Secrecy, State-Private Networks and Operational Effectiveness in Cold War Europe

2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 551-560
Author(s):  
ERIC PULLIN
Keyword(s):  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Operational Effectiveness ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
The Us ◽  
Long Time ◽  
To Come ◽  
Us Senate

Secrecy has unintended consequences. The release on 9 December 2014 of the US Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the torture of terrorism detainees focused public attention on the secret activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Regrettably, lost amidst debate over justifying or condemning state-sponsored torture is a more basic concern, the issue of state secrecy, which underlies the discussion of how governments promote national ends. Only two days after the issuance of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report, the US House of Representatives adjourned without taking action on the Freedom of Information Act reform bill – despite receiving unanimous approval in both houses. This bill would not have required complete openness, but it would have eliminated many of the arbitrary mechanisms that enable the CIA and other governmental agencies to suppress requests for information. Although the House Republican leadership failed to put the act on the legislative calendar, the Obama administration's Department of Justice also deserves opprobrium for surreptitiously opposing the act behind the scenes. The US government's disregard for establishing reasonable rules of transparency virtually guarantees that the CIA will continue to suppress its records, and thus public scrutiny of its unchecked activities, for a very long time to come.

An unfinished battle: George C. Marshall and intelligence in the early Cold War

2021 ◽  
pp. 096834452110179
Author(s):  
Raphaël Ramos
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Truman Administration ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
Covert Action ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

This article deals with the influence of Gen. George C. Marshall on the foundation of the US intelligence community after the Second World War. It argues that his uneven achievements demonstrate how the ceaseless wrangling within the Truman administration undermined the crafting of a coherent intelligence policy. Despite his bureaucratic skills and prominent positions, Marshall struggled to achieve his ends on matters like signals intelligence, covert action, or relations between the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. Yet he crafted an enduring vision of how intelligence should supplement US national security policy that remained potent throughout the Cold War and beyond.

Central Intelligence Agency

1978 ◽  
Vol 8 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 111-111
Keyword(s):  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
Intelligence Agency

Officials of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Office for Africa, Office of Legislative Counsel, and the Freedom of Information Coordinator were contacted in an attempt to obtain information on the CIA’s involvement in Africa. These officials all declined to provide such information. Moreover, they all declined to provide a written statement of refusal to answer the ASA’s questions on the CIA’s involvement in Africa. The only material provided by the CIA was the Central Intelligence Agency Information Kit from which the photograph from page 112 is reproduced.

scholarly journals Norm transformation and the institutionalization of targeted killing in the US

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 723-747 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Frankel Pratt
Keyword(s):  
Use Of Force ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Network Synthesis ◽  
Relational Sociology ◽  
Targeted Killing ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
Means And Ends ◽  
The Us ◽  
Norm Change

This article explains the emergence and institutionalization of the US’s targeted killing practices as a case of norm transformation. I argue that international and domestic US prohibitions on assassination have not disappeared, but have changed as a result of practitioner-led changes in the conventions, technologies, and bureaucratic structures governing the use of force in counterterrorism activities. After discussing the limits of alternative explanations, and drawing inspiration from practice theory, pragmatist social theory, and relational sociology, I posit three causal mechanisms as responsible for the transformation: convention reorientation, which was the redefinition of targeted killing to distinguish it from assassination; technological revision, which was the development and use of unmanned aerial vehicles (“drones”) to bypass normative and strategic concerns over precision; and network synthesis, which was the support of the Bush administration and especially of the Obama administration, overruling dissenters from within the Central Intelligence Agency (who were often very highly placed). I trace the processes by which these mechanisms operated and interacted in simultaneous and mutually reinforcing ways from the start of the millennium until now. Finally, I discuss some of the ways in which this contributes to institutional analysis and the study of norm change more generally, and, in particular, how it considers the role of technology and the reciprocity of means and ends.

Midterm Election in Kerala in 1960 and the American Government

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 212-220
Author(s):  
Ajayan T.
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Socialist Party ◽  
American Government ◽  
Main Attention ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
Food Scarcity ◽  
Congress Party ◽  
The Us ◽  
1960 Election

After toppling the first Communist ministry in Kerala the main attention of the US agencies—Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the US Embassy in India—was to install a non-communist stable government in Kerala to meet the dangers of communism in Asia. The US agencies adopted two ways to realise these objectives. First of all, they extended all out support to the triple alliance composed of the Congress Party, Praja Socialist Party (PSP) and the Muslim League against the Communist Party in 1960 election. The election campaign of the triple alliance was much funded by the CIA. However the triple alliance won the election, the Communist Party got more votes than in 1957 and it intensified the US agencies to beef up its anti-Communist operations in Kerala and outside. It led to the adoption of second method of anti-Communist activities that the US agencies began to give wide publicity in India and outside that the first Communist ministry in Kerala could not make any economic advancement in Kerala during their tenure nor could they redress the chronic problems of unemployment and food scarcity and if Communists were voted to power in other parts of Asia, they would follow the same trend and fall.

