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

==Budget==
{{Main|United States intelligence budget}}
Details of the overall United States intelligence budget are classified.{{r|wp20130829}} Under the [[Central Intelligence Agency Act]] of 1949, the Director of Central Intelligence is the only federal government employee who can spend [[black budget|"un-vouchered" government money]].<ref name="cia1992">{{cite book |url=http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/ |title=The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954–1974 |publisher=History Staff, Central Intelligence Agency |last1=Pedlow |first1=Gregory W. |last2=Welzenbach |first2=Donald E. |year=1992 |location=Washington, D.C. |pages=43–44 |access-date=November 21, 2013 |archive-date=August 18, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130818070925/http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The government showed its 1997 budget was $26.6&nbsp;billion for the fiscal year.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.cia.gov/news-information/press-releases-statements/press-release-archive-1997-1/pr101597.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070612215415/https://www.cia.gov/news-information/press-releases-statements/press-release-archive-1997-1/pr101597.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 12, 2007 |title=Statement of the Director of Central Intelligence Regarding the Disclosure of the Aggregate Intelligence Budget for Fiscal Year 1997 |date=October 15, 1997 |website=Central Intelligence Agency}}</ref> The government has disclosed a total figure for all non-military intelligence spending since 2007; the fiscal 2013 figure is $52.6&nbsp;billion. According to the [[2013 mass surveillance disclosures]], the CIA's fiscal 2013 budget is $14.7&nbsp;billion, 28% of the total and almost 50% more than the budget of the National Security Agency. CIA's [[HUMINT]] budget is $2.3&nbsp;billion, the [[SIGINT]] budget is $1.7&nbsp;billion, and spending for security and logistics of CIA missions is $2.5&nbsp;billion. "Covert action programs," including a variety of activities such as the CIA's [[unmanned combat aerial vehicle|drone]] fleet and anti-[[Iranian nuclear program]] activities, accounts for $2.6&nbsp;billion.{{r|wp20130829}}

There were numerous previous attempts to obtain general information about the budget.<ref name=Aftergood2002budget>{{cite web |title=Declaration of Steven Aftergood |id=Case No. 02-1146 (RMU) |date=May 5, 2003 |url=https://fas.org/sgp/foia/2002/aftergood.html |website=Federation of American Scientists |access-date=June 27, 2015 |archive-date=June 29, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150629182938/https://fas.org/sgp/foia/2002/aftergood.html |url-status=live }}</ref> As a result, reports revealed that CIA's annual budget in Fiscal Year 1963 was $550&nbsp;million (inflation-adjusted US$ {{formatnum:{{Inflation|US|0.55|1963|r=1}}}} billion in {{CURRENTISOYEAR}}),<ref name=CIA_CostReductionProgram>{{cite web |author=Central Intelligence Agency |title=CIA Cost Reduction Program |date=September 1, 1965 |url=https://fas.org/sgp/foia/1947/cia050405att.pdf |website=Federation of American Scientists |access-date=June 27, 2015 |archive-date=September 24, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924135858/http://www.fas.org/sgp/foia/1947/cia050405att.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> and the overall intelligence budget in FY 1997 was US$26.6&nbsp;billion (inflation-adjusted US$ {{formatnum:{{Inflation|US|26.6|1997|r=1}}}} billion in {{CURRENTISOYEAR}}).<ref name="Press Release 03/20/98 No. 03-98">{{cite web |website=Federation of American Scientists |title=CIA Discloses FY 1998 Intelligence Budget Total |date=March 20, 1998 |url=https://fas.org/sgp/foia/intel98.html |access-date=June 27, 2015 |archive-date=June 29, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150629231244/https://fas.org/sgp/foia/intel98.html |url-status=live }}</ref> There have been accidental disclosures; for instance, [[Mary Margaret Graham]], a former CIA official and deputy director of national intelligence for collection in 2005, said that the annual intelligence budget was $44&nbsp;billion,<ref name="NYT2005-11-08">{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/08/politics/08budget.html |title=Official Reveals Budget for U.S. Intelligence |last=Shane |first=Scott |date=November 8, 2005 |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=April 29, 2013 |archive-date=June 25, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130625160659/http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/08/politics/08budget.html |url-status=live }}</ref> and in 1994 Congress accidentally published a budget of $43.4&nbsp;billion (in 2012 dollars) in 1994 for the non-military National Intelligence Program, including $4.8&nbsp;billion for the CIA.{{r|wp20130829}}

After the [[Marshall Plan]] was approved, appropriating $13.7&nbsp;billion over five years, 5% of those funds or $685&nbsp;million were secretly made available to the CIA. A portion of the enormous M-fund, established by the U.S. government during the post-war period for reconstruction of Japan, was secretly steered to the CIA.<ref>''Legacy of Ashes,'' p. 28.</ref>

==Relationship with other intelligence agencies==
===Foreign intelligence services===
The role and functions of the CIA are roughly equivalent to those of the [[Federal Intelligence Service]] (BND) in [[Cabinet of Germany|Germany]], [[MI6]] in the [[Government of the United Kingdom|United Kingdom]], the [[Australian Secret Intelligence Service]] (ASIS) in [[Australian Government|Australia]], the [[Directorate-General for External Security]] (DGSE) in [[Government of France|France]], the [[Foreign Intelligence Service (Russia)|Foreign Intelligence Service]] in [[Government of Russia|Russia]], the [[Ministry of State Security (China)|Ministry of State Security]] (MSS) in [[Government of China|China]], the [[Research and Analysis Wing]] (RAW) in [[Government of India|India]], the [[Inter-Services Intelligence]] (ISI) in [[Government of Pakistan|Pakistan]], the [[General Intelligence Service (Egypt)|General Intelligence Service]] in [[Politics of Egypt|Egypt]], [[Mossad]] in [[Cabinet of Israel|Israel]], and the [[National Intelligence Service (South Korea)|National Intelligence Service]] (NIS) in [[Government of South Korea|South Korea]].

The CIA was instrumental in the establishment of intelligence services in several U.S. allied countries, including Germany's BND and Greece's [[National Intelligence Service (Greece)|EYP]] (then known as KYP).<ref>Blum, William. ''Killing Hope: US military and CIA interventions since World War II'', 2nd edition, Zed Books, 2004 p.37</ref>{{Citation needed|date=August 2023}}

The closest links of the U.S. intelligence community to other foreign intelligence agencies are to Anglophone countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Special communications signals that intelligence-related messages can be shared with these four countries.<ref name="DMS1999-03-19">{{cite web |url=https://fas.org/sgp/othergov/dod/genser.pdf |title=Zdarm (Defense Messaging Service) ''Genser'' (General Service) Message Security Classifications, Categories, and Marking Phrase Requirements Version 1.2 |date=March 19, 1999 |author=US Defense Information Services Agency |website=Federation of American Scientists |access-date=June 27, 2015 |archive-date=September 24, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924140436/http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/dod/genser.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> An indication of the United States' close operational cooperation is the creation of a new message distribution label within the main U.S. military communications network. Previously, the marking of NOFORN (i.e., No Foreign Nationals) required the originator to specify which, if any, non-U.S. countries could receive the information. A new handling caveat, USA/AUS/CAN/GBR/NZL ''[[Five Eyes]]'', used primarily on intelligence messages, indicates that the material can be shared with Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, and New Zealand.

The task of the division called "{{lang|de|Verbindungsstelle 61}}" of the German ''{{lang|de|[[Bundesnachrichtendienst]]}}'' is keeping contact to the CIA office in [[Wiesbaden]].<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/verbindungsstelle-61-staatsanwaelte-ermitteln-gegen-hohen-bnd-mann-a-882145.html |newspaper=[[Spiegel Online]] |title='Verbindungsstelle 61': Ermittlungen gegen Chef von geheimer BND-Gruppe |language=de |date=February 8, 2013 |access-date=March 28, 2014 |archive-date=March 15, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140315211453/http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/verbindungsstelle-61-staatsanwaelte-ermitteln-gegen-hohen-bnd-mann-a-882145.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

==History==
{{Main|History of the Central Intelligence Agency|CIA activities by country}}

===Immediate predecessors===
{{Further|Office of Strategic Services}}
[[File:CIA Memorial Wall 2023.jpg|thumb|The 140 stars on the [[CIA Memorial Wall]] in the CIA headquarters, each representing a CIA officer killed in action]]
[[File:Allen Dulles-TIME-1953.jpg|thumb|CIA director [[Allen Dulles]] on the cover of ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine in 1953]]
During [[World War II]], U.S. intelligence and covert operations were undertaken by the [[Office of Strategic Services]] (OSS).{{sfn|Jeffreys-Jones|2022|pp=18–19}} Many future CIA officers, including four directors of central intelligence, served in the OSS.{{sfn|Anderson|2020|p=23}} On September 20, 1945, shortly after the end of World War II, Truman signed an [[Executive order (United States)|executive order]] dissolving the OSS.{{sfn|Anderson|2020|p=108}} By October 1945 its functions had been divided between the [[United States Department of State|Departments of State]] and [[Department of War|War]]. The division lasted only a few months.

The first public mention of the "Central Intelligence Agency" appeared on a command-restructuring proposal presented by [[Jim Forrestal]] and [[Arthur Radford]] to the [[U.S. Senate]] Military Affairs Committee at the end of 1945.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,852560,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080307114013/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,852560,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=March 7, 2008 |title=Army & Navy – Merger: Navy Compromise |date=December 10, 1945 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]}}</ref> Army Intelligence agent Colonel [[Sidney Mashbir]] and Commander Ellis Zacharias worked together for four months at the direction of [[Ernest King|Fleet Admiral Joseph Ernest King]], and prepared the first draft and implementing directives for the creation of what would become the Central Intelligence Agency.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Mashbir|first=Colonel Sidney|title=I Was an American Spy|publisher=Vantage Press, Inc. New York|year=1953|isbn=|location=|pages=347–348}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Mashbir|first=Colonel Sidney|title=I Was an American Spy, 65th Anniversary Edition|publisher=Horizon Productions|year=2018|isbn=|location=|pages=347–348}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Zacharias|first=Captain Ellis M.|title=Secret Missions|publisher=G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York|year=1946|isbn=|location=|pages=289–293}}</ref> Despite opposition from the military establishment, the [[United States Department of State|State Department]], and the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] (FBI),<ref name="CIAfact">{{cite book |title=Factbook on Intelligence |publisher=Central Intelligence Agency |date=December 1992 |pages=4–5}}</ref> Truman established the [[National Intelligence Authority (United States)|National Intelligence Authority]]<ref>{{cite book |chapter=The Role of Intelligence |year=1965 |title=Congress and the Nation 1945–1964: A review of government and politics in the postwar years |location=Washington, DC |publisher=[[Congressional Quarterly]] Service |page=306}}</ref> in January 1946. Its operational extension was known as the Central Intelligence Group (CIG),<ref name="FAS-ciahist">{{cite web |url=https://fas.org/irp/cia/ciahist.htm |title=CIA – History |website=Federation of American Scientists |access-date=June 27, 2015 |archive-date=June 28, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150628230642/http://fas.org/irp/cia/ciahist.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> which was the direct predecessor of the CIA.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol39no5/pdf/v39i5a13p.pdf |title=The Creation of the Central Intelligence Group |first=Michael |last=Warner |journal=Studies in Intelligence |volume=39 |number=5 |pages=111–120 |year=1995 |access-date=September 16, 2011 |publisher=[[Center for the Study of Intelligence]] |archive-date=October 17, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201017235152/https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol39no5/pdf/v39i5a13p.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>

===Creation===
The Central Intelligence Agency was created on July 26, 1947, when President Truman signed the [[National Security Act of 1947|National Security Act]] into law. A major impetus for the creation of the agency was growing tensions with the USSR following the end of [[World War II]].{{sfn|Wilford|2024|p=46}}

Lawrence Houston, head counsel of the [[Strategic Services Unit|SSU]], CIG, and, later CIA, was principal draftsman of the [[National Security Act of 1947]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.dni.gov/index.php/ic-legal-reference-book/national-security-act-of-1947|title=National Security Act of 1947|website=www.dni.gov|access-date=July 31, 2020|archive-date=August 1, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801080728/https://www.dni.gov/index.php/ic-legal-reference-book/national-security-act-of-1947|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=ciacounselhist>{{Cite web |url=https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/general-counsel/history-of-the-office.html |title=Office of the General Counsel: History of the Office |website=Central Intelligence Agency |access-date=August 26, 2017 |archive-date=August 27, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170827002922/https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/general-counsel/history-of-the-office.html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://media.nara.gov/dc-metro/rg-263/6922330/Box-9-109-3/263-a1-27-box-9-109-3.pdf |title=Lawrence R. Houston: A Biography |last=Breneman |first=Gary M. |website=[[National Archives and Records Administration]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150629215418/http://media.nara.gov/dc-metro/rg-263/6922330/Box-9-109-3/263-a1-27-box-9-109-3.pdf |archive-date=June 29, 2015}}</ref> which dissolved the NIA and the CIG, and established both the [[United States National Security Council|National Security Council]] and the Central Intelligence Agency.<ref name="FAS-ciahist"/><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.international.ucla.edu/burkle/news/article.asp?parentid=78595 |title=The CIA's license to fail |first=Amy B. |last=Zegart |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]] |date=September 23, 2007 |access-date=August 20, 2011 |archive-date=December 15, 2012 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20121215042650/http://www.international.ucla.edu/burkle/news/article.asp?parentid=78595 |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1949, Houston helped to draft the [[Central Intelligence Agency Act]] ({{uspl|81|110}}), which authorized the agency to use confidential fiscal and administrative procedures, and exempted it from most limitations on the use of federal funds. The act also exempted the CIA from having to disclose its "organization, functions, officials, titles, salaries, or numbers of personnel employed," and created the program "PL-110" to handle defectors and other "essential aliens" who fell outside normal immigration procedures.<ref name="GEORGE">{{cite web |title=George Tenet v. John Doe |website=Federation of American Scientists |url=https://fas.org/sgp/jud/tenetvdoe-petresp.pdf |date=July 16, 2006 |access-date=July 4, 2008 |archive-date=April 12, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190412123934/https://fas.org/sgp/jud/tenetvdoe-petresp.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=statehdoc>{{cite book |url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945-50Intel |title=Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945–1950, Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment |editor-first1=C. Thomas Jr. |editor-last1=Thorne |editor-first2=David S. |editor-last2=Patterson |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |location=Washington, DC |year=1996 |access-date=March 20, 2015 |archive-date=July 19, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190719013546/https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945-50Intel |url-status=live }}</ref>

At the outset of the [[Korean War]], the CIA still only had a few thousand employees, around one thousand of whom worked in analysis. Intelligence primarily came from the Office of Reports and Estimates, which drew its reports from a daily take of State Department telegrams, military dispatches, and other public documents. The CIA still lacked its intelligence-gathering abilities.<ref name=ciakorea>{{cite web |url=http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/44/2010-05-01.pdf |first=Clayton |last=Laurie |title=The Korean War and the Central Intelligence Agency |website=Center for the Study of Intelligence |access-date=August 26, 2017 |archive-date=September 24, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924044542/http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/44/2010-05-01.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> On August 21, 1950, shortly after, Truman announced [[Walter Bedell Smith]] as the new Director of the CIA. The change in leadership took place shortly after the start of the [[Korean War]] in [[South Korea]], as the lack of a clear warning to the President and NSC about the imminent North Korean invasion was seen as a grave failure of intelligence.<ref name=ciakorea />

The CIA had different demands placed on it by the various bodies overseeing it. Truman wanted a centralized group to organize the information that reached him.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=14}}<ref name=100days>{{cite journal |url=https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol38no1/pdf/v38i1a06p.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100426215654/https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol38no1/pdf/v38i1a06p.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=April 26, 2010 |title=Fifteen DCIs' First 100 Days |journal=Studies in Intelligence |volume=38 |number=1 |date=January 1993 |access-date=August 26, 2017 |publisher=[[Center for the Study of Intelligence]]}}</ref> The Department of Defense wanted military intelligence and covert action, and the State Department wanted to create global political change favorable to the US. Thus the two areas of responsibility for the CIA were covert action and covert intelligence. One of the main targets for intelligence gathering was the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics|Soviet Union]], which had also been a priority of the CIA's predecessors.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=14}}<ref name=100days /><ref name=souerslookback>{{cite web |url=https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2014-featured-story-archive/a-look-back-the-first-director-of-central-intelligence.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150321144550/https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2014-featured-story-archive/a-look-back-the-first-director-of-central-intelligence.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=March 21, 2015 |title=A Look Back: The First Director of Central Intelligence |website=Central Intelligence Agency |date=July 24, 2014}}</ref>

U.S. Air Force General [[Hoyt Vandenberg]], the CIG's second director, created the Office of Special Operations (OSO) and the Office of Reports and Estimates (ORE).<ref name=100days /> Initially, the OSO was tasked with spying and subversion overseas with a budget of $15&nbsp;million (equivalent to ${{inflation|US|15|1950}} million in {{inflation/year|US}}),{{inflation/fn|US}} the largesse of a small number of patrons in Congress. Vandenberg's goals were much like the ones set out by his predecessor: finding out "everything about the Soviet forces in Eastern and Central Europe – their movements, their capabilities, and their intentions."{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=17}}

On June 18, 1948, the [[National Security Council]] issued Directive 10/2<ref name="NSC10/2">{{cite web |url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945-50Intel/d292 |work=U.S. Department of State |title=Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945–1950, Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment |at=Document 292, Section 5 |access-date=July 4, 2008 |archive-date=October 10, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171010092347/https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945-50Intel/d292 |url-status=live }}</ref> calling for covert action against the [[Soviet Union]],{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=29}} and granting the authority to carry out covert operations against "hostile foreign states or groups" that could, if needed, be denied by the U.S. government. To this end, the [[Office of Policy Coordination]] (OPC) was created inside the CIA.{{sfn|Anderson|2020|pp=154–155}} The OPC was unique; [[Frank Wisner]], the head of the OPC, answered not to the [[Director of the Central Intelligence Agency|CIA Director]], but to the secretaries of defense, state, and the NSC. The OPC's actions were a secret even from the head of the CIA. Most CIA stations had two station chiefs, one working for the OSO, and one working for the OPC.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=33}}

The agency was unable to provide sufficient intelligence about the Soviet takeovers of [[Romania]] and [[Czechoslovakia]], the [[Berlin Blockade|Soviet blockade of Berlin]], or the [[Soviet atomic bomb project]]. In particular, the agency failed to predict the [[Korean War#China intervenes (October–December 1950)|Chinese entry into the Korean War]] with 300,000 troops.<ref name=mistakes>{{cite journal |url=https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/fall_winter_2001/article06.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070613111803/https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/fall_winter_2001/article06.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 13, 2007 |title=Two Strategic Intelligence Mistakes in Korea, 1950 |first=P. K. |last=Rose |journal=Studies in Intelligence |volume=45 |number=5 |date=2001 |pages=57–65 |publisher=[[Center for the Study of Intelligence]] |access-date=August 26, 2017}}</ref><ref>"The Role of Intelligence" (1965) Congress and the Nation 1945–1964. p.306.</ref> The famous double agent [[Kim Philby]] was the British liaison to American Central Intelligence.{{sfn|Anderson|2020|p=210}} Through him, the CIA coordinated hundreds of airdrops inside the iron curtain, all compromised by Philby. [[Arlington Hall]], the nerve center of CIA cryptanalysis, was compromised by [[Bill Weisband]], a Russian translator and Soviet spy.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=51}}

