Table Of ContentCASS SERIES: STUDIESININTELLIGENCE
(SeriesEditors: ChristopherAndrewandMichaelI. Handel)
ETERNAL VIGILANCE?
50 YEARS OFTHECIA
Alsoin this series
IntelligenceAnalysisandAssessment
editedbyDavidCharters, A. StuartFarsonandGlennP. Hastedt
Codebreakerin the FarEast
by Alan Stripp
War, StrategyandIntelligence
by MichaelI. Handel
ControllingIntelligence
editedby GlennP. Hastedt
SecurityandIntelligence ina Changing World:
New Perspectivesfor the 1990s
editedby A. StuartFarson, DavidStaffordandWesley K. Wark
Spy Fiction, Spy FilmsandRealIntelligence
editedby Wesley K. Wark
From Information to Intrigue: Studies inSecretService Basedon the Swedish
Experience 1939-45
by C.G. McKay
DieppeRevisited:A DocumentaryInvestigation
by JohnCampbell
TheAustralianSecurity Intelligence Organization:
An Unofficial History
by FrankCain
PolicingPolitics:
Security Intelligenceandthe LiberalDemocraticState
by PeterGill
Espionage: Past, Present, Future?
editedbyWesley K. Wark
TET1968: Understanding the Surprise
Ronnie E. Ford
ETERNAL VIGILANCE?
50 YEARS OF THE CIA
Edited by
RHODRI JEFFREYS-JONES
CHRISTOPHER ANDREW
~l
Routledge
~~
Taylor&FrancisGroup
LONDON AND NEWYORK
First published 1997 by Frank Cass Publishers
Published 2013 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY, 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © 1997 Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any
electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
has been applied for.
ISBN 13: 978-0-714-64360-1 (pbk)
This group of studies first appeared in ‘Eternal Vigilance? 50 Years of the CIA’, a
Special Issue of the journal Intelligence and National Security,
Vol. 12, No. 1 (January 1997)
Published by Frank Cass Publishers
Contents
Editors' Preface vii
1 The American Road to Central Intelligence Bradley F. Smith 1
2 Why Was the CIA Established in 1947? RhodriJeffreys-Jones 21
3 Intelligence and the ColdWarBehindthe
Dikes: The Relationship between the
American and Dutch Intelligence Bob de Graaffand
Communities, 1946-1994 CeesWiebes 41
4 Science, Scientists, and the CIA:
Balancing International Ideals, National Ronald E. Doel and
Needs, and Professional Opportunities Allan A. Needell 59
5 The Wizards ofLangley: The CIA's
Directorate ofScience and Technology Jeffrey T. Richelson 82
6 The Committee ofCorrespondence-CIA
Funding ofWomen's Groups, 1952-1967 HelenLaville 104
7 The CIA and the SovietThreat: The
Politicization ofEstimates, 1966-1977 Lawrence Freedman 122
8 National Intelligence and the Iranian
Revolution Michael Donovan 143
9 American Economic Intelligence:
PastPractice and Future Principles Philip Zelikow 164
10 The CIA and the Question ofAccountability Loch K. Johnson 178
11 The CIA's Own Effort to Understand and
Document its Past: A BriefHistory ofthe CIA
History Program, 1950-1995 Gerald Haines 201
12 Conclusion: An Agenda for Future
Research ChristopherAndrew 224
About the Contributors 234
Index 237
This page intentionally left blank
Editor's Preface
The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal
vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the
consequence ofhis crime, and the punishlnent ofhis guilt.
These words, spoken byJohn PhilpotCurran in 1790indefenceoftheright
ofelectionoftheLordMayorofDublin, springonce againtomindin 1997,
a year that marks the 50th anniversary of one of America's best-known
institutions. InFebruary 1947,theWhiteHousesubmittedtoCongressabill
for the unification ofthe armed forces which, in its 102ndclause, provided
for the establishment ofacentral intelligence agency. After several months
of Senate and House hearings, Congress approved the bill on 26 July. the
National Security Act came into force on 19 September and, the following
day, the modest Central Intelligence Group gave way to the mighty United
States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) - an agency whose destiny came
to be synonymous, in the mind of its supporters, with vigilance in the
defenceofliberty. In the mid-1970s, however, the beliefthatthe defence of
liberty also required increased vigilance towards the CIA itself led to the
creation ofthe congressional intelligencecommittees.
No single volume ofessays can hope to cover all, or even most, ofthe
CIA's diverse activities during its first 50 years. Eternal Vigilance? seeks,
however, both to offer reinterpretations of some of the major established
themes in CIA history (the origins and foundation of the Agency, its
assessment ofthe Soviet threat and the Iranian revolution, and the problem
of accountability) and to open up new areas of research (foreign liaison,
relations with the scientific community and the use of scientific and
technical research, covert funding of women's groups, economic
intelligence, and the Agency's changing attitude to its own history).
The editors have sought to include in this volume articles by both well
known scholars in the field and young researchers at the beginning oftheir
academiccareers. Contributionscomealmostequally fromboth sidesofthe
Atlantic. All draw, in varying degrees, on recently declassified documents
and newly-available archives. And, as the conclusion seeks to show, all
point the way to future research.
1
The American Road to Central
Intelligence
BRADLEY F. SMITH
Intelligence changes rained down upon the United States in a great torrent
during the 1940sandearly 1950s,culminatinginthecreationoftheCentral
Intelligence Agency in 1947 and the National Security Agency in 1952.
This occurred in partbecauseWorldWarIIintelligencedevelopments such
as those within the US Army (Military IntelligenceDivision), theUS Navy
(Office of Naval Intelligence) and in William Donovan's Coordinator of
Information and OfficeofStrategic Services (aSS) organizations, provided
theUS governmentwiththeexperiencedandskilledpersonneltomakesuch
postwarintelligence innovation possible.
In addition, unsettled conditions in the postwar era played a part by
requiring innovative new political-military arrangements in every cornerof
the globe. Butprobablymostimportant, therecamethethreateningforward
pressure ofthe USSR which manifested itselfin the late 1940s. When this
'Soviet threat' was combined with the residual shock and sense of
vulnerability that hadbeen engendered by Hitler's Blitzkrieg surprises, and
especially the Japanese attackon Pearl Harbor, theAmerican public and its
leaders were given a new sense ofvulnerability and a beliefthat new and
more assertive methods needed to beemployedto protectnational security.
However, it is important to remember that neither the American
intelligenceorganizationswhichhadbeencreatedduringWorldWarIIsuch
as ass, nor the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA) which
followed them, arose from a historical vacuum. Men such as Franklin
Roosevelt (born 1882) and William Donovan (born 1883), had lived not
only through periods in which American intelligence had been weak and
backward,butalsoerasinwhichtheUS intelligencesystem was strongand
nearly the equal ofthose ofothergreatpowers.
Therefore to form a realistic picture ofhow and why aSS/CIA and its
intelligence modernizing companions were created in the period 1941-52,
