On the Thinker

"The CIA will carry out such other operations related to intelligence as the president and National Security Council may from time to time direct." This vague language can be found in the 1947 legislation that gave birth to the Central Intelligence Agency. The two primary functions of the CIA are to gather information about enemies and potential enemies of the United States and to conduct covert operations abroad. Its domestic counterpart, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), is responsible for domestic intelligence gathering. Yet, as I will demonstrate, there have been times when the CIA has extended its mandate and jurisdiction. That questionable behavior, along with several negative consequences arguably caused by the agency's overseas meddling, has led me to question whether the agency has succeeded in enhancing the national security of the United States. The CIA claims, "The secret of our success is the secret of our success." In order to evaluate its performance and decipher signs of "success," I have revealed some of the agency's most notable covert and intelligence gathering operations since its inception.

The history of our nation's most elite intelligence gathering service is profoundly twisted and clandestine. The CIA is not just a tool of policy; it is a collector and analyzer of information vital to our national security. As such, it is afforded a certain independence and prestige that few other federal agencies can match. However, it is not immune to deficiencies. Throughout many presidential administrations under which it has operated, the CIA suffered from three main weaknesses.

• Failure of leadership. Many of the agency's top guns suffered from alcoholism and mental illness which hampered their ability to carry out the duties of their office and led to a remarkable turnover in leadership. Counting the newly confirmed Leon Panetta, there have been 21 Directors of the Central Intelligence Agency since 1946. This is an astounding number considering the importance of the position.
• Failure of intelligence gathering. Soviet spies and internal moles frequently penetrated the agency at critical points in our country's foreign policy.
• Covert action failures. Many covert actions carried out by the CIA had favorable results in the short-term, but proved to be disastrous in the long-term.

The idea of utilizing spies as effective means of combating an enemy was advocated by the Chinese military philosopher Sun Tzu some 2,500 years ago. While we had spies in the Revolutionary War, it was not until WWII that we organized a system of intelligence gathering. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) fulfilled that role and served as the model for the CIA.

As the Cold War heated up in the years following WWII, President Truman craved information about what the Soviets were up to. Instead of producing intelligence, the CIA conducted covert operations in Cold War hot-spots that consisted of purchasing elections through subsidizing politicians, a practice we today call bribery. In this way, the agency hoped to roll the Soviets back from Western and Eastern Europe. In 1948, the CIA successfully thwarted the Italian Communist Party from winning a major election. Throughout the early 1950s, the CIA targeted and financed the liberal, anti-communist intelligentsia in France, Great Britain, and West Germany to promote American interests abroad. In addition to spending money, top CIA agents supervised the dropping of emigres into communist Albania and Ukraine, hoping to stimulate Soviet resistance. In both cases, all of the emigres were captured or killed. The man responsible for the operations in Albania was a raging alcoholic who compromised the mission by giving the drop-zone locations to the Soviet spy Kim Philby.

During the Truman Administration, the CIA failed to anticipate some of the most momentous events of the 20th century. Three days before President Truman informed the world that the Soviets possessed an atomic bomb, the CIA had confidently proclaimed that the Soviets were still four years away from nuclear capability. On October 30, 1950, when Chinese forces had already attacked General MacArthur's troops near the Yalu River, the CIA declared that the Chinese had no intentions of invading Korea. Indeed, the inability to penetrate North Korea remains the CIA's longest-running intelligence failure. As for influencing communist China, the CIA sent anti-communist guerrillas into Manchuria in the early 1950s who were all killed or captured.

In an attempt to compensate for failures of ground-level intelligence gathering, the CIA set up secret prisons and enacted Project Artichoke, a program which involved injecting emigres from communist countries with heroine, amphetamines, sleeping pills, and LSD. These interrogations and attempts at mind control lasted four years, until the CIA slipped a drug to an army civilian employee who later jumped to his death from a New York hotel. The program then became a fiasco.