However, the CIA was successful in influencing the [[1948 Italian general election|1948 Italian election]] in favor of the [[Christian Democracy (Italy)|Christian Democrats]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Gouda |first=Frances |title=American Visions of the Netherlands East Indies/Indonesia: US Foreign Policy and Indonesian Nationalism, 1920–1949 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zh1VtsxRlRAC |date=2002 |publisher=Amsterdam University Press |isbn=978-90-5356-479-0 |page=365 |access-date=June 27, 2015 |archive-date=September 6, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150906105646/https://books.google.com/books?id=Zh1VtsxRlRAC |url-status=live }}</ref> The $200&nbsp;million [[Exchange Stabilization Fund]] (equivalent to ${{inflation|US|0.2|1948|r=1}} billion in {{inflation/year|US}}),{{inflation/fn|US}} earmarked for the reconstruction of Europe, was used to pay wealthy Americans of Italian heritage. Cash was then distributed to [[Catholic Action]], the [[Holy See|Vatican's]] political arm, and directly to Italian politicians. This tactic of using its large fund to purchase elections was frequently repeated in the subsequent years.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=27}}

===Korean War===
{{See also|History of the Central Intelligence Agency#Korean War}}
At the beginning of the [[Korean War]], CIA officer Hans Tofte claimed to have turned a thousand [[North Korea]]n expatriates into a guerrilla force tasked with infiltration, guerrilla warfare, and pilot rescue.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=56}} In 1952 the CIA sent 1,500 more expatriate agents north. [[Seoul]] station chief Albert Haney would openly celebrate the capabilities of those agents and the information they sent.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=56}} In September 1952 Haney was replaced by John Limond Hart, a Europe veteran with a vivid memory for bitter experiences of misinformation.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=56}} Hart was suspicious of the parade of successes reported by Tofte and Haney and launched an investigation which determined that the entirety of the information supplied by the Korean sources was false or misleading.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=57}} After the war, internal reviews by the CIA corroborated Hart's findings. The CIA's station in [[Seoul]] had 200 officers, but not a single speaker of [[Korean language|Korean]].{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=57}} Hart reported to Washington that Seoul station could not be salvaged. Loftus Becker, deputy director of intelligence, was sent personally to tell Hart that the CIA had to keep the station open to save face. Becker returned to Washington, D.C., pronouncing the situation to be "hopeless".{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=57}} He then resigned. Air Force Colonel James Kallis stated that CIA director [[Allen Dulles]] continued to praise the CIA's Korean force, despite knowing that they were under enemy control.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=58}} When China entered the war in 1950, the CIA attempted a number of subversive operations in the country, all of which failed due to the presence of double agents. Millions of dollars were spent in these efforts.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|pp=58–61}} These included a team of young CIA officers airdropped into China who were ambushed, and CIA funds being used to set up a global heroin empire in Burma's [[Golden Triangle (Southeast Asia)|Golden Triangle]] following a betrayal by another double agent.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|pp=58–61}}

===1953 Iranian coup d'état===
{{Main|1953 Iranian coup d'état}}
[[File:Mohammad Mosaddegh portrait.jpg|thumb|The CIA aided the British in overthrowing [[Prime Minister of Iran|Iranian Prime Minister]] [[Mohammad Mosaddegh]] in 1953]]
In 1951, [[Mohammad Mosaddegh]], a member of the [[National Front (Iran)|National Front]], was elected Iranian prime-minister.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gasiorowski |first1=Mark |last2=Byrne |first2=Malcolm |title=Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran |date=2004 |publisher=Syracuse University Press |isbn=978-0-81563-018-0 |page=360 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yW2slrVAb5kC&q=assassination&pg=PA258 |access-date=September 30, 2020 |archive-date=July 27, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727192741/https://books.google.com/books?id=yW2slrVAb5kC&pg=PA258&q=assassination |url-status=live }}</ref> As prime minister, he nationalized the [[Anglo-Persian Oil Company]] which his predecessor had supported. The nationalization of the British-funded Iranian oil industry, including the largest oil refinery in the world, was disastrous for Mosaddegh. A British naval embargo closed the British oil facilities, which Iran had no skilled workers to operate. In 1952, Mosaddegh resisted the royal refusal to approve his Minister of War and resigned in protest. The National Front took to the streets in protest. Fearing a loss of control, the military pulled its troops back five days later, and [[Mohammad Reza Pahlavi|Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi]] gave in to Mosaddegh's demands. Mosaddegh quickly replaced military leaders loyal to the Shah with those loyal to him, giving him personal control over the military. Given six months of emergency powers, Mosaddegh unilaterally passed legislation. When that six months expired, his powers were extended for another year. In 1953, Mossadegh [[1953 Iranian parliamentary dissolution referendum|dismissed parliament]] and assumed dictatorial powers. This power grab triggered the Shah to exercise his constitutional right to dismiss Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh launched a military [[Coup d'état|coup]], and the Shah fled the country.

Under CIA Director [[Allen Dulles]], [[1953 Iranian coup d'état|Operation Ajax]] was put into motion. Its goal was to overthrow Mossadegh with military support from General [[Fazlollah Zahedi]] and install a pro-western regime headed by the Shah of Iran. Kermit Roosevelt Jr. oversaw the operation in Iran.<ref>{{cite news|first=James|last=Risen|title=Secrets of History: The C.I.A. in Iran|work=The New York Times|year=2000|url=https://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html|access-date=March 30, 2007|archive-date=January 25, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130125113825/http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html|url-status=live}}</ref> On August 16, a CIA paid mob led by Ayatollah [[Ruhollah Khomeini]] would spark what a U.S. embassy officer called "an almost spontaneous revolution"{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=90}} but Mosaddegh was protected by his new inner military circle, and the CIA had been unable to gain influence within the Iranian military. Their chosen man, former General Fazlollah Zahedi, had no troops to call on.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=87}} After the failure of the first coup, Roosevelt paid demonstrators to pose as communists and deface public symbols associated with the Shah. This August 19 incident helped foster public support of the Shah and led gangs of citizens on a spree of violence intent on destroying Mossadegh.<ref>{{Citation|last=Capuchin|title=U.S. and Them: Operation Ajax – Iran and the CIA coup (2/2)|date=September 21, 2008|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdeoktnv8ko |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211214/Mdeoktnv8ko |archive-date=December 14, 2021 |url-status=live|access-date=January 20, 2017}}{{cbignore}}</ref> An attack on his house forced Mossadegh to flee. He surrendered the next day, and his coup came to an end.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=91}}

===1954 Guatemalan coup d'état===
{{Main|1954 Guatemalan coup d'état}}
[[File:Jacobo Arbenz Guzman (oficial).jpg|thumb|When democratically elected President [[Jacobo Árbenz]] attempted a modest [[Decree 900|redistribution of land]] in [[Guatemala]], he was overthrown in the [[1954 Guatemalan coup d'état]].]]
The return of the Shah to power, and the impression that an effective CIA had been able to guide that nation to friendly and stable relations with the West, triggered planning for Operation PBSuccess, a plan to overthrow [[Guatemala]]n President [[Jacobo Arbenz]].{{sfn|Anderson|2020|p=367–368}} The plan was exposed in major newspapers before it happened after a CIA agent left plans for the coup in his [[Guatemala City]] hotel room.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=95}}

The [[Guatemalan Revolution]] of 1944–54 overthrew the U.S. backed dictator [[Jorge Ubico]] and brought a democratically elected government to power. The government began an ambitious [[Decree 900|agrarian reform]] program which sought to grant land to millions of landless peasants. The program threatened the land holdings of the [[United Fruit Company]], who lobbied for a coup by portraying these reforms as communist.<ref name="Schlesinger"/><ref>{{cite book |first=Allan D. |last=Cooper |year=2009 |title=The Geography of Genocide |publisher=[[University Press of America]] |isbn=978-0-7618-4097-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Uyh8kdcuA1kC&pg=PA171 |page=171 |access-date=September 30, 2020 |archive-date=August 14, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210814142731/https://books.google.com/books?id=Uyh8kdcuA1kC&pg=PA171 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Paul J. |last=Dosal |year=1995 |title=Doing Business with the Dictators: A Political History of United Fruit in Guatemala, 1899–1944 |publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]] |isbn=978-0-84202-590-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7vcGTI4Q22YC&pg=PA2 |page=2 |access-date=September 30, 2020 |archive-date=April 14, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414103453/https://books.google.com/books?id=7vcGTI4Q22YC&pg=PA2 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/magazine/the-secrets-in-guatemalas-bones.html |first=Maggie |last=Jones |title=The Secrets in Guatemala's Bones |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=June 30, 2016 |access-date=February 15, 2017 |archive-date=December 15, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161215224850/http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/magazine/the-secrets-in-guatemalas-bones.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

On June 18, 1954, [[Carlos Castillo Armas]] led 480 CIA-trained men across the border from [[Honduras]] into Guatemala. The weapons had also come from the CIA.{{sfn|Immerman|1982|pp=161–170}} The CIA mounted a psychological campaign to convince the Guatemalan people and government that Armas's victory was a ''fait accompli''. Its largest aspect was a radio broadcast entitled "The Voice of Liberation" which announced that Guatemalan exiles led by Castillo Armas were shortly about to liberate the country.{{sfn|Immerman|1982|pp=161–170}} On June 25, a CIA plane bombed Guatemala City, destroying the government's main oil reserves. Árbenz ordered the army to distribute weapons to local peasants and workers.{{sfn|Immerman|1982|pp=173–178}} The army refused, forcing Jacobo Árbenz's resignation on June 27, 1954. Árbenz handed over power to Colonel [[Carlos Enrique Diaz]].{{sfn|Immerman|1982|pp=173–178}} The CIA then orchestrated a series of power transfers that ended with the confirmation of Castillo Armas as president in July 1954.{{sfn|Immerman|1982|pp=173–178}} Armas was the first in a series of military dictators that would rule the country, leading to the brutal [[Guatemalan Civil War]] from 1960 to 1996, in which some 200,000 people were killed, mostly by the U.S.-backed military.{{refn|name=pbsucc|<ref name="Schlesinger">{{cite news |first=Stephen |last=Schlesinger |author-link=Stephen Schlesinger |date=June 3, 2011 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/04/opinion/04schlesinger.html |title=Ghosts of Guatemala's Past |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=July 5, 2014 |archive-date=February 17, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170217012056/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/04/opinion/04schlesinger.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Cullather |first=Nick |title=Secret History: The CIA's Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952–1954 |edition=Second |url=https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=10654 |date=October 9, 2006 |publisher=[[Stanford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-8047-5468-2 |access-date=April 17, 2016 |archive-date=March 20, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160320123511/http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=10654 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Gleijeses |first=Piero |author-link=Piero Gleijeses |title=Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944–1954 |url=https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691025568/shattered-hope |date=1992 |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |isbn=0-691-02556-8 |access-date=August 31, 2023 |archive-date=August 31, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230831214105/https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691025568/shattered-hope |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Streeter |first=Stephen M. |title=Managing the Counterrevolution: The United States and Guatemala, 1954–1961 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h17R_A0n-1MC |date=2000 |publisher=Ohio University Press |isbn=978-0-89680-215-5 |access-date=April 17, 2016 |archive-date=June 3, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160603092610/https://books.google.com/books?id=h17R_A0n-1MC |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/26/world/guatemalan-army-waged-genocide-new-report-finds.html |title=Guatemalan Army Waged 'Genocide,' New Report Finds |first=Mireya |last=Navarro |newspaper=The New York Times |date=February 26, 1999 |access-date=February 15, 2017 |archive-date=February 27, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170227215408/http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/26/world/guatemalan-army-waged-genocide-new-report-finds.html |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

===Syria===
{{Main|CIA activities in Syria}}
[[File:Allen Dulles appointed DCI, 26 February 1953.jpg|thumb|President [[John F. Kennedy]] presenting the [[National Security Medal]] to [[Allen Dulles]] on November 28, 1961]]
In 1949, Colonel [[Adib Shishakli]] rose to power in Syria in a CIA-backed coup. Four years later, he would be overthrown by the military, [[Ba'ath]]ists, and [[Communism|communists]]. The CIA and MI6 started funding right-wing members of the military but suffered a huge setback in the aftermath of the [[Suez Crisis]]. CIA Agent Rocky Stone, who had played a minor role in the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, was working at the [[Damascus]] embassy as a diplomat but was the station chief. Syrian officers on the CIA dole quickly appeared on television stating that they had received money from "corrupt and sinister Americans" "in an attempt to overthrow the legitimate government of Syria."{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=139}} Syrian forces surrounded the embassy and rousted Agent Stone, who confessed and subsequently made history as the first American diplomat expelled from an Arab nation. This strengthened ties between Syria and Egypt, helping establish the [[United Arab Republic]], and poisoning the well for the US for the foreseeable future.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=139}}

===Indonesia===
{{Main|CIA activities in Indonesia}}
{{See also|Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66}}
The United States was suspicious of [[Sukarno]], [[Indonesia]]'s president, because of his declaration of neutrality in the Cold War.{{sfn|Wilford|2024|p=91}} After Sukarno hosted the [[Bandung Conference]], promoting the [[Non-Aligned Movement]], the Eisenhower White House responded with NSC 5518 authorizing "all feasible covert means" to move Indonesia into the Western sphere.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=143}}

The U.S. had no clear policy on Indonesia. Eisenhower sent his special assistant for security operations, F. M. Dearborn Jr., to Jakarta. His report that there was high instability, and that the US lacked stable allies, reinforced the domino theory. Indonesia suffered from what he described as "subversion by democracy".{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=145}} The CIA decided to attempt another military coup in Indonesia, where the Indonesian military was trained by the US, had a strong professional relationship with the US military, had a pro-American officer corps that strongly supported their government, and a strong belief in civilian control of the military, instilled partly by its close association with the US military.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=146}}

On September 25, 1957, Eisenhower ordered the CIA to start a revolution in Indonesia with the goal of regime change. Three days later, ''Blitz'', a Soviet-controlled weekly in India,{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=vf9ZJx8WkjQC&q=blitz&pg=PA148 170]}} reported that the US was plotting to overthrow Sukarno. The story was picked up by the media in Indonesia. One of the first parts of the operation was an 11,500-ton US Navy [[USS Thomaston (LSD-28)|ship]] landing at [[Sumatra]], delivering weapons for as many as 8,000 potential revolutionaries.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=vf9ZJx8WkjQC&pg=PA148 148]}}

In support of the [[Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia]]-[[Permesta]] Movement, formed by dissident military commanders in Central Sumatera and North Sulawesi with the aim of overthrowing the Sukarno regime, a [[Douglas A-26 Invader|B-26]] piloted by CIA agent [[Allen Lawrence Pope]] attacked Indonesian military targets in April and May 1958.<ref>{{cite book | last=Roadnight | first=Andrew | title=United States Policy towards Indonesia in the Truman and Eisenhower Years | year=2002 | pages=162 | publisher=Palgrave Macmillan | location=New York | isbn=978-0-333-79315-2 }}</ref> The CIA described the airstrikes to the President as attacks by "dissident planes." Pope's B-26 was shot down over Ambon, Indonesia on May 18, 1958, and he bailed out. When he was captured, the Indonesian military found his personnel records, after-action reports, and his membership card for the officer's club at [[Clark Field]]. On March 9, [[John Foster Dulles|Foster Dulles]], the Secretary of State, and brother of [[Director of Central Intelligence|DCI]] [[Allen Dulles]] made a public statement calling for a revolt against communist despotism under Sukarno. Three days later, the CIA reported to the White House that the Indonesian Army's actions against the CIA-supported revolution were suppressing communism.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=153}}

After Indonesia, Eisenhower displayed mistrust of both the CIA and its director, Allen Dulles. Dulles too displayed mistrust of the CIA itself. Abbot Smith, a CIA analyst who later became chief of the Office of National Estimates, said, "We had constructed for ourselves a picture of the USSR, and whatever happened had to be made to fit into this picture. Intelligence estimators can hardly commit a more abominable sin." On December 16, Eisenhower received a report from his intelligence board of consultants that said the agency was "incapable of making objective appraisals of its own intelligence information as well as its own operations."{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=154}}

===Democratic Republic of the Congo===
{{Main|CIA activities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo}}
The [[Democratic Republic of the Congo|Congo]] became independent from [[Belgium]] in 1960.{{sfn|Reid|2023|p=4}} The United States feared that its new prime minister, [[Patrice Lumumba]], was susceptible to Soviet influence, so the CIA supported [[Mobutu Sese Seko|Joseph Mobutu]] in organizing [[Dissolution of the Lumumba Government#Mobutu's coup|a coup]] that deposed Lumumba on September 14, 1960.{{sfn|Reid|2023|pp=261, 303}} Lumumba was assassinated by his Congolese and Belgian enemies in 1961, with CIA acquiescence.{{sfn|Reid|2023|pp=385, 397–398}} The CIA continued to back the Mobutu regime throughout the Cold War, despite its corruption, mismanagement, and human rights abuses.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=163}}

===1960 U-2 incident===
{{Main|1960 U-2 incident}}
[[File:New Headquarters Building Atrium - Flickr - The Central Intelligence Agency.jpg|thumb|Suspended from the ceiling of the glass-enclosed atrium: three models of the [[Lockheed U-2|U-2]], [[A-12 Oxcart|Lockheed A-12]], and [[Lockheed D-21|D-21]] [[unmanned combat aerial vehicle|drone]]. These models are exact replicas at one-sixth scale of the real planes. All three had photographic capabilities. The U-2 was one of the first espionage planes developed by the CIA. The A-12 set unheralded flight records. The D-21 drone was one of the first crewless aircraft ever built. [[Lockheed Martin]] donated all three models to the CIA.]]

