President Harry Truman created the job of director of central intelligence (DCI) in 1946 so that he and other senior administration officials could turn to one person for foreign intelligence briefings. The DCI was the head of the Central Intelligence Group until 1947, when he became the director of the newly created Central Intelligence Agency. This book profiles each DCI and explains how they performed in their community role, that of enhancing cooperation among the many parts of the nationÆs intelligence community and reporting foreign intelligence to the president. The book also discusses the evolving expectations that U.S. presidents through George W. Bush placed on their foreign intelligence chiefs. Although head of the CIA, the DCI was never a true national intelligence chief with control over the governmentÆs many arms that collect and analyze foreign intelligence. This limitation conformed to President TrumanÆs wishes because he was wary of creating a powerful and all-knowing intelligence chief in a democratic society. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Congress and President Bush decided to alter the position of DCI by creating a new director of national intelligence position with more oversight and coordination of the governmentÆs myriad programs. Thus this book ends with Porter Goss in 2005, the last DCI. Douglas GarthoffÆs book is a unique and important study of the nationÆs top intelligence official over a roughly fifty-year period. His work provides the detailed historical framework that is essential for all future studies of how the U.S. intelligence community has been and will be managed.

The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence is a state-of-the-art work on intelligence and national security. Edited by Loch Johnson, one of the world's leading authorities on the subject, the handbook examines the topic in full, beginning with an examination of the major theories of intelligence. It then shifts its focus to how intelligence agencies operate, how they collect information from around the world, the problems that come with transforming "raw" information into credible analysis, and the difficulties in disseminating intelligence to policymakers. It also considers the balance between secrecy and public accountability, and the ethical dilemmas that covert and counterintelligence operations routinely present to intelligence agencies. Throughout, contributors factor in broader historical and political contexts that are integral to understanding how intelligence agencies function in our information-dominated age.

President Truman shuttered the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) as an unneeded, wartime-only special operations/quasi-intelligence agency. The State Department, the Navy, and the War Department quickly recognized that a secret information vacuum loomed and urged the creation of something to replace OSS. These previously declassified and released documents present the thoughtful albeit tortuous and contentious creation of CIA, culminating in the National Security Act of 1947. The declassified historic material dissects the twists and turns and displays the considerable political and legal finesse required to assess the many plans, suggestions, maneuvers and actions that ultimately led to the establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency and other national security entities, which included the incorporation of special safeguards to protect civil liberties. Copies of selected intelligence documents and a timeline of miliestones in the creation of the US Intelligence Community from 1941 through 1964 are included in this resource.

"Only eleven men and one woman are alive today who have made the life-and-death decisions that come with running the world's most powerful and influential intelligence service. With unprecedented, deep access to nearly all these individuals plus several of their predecessors, Chris Whipple tells the story of an agency that answers to the United States president alone, but whose activities--spying, espionage, and covert action--take place on every continent. At pivotal moments, the CIA acts as a brake on rogue presidents, starting in the mid-seventies with DCI Richard Helms's refusal to conceal Richard Nixon's criminality and continuing to the present as the actions of a CIA whistleblower have ignited impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump. Since its inception in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency has been a powerful player on the world stage, operating largely in the shadows to protect American interests. For The Spymasters, Whipple conducted extensive, exclusive interviews with nearly every living CIA director, pulling back the curtain on the world's elite spy agencies and showing how the CIA partners--or clashes--with counterparts in Britain, France, Germany, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. Topics covered in the book include attempts by presidents to use the agency for their own ends; simmering problems in the Middle East and Asia; rogue nuclear threats; and cyberwarfare"--

By intelligence officials for intelligent people

In this "thoughtful, entertaining, and often insightful" book, a former CIA director explores the delicate give-and-take between the Oval Office and Langley. With the disastrous intelligence failures of the last few years still fresh in Americans minds--and to all appearances still continuing--there has never been a more urgent need for a book like this. In Burn Before Reading, Admiral Stansfield Turner, the CIA director under President Jimmy Carter, takes the reader inside the Beltway to examine the complicated, often strained relationships between presidents and their CIA chiefs. From FDR and "Wild Bill" Donovan to George W. Bush and George Tenet, twelve pairings are studied in these pages, and the results are eye-opening and provocative. Throughout, Turner offers a fascinating look into the machinery of intelligence gathering, revealing how personal and political issues often interfere with government business--and the nation's safety.

A blistering critique of the forces threatening the American intelligence community, beginning with the President of the United States himself, in a time when that community's work has never been harder or more important In the face of a President who lobs accusations without facts, evidence, or logic, truth tellers are under attack. Meanwhile, the world order teeters on the brink. Experience and expertise, devotion to facts, humility in the face of complexity, and respect for ideas seem more important, and more endangered, than they've ever been. American Intelligence--the ultimate truth teller--has a responsibility in a post-truth world beyond merely warning of external dangers, and in The Assault on Intelligence, General Michael Hayden, former CIA director, takes up that urgent work with profound passion, insight and authority. It is a sobering vision. The American intelligence community is more at risk than commonly understood. Our democracy's core structures are under great stress. Many of the premises on which we have based our understanding of governance are now challenged, eroded, or simply gone. And in the face of overwhelming evidence from the intelligence community that the Russians are, by all acceptable standards of cyber conflict, in a state of outright war against us, we have a President in office who chooses not to lead a strong response, but instead to shoot the messenger. There are fundamental changes afoot in the world and in this country. The Assault on Intelligence shows us what they are, reveals how crippled we've become in our capacity to address them, and points toward a series of effective responses. Because when we lose our intelligence, literally and figuratively, democracy dies.

In the late eighties and early nineties, driven by the post–Cold War environment and lessons learned during military operations, United States policy makers made intelligence support to the military the Intelligence Community's top priority. In response to this demand, the CIA and DoD instituted policy and organizational changes that altered their relationship with one another. While debates over the future of the Intelligence Community were occurring on Capitol Hill, the CIA and DoD were expanding their relationship in peacekeeping and nation-building operations in Somalia and the Balkans. By the late 1990s, some policy makers and national security professionals became concerned that intelligence support to military operations had gone too far. In Subordinating Intelligence: The DoD/CIA Post–Cold War Relationship, David P. Oakley reveals that, despite these concerns, no major changes to national intelligence or its priorities were implemented. These concerns were forgotten after 9/11, as the United States fought two wars and policy makers increasingly focused on tactical and operational actions. As policy makers became fixated with terrorism and the United States fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, the CIA directed a significant amount of its resources toward global counterterrorism efforts and in support of military operations.

The role of intelligence in US government operations has changed dramatically and is now more critical than ever to domestic security and foreign policy. This authoritative and highly researched book written by Jeffrey T. Richelson provides a detailed overview of America's vast intelligence empire, from its organizations and operations to its management structure. Drawing from a multitude of sources, including hundreds of official documents, The US Intelligence Community allows students to understand the full scope of intelligence organizations and activities, and gives valuable support to policymakers and military operations. The seventh edition has been fully revised to include a new chapter on the major issues confronting the intelligence community, including secrecy and leaks, domestic spying, and congressional oversight, as well as revamped chapters on signals intelligence and cyber collection, geospatial intelligence, and open sources. The inclusion of more maps, tables and photos, as well as electronic briefing books on the book's Web site, makes The US Intelligence Community an even more valuable and engaging resource for students.