In 1953, the CIA told President Eisenhower that the Soviets would not be able to launch an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) at the United States before 1969. When the Russians tested a hydrogen bomb in August of 1953, the CIA remained quiet. Eisenhower hoped to avoid bankrupting the United States with military operations against the Soviets by utilizing covert action. Eisenhower appointed Allen Dulles, brother of Secretary State John Foster Dulles, to give him "more bang for the buck." In 1953, the CIA green-lit Operation Ajax, overthrew the Mossadegh regime in Iran, and replaced it with the Shah of Iran. There were many short-term benefits by overthrowing the government in Tehran, not the least of which was the installment of a pro-American regime. Many Iranians quickly began to despise the Shah and his secret police, known as the Savak, and blamed the United States for the loss of their remaining civil liberties. Many scholars today see the Shah's overthrow and the taking of hostages in 1979 as revenge for instating the Shah in 1953. The other successful overthrow, dubbed Operation Success, came in 1954. The CIA overthrew the Arbenz government in Guatemala after it threatened U.S. economic interests. In 1955, the CIA failed to overthrow Ahmed Sukarno of Indonesia.

When the bearded revolutionary Fidel Castro stormed Havana in January of 1958, the CIA informed President Eisenhower that agents were devising plans to take Castro out. These plans went into affect under the Kennedy Administration. In 1960, after Belgium withdrew from the Belgian Congo, the new Prime Minister of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, was suspected of having communist ties to the Soviet Union. The CIA attempted to take him out using lethal toxins. But the CIA station chief in the Congo refused to carry out the order. However, he had maintained contact with General Mobutu, the leader of the army, and arranged to have Lumumba taken out by other means. Mobutu became dictator of the Congo and remained America's close ally for many years.

Kennedy's dealings with the CIA and Castro quickly resulted in a fiasco at the Bay of Pigs in April of 1961. The CIA under Kennedy's direction planned an invasion of mainland Cuba with ex-Cuban emigres. Kennedy, realizing the CIA underestimated Castro's forces and fearing to blow his cover, cut in half the number of aircraft that were intended to take out Castro's air power. Thus, the invaders were bombed on the beach, either killed or taken prisoner. JFK fired Allen Dulles and splintered the CIA by turning over control of covert operations to his brother Robert, the Attorney General. Bobby's plan to take out Castro was dubbed Operation Mongoose. This operation involved the Mafia and many ludicrous ideas to undermine or kill Castro (including one plan to cause Castro's beard to fall out). Meanwhile, the CIA completely missed the fact that the Soviets were sending offensive missiles into Cuba, just 60 miles from Florida's coast. Many scholars have surmised that as a result of Kennedy making enemies with Alan Dulles and Castro, a conspiracy involving the CIA, Castro, and the Mafia might have killed President Kennedy, rather than the lone assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.

President Johnson was concerned with the war he inherited in Vietnam. It is important to note that the CIA was not responsible for monitoring radio traffic from the two destroyers that were allegedly attacked by the North Vietnamese in the Gulf of Tonkin. Thus, I will not draw any parallels to the CIA's failure to obtain credible information regarding WMD in Iraq in 2003. Rather, the CIA breached its charter under Johnson when it followed orders to conduct spying operations on the anti-war movement. Johnson was convinced that the Soviets were funding a domestic anti-war movement in the United States. As a result of his suspicion, the CIA conducted Operation Chaos, a domestic surveillance operation that lasted almost seven years and involved agents infiltrating peace-group meetings and spying on protestors.

President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger ordered Operation Chaos to continue. He also believed that the CIA was underestimating the Soviet nuclear threat. His pressure on the agency led them to subsequently overestimate Soviet nuclear forces and capabilities. President Nixon directed the CIA to pour money into the Chilean campaign of a reformist Christian Democrat named Eduardo Fray, hoping to prevent a Marxist victory by Salvador Allende. The effort was successful as Fray won the election. But by 1970, Allende had gained popularity and the CIA was unable to buy the election again. Refusing to admit defeat, the CIA station chief in Santiago contacted the Chilean military and informed them that the U.S. would support a military solution to the Allende problem. That promise led to the overthrow and death of Allende and the brutal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. This short-term success would be overshadowed by long-term implications. The United States had overthrown a democratically-elected government in Chile and installed a brutal dictator who was nonetheless an ally of America.

The CIA was also involved in the Watergate scandal. An agent was provided with a red wig, a voice-altering device, and fake personal identification to break into the Los Angeles office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist. Nixon's CIA Director Richard Helms agreed to provide a psychological profile of the anti-war critic Ellsberg, who had leaked the Pentagon Papers and became an enemy of Nixon. Thus, the CIA again spied on American citizens. When the "plumbers" were caught in the Watergate complex, the CIA connections were clearly evident. When Director Helms refused to provide hush money from the CIA's black budget, the Watergate incident went public.