After the [[bomber gap]] came the [[missile gap]]. Eisenhower wanted to use the [[Lockheed U-2|U-2]] to disprove the Missile Gap, but he had banned U-2 overflights of the USSR after meeting Secretary [[Khrushchev]] at [[Camp David]]. Another reason the President objected to the use of the U-2 was that, in the nuclear age, the intelligence he needed most was on their intentions, without which, the US would face a paralysis of intelligence. He was particularly worried that U-2 flights could be seen as preparations for first-strike attacks. He had high hopes for an upcoming meeting with Khrushchev in Paris. Eisenhower finally gave in to CIA pressure to authorize a 16-day window for flights, which was extended an additional six days because of poor weather. On May 1, 1960, the [[Soviet Air Forces]] shot down a U-2 flying over Soviet territory. To Eisenhower, the ensuing coverup destroyed his perceived honesty and his hope of leaving a legacy of thawing relations with Khrushchev. Eisenhower later said that the U-2 coverup was the greatest regret of his presidency.<ref name=Ashes>{{cite book |last1=Weiner |first1=Tim |title=Legacy of ashes: The history of the CIA |date=2007 |publisher=Doubleday |location=New York |isbn=978-0-385-51445-3 |edition=1st |ref=Ashes |url=https://archive.org/details/legacyofasheshis00wein }}</ref>{{rp|160}}

===Dominican Republic===
In the [[Dominican Republic]], the authoritarian regime of Generalissimo [[Rafael Trujillo]] lasted more than three decades, and enjoyed considerable U.S support, as Trujillo was very anti-communist and opposed the new communist regime in Cuba led by Castro. Early on though, Trujillo acted more independently from the U.S, prioritizing Dominican interests over just doing the will of Washington, especially on a domestic aspect,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wiarda |first=Howard J. |title=Dictatorship and Development: Methods of Control in Trujillo's Dominican Republic |date=June 1, 1968 |language=English}}</ref> compared to other more submissive regimes, like Somoza in Nicaragua.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kinzer |first=Stephen |title=Blood of Brothers |date=1991-01-01 }}</ref> Then, the United States severed diplomatic relations with the nation in August 1960, after a [[Attempted assassination of Rómulo Betancourt|failed plot]] against Venezuelan President [[Rómulo Betancourt|Rόmulo Betancourt]] earlier that year was uncovered to be personally funded and orchestrated by the Trujillo regime's foreign agents. This proved to be a big liability for the U.S, undermining its diplomatic credibility and standing with other nations since it could expose the country's hypocrisy on their agenda of expanding and preserving democracy across the world. The CIA's Special Group armed Dominican dissidents to assassinate Trujillo, but President Kennedy paused the plan when he came into power, and resorted to negotiating with the regime. Kennedy allowed the distribution of four additional machine guns, and Trujillo was later assassinated in a conspiracy by army officers funded by the CIA on May 30, 1961.<ref>{{Cite web |title=CIA Inspector General's Report, "Trujillo Report" [Report on Assassination of Dominican Dictator Rafael Trujillo], Secret-Eyes Only, Undated [Circa Spring 1967], 64 pp. {{!}} National Security Archive |url=https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/32915-6-cia-inspector-generals-report-trujillo-report-report-assassination-dominican?utm_source=chatgpt.com |access-date=2025-05-14 |website=nsarchive.gwu.edu}}</ref> In the aftermath, Robert Kennedy wrote that the CIA had succeeded where it had failed many times in the past, but in the face of that success, it was caught flatfooted, having failed to plan what to do next.<ref name="Ashes" /> Because of this, the country plunged into chaos, as the remnants of the regime tried desperately to hold on to power, with Ramfis Trujillo, the son of the dictator, returning to the country from Paris to try and restore the old order. This, however, would eventually fail, as a [[Rebellion of the Pilots|military rebellion]] on November 19, 1961 foiled a planned coup attempt by the Trujillo brothers (codenamed ''Operaciόn Luz Verde''), and forced the family to flee the country to Spain, marking the end of the 31 year long regime and leaving [[Joaquín Balaguer]], a close friend and top politician of the old regime, as the sole man in power.

The United States, for its part, would keep a close eye on the D.R under the pretext of 'preventing another Cuba'. In 1963, [[Juan Bosch (politician)|Juan Bosch]], an intellectual and key opponent to the Trujillo regime, ascended to the presidency. Bosch wasn't exactly left-leaning, but he certainly wasn't in good terms with the U.S either. Bosch had little to no support in the military, still full of Trujillistas and conservative hardliners, since he wanted to put a check on its power and put it under civilian control, and the liberal 1963 constitution Bosch implemented was the last straw for the military and the Dominican oligarchy, as they immediately started plotting against Bosch. The CIA, at odds with president Kennedy and acting semi-independently, at the very least, knew about the situation and the upcoming [[1963 Dominican coup d'état|coup against Bosch]], and maybe even helped orchestrate it without Kennedy's direct approval.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Office of the Historian |url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v12/d356?utm_source=chatgpt.com}}</ref> Nevertheless, Bosch was overthrown in a military coup on September 25h, 1963, barely seven months into his presidency. Kennedy condemned the coup, and refused to recognize the new military triumvirate, but after he was [[Assassination of John F. Kennedy|assassinated]] in November, the new president, [[Lyndon B. Johnson]], recognized the new junta and allied itself with it.

On April 24, 1965, many elements of the military, particularly soldiers and young officers, launched a counter-coup against the military triumvirate, in what was known as the [[Dominican Civil War|April Revolution]], which would later turn into a wider civil war, which the junta, already increasingly unpopular, was losing quickly, much to the panic of the CIA and the White House. Generals still loyal to the triumvirate, called loyalists, quickly losing ground and on the verge of collapse, went to the U.S and asked for military assistance, and Lyndon B. Johnson, certain that the rebels, called the constitutionalists, were actually communists, sent 42,000 troops to invade the DR on April 28, under the pretext of protecting foreign lives, but actually intervening to keep their influence in the D.R present and prevent a revolutionary victory, which could undermine D.C's business and political interests. The CIA heavily facilitated the intervention with intelligence and arming pro-loyalist factions.<ref>{{Cite web |title=CIA |url=https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp67b00446r000500110032-0?utm_source=chatgpt.com}}</ref> The constitutionalists fought the U.S invasion fiercely, but by summer, the U.S had prevented the full victory of the constitutionalists, but they also failed to crush the rebellion outright, making the war a bloody stalemate, as a political settlement was reached, which ended in elections held the next year, in 1966, which Balaguer won, becoming president for the next 12 years and an important political figure in the country for the remainder of the century.

===Bay of Pigs===
{{Main|Bay of Pigs invasion}}
{{See also|CIA assassination attempts on Fidel Castro}}
{{See also|History of the Central Intelligence Agency#Cuba}}
[[File:Sam Giancana.jpg|thumb|[[Sam Giancana]] (pictured), [[Santo Trafficante Jr.|Santo Trafficante]], and others, who were recruited by the CIA to assassinate [[Fidel Castro]] in [[Cuba]]<ref>{{cite news |last=Snow |first=Anita |date=June 27, 2007 |title=CIA Plot to Kill Castro Detailed |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/27/AR2007062700190.html |newspaper=The Washington Post |location=Washington, DC |agency=AP |access-date=April 17, 2018 |archive-date=March 20, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220320193425/https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/27/AR2007062700190.html |url-status=live }}</ref>]]

The CIA welcomed [[Fidel Castro]] on his visit to [[Washington, D.C.]], and gave him a face-to-face briefing. The CIA hoped that Castro would bring about a friendly democratic government and planned to support his government with money and guns. By December 11, 1959, however, a memo reached the DCI's desk recommending Castro's "elimination." Dulles replaced the word "elimination" with "removal," and set the scheme into action. By mid-August 1960, [[Richard M. Bissell Jr.|Dick Bissell]] sought, with the full backing of the CIA, to hire the [[American Mafia|Mafia]] to assassinate Castro.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=161}}

The [[Bay of Pigs Invasion]] was a failed military invasion of [[Cuba]] undertaken by the CIA-sponsored paramilitary group [[Brigade 2506]] on April 17, 1961. A counter-revolutionary military, trained and funded by the CIA, Brigade 2506 fronted the armed wing of the [[Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front|Democratic Revolutionary Front]] (DRF) and intended to overthrow Castro's [[Politics of Cuba|increasingly communist government]]. Launched from [[Guatemala]], the invading force was defeated within three days by the [[Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces]], under Castro's direct command. US President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] was concerned at the direction Castro's government was taking, and in March 1960, Eisenhower allocated $13.1&nbsp;million to the CIA to plan his overthrow. The CIA proceeded to organize the operation with the aid of various Cuban counter-revolutionary forces, training Brigade 2506 in Guatemala. Over 1,400 paramilitaries set out for Cuba by boat on April 13 for a [[Amphibious warfare|marine invasion]]. Two days later on April 15, eight CIA-supplied [[Douglas A-26 Invader|B-26]] bombers attacked Cuban airfields. On the night of April 16, the land invasion began in the [[Bay of Pigs]], but by April 20, the invaders finally surrendered. The failed invasion strengthened the position of Castro's leadership as well as his ties with the USSR. This led eventually to the events of the [[Cuban Missile Crisis]] of 1962. The invasion was a major embarrassment for [[US foreign policy]].

The Taylor Board was commissioned to determine what went wrong in Cuba. The Board came to the same conclusion that the Jan '61 President's Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities had concluded, and many other reviews prior, and to come, that Covert Action had to be completely isolated from intelligence and analysis. The [[Central Intelligence Agency Office of Inspector General|Inspector General of the CIA]] investigated the Bay of Pigs. He concluded that there was a need to improve the organization and management of the CIA drastically. 
{{clear left}}

===Cuba: Terrorism and sabotage===
{{Main|Operation Mongoose}}
{{See also|Operation 40}}
After the failure of the attempted invasion at the Bay of Pigs, the CIA proposed [[Operation Mongoose]], a program of [[sabotage]] and [[Terrorism|terrorist attacks]] against civilian and military targets in Cuba, with the stated intent to bring down the Cuban administration and institute a new government.{{sfn|Jeffreys-Jones|2022|p=68}} It also sought to force the Cuban government to introduce intrusive civil measures and divert resources to protect its citizens from the attacks.<ref name=Bolender12>{{cite book |last1=Bolender |first1=Keith |title=Cuba Under Siege: American Policy, the Revolution, and its People |date=2012 |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]]|url=https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137275554 |location=New York |isbn=978-1-137-27554-7 |pages=x, 14, 18–20, 53–57, 63–64, ''[[List of Latin phrases (E)#et passim|et passim]]''|doi=10.1057/9781137275554}}</ref> It was authorized by [[John F. Kennedy|President Kennedy]] in November 1961.<ref name=Jorge00>{{cite journal |last1=Domínguez |first1=Jorge I. |title=The @#$%& Missile Crisis |journal=[[Diplomatic History (journal)|Diplomatic History]] |quote=On the afternoon of 16 October... Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy convened in his office a meeting on Operation Mongoose, the code name for a U.S. policy of sabotage and related covert operation aimed at Cuba... The Kennedy administration returned to its policy of sponsoring terrorism against Cuba as the confrontation with the Soviet Union lessened... Only once in these nearly thousand pages of documentation did a U.S. official raise something that resembled a faint moral objection to U.S.-government sponsored terrorism.|publisher=[[Wiley-Blackwell|Blackwell Publishers]]/[[Oxford University Press]] |location=Oxford/Malden |date=April 2000 |volume=24 |issue=2 |pages=305–316 |doi=10.1111/0145-2096.00214 |url=https://wcfia.harvard.edu/files/wcfia/files/jd_missile_crisis.pdf |access-date=September 6, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200907103502/https://wcfia.harvard.edu/files/wcfia/files/jd_missile_crisis.pdf |archive-date=September 7, 2020 |url-status=live |issn = 0145-2096}}</ref><ref name=Schou11>{{cite book |last1=Schoultz |first1=Lars |title=That infernal little Cuban republic: the United States and the Cuban Revolution |quote=What more could be done? How about a program of sabotage focused on blowing up 'such targets as refineries, power plants, micro wave stations, radio and TV installations, strategic highway bridges and railroad facilities, military and naval installations and equipment, certain industrial plants and sugar refineries.' The CIA proposed just that approach a month after the Bay of Pigs, and the State Department endorsed the proposal... In early November, six months after the Bay of Pigs, [[John F. Kennedy|{{abbr|JFK|John F. Kennedy}}]] authorized the CIA's 'Program of Covert Action', now dubbed Operation Mongoose, and named [[Edward Lansdale|Lansdale]] its chief of operations. A few days later, President Kennedy told a Seattle audience, 'We cannot, as a free nation, compete with our adversaries in tactics of terror, assassination, false promises, counterfeit mobs and crises.' Perhaps – but the Mongoose decision indicated that he was willing to try. |date=2009 |publisher=[[University of North Carolina Press]] |url=https://uncpress.org/book/9780807871898/that-infernal-little-cuban-republic/ |access-date=February 2, 2020 |location=Chapel Hill |isbn=9780807888605 |chapter=State Sponsored Terrorism |pages=170–211 |archive-date=August 15, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210815081724/https://uncpress.org/book/9780807871898/that-infernal-little-cuban-republic/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=NSArchive19>{{cite report |editor1-last=Prados |editor1-first=John |editor2-last=Jimenez-Bacardi |editor2-first=Arturo |date=October 3, 2019 |title=Kennedy and Cuba: Operation Mongoose |work=[[National Security Archive]] |url=https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cuba/2019-10-03/kennedy-cuba-operation-mongoose |location=[[Washington, D.C.]] |publisher=[[The George Washington University]] |access-date=April 3, 2020 |quote=The Kennedy administration had been quick to set up a Cuba Task Force—with strong representation from CIA's Directorate of Plans—and on August 31 that unit decided to adopt a public posture of ignoring Castro while attacking civilian targets inside Cuba: 'our covert activities would now be directed toward the destruction of targets important to the [Cuban] economy' (Document 4)...While acting through Cuban revolutionary groups with potential for real resistance to Castro, the task force 'will do all we can to identify and suggest targets whose destruction will have the maximum economic impact.' The memorandum showed no concern for international law or the unspoken nature of these operations as terrorist attacks.|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191102010542/https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cuba/2019-10-03/kennedy-cuba-operation-mongoose |archive-date=November 2, 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=FRUS63volX>{{cite report |last1=Lansdale |first1=Edward |author-link=Edward Lansdale |editor-last=Smith |editor-first=Louis J. |title=Program Review by the Chief of Operations, Operation Mongoose |date=January 18, 1962 |publisher=[[United States Government Printing Office]] |location=[[Washington, D.C.]] |url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v10/d291 |access-date=February 19, 2020 |work=[[Foreign Relations of the United States (book series)|Foreign Relations of the United States]] |series=1961–1963 |volume=X, Cuba |archive-date=October 12, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171012094731/https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v10/d291 |url-status=live }}</ref> The operation saw the CIA engage in an extensive campaign of terrorist attacks against civilians and economic targets, killing significant numbers of civilians, and carry out covert operations against the Cuban government.<ref name=Schou11/><ref name=Franklin16>{{cite book |last1=Franklin |first1=Jane |title=Cuba and the U.S. empire: a chronological history |date=2016 |publisher=[[New York University Press]] |url=https://nyupress.org/9781583676059/cuba-and-the-u-s-empire/ |access-date=February 2, 2020 |location=New York |isbn=9781583676059 |pages=45–63, 388–392, ''[[List of Latin phrases (E)#et passim|et passim]]'' |archive-date=October 19, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201019142815/https://nyupress.org/9781583676059/cuba-and-the-u-s-empire/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=Erlich16>{{cite book |last1=Erlich |first1=Reese |title=Dateline Havana: the real story of U.S. policy and the future of Cuba |quote=Officially, the United States favored only peaceful means to pressure Cuba. In reality, U.S. leaders also used violent, terrorist tactics... Operation Mongoose began in November 1961... U.S. operatives attacked civilian targets, including sugar refineries, saw mills, and molasses storage tanks. Some 400 CIA officers worked on the project in Washington and Miami... Operation Mongoose and various other terrorist operations caused property damage and injured and killed Cubans. But they failed to achieve their goal of regime change. |date=2008 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |url=https://www.routledge.com/Dateline-Havana-The-Real-Story-of-Us-Policy-and-the-Future-of-Cuba-1st/Erlich-Kinzer/p/book/9780981576978 |access-date=February 2, 2020 |location=Abingdon/New York |isbn=9781317261605 |pages=26–29 |archive-date=October 20, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201020185840/https://www.routledge.com/Dateline-Havana-The-Real-Story-of-Us-Policy-and-the-Future-of-Cuba-1st/Erlich-Kinzer/p/book/9780981576978 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=BrennerNSA>{{cite web |last1=Brenner |first1=Philip |title=Turning History on its Head |url=https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/brenner.htm |location=[[Washington, D.C.]] |quote=..in October 1962 the United States was waging a war against Cuba that involved several assassination attempts against the Cuban leader, terrorist acts against Cuban civilians, and sabotage of Cuban factories. |website=[[National Security Archive]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170824225125/http://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/brenner.htm |archive-date=August 24, 2017 |url-status=live |date=2002 |publisher=[[The George Washington University]] |access-date=January 2, 2020}}</ref>

The CIA established a base for the operation, with the cryptonym [[JMWAVE]], at a disused [[Naval Air Station Richmond|naval facility]] on the [[University of Miami]] campus. The operation was so extensive that it housed the largest number of CIA officers outside of Langley, eventually numbering some four hundred. It was a major employer in Florida, with several thousand agents in clandestine pay of the agency.<ref name=Stepick02>{{cite book |editor-last1=Suárez-Orozco |editor-first1=Marcelo M. |editor-last2=Páez |editor-first2=Mariela M. |last1=Stepick |first1=Alex |last2=Stepick |first2=Carol Dutton |title=Latinos: Remaking America |chapter=Power and Identity |quote=Through the 1960s, the private University of Miami had the largest Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) station in the world, outside of the organization's headquarters in Virginia. With perhaps as many as twelve thousand Cubans in Miami on its payroll at one point in the early 1960s, the CIA was one of the largest employers in the state of Florida. It supported what was described as the third largest navy in the world and over fifty front businesses: CIA boat shops, gun shops, travel agencies, detective agencies, and real estate agencies |date=2002 |publisher=[[University of California Press]], [[David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies|Harvard University Center for Latin American Studies]] |url=https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520258273/latinos |access-date=February 2, 2020 |location=Berkeley/London |isbn=978-0520258273 |pages=75–81 |archive-date=June 9, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200609053206/https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520258273/latinos |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=Bohning05>{{cite book |last1=Bohning |first1=Don |title=The Castro obsession: U.S. covert operations against Cuba, 1959-1965 |quote=By the end of 1962 the CIA station at an abandoned Navy air facility south of Miami had become the largest in the world outside its Langley, Virginia headquarters... Eventually some four hundred clandestine service officers toiled there... Additional CIA officers worked the Cuba account at Langley and elsewhere. |date=2005 |publisher=[[University of Nebraska Press|University of Nebraska Press/Potomac Books]] |url=https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/potomac/9781574886757/ |access-date=February 2, 2020 |location=[[Washington, D.C.]] |isbn=9781574886757 |pages=1, 84 |edition=1st |archive-date=October 25, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201025064302/https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/potomac/9781574886757/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The terrorist activities carried out by agents armed, organized and funded by the CIA were a further source of tension between the U.S. and Cuban governments. They were a major factor contributing to the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] decision to place missiles in Cuba, leading to the [[Cuban Missile Crisis]].<ref name=Miller02>{{cite book |last1=Miller |first1=Nicola |editor-last1=Carter |editor-first1=Dale |editor-last2=Clifton |editor-first2=Robin |chapter=The Real Gap in the Cuban Missile Crisis: The Post-Cold-War Historiography and Continued Omission of Cuba |title=War and Cold War in American foreign policy, 1942–62 |date=2002 |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |url=https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780333919408 |access-date=February 2, 2020 |location=Basingstoke |isbn=9781403913852 |pages=211–237 |doi=10.1057/9781403913852 |archive-date=August 29, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220829155529/https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781403913852 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=Brenner90>{{cite journal |last1=Brenner |first1=Philip |title=Cuba and the Missile Crisis |journal=Journal of Latin American Studies |date=March 1990 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |volume=22 |issue=1–2 |pages=115–142 |doi=10.1017/S0022216X00015133 |s2cid=145075193 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231965249 |quote=While Operation Mongoose was discontinued early in 1963, terrorist actions were reauthorised by the president. In October 1963, 13 major CIA actions against Cuba were approved for the next two months alone, including the sabotage of an electric power plant, a sugar mill and an oil refinery. Authorised CIA raids continued at least until 1965. |access-date=September 2, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200907122348/https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Philip_Brenner3/publication/231965249_Cuba_and_the_Missile_Crisis/links/55bbb84f08aed621de0dc269.pdf |url-status=live |archive-date=September 7, 2020}}</ref>

