America's secret power

America's secret power

Introduction

The purpose of this study is to expand the boundaries of our knowledge by exploring some relevant facts and figures related to “America's secret power by Loch K. Johnson. At once fascinating and sobering, Johnson's book reveals how the best intelligence reports can be distorted or ignored; how covert actions can spin out of control despite extensive safeguards, as in the Iran-Contra scandal; and how the CIA has spied on American citizens in clear violation of its charter (Johnson, 1991). In this paper, the author will conduct a critical analysis of the CIA related aspects discussed in the book.

Discussion & Analysis

The book “America's secret power” presents a comprehensive picture of American CIA and its operation. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was established under the 1947 National Security Act in response to the Japanese surprise attack at Pearl Harbor in 1941. Its statutory functions were to advise the National Security Council (NSC) on intelligence matters, to “correlate and evaluate” intelligence information from across the U.S. government, and to perform unspecified other tasks that the NSC judged could be “more effectively accomplished centrally.” Before the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, the CIA was headed by the director of Central Intelligence (DCI), who was also responsible for coordinating the intelligence community (IC), that is, all of the various departmental intelligence agencies. Under the 2004 Act, which was prompted by the failure of the intelligence community to detect the impending 9/11 terrorist attacks, the “community” role was delegated to a new director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the CIA is now headed by a director, appointed by the president (Johnson, 2007).

In this book, Johnson also discussed that the CIA, and its short-lived predecessor, the 1946 Central Intelligence Group (CIG), were originally intended to be administrative and analytical staff organizations (Hersh, 2001). Covert operational capability developed as something of an afterthought when CIG took on the residual elements of the wartime Office of Strategic Services because of a lack of viable alternatives. In 1952, the CIA's covert capability was consolidated as the Directorate of Plans (DP), redesignated the Directorate of Operations (DO) in 1972. The analytical components became the Directorate of Intelligence in 1952 and have remained that since (Johnson, 1991).

Despite the DO's improvised origins, the 1976 Church inquiry noted that between 1962 and 1970, the DO alone accounted for 52% of the CIA's budget and 55% ...