In addition to prompting Nixon to resign, Watergate seriously tarnished the CIA's reputation. Thereafter, Congress began to exercise oversight over the agency. Under the Ford Presidency, the CIA was funneling money to an anti-communist faction in the Angolan Civil War. In a true display of checks and balances, Congress refused to authorize additional funds for the agency's operation. This was clearly a reaction to the Vietnam quagmire from which the U.S. had just emerged.

The CIA demonstrated its lack of vision when it failed to anticipate the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979 and the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union. Stansfield Turner, President Carter's new Director of Central Intelligence affirmed, "We did not understand who [Ayatollah] Khomeini was and his support the movement had. We were just plain asleep." Many analysts contend that the taking of U.S. hostages in the same year was payback for the CIA's overthrow of the Mossadegh regime in 1953. Similarly, the CIA erroneously concluded that Moscow would not invade Afghanistan in 1979.

President Reagan appointed his successful campaign manager William Casey as his Director of Central Intelligence. Casey's primary goal was to defeat America's enemies in Latin America. The Sandinista Regime in Nicaragua became a prime target. Since Congress would not appropriate funds, the CIA lacked money to fund the contra rebels in Nicaragua. At the same time, President Reagan was fearful for the safety of six U.S. hostages that were taken captive by Hezbollah in the Lebanese Civil War. Reagan and his new CIA Director William Colby decided to provide Iran (who had political influence over Hezbollah and was at war with Iraq ) with weapons in exchange for the release of the U.S. hostages. The proceeds from the arms deal would fund the contra rebels in Nicaragua. This deal was to be kept secret for fear of the ethical implications. The secret leaked, however, and it damaged the credibility of the Reagan White House and the CIA. The CIA under President Reagan also consistently misread Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Premier. They saw his reforms, glasnost and perestroika, as a campaign of deceit. No one in the agency predicted the collapse of the Soviet colossus in 1989.

Upon taking the presidential oath, George H. W. Bush and the CIA were immediately embarrassed. One of the agency's most valuable agents in Latin America, General Noriega of Panama, had been indicted as a drug smuggler. President Bush and the agency were forced to launch a large-scale military operation to capture the rouge general. The CIA also worked closely with the military and the Bush Administration in Operation Desert Storm. During this conflict in Iraq, the CIA was completely oblivious to the fact that Iraq had been engaged in the pursuit of nuclear weapons. Thus, when Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney learned of this, he refused to believe anything the agency said thereafter, believing them to have become incompetent. That experience had a marked effect on him as the Vice President under President George W. Bush. After invading Iraq in March of 2003, the military and the CIA were unable to find WMD, indicating that Iraq had abandoned its pursuit of nuclear weapons sometime in the 1990s.

While these countless examples may seem selective and a sweeping rebuke of the agency, I want to point out some important considerations. Admittedly, intelligence is a business of risk-taking. While there were errors in operations, in analysis, and in judgment, nearly all of these operations were ordered by the White House and had to be conducted in perilous environments. The Soviet Union was a police state, as is North Korea. It is very difficult to operate in police states because there is no freedom, the press is tightly controlled, and contacts with people are tightly controlled. However, there is no excuse for spying on Americans, whether ordered to or not.

Intelligence is an immoral business by nature. In order to obtain information, you might have to compromise your principles. The question is, how far is too far? The nature of intelligence gathering also arguably contributes to failures of leadership and flaws in character. After all, the CIA often has to enlist criminals, bums, and loons. What other kinds of people would be so willing to betray his/her country and become a spy or a traitor? It is not always easy to find upstanding people who are willing to commit treason. As for our own agents, prolonged exposure to a life of secrecy tends to cause extreme paranoia and a degree of mental instability. The business is not for the faint of heart.

After this assessment, I have not come to an ultimate conclusion. We clearly need to continue utilizing our intelligence agencies to thwart our enemies and potential enemies through intelligence gathering and covert action. But we also need to improve accountability both inside and outside the CIA. By order of President Bush, the Director of Central Intelligence now coordinates his/her efforts with the Director of National Intelligence. I think this improvement in agency coordination will help to prevent the kinds of failures we have seen in the past. Hopefully the Obama Administration, like the Bush Administrations before it, will continue to reorganize the intelligence community to increase its credibility and effectiveness.