The attacks continued through 1965.<ref name=Brenner90/> Though the level of terrorist activity directed by the CIA lessened in the second half of the 1960s, in 1969 the CIA was directed to intensify its operations against Cuba.<ref name=Garthoff11>{{cite book |last1=Garthoff |first1=Raymond |author-link=Raymond L. Garthoff |title=Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis |quote=One of [[Richard Nixon|Nixon]]'s first acts in office in 1969 was to direct the CIA to intensify covert operations against Cuba |date=2011 |page=144 |publisher=[[The Brookings Institution]] |url=https://www.brookings.edu/book/reflections-on-the-cuban-missile-crisis/ |access-date=February 2, 2020 |location=[[Washington, D.C.]] |isbn=9780815717393 |archive-date=August 8, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200808063522/https://www.brookings.edu/book/reflections-on-the-cuban-missile-crisis/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Exile terrorists were still in the employ of the CIA in the mid-1970s, including [[Luis Posada Carriles]].<ref name=BBC05/><ref name=NYTPosada05/><ref name=NSArchive06/> He remained on the CIA's payroll until mid-1976,<ref name=BBC05/><ref name=NSArchive06/> and is widely believed to be responsible for the October 1976 [[Cubana de Aviación Flight 455|Cubana 455 flight bombing]], killing 73 people – the deadliest instance of airline terrorism in the western hemisphere prior to the [[September 11 attacks|attacks of September 2001]] in New York.<ref name=BBC05>{{cite news |title=Cuba 'plane bomber' was CIA agent |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4535661.stm |access-date=September 7, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060222025803/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4535661.stm |archive-date=February 22, 2006 |url-status=live |work=[[BBC News]]|quote=The documents, released by George Washington University's National Security Archive, show that Mr Posada, now in his 70s, was on the CIA payroll from the 1960s until mid-1976.|publisher=BBC|location=London|date=May 11, 2005}}</ref><ref name=NYTPosada05>{{cite news |last1=Weiner |first1=Tim |title=Cuban Exile Could Test U.S. Definition of Terrorist |date=May 9, 2005 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/09/us/cuban-exile-could-test-us-definition-of-terrorist.html |access-date=September 8, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150715044307/https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/09/us/cuban-exile-could-test-us-definition-of-terrorist.html |archive-date=July 15, 2015 |url-status=live |work=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref><ref name=NSArchive06>{{cite report |editor1-last=Kornbluh |editor1-first=Peter |editor2-last=White |editor2-first=Yvette |date=October 5, 2006 |title=Bombing of Cuban Jetliner 30 Years Later |work=[[National Security Archive]] |url=https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB202/index.htm |location=[[Washington, D.C.]] |publisher=[[The George Washington University]] |access-date=April 3, 2020 |quote=Among the documents posted is an annotated list of four volumes of still-secret records on Posada's career with the CIA, his acts of violence, and his suspected involvement in the bombing of Cubana flight 455 on October 6, 1976, which took the lives of all 73 people on board, many of them teenagers. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170824225444/https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB202/index.htm |archive-date=August 24, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Despite the damage done and civilians killed in the CIA's terrorist attacks, by the measure of its stated objective the project was a complete failure.<ref name=Franklin16/><ref name=Erlich16/>

===Brazil===
{{Main|1964 Brazilian coup d'état}}
The CIA and the United States government were involved in the [[1964 Brazilian coup d'état]]. The coup occurred from March 31 to April 1, which resulted in the [[Brazilian Armed Forces]] ousting President [[João Goulart]]. The United States saw Goulart as a left-wing threat in Latin America. Secret cables written by the US Ambassador to Brazil, [[Lincoln Gordon]], confirmed that the CIA was involved in covert action in Brazil. The CIA encouraged "pro-democracy street rallies" in Brazil, for instance, to create dissent against Goulart.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB118/bz02.pdf|title=Top Secret Cable from Rio de Janeiro|last=Gordon|first=Lincoln|date=March 27, 1964|website=NSA Archives|access-date=May 4, 2019|archive-date=March 22, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190322213045/https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB118/bz02.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Tibet===
The [[CIA Tibetan program]] consisted of political plots, [[propaganda]] distribution, [[paramilitary]] operations, and intelligence gathering based on U.S. commitments made to the [[Dalai Lama]] in 1951 and 1956.<ref name="officiehis">{{cite web |title=Status Report on Tibetan Operations |url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v30/d342 |publisher=[[Office of the Historian]] |date=January 26, 1968 |access-date=June 14, 2017 |archive-date=November 11, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111235323/https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v30/d342 |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Indochina and the Vietnam War (1954–1975)===
{{Main|CIA activities in Vietnam|Vietnam War|Phoenix Program|Operation Barrel Roll|CIA activities in Laos|Laotian Civil War}}
The OSS Patti mission arrived in [[Vietnam]] near the end of [[World War II]] and had significant interaction with the leaders of many Vietnamese factions, including [[Ho Chi Minh]].<ref name=Patti>{{cite book |title=Why Viet Nam?: Prelude to America's albatross |last=Patti |first=Archimedes L. A. |publisher=University of California Press |year=1980 |isbn=0-520-04156-9}}</ref>

During the period of U.S. combat involvement in the Vietnam War, there was considerable argument about progress among the Department of Defense under [[Robert McNamara]], the CIA, and, to some extent, the intelligence staff of [[Military Assistance Command, Vietnam|Military Assistance Command Vietnam]].<ref name=Adams1998>{{cite book |title=War of Numbers: An Intelligence Memoir |first=Sam |last=Adams |publisher=Steerforth Press |year=1994 |isbn=1-883642-23-X |url=https://archive.org/details/warofnumbersinte00adam }}</ref>

Sometime between 1959 and 1961, the CIA started Project Tiger, a program of dropping [[South Vietnam]] agents into [[North Vietnam]] to gather intelligence. These were failures; the Deputy Chief for Project Tiger, Captain Do Van Tien, admitted that he was an agent for [[Hanoi]].{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=213}}

In the face of the failure of Project Tiger, [[the Pentagon]] wanted CIA paramilitary forces to participate in their Op Plan 64A. This resulted in the CIA's foreign paramilitaries being put under the command of the DOD, a move seen as a slippery slope inside the CIA, a slide from covert action towards militarization.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=237}}

The antiwar movement rapidly expanded across the United States during the [[Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson|Johnson presidency]]. Johnson wanted CIA Director Richard Helms to substantiate Johnson's hunch that Moscow and Beijing were financing and influencing the American antiwar movement.{{sfn|Jeffreys-Jones|2022|p=82}} Thus, in the fall of 1967, the CIA launched a domestic surveillance program code-named [[Operation CHAOS|Chaos]] that would linger for a total of seven years. Police departments across the country cooperated in tandem with the agency, amassing a "computer index of 300,000 names of American people and organizations, and extensive files on 7,200 citizens." Helms hatched a "Special Operations Group" in which "[eleven] CIA officers grew long hair, learned the jargon of the New Left, and went off to infiltrate peace groups in the United States and Europe."{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=285}}

A CIA analyst's assessment of Vietnam was that the U.S. was "becoming progressively divorced from reality... [and] proceeding with far more courage than wisdom".{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=248}} From 1968 to 1972, the CIA's [[Phoenix Program]] involved the killing, without trial, of between twenty and forty thousand South Vietnamese civilians suspected to be members of what Americans called the "Infrastructure" – the non-military administrative and political components of the Communists' organizational structure. Thousands were tortured prior to being killed, by such methods as the repeated application of [[Electroconvulsive therapy|electroconvulsive]] machines, and the drilling of a dowel through the ear canal into the brain until the person died.{{sfnm|1a1=Brysk|1a2=Meade|1a3=Shafir|1y=2016|2a1=Gordon|2y=2014|3a1=Jeffreys-Jones|3y=2022|3p=85|4a1=Kuzmarov|4y=2009|5a1=McCoy|5y=2007|6a1=Schwab|6y=2014|7a1=Simpson|7y=2003|8a1=Valcourt|8y=1989}}

===Abuses of CIA authority, 1970s===
{{See also|History of the Central Intelligence Agency#Nixon}}
[[File:Nixon Oval Office meeting with H.R. Haldeman "Smoking Gun" Conversation June 23, 1972.wav|thumb|Nixon Oval Office meeting with H.R. Haldeman "Smoking Gun" Conversation, June 23, 1972 ([https://web.archive.org/web/20160729063732/https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/forresearchers/find/tapes/watergate/trial/exhibit_01.pdf full transcript])]]
[[File:President Ford meets with CIA Director-designate George Bush - NARA - 7141445.jpg|thumb|President [[Gerald Ford]] meeting with CIA Director–designate [[George H. W. Bush]], December 17, 1975]]

Conditions worsened in the mid-1970s, around the time of [[Watergate scandal|Watergate]]. A dominant feature of political life during that period were the attempts of Congress to assert oversight of the U.S. presidency and the executive branch of the U.S. government. Revelations about past CIA activities, such as assassinations and [[Human rights violations by the CIA#Assassination and targeted killing|attempted assassinations of foreign leaders]] (most notably Fidel Castro and Rafael Trujillo) and illegal domestic spying on U.S. citizens, provided the opportunities to increase Congressional oversight of U.S. intelligence operations.<ref name="'70s 49">{{cite book |title=How We Got Here: The '70s |last=Frum |first=David |author-link=David Frum |year=2000 |publisher=Basic Books |location=New York |isbn=0-465-04195-7 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/howwegothere70sd00frum/page/49 49–51] |url=https://archive.org/details/howwegothere70sd00frum/page/49 }}</ref>

In 1971, the NSA and CIA were engaged in domestic spying; the DOD was eavesdropping on [[Henry Kissinger]]. The White House and Camp David were wired for sound. Nixon and Kissinger were eavesdropping on their aides, as well as reporters. Famously, Nixon's [[White House Plumbers|Plumbers]] had in their number many former CIA officers, including [[Howard Hunt]], [[James W. McCord Jr.|Jim McCord]], and [[Eugenio Martinez]]. On July 7, 1971, [[John Ehrlichman]], Nixon's domestic policy chief, told DCI Cushman, Nixon's hatchet-man in the CIA, to let Cushman "know that [Hunt] was, in fact, doing some things for the President... you should consider he has pretty much ''carte blanche''".{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=319}}

Hastening the CIA's fall from grace was the burglary of the Watergate headquarters of the Democratic Party by former CIA officers, and President [[Richard Nixon]]'s subsequent attempt to use the CIA to impede the FBI's investigation of the burglary. In the famous "smoking gun" recording that led to President Nixon's resignation, Nixon ordered his chief of staff, [[H. R. Haldeman]], to tell the CIA that further investigation of Watergate would ''"open the whole can of worms about the Bay of Pigs"''.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.wyzant.com/resources/lessons/history/hpol/nixon/watergate/smoking-gun |website=[[Wyzant]] |title=Transcript of a recording of a meeting between President Richard Nixon and H. R. Haldeman in the oval office |date=June 23, 1972 |access-date=July 4, 2008 |archive-date=January 12, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120112173618/http://www.hpol.org/transcript.php?id=92 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="nyt1976">{{cite news |title=Nixon Explains His Taped Cryptic Remark About Helms |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1976/03/12/archives/nixon-explains-his-taped-cryptic-remark-about-helms.html |access-date=June 13, 2019 |date=March 12, 1976 |archive-date=August 9, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190809203342/https://www.nytimes.com/1976/03/12/archives/nixon-explains-his-taped-cryptic-remark-about-helms.html |url-status=live }}</ref> In this way Nixon and Haldeman ensured that the CIA's No. 1 and No. 2 ranking officials, [[Richard Helms]] and [[Vernon A. Walters|Vernon Walters]], communicated to FBI Director [[L. Patrick Gray]] that the FBI should not follow the money trail from the burglars to the [[Committee to Re-elect the President]], as it would uncover CIA informants in Mexico. The FBI initially agreed to this due to a long-standing agreement between the FBI and CIA not to uncover each other's sources of information, though within a couple of weeks the FBI resumed its investigation. Nonetheless, when the smoking gun tapes were made public, damage to the public's perception of CIA's top officials, and thus to the CIA as a whole, could not be avoided.<ref name=" Gray III">{{cite book |title=In Nixon's Web: A Year in the Crosshairs of Watergate |last1=Gray III |first1=L. Patrick |author-link1=L. Patrick Gray |first2=Ed |last2=Gray |year=2008 |publisher=Times Books/Henry Holt |isbn=978-0-8050-8256-2 |url=http://www.lpatrickgrayiii.com/ |access-date=June 19, 2010 |archive-date=July 20, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080720021307/http://lpatrickgrayiii.com/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

On November 13, 1972, after Nixon's landslide re-election, Nixon told Kissinger "[I intend] to ruin the Foreign Service. I mean ruin it – the old Foreign Service – and to build a new one." He had similar designs for the CIA and intended to replace Helms with [[James Schlesinger]].{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=322}} Nixon had promised that Helms could stay on until his 60th birthday, the mandatory retirement age. On February 2, Nixon broke that promise, carrying through with his intention to "remove the deadwood" from the CIA. "Get rid of the clowns" was his order to the incoming CI. Kissinger had been running the CIA since the beginning of Nixon's presidency, but Nixon impressed on Schlesinger that he must appear to Congress to be in charge, averting their suspicion of Kissinger's involvement.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=323}} Nixon also hoped that Schlesinger could push through broader changes in the intelligence community that he had been working towards for years, the creation of a Director of National Intelligence, and spinning off the covert action part of the CIA into a separate organ. Before Helms would leave office, he would destroy every tape he had secretly made of meetings in his office, and many of the papers on [[Project MKUltra]]. In Schlesinger's 17-week tenure, in his assertion to President Nixon that it was "imperative to cut back on 'the prominence of CIA operations' around the world," the director fired more than 1,500 employees.<ref>Weiner Tim 2007''A Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA'' New York Doubleday p. 339</ref> As Watergate threw the spotlight on the CIA, Schlesinger, who had been kept in the dark about the CIA's involvement, decided he needed to know what skeletons were in the closet

This became the [[Family Jewels (CIA)|Family Jewels]]. It included information linking the CIA to the assassination of foreign leaders, the illegal surveillance of some 7,000 U.S. citizens involved in the antiwar movement ([[Operation CHAOS]]), its [[Project MKUltra|experiments on U.S. and Canadian citizens without their knowledge]], secretly giving them [[Lysergic acid diethylamide|LSD]] (among other things) and observing the results.<ref name="'70s 49"/> This prompted Congress to create the [[Church Committee]] in the Senate, and the [[United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence|Pike Committee]] in the House. President [[Gerald Ford]] created the [[United States President's Commission on CIA activities within the United States|Rockefeller Commission]],<ref name="'70s 49"/> and issued an executive order prohibiting the assassination of foreign leaders. DCI Colby leaked the papers to the press, later he stated that he believed that providing Congress with this information was the correct thing to do, and ultimately in the CIA's interests.<ref name="TMNK">{{cite video |people=Carl Colby (director) |date=September 2011 |title=The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby |url=http://firstrunfeatures.com/themannobodyknew/ |medium=Motion picture |publisher=Act 4 Entertainment |location=New York City |access-date=September 18, 2011 |ref=September 15, 2011 |archive-date=April 9, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190409090233/http://firstrunfeatures.com/themannobodyknew/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In December 1974 the ''[[The New York Times|New York Times]]'' reported that the CIA had collected intelligence files on at least 10,000 Americans and engaged in dozens of other illegal activities beginning in the 1950s, including break-ins, wiretapping and mail inspections, in violation of its 1947 charter which prohibited it from taking action on American soil and against US citizens.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Perlstein |first=Rick |url=https://archive.org/details/invisiblebridgef0000perl |title=The invisible bridge : the fall of Nixon and the rise of Reagan |date=2014 |publisher=New York : Simon & Schuster |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-1-4767-8241-6 |pages=330}}</ref>

===Congressional investigations===
Acting Attorney General [[Laurence Silberman]] learned of the existence of the Family Jewels and issued a subpoena for them, prompting eight congressional investigations on the domestic spying activities of the CIA. [[Bill Colby]]'s short tenure as DCI would end with the [[Halloween Massacre (Ford administration)|Halloween Massacre]]. His replacement was [[George Herbert Walker Bush|George H. W. Bush]]. At the time, the DOD had control of 80% of the intelligence budget.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=347}} Communication and coordination between the CIA and the DOD would suffer greatly under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The CIA's budget for hiring clandestine officers had been squeezed out by the paramilitary operations in Southeast Asia, and the government's poor popularity further strained hiring. This left the agency bloated with middle management, and anemic in younger officers. With employee training taking five years, the agency's only hope would be on the trickle of new officers coming to fruition years in the future. The CIA would see another setback as communists would take Angola. [[William J. Casey]], a member of Ford's Intelligence Advisory Board, obtained Bush's approval to allow a team from outside the CIA to produce Soviet military estimates as a "Team B". The "B" team was composed of hawks. Their estimates were the highest that could be justified, and they painted a picture of a growing Soviet military when the Soviet military was indeed shrinking. Many of their reports found their way to the press.