From Complicity to Impunity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard S. Rubenstein
Keyword(s):  
Health Professionals ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Department Of Justice ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
The Us ◽  
Legal Opinions ◽  
Convention Against Torture ◽  
United Nations Convention ◽  
Enhanced Interrogation ◽  
Detention Facilities

As the “enhanced interrogation” program of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) at secret detention facilities developed, health professionals came to play a gradually increasing role in accommodating, facilitating, and finally, rationalizing torture. Ultimately, they contributed substantially to a redefinition that, although contrary to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, was adopted by the US Department of Justice and focused on whether interrogation methods were “safe,” by which was meant not resulting in death or permanent physical injury. This role evolved in stages: CIA health professionals accommodated the use of torture by their role in keeping it “safe”; participated directly in the infliction of torture; imposed purported “limitations” on enhanced methods consistent with the “safety” definition; and by 2005, provided the foundation for US Department of Justice legal opinions purporting to justify the use of methods of torture. In doing so, they rationalized their complicity in and culpability for torture.

New Evidence for the Surprisingly Significant Propaganda Role of the Central Intelligence Agency and Department of Defense in the Screen Entertainment Industry

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Secker ◽  
Matthew Alford
Keyword(s):  
Department Of Defense ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Entertainment Industry ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
Entertainment Media ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
Technical Accuracy ◽  
Governmental Institutions ◽  
National Security State

This article reassesses the relationships of the Central Intelligence Agency and Department of Defense with the American entertainment industry. Both governmental institutions present their relationships as modest in scale, benign in nature, passive, and concerned with historical and technical accuracy rather than politics. The limited extant commentary reflects this reassuring assessment. However, we build on a patchy reassessment begun at the turn of the 21st century, using a significant new set of documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act. We identify three key facets of the state-entertainment relationship that are under-emphasized or absent from the existing commentary and historical record: 1. The withholding of available data from the public; 2. The scale of the work; and 3. The level of politicization. As such, the article emphasizes a need to pay closer attention to the deliberate propaganda role played by state agencies in promoting the US national security state through entertainment media in western societies.

The War on Terror as a Business: Lessons from Kenya and the Somalia Interventions

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-40
Author(s):  
Horace G. Campbell
Keyword(s):  
War On Terror ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Failed States ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
Counter Terrorism ◽  
Us Imperialism ◽  
The Us ◽  
Break Up

Abstract The documented evidence of the Kenyan military collaborating with the so-called forces of terror in Somalia to maintain their accumulation of approximately $400 million every year hardly made the international headlines as the leaders of Kenya have been rehabilitated into the ranks of those allied to US imperialism in waging a war on terror. There is an examination of the links between the US intelligence forces and the Kenyan cartels in keeping alive the terror threat in Somalia. Very few scholars have followed up on the revelations of the role of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in funding those who matured into what is now called terror groups in Somalia through the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism. The challenge for scholars for peace will be to penetrate the US Africa Command shibboleths on ‘failed states’ in order to work for a program of peace and reconstruction in Africa. In the conclusion, the paper will argue that the withdrawal of the Kenyan troops from Somalia and demilitarization of security will be a concrete step to break up the cartels that are in the business of terror.

Reckoning and Redemption: The 9/11 Commission, the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA at War

2020 ◽  
pp. 407-426
Author(s):  
Huw Dylan ◽  
David V. Gioe ◽  
Michael S. Goodman
Keyword(s):  
September 11 ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
Community Activities ◽  
The Us ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Commission Report ◽  
The Impact

This chapter focuses on the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001, and the impact on CIA. The agency received intense criticism from Congress in the final form of the 9/11 Commission Report, and had to adapt. But it also needed to move extremely quickly in the aftermath of the attacks, working alone and with allies, old and new. Having failed to prevent the attacks, the CIA was the tip of the spear in the US’s retaliation. Document: Office of Inspector General Report on Central Intelligence Agency Accountability Regarding Findings and Conclusions of the Report of the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.

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