===Chad===
{{Main|CIA activities in Chad}}
[[Chad|Chad's]] neighbor [[Libya]] was a major source of weaponry to communist rebel forces. The CIA seized the opportunity to arm and finance Chad's Prime Minister, [[Hissène Habré]], after he created a breakaway government in western [[Sudan]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/01/24/our-man-in-africa/ |title=Our Man in Africa |first=Michael |last=Bronner |date=December 11, 2014 |work=[[Foreign Policy]] |access-date=March 6, 2017 |archive-date=April 16, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170416001821/http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/01/24/our-man-in-africa/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Afghanistan===
{{See also|CIA activities in Afghanistan|Operation Cyclone}}
{{Further|Allegations of CIA assistance to Osama bin Laden}}
[[File:WTC smoking on 9-11.jpeg|thumb|Critics assert that funding the Afghan [[mujahideen]] in [[Operation Cyclone]] played a role in causing the [[September 11 attacks]].]]
In [[Afghanistan]], the CIA funneled several billion dollars' worth of weapons,<ref>{{cite book|author-link=Steve Coll|last=Coll|first=Steve|title=[[Ghost Wars|Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001]]|publisher=[[Penguin Group]]|year=2004|isbn=9781594200076|page=238}}</ref> including [[FIM-92 Stinger]] [[surface-to-air missiles]],<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jul/25/afghanistan-taliban-missile-strike-chinook |title=Afghanistan war logs: US covered up fatal Taliban missile strike on Chinook |first=Declan |last=Walsh |date=July 25, 2010 |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |access-date=December 14, 2016 |archive-date=December 5, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161205180111/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jul/25/afghanistan-taliban-missile-strike-chinook |url-status=live }}</ref> to [[Pakistan]]i [[Inter-Services Intelligence]] (ISI)—which funneled them to tens of thousands of [[Afghan mujahideen]] resistance fighters in order to fight the Soviets and the [[Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan]] during the [[Soviet–Afghan War|Soviet-Afghan War]].<ref>{{cite book|author-link=Steve Coll|last=Coll|first=Steve|title=[[Ghost Wars|Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001]]|publisher=[[Penguin Group]]|year=2004|isbn=9781594200076|pages=144–145}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |year=2009 |url=http://www.bt.com.bn/analysis/2008/12/17/story_of_us_cia_and_taliban |title=Story of US, CIA and Taliban |newspaper=[[The Brunei Times]] |access-date=December 16, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131205090713/http://www.bt.com.bn/analysis/2008/12/17/story_of_us_cia_and_taliban |archive-date=December 5, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=West |first=Julian |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/1341405/Pakistans-godfathers-of-the-Taliban-hold-the-key-to-hunt-for-bin-Laden.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220110/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/1341405/Pakistans-godfathers-of-the-Taliban-hold-the-key-to-hunt-for-bin-Laden.html |archive-date=January 10, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Pakistan's 'godfathers of the Taliban' hold the key to hunt for bin Laden |newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |date=September 23, 2001 |access-date=April 9, 2011 |location=London}}{{cbignore}}</ref> In total, the CIA sent approximately 2,300 Stingers to Afghanistan, creating a substantial [[black market]] for the weapons throughout the Middle East, Central Asia, and even parts of Africa that persisted well into the 1990s. Perhaps 100 Stingers were acquired by Iran. The CIA later operated a program to recover the Stingers through cash buybacks.<ref>{{cite book|author-link=Steve Coll|last=Coll|first=Steve|title=[[Ghost Wars|Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001]]|publisher=[[Penguin Group]]|year=2004|isbn=9781594200076|pages=233, 337–338}}</ref>

===Nicaragua===
{{See also|History of the Central Intelligence Agency#Iran/Contra}}
{{Further|Contras|Reagan Doctrine}}
Under President [[Jimmy Carter]], the CIA was conducting covertly funded support for the [[Contras]] in their war against the [[Sandinistas]]. In March 1981, Reagan told [[United States Congress|Congress]] that the CIA would protect [[El Salvador]] by preventing the Sandinistas from shipping arms to communist rebels in El Salvador. The CIA also began arming and training the [[Contras]] in [[Honduras]] in hopes that they could depose the Sandinistas in [[Nicaragua]].{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=380}} The CIA was involved in the [[Iran–Contra affair]] arms smuggling scandal. Repercussions from the scandal included the creation of the [[Intelligence Authorization Act]] in 1991. It defined covert operations as secret missions in geopolitical areas where the U.S. 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."  Critics have alleged that the CIA was also  [[CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking|involved in Contra cocaine trafficking]].<ref name="AP, 1986">{{cite news |title=US Concedes Contras Linked to Drugs, But Denies Leadership Involved |url=https://apnews.com/bb7394e75625a363b8c0bf9b0d6cf969 |access-date=May 22, 2017 |publisher=[[Associated Press]] |date=April 17, 1986 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170129190653/http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1986/US-Concedes-Contras-Linked-to-Drugs-But-Denies-Leadership-Involved/id-bb7394e75625a363b8c0bf9b0d6cf969 |archive-date=January 29, 2017}}</ref><ref name="Delaval, 2000">{{cite web |last1=Delaval |first1=Craig |title=Cocaine, Conspiracy Theories & the C.I.A. in Central America |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/special/cia.html |access-date=May 22, 2017 |publisher=[[PBS]] |website=[[Frontline (U.S. TV series)|Frontline]] |date=2000 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170427124212/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/special/cia.html |archive-date=April 27, 2017}}</ref>

===Lebanon===
The CIA's prime source in Lebanon was [[Bashir Gemayel]], a member of the [[Christian Maronite]] sect. The uprising against the Maronite minority blindsided the CIA. [[Israel]] [[1982 Lebanon War|invaded Lebanon]], and, along with the CIA, propped up Gemayel. This secured Gemayel's assurance that Americans would be protected in Lebanon. Thirteen days later he was assassinated. [[Imad Mughniyah]], a [[Hezbollah]] assassin, targeted Americans in retaliation for the Israeli invasion, the [[Sabra and Shatila massacre]], and the US Marines of the [[Multinational Force in Lebanon|Multi-National Force]] for their role in opposing the [[PLO]] in Lebanon. On April 18, 1983, a 2,000 lb car bomb [[1984 US embassy bombing in Beirut|exploded in the lobby of the American embassy]] in [[Beirut]], killing 63 people, including 17 Americans and 7 CIA officers, including [[Robert Ames (CIA official)|Robert Ames]], one of the CIA's Middle East experts. America's fortunes in Lebanon suffered more as America's poorly directed retaliation for the bombing was interpreted by many as support for the Maronite minority. On October 23, 1983, two bombs ([[1983 Beirut barracks bombing|1983 Beirut Bombing]]) were set off in Beirut, including a 10-ton bomb at a US military barracks that killed 242 people.

The embassy bombing killed Ken Haas, the CIA's Station Chief in [[Beirut]]. [[William Francis Buckley|Bill Buckley]] was sent in to replace him. Eighteen days after the US Marines left Lebanon, Buckley was kidnapped. On March 7, 1984, Jeremy Levin, [[CNN]]'s Bureau Chief in Beirut, was kidnapped. Twelve more Americans were captured in Beirut during the [[Reagan Administration]]. [[Manucher Ghorbanifar]], a former [[Savak]] agent, was an information seller, and was discredited over his record of misinformation. He reached out to the agency offering a [[back channel]] to Iran, suggesting a trade of missiles that would be lucrative to the intermediaries.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=397}}

===Pakistan===
{{Main|CIA activities in Pakistan}}
It has been alleged by such authors as [[Ahmed Rashid]] that the CIA and [[Inter-Services Intelligence|ISI]] have been waging a clandestine war.

===India–Pakistan geopolitical tensions===
On May 11, 1998, CIA Director George Tenet and his agency were taken aback by India's [[Pokhran-II|second nuclear test]]. The test prompted concerns from its nuclear-capable adversary, [[Pakistan]], and, "remade the balance of power in the world." The nuclear test was [[New Delhi]]'s calculated response to Pakistan previously testing new missiles in its expanding arsenal. This series of events subsequently revealed the CIA's "failure of espionage, a failure to read photographs, a failure to comprehend reports, a failure to think, and a failure to see."{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=468}}

===Poland, 1980–1989===
{{See also|Poland–United States relations}}
Unlike the [[Presidency of Jimmy Carter|Carter administration]], the [[Presidency of Ronald Reagan|Reagan administration]] supported the [[Solidarity (Polish trade union)|Solidarity]] movement in [[Poland]], and{{snd}}based on CIA intelligence{{snd}}waged a public relations campaign to deter what the Carter administration felt was "an imminent move by large Soviet military forces into Poland." Colonel Ryszard Kukliński, a senior officer on the Polish General Staff, was secretly sending reports to the CIA.<ref>{{Cite journal |first=Richard T. |last=Davies |title=The CIA and the Polish Crisis of 1980–1981 |journal=[[Journal of Cold War Studies]] |year=2004 |volume=6 |issue=3 |pages=120–123 |doi=10.1162/1520397041447346 |s2cid=57563775}}</ref>

The CIA transferred around $2&nbsp;million yearly in cash to Solidarity, which suggests that $10&nbsp;million total is a reasonable estimate for the five-year total. There were no direct links between the CIA and ''Solidarność'', and all money was channeled through third parties.<ref>{{cite book |first=Gregory F. |last=Domber |title=Supporting the Revolution: America, Democracy, and the End of the Cold War in Poland, 1981–1989 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Grtub61ScTgC&pg=PA199 |year=2008 |page=199 |isbn=9780549385165 |access-date=April 17, 2016 |archive-date=November 19, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161119162557/https://books.google.com/books?id=Grtub61ScTgC&pg=PA199 |url-status=live }}, revised as Domber 2014, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Hlk7BAAAQBAJ&q=%22although%20Casey%20initiated%22 p. 110] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727190058/https://books.google.com/books?id=Hlk7BAAAQBAJ&q=%22although%20Casey%20initiated%22#v=snippet |date=July 27, 2020 }}.</ref> CIA officers were barred from meeting Solidarity leaders, and the CIA's contacts with ''Solidarność'' activists were weaker than those of the [[AFL–CIO]], which raised 300 thousand dollars from its members, which were used to provide material and cash directly to Solidarity, with no control of Solidarity's use of it. The U.S. Congress authorized the National Endowment for Democracy to promote democracy, and the NED allocated $10&nbsp;million to Solidarity.<ref>{{cite web |last=Domber |first=Gregory F. |title=What Putin Misunderstands about American Power |url=http://uncpressblog.com/2014/08/28/gregory-f-domber-what-putin-misunderstands-about-american-power/ |date=August 28, 2014 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |website=University of California Press Blog |access-date=April 17, 2016 |archive-date=September 2, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140902065951/http://uncpressblog.com/2014/08/28/gregory-f-domber-what-putin-misunderstands-about-american-power/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

When the Polish government launched a crackdown in December 1981, Solidarity was not alerted. Explanations for this vary; some believe the CIA was caught off guard, while others suggest that American policymakers viewed an internal crackdown as preferable to an "inevitable Soviet intervention."<ref>{{cite web |last=MacEachin |first=Douglas J. |url=https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/us-intelligence-and-the-polish-crisis-1980-1981/index.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070613085810/https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/us-intelligence-and-the-polish-crisis-1980-1981/index.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 13, 2007 |title=US Intelligence and the Polish Crisis 1980–1981 |publisher=Central Intelligence Agency |date=June 28, 2008}}</ref>

CIA support for Solidarity included money, equipment and training, which was coordinated by Special Operations CIA division.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://carlbernstein.com/magazine_holy_alliance.php |title=The Holy Alliance |first=Carl |last=Bernstein |date=June 24, 2001 |magazine=Time |via=CarlBernstein.com |access-date=August 26, 2017 |archive-date=September 5, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170905064013/http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_holy_alliance.php |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Henry Hyde]], U.S. House intelligence committee member, said that the U.S. provided "supplies and technical assistance in terms of clandestine newspapers, broadcasting, propaganda, money, organizational help and advice".<ref>{{cite book |title=Branding Democracy: U.S. Regime Change in Post-Soviet Eastern Europe |first=Gerald |last=Sussman |location=New York |publisher=Peter Lang |year=2010 |page=128 |isbn=978-1-43310-530-2}}</ref> Michael Reisman of Yale Law School named operations in Poland as one of the CIA's [[Cold War]] covert operations.<ref>{{cite book |title=Looking to the Future: Essays on International Law in Honor of W. Michael Reisman |editor-first1=Mahnoush H. |editor-last1=Arsanjani |editor-first2=Jacob Katz |editor-last2=Cogan |editor-first3=Robert D. |editor-last3=Sloane |editor-first4=Siegfried |editor-last4=Wiessner |location=Leiden & Boston |publisher=[[Martinus Nijhoff Publishers]] |year=2011 |isbn=978-9-00417-361-3}}</ref>

Initial funds for covert actions by the CIA were $2&nbsp;million, but authorization was soon increased and by 1985 the CIA had successfully infiltrated Poland.<ref>{{cite book |title=Executive Secrets: Covert Action and the Presidency |first=William J. |last=Daugherty |location=Lexington |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-81312-334-9 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/executivesecrets00daug_0/page/201 201–203] |url=https://archive.org/details/executivesecrets00daug_0/page/201}}</ref> Rainer Thiel, in ''Nested Games of External Democracy Promotion: The United States and the Polish Liberalization 1980–1989'', mentions how covert operations by the CIA, and spy games, among others, allowed the U.S. to proceed with successful regime change.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Rainer |last=Thiel |title=Nested Games of External Democracy Promotion: The United States and the Polish Liberalization 1980–1989 |url=https://archive.org/details/nestedgamesexter00thie |url-access=limited |location=Wiesbaden |publisher=[[VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften]] |year=2010 |page=[https://archive.org/details/nestedgamesexter00thie/page/n266 273] |isbn=978-3-53117-769-4}}</ref>

===Operation Gladio===
{{Main|Operation Gladio}}
During the [[Cold War]], the CIA and [[NATO]] were involved in [[Operation Gladio]].<ref>{{Cite news|last=Pedrick|first=Clare|date=November 14, 1990|title=CIA Organized Secret Army in Western Europe|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/11/14/cia-organized-secret-army-in-western-europe/e0305101-97b9-4494-bc18-d89f42497d85/|access-date=January 14, 2021|issn=0190-8286|archive-date=March 24, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230324205950/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/11/14/cia-organized-secret-army-in-western-europe/e0305101-97b9-4494-bc18-d89f42497d85/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Agee|first1=Philip|title=Dirty Work: The CIA in Western Europe|last2=Wolf|first2=Louis|year=1978}}</ref> As part of Operation Gladio, the CIA supported the Italian government, and allegedly supported [[Neo-fascism|neo-fascist organizations]]<ref>{{Cite web|url = https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/mar/26/terrorism|title = Terrorists 'helped by CIA' to stop rise of left in Italy|website = [[TheGuardian.com]]|date = March 26, 2001|access-date = July 30, 2023|archive-date = May 29, 2015|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150529044528/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/mar/26/terrorism|url-status = live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url = https://www.repubblica.it/online/fatti/fontana/fontana/fontana.html|title = Strage di Piazza Fontana spunta un agente Usa|date = February 11, 1998|access-date = July 30, 2023|archive-date = March 18, 2023|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230318203209/https://www.repubblica.it/online/fatti/fontana/fontana/fontana.html|url-status = live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.isn.ethz.ch/php/documents/collection_gladio/report_ital_senate.pdf |title = Il Terrorismo, le stragi ed il contesto storico-politico |date = August 19, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060819211212/http://www.isn.ethz.ch/php/documents/collection_gladio/report_ital_senate.pdf |archive-date=August 19, 2006 |url-status=dead}}</ref> such as National Vanguard, New Order and the [[Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari]] during the [[Years of Lead (Italy)|Years of Lead in Italy]].

In [[Turkey]], Gladio was called [[Counter-Guerrilla]]. CIA efforts strengthened the [[Pan-Turkism|Pan-Turkist]] movement through the founding member of the Counter-Guerrilla; [[Alparslan Türkeş]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mehtap Söyler |url=https://archive.org/details/the-turkish-deep-state-state-consolidation-civil-military-relations-and-democracy/page/108/mode/2up |title=The Turkish Deep State State Consolidation, Civil Military Relations And Democracy |date=2015}}</ref> Other [[Far-right politics|far-right]] individuals employed by the CIA as part of Counter-Guerilla included [[Ruzi Nazar]], a former [[SS]] officer and Pan-Turkist.<ref name="variant">{{Cite journal |author=Fernandes, Desmond |author2=Ozden, Iskender |date=Spring 2001 |title=United States and NATO Inspired 'Psychological Warfare Operations' Against The 'Kurdish Communist Threat' in Turkey |url=http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue12/Fernandes.pdf |journal=[[Variant (magazine)|Variant]] |volume=12 |access-date=July 30, 2023 |archive-date=January 17, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230117113818/http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue12/Fernandes.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Operation Desert Storm===
{{Main|Gulf War}}
During the [[Iran–Iraq War]], the CIA had backed both sides. The CIA had maintained a network of spies in Iran, but in 1989 a CIA mistake compromised every agent they had in there, and the CIA had no agents in Iraq. In the weeks before the [[Iraqi invasion of Kuwait]], the CIA downplayed the military buildup. During the war, CIA estimates of Iraqi abilities and intentions flip-flopped and were rarely accurate. In one particular case, the DOD had asked the CIA to identify military targets to bomb. One target the CIA identified was an underground shelter. The CIA did not know that it was a civilian bomb shelter. In a rare instance, the CIA correctly determined that the coalition forces efforts were coming up short in their efforts to destroy SCUD missiles. Congress took away the CIA's role in interpreting spy-satellite photos, putting the CIA's satellite intelligence operations under the auspices of the military. The CIA created its office of military affairs, which operated as "second-echelon support for the Pentagon. .. answering ... questions from military men [like] 'how wide is this road?{{'"}}{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=428}}

===Fall of the Soviet Union===
{{See also|History of the Central Intelligence Agency#Fall of the USSR}}
[[Mikhail Gorbachev]]'s announcement of the unilateral reduction of 500,000 Soviet troops took the CIA by surprise. Moreover, Doug MacEachin, the CIA's Chief of Soviet analysis, said that even if the CIA had told the President, the NSC, and Congress about the cuts beforehand, it would have been ignored. "We never would have been able to publish it."{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=429}} All the CIA numbers on the Soviet Union's economy were wrong. Too often the CIA relied on inexperienced people supposedly deemed experts. Bob Gates had preceded Doug MacEachin as Chief of Soviet analysis, and he had never visited the Soviet Union. Few officers, even those stationed in the country, spoke the language of the people on whom they spied. And the CIA could not send agents to respond to developing situations. The CIA analysis of Russia during the Cold War was either driven by ideology, or by politics. [[William J. Crowe]], the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted that the CIA "talked about the Soviet Union as if they weren't reading the newspapers, much less developed clandestine intelligence."{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=430}}

On January 25, 1993, [[Mir Qazi]] [[1993 shootings at CIA Headquarters|opened fire at the CIA headquarters]] in Langley, Virginia, killing two officers and wounding three others.{{sfn|Jeffreys-Jones|2022|pp=142–143}} On February 26, Al-Qaeda terrorists led by [[Ramzi Yousef]] [[1993 World Trade Center bombing|bombed the parking garage]] below the North Tower of the [[World Trade Center (1973-2001)|World Trade Center]] in [[New York City]], killing six people and injuring 1,402 others.

During the [[Bosnian War]], the CIA ignored signs within and without{{Clarify|date=June 2021}} of the [[Srebrenica massacre]]. On July 13, 1995, when the press report about the massacre came out, the CIA received pictures from a spy satellite of prisoners guarded by men with guns in Srebrenica.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA|last=Weiner|first=Tim|publisher=Anchor Books|year=2008|location=New York |pages=527}}</ref> The CIA had no agents on the ground to verify the report. Two weeks after news reports of the slaughter, the CIA sent a U-2 to photograph it. A week later the CIA completed its report on the matter. The final report came to the Oval Office on August 4, 1995. In short, it took three weeks for the agency to confirm that one of the largest mass murders in Europe since the Second World War had occurred.<ref name=":1" /> Another CIA mistake which occurred in the Balkans during the Clinton presidency was the NATO bombing of Serbia. To force [[Slobodan Milošević]] to withdraw his troops from Kosovo, the CIA had been invited to provide military targets for bombings, wherein the agency's analysts used tourist maps to determine the location.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA|last=Weiner|first=Tim|publisher=Anchor Books|year=2008|location=New York |pages=546}}</ref> However, the agency incorrectly provided the coordinates of the Chinese Embassy as a target resulting in its bombing. The CIA had misread the target as Slobodan Milosevic's military depot.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA|last=Weiner|first=Tim|publisher=Anchor Books|year=2008|location=New York |pages=547}}</ref>

In [[Guatemala]], the CIA produced the Murphy Memo, based on audio recordings made by [[covert listening device]]s planted by Guatemalan intelligence in the bedroom of Ambassador [[Marilyn McAfee]]. In the recording, Ambassador McAfee verbally entreated "Murphy." The CIA circulated a memo in the highest Washington circles accusing Ambassador McAfee of having an extramarital lesbian affair with her secretary, Carol Murphy. There was no affair. Ambassador McAfee was calling to Murphy, her [[poodle]].{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=459}}

[[Harold James Nicholson]] would burn{{Clarify|date=June 2021}} several serving officers and three years of trainees before he was caught spying for Russia. In 1997 the House would pen another report, which said that CIA officers know little about the language or politics of the people they spy on; the conclusion was that the CIA lacked the "depth, breadth, and expertise to monitor political, military, and economic developments worldwide."{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=465}} Russ Travers said in the CIA in-house journal that in five years "intelligence failure is inevitable".{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=466}} In 1997 the CIA's new director [[George Tenet]] would promise a new working agency by 2002. The CIA's surprise at India's detonation of an atom bomb was a failure at almost every level. After the [[1998 United States embassy bombings|1998 embassy bombings]] by [[Al Qaeda]], the CIA offered two targets to be [[Operation Infinite Reach|hit in retaliation]]. One of them was the [[Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory]], where traces of chemical weapon precursors had been detected. In the aftermath, it was concluded that "the decision to target al Shifa continues a tradition of operating on inadequate intelligence about Sudan." It triggered the CIA to make "substantial and sweeping changes" to prevent "a catastrophic systemic intelligence failure."{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=470}}

====Aldrich Ames====
{{See also|Aldrich Ames}}
Between 1985 and 1986, the CIA lost every spy it had in Eastern Europe. The details of the investigation into the cause were obscured from the new Director, and the investigation had little success and has been widely criticized. On February 21, 1994, FBI agents pulled [[Aldrich Ames]] out of his Jaguar.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=448}} In the investigation that ensued, the CIA [[1995 CIA disinformation controversy|discovered]] that many of the sources for its most important analyses of the USSR were based on Soviet disinformation fed to the CIA by controlled agents. On top of that, it was discovered that, in some cases, the CIA suspected at the time that the sources were compromised, but the information was sent up the chain as genuine.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=450}}<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/ames/ames.htm |website=Federal Bureau of Investigation |title=FBI History: Famous Cases&nbsp;– Aldrich Hazen Ames |access-date=July 4, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080611072859/http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/ames/ames.htm |archive-date=June 11, 2008}}</ref>

===Osama bin Laden===
Agency files show that it is believed [[Osama bin Laden]] was funding the Afghan rebels against the USSR in the 1980s.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=460}} In 1991, bin Laden returned to his native [[Saudi Arabia]] protesting the presence of troops, and [[Operation Desert Storm]]. He was expelled from the country. In 1996, the CIA created a team to hunt bin Laden. They were trading information with the Sudanese until, on the word of a source that would later be found to be a fabricator, the CIA closed its Sudan station later that year. In 1998, bin Laden would declare war on America, and, on August 7, [[1998 United States embassy bombings|strike in Tanzania and Nairobi]]. On October 12, 2000, Al Qaeda [[USS Cole bombing|bombed the USS ''Cole'']]. In the first days of George W. Bush's presidency, Al Qaeda threats were ubiquitous in daily presidential CIA briefings, but it may have become a case of false alarm. The agency's predictions were dire but carried little weight, and the focus of the president and his defense staff were elsewhere. The CIA arranged the arrests of suspected Al Qaeda members through cooperation with foreign agencies, but the CIA could not definitively say what effect these arrests have had, and it could not gain hard intelligence from those captured. The President had asked the CIA if Al Qaeda could plan attacks in the US. On August 6, Bush received a daily briefing with the headline, not based on current, solid intelligence, "Al Qaeda determined to strike inside the US." The US had been hunting bin Laden since 1996 and had had several opportunities, but neither Clinton, nor Bush had wanted to risk taking an active role in a murky assassination plot, and the perfect opportunity had never materialized for a DCI that would have given him the reassurances he needed to take the plunge. That day, [[Richard A. Clarke]] sent [[National Security Advisor (United States)|National Security Advisor]] [[Condoleezza Rice]] warning of the risks, and decrying the inaction of the CIA.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=480}}

====Al-Qaeda and the Global War on Terrorism====
{{Further|CIA transnational anti-terrorism activities|Human rights violations by the CIA|Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture}}
[[File:A bounty leaflect prepared by the USA for use in Afghanistan (front) -a.jpg|thumb|The CIA prepared a series of leaflets announcing bounties for those who turned in or denounced individuals suspected of association with the [[Taliban]] or [[Al-Qaeda]].]]In January 1996, the CIA created an experimental "virtual station," the [[Bin Laden Issue Station]], under the Counterterrorist Center, to track bin Laden's developing activities. Al-Fadl, who defected to the CIA in spring 1996, began to provide the Station with a new image of the Al Qaeda leader: he was not only a terrorist financier but a terrorist organizer as well. FBI Special Agent Dan Coleman (who together with his partner Jack Cloonan had been "seconded" to the bin Laden Station) called him Qaeda's "[[Rosetta Stone]]".<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Mayer |first=Jane |title=Junior: The clandestine life of America's top Al Qaeda source |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |date=September 11, 2006 |url=http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/09/11/060911fa_fact?currentPage=all |access-date=February 28, 2014 |archive-date=March 4, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140304095952/http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/09/11/060911fa_fact?currentPage=all |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1999, CIA chief George Tenet launched a plan to deal with al-Qaeda. The Counterterrorist Center, its new chief, [[Cofer Black]], and the center's [[Bin Laden Issue Station|bin Laden unit]] were the plan's developers and executors. Once it was prepared, Tenet assigned CIA intelligence chief [[Charles E. Allen]] to set up a "Qaeda cell" to oversee its tactical execution.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Tenet |first1=George |author-link1=George Tenet |last2=Harlow |first2=Bill |author-link2=Bill Harlow |title=At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA |year=2007 |publisher=HarperCollins |location=New York |isbn=978-0-06-114778-4 |pages=119–120 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F2nSTwbFAh0C&pg=PA119 |oclc=71163669 |access-date=September 30, 2020 |archive-date=April 14, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414103424/https://books.google.com/books?id=F2nSTwbFAh0C&pg=PA119 |url-status=live }}</ref> In 2000, the CIA and [[United States Air Force|USAF]] jointly ran a series of flights over Afghanistan with a small remote-controlled reconnaissance drone, the [[MQ-1 Predator|Predator]]; they obtained probable photos of bin Laden. Cofer Black and others became advocates of arming the Predator with missiles to try to assassinate bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders.

====September 11 attacks and its aftermath====
[[File:Cia-mi17.jpg|thumb|right|US special forces helping Northern Alliance troops away from a CIA-operated MI-17 Hip helicopter at [[Bagram Airfield|Bagram Airbase]], 2002]]
On [[September 11 attacks|September 11, 2001]], [[Hijackers in the September 11 attacks|19 Al-Qaeda members]] [[Aircraft hijacking|hijacked]] four passenger jets within the [[Northeastern United States]] in a series of coordinated terrorist attacks. Two planes crashed into the Twin Towers of the [[World Trade Center (1973-2001)|World Trade Center]] in [[New York City]], the third into [[the Pentagon]] in [[Arlington County, Virginia]], and the fourth inadvertently into a field near [[Shanksville, Pennsylvania]]. The attacks cost the [[Casualties of the September 11 attacks|lives of 2,996 people (including the 19 hijackers)]], caused the [[Collapse of the World Trade Center|destruction of the Twin Towers]], and damaged the western side of the Pentagon. Soon after 9/11, ''The New York Times'' released a story stating that the CIA's New York field office was destroyed in the wake of the attacks. According to unnamed CIA sources, while [[first responder]]s, military personnel and [[Volunteering|volunteers]] were conducting rescue efforts at the [[World Trade Center site]], a special CIA team was searching the rubble for both digital and paper copies of classified documents. This was done according to well-rehearsed document recovery procedures put in place after the Iranian takeover of the United States Embassy in Tehran in 1979.

While the CIA insists that those who conducted the attacks on 9/11 were not aware that the agency was operating at 7 World Trade Center under the guise of another (unidentified) federal agency, this center was the headquarters for many notable criminal terrorism investigations. Though the New York field offices' main responsibilities were to monitor and recruit foreign officials stationed at the United Nations, the field office also handled the investigations of the August 1998 bombings of United States Embassies in East Africa and the October 2000 bombing of the USS ''Cole''.<ref name="Risen">{{cite news |last=Risen |first=James |title=A Nation Challenged: The Intelligence Agency; Secret C.I.A. Site in New York Was Destroyed on Sept. 11 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/04/us/nation-challenged-intelligence-agency-secret-cia-site-new-york-was-destroyed.html |access-date=December 3, 2013 |newspaper=The New York Times |date=November 4, 2001 |archive-date=December 20, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131220165525/http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/04/us/nation-challenged-intelligence-agency-secret-cia-site-new-york-was-destroyed.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Despite the fact that the 9/11 attacks may have damaged the CIA's New York branch, and they had to loan office space from the US Mission to the United Nations and other federal agencies, there was an upside for the CIA.<ref name=" Risen"/> In the months immediately following 9/11, there was a huge increase in the number of applications for CIA positions. According to CIA representatives that spoke with ''The New York Times'', pre-9/11 the agency received approximately 500 to 600 applications a week, in the months following 9/11 the agency received that number daily.<ref>{{cite news |last=Schmitt |first=Eric |title=A Nation Challenged: The Intelligence Agencies; Job Seekers Flood Spy Agencies |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/22/us/a-nation-challenged-the-intelligence-agencies-job-seekers-flood-spy-agencies.html |access-date=December 3, 2013 |newspaper=The New York Times |date=October 22, 2001 |archive-date=December 20, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131220165516/http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/22/us/a-nation-challenged-the-intelligence-agencies-job-seekers-flood-spy-agencies.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

The intelligence community as a whole, and especially the CIA, were involved in presidential planning immediately after the 9/11 attacks. In his address to the nation at 8:30pm on September 11, 2001, George W. Bush mentioned the intelligence community: "The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts, I've directed the full resource of our ''intelligence'' and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and bring them to justice."<ref>{{cite web |last=Bush |first=George W. |title=President George W. Bush's Address To The Nation on September 11, 2001 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta8UBqsvwyE |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130913073027/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta8UBqsvwyE&gl=US&hl=en |archive-date=September 13, 2013 |url-status=dead|website=YouTube |access-date=December 3, 2013}}</ref>

The involvement of the CIA in the newly coined "War on Terror" was further increased on September 15, 2001. During a meeting at Camp David George W. Bush agreed to adopt a plan proposed by CIA director George Tenet. This plan consisted of conducting a covert war in which CIA paramilitary officers would cooperate with anti-Taliban guerrillas inside Afghanistan. They would later be joined by small special operations forces teams which would call in precision airstrikes on Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters. This plan was codified on September 16, 2001, with Bush's signature of an official Memorandum of Notification that allowed the plan to proceed.<ref name="Public Broadcasting Service">{{cite web |title=Fighting on Two Fronts: A Chronology |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/campaign/etc/cron.html |website=PBS Frontline |access-date=December 3, 2013 |archive-date=July 25, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180725033209/https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/campaign/etc/cron.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[File:Defense.gov News Photo 070208-D-7203T-015.jpg|thumb|[[United States Secretary of Defense|US Secretary of Defense]] and former [[Director of Central Intelligence]] [[Robert Gates]] meeting with Russian Minister of Defense and ex-KGB officer [[Sergei Ivanov]], 2007]]
On November 25–27, 2001, Taliban prisoners revolted at the Qala Jangi prison west of Mazar-e-Sharif. Though several days of struggle occurred between the Taliban prisoners and the Northern Alliance members present, the prisoners gained the upper hand and obtained North Alliance weapons. At some point during this period Johnny "Mike" Spann, a CIA officer sent to question the prisoners, was beaten to death. He became the first American to die in combat in the war in Afghanistan.<ref name="Public Broadcasting Service"/>

After 9/11, the CIA came under criticism for not having done enough to prevent the attacks. Tenet rejected the criticism, citing the agency's planning efforts especially over the preceding two years. He also considered that the CIA's efforts had put the agency in a position to respond rapidly and effectively to the attacks, both in the "Afghan sanctuary" and in "ninety-two countries around the world".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Tenet |first1=George |last2=Harlow |first2=Bill |title=At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA |year=2007 |publisher=HarperCollins |location=New York |isbn=978-0-06-114778-4 |pages=121–122 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F2nSTwbFAh0C&q=%22Afghan%20sanctuary%22&pg=PA121 |oclc=71163669 |access-date=September 30, 2020 |archive-date=July 27, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727190146/https://books.google.com/books?id=F2nSTwbFAh0C&pg=PA121&q=%22Afghan%20sanctuary%22 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F2nSTwbFAh0C&pg=PA177|title=At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA|first1=George|last1=Tenet|first2=Bill|last2=Harlow|date=April 30, 2007|publisher=Harper Collins|via=Google Books|isbn=9780061147784|access-date=June 27, 2015|archive-date=September 6, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150906111609/https://books.google.com/books?id=F2nSTwbFAh0C&pg=PA177|url-status=live}}</ref> The new strategy was called the "Worldwide Attack Matrix".<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna10091295|title=Foreign network at front of CIA's terror fight|newspaper=NBC News|date=n.d.|accessdate=August 5, 2024}}</ref>

[[Anwar al-Awlaki]], a [[Yemeni Americans|Yemeni American]] U.S. citizen and al-Qaeda member, was killed on September 30, 2011, by a CIA drone strike in Yemen.{{sfn|Jeffreys-Jones|2022|pp=189–190}}{{sfn|Wilford|2024|p=296}} Al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son, a noncombatant and U.S. citizen, was also killed in a separate strike.{{sfn|Wilford|2024|p=296}} Although approved by the [[United States Department of Justice|Department of Justice]], the strikes sparked discussion on the legality of killing American citizens without trial.{{sfn|Jeffreys-Jones|2022|pp=189–190}}

===Failures in intelligence analysis===
A major criticism is a failure to forestall the [[September 11 attacks]]. The [[9/11 Commission Report]] identified failures in the IC as a whole. One problem, for example, was the FBI failing to "connect the dots" by sharing information among its decentralized field offices.

The report concluded that former DCI [[George Tenet]] failed to adequately prepare the agency to deal with the danger posed by [[al-Qaeda]] prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Jones |first1=Milo L. |last2=Silberzahn |first2=Philippe |year=2013 |title=Constructing Cassandra, Reframing Intelligence Failure at the CIA, 1947–2001 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=978-0-80479-336-0 |pages=198–202 |name-list-style=amp}}</ref> The report was finished in June 2005 and was partially released to the public in an agreement with Congress, over the objections of current DCI General [[Michael Hayden (general)|Michael Hayden]]. Hayden said its publication would "consume time and attention revisiting ground that is already well plowed."<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/washington/21cnd-cia.html |title=Tenet's C.I.A. Unprepared for Qaeda Threat, Report Says |newspaper=The New York Times |first1=David |last1=Stout |first2=Mark |last2=Mazzetti |date=August 21, 2007 |access-date=July 4, 2008 |archive-date=April 16, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090416015319/http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/washington/21cnd-cia.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Tenet disagreed with the report's conclusions, citing his planning efforts vis-à-vis al-Qaeda, particularly from 1999.<ref name="BBC2007-08022">{{Cite web |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6957839.stm |title=CIA criticises ex-chief over 9/11 |website=BBC News online |date=August 22, 2007 |access-date=December 31, 2009 |archive-date=January 12, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090112023455/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6957839.stm |url-status=live }}</ref> Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence, [[Carl W. Ford Jr.]] remarked, "As long as we rate intelligence more for its volume than its quality, we will continue to turn out the $40 billion pile of crap we have become famous for." He further stated, "[The CIA is] broken. It's so broken that nobody wants to believe it."<ref name=":0">Tim Winer. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. New York: Doubleday, 2007.</ref>

===Yugoslav wars===
{{See also|Breakup of Yugoslavia}}
In 1989; Yugoslavia officially dissolved into six republics, with borders drawn along ethnic and historical lines: [[Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina|Bosnia and Herzegovina]], [[Socialist Republic of Croatia|Croatia]], [[Socialist Republic of Macedonia|Macedonia]], [[Socialist Republic of Montenegro|Montenegro]], [[Socialist Republic of Serbia|Serbia]], and [[Socialist Republic of Slovenia|Slovenia]]. This quickly dissolved into ethnic tensions between [[Serbs]] and other [[Balkan]] ethnicities. In 1991, the CIA predicted that tension in the region would evolve into a full blown Civil war.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Yugoslavia: Military Dynamics of a Potential Civil War|url=https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/1991-03-01.pdf|date=March 1991 |website=cia.gov}}</ref> In 1992, the U.S. embargoed the trafficking of weapons into both Bosnia and Serbia in order to not prolong the war and the destruction of impacted communities. In May 1994, the CIA reported that the embargo had been ignored by countries such as Malaysia and Iran who moved weapons into Bosnia.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Lifting the Arms Embargo: Impact on the War in Bosnia |url=https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/1994-05-13.pdf |website=cia.gov }}</ref>

===Iraq War===
{{Main|CIA activities in Iraq}}
{{Further|Plame affair}}
Seventy-two days after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush told Secretary of Defense [[Donald Rumsfeld|Rumsfeld]] to update the US [[Military operation plan|plan]] for an invasion of [[Iraq]], but not to tell anyone. Rumsfeld asked Bush if he could bring DCI Tenet into the loop, to which Bush agreed.<ref name="Attack, Bob Woodward 2004">{{cite book |last=Woodward |first=Bob |title=Plan of Attack |url=https://archive.org/details/planofattackdefi00bobw |url-access=registration |date=2004 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=New York |isbn=074325547X |page=[https://archive.org/details/planofattackdefi00bobw/page/467 467]}}</ref>

The CIA had put eight of their best officers in Kurdish territory in Northern Iraq. By December 2002, the CIA had close to a dozen functional networks in Iraq<ref name="Attack, Bob Woodward 2004" />{{rp|242}} and would penetrate Iraq's [[Iraqi Special Security Organization|SSO]], tap the encrypted communications of the Deputy Prime Minister, and recruit the bodyguard of Hussein's son{{which|date=November 2019}} as an agent. As time passed, the CIA would become more frantic about the possibility of their networks being compromised. To the CIA, the [[2003 invasion of Iraq|invasion]] had to occur before the end of February 2003 if their sources inside Hussein's government were to survive. The rollup would happen as predicted; 37 CIA sources recognized by their Thuraya satellite telephones provided for them by the CIA.<ref name="Attack, Bob Woodward 2004" />{{rp|337}}

[[File:CIA Michael Morell.jpg|thumb|Former CIA deputy director [[Michael Morell]] apologized to Colin Powell for the CIA's erroneous assessments of [[Iraq and weapons of mass destruction|Iraq's WMD programs]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.cbsnews.com/news/michael-morell-apologizes-colin-powell-about-cia-pre-iraq-war-wmd-evidence/ |title=Morell 'wanted to apologize' to Powell about WMD evidence |website=CBS News |date=May 11, 2015 |access-date=December 18, 2016 |archive-date=November 30, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161130232647/http://www.cbsnews.com/news/michael-morell-apologizes-colin-powell-about-cia-pre-iraq-war-wmd-evidence/ |url-status=live }}</ref>]]
The case [[Colin Powell]] presented before the [[United Nations]] (purportedly proving an Iraqi WMD program) was inaccurate. DDCI [[John E. McLaughlin]] was part of a long discussion in the CIA about equivocation. McLaughlin, who would make, among others, the "slam dunk" presentation to the President, "felt that they had to dare to be wrong to be clearer in their judgments".<ref name="Attack, Bob Woodward 2004" />{{rp|197}} The Al Qaeda connection, for instance, was from a single source, extracted through torture, and was later denied. The sole source for the [[allegations of Iraqi mobile weapons laboratories]], code-named [[Curveball (informant)|Curveball]], was a known liar.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=491}} A postmortem of the intelligence failures in the lead up to Iraq led by former DDCI Richard Kerr would conclude that the CIA had been a casualty of the Cold War, wiped out in a way "analogous to the effect of the meteor strikes on the dinosaurs."{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=496}}

[[File:US Senate Report on CIA Detention Interrogation Program.pdf|thumb|The [[Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture]] that details the use of torture during CIA detention and interrogation]]
The opening days of the invasion of Iraq would see successes and defeats for the CIA. With its Iraq networks compromised, and its strategic and tactical information shallow, and often wrong, the intelligence side of the invasion itself would be a black eye for the agency. The CIA would see some success with its "Scorpion" paramilitary teams composed of CIA [[Special Activities Division]] paramilitary officers, along with friendly Iraqi [[Partisan (military)|partisans]]. CIA SAD officers would also help the US [[10th Special Forces Group (United States)|10th Special Forces]].<ref name="Attack, Bob Woodward 2004" /><ref>{{cite book |title=Operation Hotel California: The Clandestine War inside Iraq |url=https://archive.org/details/operationhotelca00tuck |url-access=registration |first1=Mike |last1=Tucker |first2=Charles |last2=Faddis |year=2008 |publisher=The Lyons Press |isbn=978-1-59921-366-8}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://wamu.org/audio/dr/08/10/r2081007-22101.asx |title=An interview on public radio with the author |access-date=March 16, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110930081326/http://wamu.org/audio/dr/08/10/r2081007-22101.asx |archive-date=September 30, 2011 }}</ref> The occupation of Iraq would be a low point in the history of the CIA. At the largest CIA station in the world, officers would rotate through 1–3-month tours. In Iraq, almost 500 transient officers would be trapped inside the [[Green Zone]] while Iraq station chiefs would rotate with only a little less frequency.{{sfn|Weiner|2007|p=493}}

===2004, DNI takes over CIA top-level functions===
The [[Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004]] created the office of the [[Director of National Intelligence]] (DNI), who took over some of the government and intelligence community (IC)-wide functions that had previously been the CIA's.{{sfn|Jeffreys-Jones|2022|pp=160–161}} The DNI manages the United States Intelligence Community and in so doing it manages the [[intelligence cycle management|intelligence cycle]]. Among the functions that moved to the DNI were the preparation of estimates reflecting the consolidated opinion of the 16 IC agencies, and preparation of briefings for the president. On July 30, 2008, [[George W. Bush|President Bush]] issued [[Executive Order 13470]]<ref>{{cite web |url=https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/eo-13470.htm |title=Executive Order 13470 |website=Federation of American Scientists |access-date=March 16, 2010 |archive-date=April 10, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210410070558/https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/eo-13470.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> amending [[Executive Order 12333]] to strengthen the role of the DNI.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/bush-orders-intelligence-overhaul/ |title=Bush Orders Intelligence Overhaul |first=Chris |last=Strohm |website=[[Congress Daily]] |date=August 1, 2008 |via=[[Nuclear Threat Initiative]] |access-date=August 26, 2017 |archive-date=February 24, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224171924/https://www.nti.org/gsn/article/bush-orders-intelligence-overhaul/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Previously, the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) oversaw the Intelligence Community, serving as the president's principal intelligence advisor, additionally serving as head of the CIA. The DCI's title now is "Director of the Central Intelligence Agency" (D/CIA), serving as head of the CIA.

Currently, the CIA reports to the Director of National Intelligence. Before the establishment of the DNI, the CIA reported to the President, with informational briefings to congressional committees. The [[National Security Advisor (United States)|National Security Advisor]] is a permanent member of the National Security Council, responsible for briefing the President with pertinent information collected by all U.S. intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency, the Drug Enforcement Administration, etc. All 16 Intelligence Community agencies are under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence.

===Operation Neptune Spear===
{{See also|Death of Osama bin Laden}}
On May 1, 2011, President Barack Obama announced that [[Osama bin Laden]] was killed earlier that day by "a small team of Americans" operating in [[Abbottabad]], Pakistan, during a CIA operation.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/osama_bin_laden_killed_in_cia_operation/2011/05/01/AFLiqoVF_gallery.html |title=Osama Bin Laden killed in CIA operation |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=May 8, 2011 |access-date=August 25, 2017 |archive-date=July 15, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170715222605/https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/osama_bin_laden_killed_in_cia_operation/2011/05/01/AFLiqoVF_gallery.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-osama-bin-laden-cia-20110502,0,6466214.story |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]] |first=Ken |last=Dilanian |title=CIA led U.S. special forces mission against Osama bin Laden |date=May 2, 2011 |access-date=May 14, 2011 |archive-date=May 24, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110524113215/http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-osama-bin-laden-cia-20110502,0,6466214.story |url-status=live }}</ref> The raid was executed from a CIA forward base in Afghanistan by elements of the U.S. Navy's [[Naval Special Warfare Development Group]] and CIA paramilitary operatives.<ref>{{cite news |title=Gaffney: Bin Laden's welcome demise | first=Frank J. Jr. |last=Gaffney |url=http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/2/bin-laden-creates-opportunity-for-fresh-start-on-c |newspaper=[[The Washington Times]] |date=May 2, 2011 |access-date=August 19, 2011 |archive-date=May 6, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110506162532/http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/2/bin-laden-creates-opportunity-for-fresh-start-on-c/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

The operation was a result of years of intelligence work that included the CIA's capture and [[Interrogational torture|interrogation]] of [[Khalid Sheikh Mohammed|Khalid Sheik Mohammad]], which led to the identity of a courier of bin Laden's,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna42859770 |title=Counterterrorism chief declares al-Qaida 'in the past' |date=May 2, 2011 |website=NBC News |access-date=August 19, 2011 |archive-date=September 24, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200924000710/http://www.nbcnews.com/id/42859770 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/al-qaeda/8490886/Osama-bin-Laden-dead-trusted-courier-led-US-special-forces-to-hideout.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220110/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/al-qaeda/8490886/Osama-bin-Laden-dead-trusted-courier-led-US-special-forces-to-hideout.html |archive-date=January 10, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |location=London |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |first=Tim |last=Ross |title=Osama bin Laden dead: trusted courier led US special forces to hideout |date=May 4, 2011}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/05/04/borger.torture.debate/index.html |website=CNN |title=Debate rages about role of torture |date=May 20, 2011 |access-date=May 14, 2011 |archive-date=May 13, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110513060423/http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/05/04/borger.torture.debate/index.html |url-status=live }}</ref> the tracking of the courier to the compound by [[Special Activities Division]] paramilitary operatives and the establishing of a CIA safe house to provide critical tactical intelligence for the operation.<ref name="cia spied obl safehouse waspo">{{cite news |title=CIA spied on bin Laden from safe house |first=Greg |last=Miller |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/cia-spied-on-bin-laden-from-safe-house/2011/05/05/AFXbG31F_story.html |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=May 5, 2011 |access-date=August 19, 2011 |archive-date=May 10, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110510144552/http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/cia-spied-on-bin-laden-from-safe-house/2011/05/05/AFXbG31F_story.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/world/asia/03intel.html |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |first1=Mark |last1=Mazzetti |first2=Helene |last2=Cooper |first3=Peter |last3=Baker |title=Clues Gradually Led to the Location of Osama bin Laden |date=May 2, 2011 |access-date=February 15, 2017 |archive-date=May 3, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110503190900/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/world/asia/03intel.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pakistan-rattled-by-news-of-cia-safe-house-in-abbottabad/ |website=[[CBS News]] |title=Pakistan rattled by news of CIA safe house in Abbottabad |date=May 6, 2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110509025244/http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20060479-503543.html |archive-date=May 9, 2011 }}</ref>

The CIA ran a fake vaccination clinic in an attempt to locate [[Osama bin Laden]]. This may have negatively affected the campaign against polio in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In some rural areas, vaccination workers were banned by the Taliban or chased away by locals.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=Kennedy|first=Jonathan|date=October 2017|title=How Drone Strikes and a Fake Vaccination Program Have Inhibited Polio Eradication in Pakistan: An Analysis of National Level Data|url=http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/25135|journal=International Journal of Health Services: Planning, Administration, Evaluation|volume=47|issue=4|pages=807–25|doi=10.1177/0020731417722888|issn=1541-4469|pmid=28764582|s2cid=25844860|access-date=October 17, 2021|archive-date=October 20, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211020082540/https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/25135|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=McNeil|first=Donald G. Jr.|date=July 9, 2012|title=C.I.A. Vaccine Ruse May Have Harmed the War on Polio|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/health/cia-vaccine-ruse-in-pakistan-may-have-harmed-polio-fight.html|access-date=July 3, 2020|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=July 10, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120710192832/https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/health/cia-vaccine-ruse-in-pakistan-may-have-harmed-polio-fight.html|url-status=live}}</ref> There have been many deadly attacks by militants against vaccination workers in Pakistan.<ref>{{Cite news|last1=Aizenman|first1=Nurith|date=January 23, 2018|title=Pakistan Raises Its Guard After 2 Polio Vaccinators Are Gunned Down|newspaper=NPR|url=https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/01/23/580002283/pakistan-raises-its-guard-after-two-polio-vaccinators-are-gunned-down|access-date=October 17, 2021|archive-date=November 16, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191116052929/https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/01/23/580002283/pakistan-raises-its-guard-after-two-polio-vaccinators-are-gunned-down|url-status=live}}</ref> Efforts to eradicate polio have furthermore been disrupted by [[Drone strikes in Pakistan|American drone strikes]].<ref name=":2" />

===Syrian Civil War===
{{Main|CIA activities in Syria}}
[[File:President Obama and King Salman Deliver Statements to the Press.webm|thumb|President [[Barack Obama]] and CIA Director [[John Brennan (CIA officer)|John Brennan]] at the [[Gulf Cooperation Council|GCC]]-U.S. Summit in Riyadh in April 2016. [[Saudi Arabia]] was involved in the CIA-led [[Timber Sycamore]] covert operation.]]
Under the aegis of operation [[Timber Sycamore]] and other clandestine activities, [[Special Activities Center|CIA operatives]] and [[United States special operations forces|U.S. special operations troops]] have trained and armed nearly 10,000 rebel fighters at a cost of $1&nbsp;billion a year.<ref>{{cite news |title=Secret CIA effort in Syria faces large funding cut |first1=Greg |last1=Miller |first2=Karen |last2=DeYoung |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/lawmakers-move-to-curb-1-billion-cia-program-to-train-syrian-rebels/2015/06/12/b0f45a9e-1114-11e5-adec-e82f8395c032_story.html |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=June 12, 2015 |access-date=December 5, 2015 |archive-date=May 7, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190507132500/https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/lawmakers-move-to-curb-1-billion-cia-program-to-train-syrian-rebels/2015/06/12/b0f45a9e-1114-11e5-adec-e82f8395c032_story.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The CIA has been sending weapons to anti-government rebels in Syria since at least 2012.<ref>{{cite news |title=U.S. has secretly provided arms training to Syria rebels since 2012 |first1=David S. |last1=Cloud |first2=Raja |last2=Abdulrahim |url=https://www.latimes.com/nation/sns-la-fg-cia-syria-20130622-story.html |newspaper=Los Angeles Times |date=June 21, 2013 |access-date=December 5, 2015 |archive-date=November 29, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181129130954/http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/21/world/la-fg-cia-syria-20130622 |url-status=live }}</ref> These weapons have been reportedly falling into hands of extremists, such as [[al-Nusra Front]] and [[Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant|ISIL]].<ref>{{cite news |title=The terrorists fighting us now? We just finished training them |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/08/18/the-terrorists-fighting-us-now-we-just-finished-training-them/ |first=Souad |last=Mekhennet |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=August 18, 2014 |access-date=December 5, 2015 |archive-date=September 5, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190905052946/https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/08/18/the-terrorists-fighting-us-now-we-just-finished-training-them/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=US air strikes in Syria driving anti-Assad groups to support Isis |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/23/us-air-strikes-syra-driving-anti-assad-groups-support-isis |first=Mona |last=Mahmood |newspaper=The Guardian |date=November 23, 2014 |access-date=December 14, 2016 |archive-date=December 21, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161221134334/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/23/us-air-strikes-syra-driving-anti-assad-groups-support-isis |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author-link=Seymour Hersh |last=Hersh |first=Seymour |url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military |title=Military to Military |journal=[[London Review of Books]] |volume=38 |issue=1 |date=January 7, 2016 |access-date=November 29, 2016 |archive-date=November 29, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191129043958/https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military |url-status=live }}</ref> Around February 2017, the CIA was instructed to halt military aid to Syrian rebels (Free Syrian Army or FSA), which also included training, ammunition, guided missiles, and salaries. Sources believe that the aid freeze was related to concerns that weapons and funds will fall into the hands of ISIL. On April 6, 2017, Al-Jazeera reported that funding to the FSA was partially restored. Based on the information provided by two FSA sources, the new military operation room will receive its funds from the coalition "Friends of Syria." The coalition consists of members from the U.S., Turkey, Western Europe, and Gulf states, which previously supported the military operation known as MOM.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/04/syria-moderate-rebels-form-alliance-170403064144285.html |first=Mariya |last=Petkova |title=Syria's 'moderate rebels' to form a new alliance |website=Al Jazeera |date=April 6, 2017 |access-date=May 6, 2017 |archive-date=May 6, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170506073022/http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/04/syria-moderate-rebels-form-alliance-170403064144285.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

It was reported in July 2017 that President [[Donald Trump]] had ordered a "phasing out" of the CIA's support for anti-[[Bashar al-Assad|Assad]] rebels.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Jaffe |first1=Greg |last2=Entous |first2=Adam |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-ends-covert-cia-program-to-arm-anti-assad-rebels-in-syria-a-move-sought-by-moscow/2017/07/19/b6821a62-6beb-11e7-96ab-5f38140b38cc_story.html |title=Trump ends covert CIA program to arm anti-Assad rebels in Syria, a move sought by Moscow |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=July 19, 2017 |access-date=July 21, 2017 |archive-date=July 20, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170720000629/https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-ends-covert-cia-program-to-arm-anti-assad-rebels-in-syria-a-move-sought-by-moscow/2017/07/19/b6821a62-6beb-11e7-96ab-5f38140b38cc_story.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Reorganization===
On 6 March 2015, the office of the D/CIA issued an unclassified edition of a statement by the director, titled 'Our Agency's Blueprint for the Future', as a press release for public consumption. The press release announced sweeping plans for the reorganization and reform of the CIA, which the director believes will bring the CIA more in line with the Agency doctrine called the 'Strategic Direction'. Among the principal changes disclosed include the establishment of a new directorate, the Directorate of Digital Innovation.  Other changes which were announced include the formation of a Talent Development Center of Excellence, the enhancement and expansion of the CIA University and the creation of the office of the Chancellor to head the CIA University in order to consolidate and unify recruitment and training efforts. The National Clandestine Service (NCS) will be reverting to its original Directorate name, the Directorate of Operations. The Directorate of Intelligence is also being renamed; it will now be the Directorate of Analysis.<ref name="PR2015-03-06">{{cite news| title=Unclassified Version of March 6, 2015 Message to the Workforce from CIA Director John Brennan: Our Agency's Blueprint for the Future| url=https://www.cia.gov/news-information/press-releases-statements/2015-press-releases-statements/message-to-workforce-agencys-blueprint-for-the-future.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150309230914/https://www.cia.gov/news-information/press-releases-statements/2015-press-releases-statements/message-to-workforce-agencys-blueprint-for-the-future.html | url-status=dead | archive-date=March 9, 2015 | date=March 6, 2015}}</ref>

===Drones===
A new policy introduced by President Barack Obama removed the authority of the CIA to launch drone attacks and allowed these attacks only under [[United States Department of Defense|Department of Defense]] command. This change was reversed by President Donald Trump, who authorized CIA drone strikes on suspected terrorists.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.npr.org/2017/03/14/520162910/trump-restores-cia-power-to-launch-drone-strikes |title=Trump Restores CIA Power To Launch Drone Strikes |date=March 14, 2017 |first=David |last=Welna |website=NPR |access-date=August 26, 2017 |archive-date=September 22, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180922135945/https://www.npr.org/2017/03/14/520162910/trump-restores-cia-power-to-launch-drone-strikes |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Encryption devices sold through front company===
For decades until 2018, the CIA secretly owned [[Crypto AG]], a small Swiss company that made encryption devices, in association with West German intelligence. The company sold compromised encryption devices to over 120 countries, allowing Western intelligence to eavesdrop on communications that the users believed to be secure.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-security/cia-crypto-encryption-machines-espionage/|title=The CIA secretly bought a company that sold encryption devices across the world. Then its spies sat back and listened.|newspaper=The Washington Post|access-date=February 11, 2020|archive-date=February 11, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200211123505/https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-security/cia-crypto-encryption-machines-espionage/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile-cyber-vault-intelligence-southern-cone/2020-02-11/cias-minerva-secret|title=The CIA's 'Minerva' Secret &#124; National Security Archive|website=nsarchive.gwu.edu|date=February 11, 2020|access-date=February 12, 2020|archive-date=September 27, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200927132241/https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile-cyber-vault-intelligence-southern-cone/2020-02-11/cias-minerva-secret|url-status=live}}</ref>

==Open-source intelligence==
{{Further|Foreign Broadcast Information Service|Open Source Center}}
Until the 2004 reorganization of the intelligence community, one of the "services of common concern" that the CIA provided was [[open-source intelligence]] from the [[Foreign Broadcast Information Service]] (FBIS).<ref>{{cite web |title=Reexamining the Distinction Between Open Information and Secrets |url=https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/Vol49no2/reexamining_the_distinction_3.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070613114103/https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/Vol49no2/reexamining_the_distinction_3.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 13, 2007 |last=Mercado |first=Stephen |website=Center for the Study of Intelligence |date=April 15, 2007 |access-date=July 4, 2008}}</ref> FBIS, which had absorbed the Joint Publication Research Service, a military organization that translated documents,<ref name=JPRSharvard>{{cite web |url=http://hcl.harvard.edu/research/guides/jprs/ |title=Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS) |work=Harvard College Library |access-date=July 1, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100709232005/http://hcl.harvard.edu/research/guides/jprs/ |archive-date=July 9, 2010 |url-status=dead }}</ref> moved into the [[National Open Source Enterprise]] under the Director of National Intelligence.

During the [[Presidency of Ronald Reagan|Reagan administration]], Michael Sekora (assigned to the [[Defense Intelligence Agency|DIA]]), worked with agencies across the intelligence community, including the CIA, to develop and deploy a technology-based competitive strategy system called [[Project Socrates]]. Project Socrates was designed to utilize open-source intelligence gathering almost exclusively. The technology-focused Socrates system supported such programs as the [[Strategic Defense Initiative]] in addition to private sector projects.<ref>{{cite magazine |first=Esther |last=Smith |title=DoD Unveils Competitive Tool: Project Socrates Offers Valuable Analysis |date=May 5, 1988 |magazine=[[Washington Technology]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |first=Robert |last=Wrubel |title=The Frontal Assault: A Conversation with Michael Sekora |date=July 10, 1990 |magazine=[[Financial World]]}}</ref>

Increasingly, the CIA is a major consumer of social media intelligence.<ref>{{cite magazine |title=CIA Monitors YouTube For Intelligence |url=http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206105311 |first=Thomas |last=Claburn |magazine=[[InformationWeek]] |date=February 6, 2008 |access-date=February 11, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080210020649/http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206105311 |archive-date=February 10, 2008}}</ref> CIA launched a [[Twitter]] account in June 2014.<ref>{{cite web |last=Pfeiffer |first=Eric |url=https://news.yahoo.com/cia-launches-twitter-and-facebook-accounts-210535915.html |title=CIA outwits impersonators by embracing Twitter, Facebook |website=[[Yahoo! News]] |date=June 6, 2014 |access-date=January 14, 2017 |archive-date=March 5, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305055827/http://news.yahoo.com/cia-launches-twitter-and-facebook-accounts-210535915.html |url-status=live }}</ref> CIA also launched its own [[.onion]] website to collect anonymous feedback.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Makuch |first1=Ben |title=The CIA Will Use its New Dark Web Site to Collect Anonymous Tips |date=May 7, 2019 |url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-cia-will-use-its-new-dark-web-site-to-collect-anonymous-tips/ |publisher=Vice |access-date=January 14, 2021 |archive-date=March 3, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210303032125/https://www.vice.com/en/article/xwnyew/the-cia-will-use-its-new-dark-web-site-to-collect-anonymous-tips |url-status=live }}</ref>

==Outsourcing and privatization==
{{See also|Intelligence outsourcing}}

Many of the duties and functions of Intelligence Community activities, not the CIA alone, are being outsourced and privatized. [[John Michael McConnell|Mike McConnell]], former Director of National Intelligence, was about to publicize an investigation report of outsourcing by U.S. intelligence agencies, as required by Congress.<ref name=IntAuth2008>{{cite web |title=Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, Conference Committee Report |date=December 6, 2007 |url=https://fas.org/irp/congress/2007_rpt/hrpt110-478.pdf |website=Federation of American Scientists |access-date=June 27, 2015 |archive-date=March 7, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160307212806/http://fas.org/irp/congress/2007_rpt/hrpt110-478.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> However, this report was then classified.<ref name="Hillhouse2007-10-09">{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/06/AR2007070601993_pf.html |newspaper=The Washington Post |first=R. J. |last=Hillhouse |title=Who Runs the CIA? Outsiders for Hire |date=July 8, 2007 |access-date=July 4, 2008 |archive-date=March 5, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100305004252/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/06/AR2007070601993_pf.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E6D91731F936A15755C0A9619C8B63 |newspaper=The New York Times |first=Patrick Radden |last=Keefe |title=Don't Privatize Our Spies |date=June 25, 2007 |access-date=July 4, 2008 |archive-date=October 12, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071012221219/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E6D91731F936A15755C0A9619C8B63 |url-status=live }}</ref> Hillhouse speculates that this report includes requirements for the CIA to report:<ref name="Hillhouse2007-10-09"/><ref name="Hillhouse2007-12-18"/>
* different standards for government employees and contractors;
* contractors providing similar services to government workers;
* analysis of costs of contractors vs. employees;
* an assessment of the appropriateness of outsourced activities;
* an estimate of the number of contracts and contractors;
* comparison of compensation for contractors and government employees;
* attrition analysis of government employees;
* descriptions of positions to be converted back to the employee model;
* an evaluation of accountability mechanisms;
* an evaluation of procedures for "conducting oversight of contractors to ensure identification and prosecution of criminal violations, financial waste, fraud, or other abuses committed by contractors or contract personnel"; and
* an "identification of best practices of accountability mechanisms within service contracts."

According to investigative journalist [[Tim Shorrock]]:

{{blockquote|text=...what we have today with the intelligence business is something far more systemic: senior officials leaving their national security and counterterrorism jobs for positions where they essentially perform the same jobs they once held at the CIA, the NSA, and other agencies{{snd}}but for double or triple the salary and profit. It's a privatization of the highest order, in which our collective memory and experience in intelligence &ndash; our crown jewels of spying, so to speak &ndash; are owned by corporate America. There is essentially no government oversight of this private sector at the heart of our intelligence empire. And the lines between public and private have become so blurred as to be nonexistent.<ref name="spies for hire">{{cite web |url=http://www.salon.com/news/excerpt/2008/05/29/spies_for_hire/print.html |title=Former high-ranking Bush officials enjoy war profits |last=Shorrock |first=Tim |website=[[Salon.com]] |date=May 29, 2008 |access-date=June 16, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080602013315/http://www.salon.com/news/excerpt/2008/05/29/spies_for_hire/print.html |archive-date=June 2, 2008  }}</ref><ref name="business of intelligence">{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/business/15shelf.html |title=The Business of Intelligence Gathering |last=Hurt III |first=Harry |newspaper=The New York Times |date=June 15, 2008 |access-date=June 18, 2008 |archive-date=November 5, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151105032536/http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/business/15shelf.html |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

Congress had required an outsourcing report by March 30, 2008:<ref name="Hillhouse2007-12-18">{{cite web |title=CIA Contractors: Double or Nothin' |url=http://www.thespywhobilledme.com/the_spy_who_billed_me/2007/12/cia-contractors.html |first=R. J. |last=Hillhouse |author-link=Raelynn Hillhouse |date=December 18, 2007 |website=thespywhobilledme.com |access-date=August 26, 2017 |archive-date=August 26, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170826234958/http://www.thespywhobilledme.com/the_spy_who_billed_me/2007/12/cia-contractors.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

{{blockquote|text=The Director of National Intelligence has been granted the authority to increase the number of positions (FTEs) on elements in the Intelligence Community by up to 10% should there be a determination that activities performed by a contractor should be done by a U.S. government employee."<ref name="Hillhouse2007-12-18"/>}}

Part of the problem, according to author Tim Weiner, is that political appointees designated by recent presidential administrations have sometimes been under-qualified or over-zealous politically. Large purges have taken place in the upper echelons of the CIA, and when those talented individuals are pushed out the door, they have frequently gone on to found new independent intelligence companies which can suck up CIA talent.<ref name="Ashes" /> Another part of the contracting problem comes from Congressional restrictions on the number of employees within the IC. According to Hillhouse, this resulted in 70% of the de facto workforce of the CIA's National Clandestine Service being made up of contractors. "After years of contributing to the increasing reliance upon contractors, Congress is now providing a framework for the conversion of contractors into federal government employees{{snd}}more or less."<ref name="Hillhouse2007-12-18"/> The number of independent contractors hired by the Federal government across the intelligence community has skyrocketed. So, not only does the CIA have trouble hiring, but those hires will frequently leave their permanent employ for shorter term contract gigs which have much higher pay and allow for more career mobility.<ref name="Ashes" />

As with most government agencies, building equipment often is contracted. The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), responsible for the development and operation of airborne and spaceborne sensors, long was a joint operation of the CIA and the United States Department of Defense. The NRO, then under DCI authority, contracted more of the design that had been their tradition, and to a contractor without extensive reconnaissance experience, [[Boeing]]. The next-generation satellite [[Future Imagery Architecture]] project "how does heaven look," which missed objectives after $4&nbsp;billion in cost overruns, was the result of this contract.<ref name="AWST2005-03-20">{{Cite journal |title=SBIRS High in the Red Again |date=March 20, 2005 |first1=Amy |last1=Butler |url=http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=awst&id=news%2F03215p02.xml |journal=Aviation Week |access-date=January 14, 2008 |archive-date=April 29, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110429022651/http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=awst&id=news%2F03215p02.xml |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="NYT">{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/washington/11satellite.html |title=In Death of Spy Satellite Program, Lofty Plans and Unrealistic Bids |last=Taubman |first=Philip |date=November 11, 2007 |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=April 29, 2013 |archive-date=April 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220408013929/https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/washington/11satellite.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

Some of the cost problems associated with intelligence come from one agency, or even a group within an agency, not accepting the compartmented security practices for individual projects, requiring expensive duplication.<ref name=BenRich>{{cite book |title=Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed |first=Ben R. |last=Rich |publisher=Back Bay Books |year=1996 |isbn=0-316-74330-5 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/skunkworks00benr }}</ref>

==Controversies==
{{Main|List of CIA controversies}}
{{See also|Human rights violations by the CIA|Allegations of CIA drug trafficking|CIA influence on public opinion|Project Mockingbird|Extraordinary rendition|Assassination of Orlando Letelier|Cubana de Aviación Flight 455|Operation Condor}}
The CIA has been the subject of numerous controversies. The agency ran an operation code-named "Chaos" that ran from 1967 to 1974 where they routinely performed surveillance on Americans who were a part of various peace groups protesting the [[Vietnam War]]. The operation was authorized by order of President Lyndon B. Johnson in October 1967 as the CIA gathered the information of 300,000 American people and organizations and extensive files on 7,200 citizens. The program was exposed by the [[Church Committee]] in 1975 as a part of the investigation into the [[Watergate scandal]].<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite web |date=June 11, 1975 |title='Operation Chaos': Files on 7,200 |url=https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP90-01208R000100170047-4.pdf |access-date=May 1, 2024 |website='Operation Chaos': Files on 7,200 |publisher=Washington Post}}</ref>

The CIA also conducted a secret program called [[MKUltra]], which ran from the early 1950s to the 1970s and involved illegal human experimentation to develop mind-control techniques. Subjects were often unaware they were part of the experiments, which included the administration of psychoactive drugs like [[LSD]] and other methods of [[Manipulation (psychology)|psychological manipulation]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=DIALOGUE SOUGHT WITH PROFESSOR IN CIA PROBE {{!}} CIA FOIA (foia.cia.gov) |url=https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp88-01315r000400250013-0 |access-date=2025-01-12 |website=www.cia.gov}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-01-05 |title='Poisoner In Chief' Details The CIA's Secret Quest For Mind Control : NPR |website=[[NPR]] |url=https://www.npr.org/2019/09/09/758989641/the-cias-secret-quest-for-mind-control-torture-lsd-and-a-poisoner-in-chief |access-date=2025-01-12 |archive-date=January 5, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250105211912/https://www.npr.org/2019/09/09/758989641/the-cias-secret-quest-for-mind-control-torture-lsd-and-a-poisoner-in-chief |url-status=bot: unknown }}</ref> The program, exposed in the 1970s, led to widespread public outrage and calls for greater oversight of intelligence agencies.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Magazine |first1=Smithsonian |last2=Boissoneault |first2=Lorraine |title=The True Story of Brainwashing and How It Shaped America |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-story-brainwashing-and-how-it-shaped-america-180963400/ |access-date=2025-01-12 |website=Smithsonian Magazine |language=en}}</ref>

The CIA was also linked to the [[Iran–Contra affair|Iran-Contra Affair]] wherein missiles were sold to the Iranian government as an exchange for the release of hostages and the profits the agency made from selling the weapons at a marked-up price went towards assisting the ''contras'' in Nicaragua.

Another source of controversy has been the CIA's role in [[Operation Condor]], which was a United States-backed campaign of repression and state terrorism involving intelligence operations, CIA-backed coup d'états and assassinations against leaders in [[South America]] from 1968 to 1989. By the Operation's end in 1989, up to 80,000 people had been killed.<ref name="Bevins2020">{{cite book |last1=Bevins |first1=Vincent|author-link=Vincent Bevins |title= [[The Jakarta Method]]: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World|pages=266–267 |date=2020 |publisher= [[PublicAffairs]] |isbn= 978-1-5417-4240-6}}</ref> Similarly, the CIA was complicit in the actions of [[death squads]] in [[Salvadoran Civil War|El Salvador]] and [[Battalion 3-16 (Honduras)|Honduras]].<ref name="Cohn, 1995">{{cite news |last1=Cohn |first1=Gary |last2=Thompson |first2=Ginger |title=When a wave of torture and murder staggered a small U.S. ally, truth was a casualty |url=http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bal-negroponte1a-story.html |access-date=May 22, 2017 |newspaper=[[The Baltimore Sun]] |date=June 11, 1995 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170216211314/http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bal-negroponte1a-story.html|archive-date=February 16, 2017}}</ref><ref name="Lakhani (2015)">{{cite news |last1=Lakhani |first1=Nina |title=Confidential files on El Salvador human rights stolen after legal action against CIA |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/23/el-salvador-civil-war-classified-files-stolen |access-date=May 22, 2017 |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |date=October 23, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170228225842/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/23/el-salvador-civil-war-classified-files-stolen |archive-date=February 28, 2017 |location=London}}</ref>

An additional controversy surrounds the Bush Administration's claim that [[Iraq and weapons of mass destruction|Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction"]] in 2002, and again in 2003 as justification for invading the Middle Eastern country. The CIA went along with the claim despite contradicting the president in testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2002. They produced a national intelligence estimate claiming that if the Iraqi government was able to acquire "sufficient fissile material from abroad, it could make nuclear weapons within a year".<ref>{{Cite web |date=November 19, 2009 |title=(Est Pub Date) Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs |url=https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0001327062.pdf |access-date=May 1, 2024 |website=CIA Reading Room: Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs}}</ref>

==See also==
<!-- Please respect alphabetical order -->
{{Div col}}
* [[Abu Omar case]]
* [[Blue sky memo]]
* [[Church Committee]]
* [[CIA's relationship with the United States Military]]
* [[Classified information in the United States]]
* [[Enhanced interrogation techniques]]
* [[Freedom of Information Act (United States)]]
* [[Intellipedia]]
* [[Kryptos]]
* [[National Intelligence Board]]
* [[Operation Peter Pan]]
* [[Reagan Doctrine]]
* [[Title 32 of the Code of Federal Regulations]]
* [[U.S. Army and CIA interrogation manuals]]
* [[United States Department of Homeland Security]]
* [[United States Intelligence Community]]
* [[Vault 7]]
* ''[[The World Factbook]]'', published by the CIA
{{Div col end}}
{{Portal bar|United States|Politics}}

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==References==
*{{Cite book |last=Anderson |first=Scott |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EUbEDwAAQBAJ |title=The Quiet Americans: Four CIA Spies at the Dawn of the Cold War |date=2020 |publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-385-54046-9}}
*{{cite book |last1=Brysk |first1=Alison |last2=Meade |first2=Everard |last3=Shafir |first3=Gershon |title=Lessons and Legacies of the War on Terror|chapter=Constructing National and Global Insecurity|editor-last1=Aceves|editor-first1=William|editor-last2=Meade|editor-first2=Everard|editor-last3=Shafir|editor-first3=Gershon|date=2016 |publisher=Routledge |location=London/New York |isbn=978-0-415-63841-8 |page=6 |url=https://www.routledge.com/Lessons-and-Legacies-of-the-War-On-Terror-From-moral-panic-to-permanent-war/Shafir-Meade-Aceves/p/book/9781138694460}}
* {{cite book |last1=Gordon |first1=Rebecca |title=Mainstreaming Torture: Ethical Approaches in the Post-9/11 United States |date=2014 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford/New York |isbn=9780199336432 |page=2 |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/4664}}
* {{cite book|title=The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention |first=Richard H. |last=Immerman |publisher=University of Texas Press |year=1982 |isbn=978-0-292-71083-2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=erAkfz6c9HoC}}
* {{Cite book |last=Jeffreys-Jones |first=Rhodri |authorlink=Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones|url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/a-question-of-standing-9780192847966?cc=gb&lang=en&|title=A Question of Standing: The History of the CIA |date=2022 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|doi=10.1093/oso/9780192847966.001.0001|isbn=978-0-19-284796-6}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Kuzmarov |first1=Jeremy |title=Modernizing Repression: Police Training, Political Violence, and Nation-Building in the 'American Century' |journal=[[Diplomatic History]]|publisher=Oxford University Press|date=April 2009 |volume=33 |issue=2 |pages=191–221 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-7709.2008.00760.x}}
* {{cite book |last1=McCoy |first1=Alfred W. |title=A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror |date=2007 |publisher=[[Macmillan Publishers]]|url=https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780805082487/aquestionoftorture/|location=London |isbn=9780805082487 |pages=63–71}}
* {{Cite book |last=Reid |first=Stuart A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=niGlEAAAQBAJ |title=The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination |date=2023 |publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |isbn=978-1-5247-4881-4}}
*{{cite journal |last1=Schwab |first1=Stephen Irving Max |title=Once a Jedburgh Always a Jedburgh |journal=[[International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence]]|publisher=Taylor & Francis|date=June 2014 |volume=27 |issue=2 |pages=405–412 |doi=10.1080/08850607.2014.872540}}
* {{cite book |last1=Simpson |first1=Christopher|chapter=U.S. Mass Communication Research, Counterinsurgency, and Scientific 'Reality'|editor-last=Braman|editor-first=Sandra|title=Communication Researchers and Policy-making |date=2003 |publisher=[[MIT Press]]|url=https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262523400/communication-researchers-and-policy-making/|location=Cambridge, Mass |isbn=9780262523400 |pages=253–292}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Valcourt |first1=Richard R. |title=Tossing Wins Away: Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of America's Sixteen-Year Involvement in Vietnam|publisher=Taylor & Francis|journal=[[International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence]] |date=January 1989 |volume=3 |issue=4 |pages=567–605 |doi=10.1080/08850608908435122}}
* {{cite book |last=Weiner |first=Tim |year=2007 |title=Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA |publisher=Doubleday |isbn=978-0-385-51445-3|oclc= 82367780|title-link=Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA }}
* {{cite book |last=Wilford |first=Hugh |year=2024 |title=The CIA: An Imperial History|publisher=Basic Books |isbn=978-1-541-64591-2}}

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