Intel Reform Over the Past

INTEL Reform Over the Past 100 Years

The United States is without a doubt the most important state actor on the international scene. Its influence and power go beyond the practical resistance of any other country in the world. However, in order to maintain their supremacy, a strong intelligence community is vital. In this sense, the entire system of information gathering, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of results needs to have a strong and reliable framework for implementation.

The present paper will pin point the crucial points in the history of the intelligence community, having in mind the initial goals of the system, the steps taken to increase its efficiency and new means of dealing with emerging threat. There have been numerous attempts to reform and improve the system in order to reach the expectations of the historical context, from its very creation following World War II. The 9/11 events marked an important crossing point in the evolution of intelligence due to the fact that it drew the attention of the various threats facing internal and national security in the 21st century.

There has been a lot of discussion over the tradition the U.S. has in dealing with intelligence. Unlike other nations, the history of the U.S. Intelligence Community is considered to be of recent date. Some authors see as the early signs of a coherent intelligence apparatus to emerge following 1947. This is largely due to the specificity of the American foreign policy which had conducted a relatively isolationist external behavior. This in turn did not encourage the expansion of a professional and modern structure of data gathering and analysis. Up until then, there were particular services for espionage, especially during the war, which conducted data gathering and interpretation for different sectors of the government, such as the Army or the Navy. However, the end of the Second World War drew the United States in what would be the Cold War. In the conflict against the U.S.S.R., information on the communist enemy was deemed essential and vital for the survival and supremacy of the American democracy. In this sense, a new, coherent, and unitary structure was considered essential.

The U.S. Intelligence Community was established officially in 1947 to "prevent another Pearl Harbor-like sneak attack on the United States." The Japanese attack of the American base was considered to be "the greatest intelligence failure of its history," therefore the creation of the Intelligence Community was also a response to an unperceived threat, a reactive measure, as well as a preventive one.

In 1947 President Truman's decision of establishing the Central Intelligence Agency marked the creation of a single identity for all the intelligence services gathering information for the American state up until then. The National Security Act created a solid and common structure, the data would be gathered in a more orderly and coherent manner and the results of its analysis would benefit decision makers and officials.

There are several points which must be considered as changes following the creation of the CIA. According the constituting act, the Agency would be assigned the main role of data gathering under the leadership of its Director.

First and foremost, the CIA would "collect intelligence through human sources and by other appropriate means, except that the Agency shall have no police, subpoena, or law enforcement powers or internal security functions" the main focus of the intelligence activity became the gathering of information given the failure of the American services in the past to predict or comprehensively interpret the information obtained during World War 2. The limitation of the jurisdiction of the Agency was also an important element because it set the distinct function of the CIA as a structure serving the decision making process in external relations and the American foreign affairs.

Secondly, the same constitutive act provides that the CIA offer "overall direction for the collection of national intelligence through human sources by elements of the intelligence community authorized to undertake such collection and, in coordination with other agencies of the Government which are authorized to undertake such collection." This legal underlining of the duties of the CIA pointed out the need for a coordinated effort among different structures of the government in intelligence areas so that there would be a broader range of information acquired and better decisions be made. The placement of the Agency on the same level as other intelligence structures inside the government gave raise to various disputes over the competences of the newly created body. Therefore, the task of achieving smooth cooperation between governmental agencies was difficult to achieve.

Thirdly, another important and vital issue the CIA would have to deal with according to the Act was to "correlate and evaluate intelligence-related to the national security and provide appropriate dissemination of such intelligence" in this sense, the interpretation of the information was necessary in order to place in correlation the entire amount of data gathered. This is why, in the reforms that followed the creation of the Intelligence Community, an increased importance was given to this segment of interpretation of information and special units inside the intelligence system were created with the aim of analysis and dissemination of information.

Yet another worthy of notice element regulated by the Act was the quasi-supremacy of the President over the Agency, taking into account that the CIA can "perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the President or the National Security Council may direct." In this sense, the influence the political factor may have on the activity of the Agency was obvious and offered controversial discussion topics along the years, especially during the Cold War.

The Cold War era represented a period of great challenges for the Intelligence Community more precisely for the CIA which became the most important tool for conducting foreign activities in communist countries. The main focus became the support of pro-democratic forces against the communist rulers in states such as Cuba or Nicaragua. However, the failure registered in the Bay of Pigs operation drew an important alarm signal on the proper flow of information and on the ability of the intelligence agencies to successfully coordinate their efforts and resources.

An important moment in the history of the CIA in particular was the 1970s period when a series of public investigations kept the attention of both the political scene and the public opinion. These included thorough analysis of the operations conducted by the CIA. There were voices at the time, among which that of former U.S. president Truman, that concluded the fact that during its history, "the agency, this quiet intelligence arm of the President, had been so diverted from the original assignment he had given it that it had become a symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue." This came to underline the influence the CIA came to have in covert operations, in influencing the activities of foreign governments and in conducting policies outside the U.S. Recently released documents suggested even that the Turkish invasion of Northern Cyprus had been secretly sponsored by American intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA in 1974. Former National Security Advisor to President Ford, Henry Kissinger was considered to have been responsible for establishing the intervention assistance framework for the Turkish junta.

Similar scandals, correlated with the ever changing political environment and the demands of following presidents to tighten the control over the actions of the CIA increased the intensity of the congressional debates tackling the issue of intelligence operations. These actions resulted in a series of reforms, both at the legislative level, and at the practical one, regarding the proper management of information and the accountability issue the CIA was accused of disregarding. Data management had become an essential issue under discussion because the international environment and especially the confrontation between the democratic countries and the communist ones, the U.S.S.R. In particular was most of the times dependent on the amount of data the former could acquire on the latter. The particularities of the Cold War strategies had led to an increased importance given to secret missions, spies, undercover agents, and unaccounted for actions in third world countries as well as Eastern states that were under the influence of the U.S.S.R.

The congressional investigations "uncovered a history of assassinations, bribery and other untoward acts by the agency over the decades, resulting in new limits on its power and a new level of oversight." The main issue for debate was the extent to which covert operations should have been conducted in other countries as a means of influencing the internal policies of those countries. The Congress considered that the lack of control over the actions of the CIA represented a great threat to the direction in which the U.S. foreign policy was heading to. Traditionally, the legislative body has an important, if not decisive role in framing the general guidelines of the U.S. international conduct. However, the CIA was seen as a body which escaped the scrutiny and control of the Congress and was therefore subject to failure and mistakes. The historical experiences of Cuba, Chile, Turkey, and even the Iran Contra affair fueled the discussions over a tighter control exercised over the Agency's structure and strategies. However, the Cold War demanded for secret operations especially taking into account the high degree of uncertainty that characterized the political environment at the time. The ideological confrontation between the West and Communist forces was often defused on the territories of third parties and the advantage of information and influence played a crucial role.

The period following the Watergate scandal weighted heavily on the evolution of the CIA. Richard Nixon, along with his Secretary of State, Kissinger was the proponents of an increased power given to the CIA because the presidential control could thus be exercised without any legislative hindrance from the Congress. The 1971 presidential decision to gather the budgets of all national intelligence services under a single unitary one was just a sign of the attempt to hand over the control of intelligence to the Director of the Intelligence Community who was accountable to the President. However, the failures of the 60s and 70s, along with the scandals that touched on the presidential credibility as a pole of reference for the just morality of the foreign policy conducted from the White House led to the degrees in the authority of the CIA and the increase of the control of the Congress. Therefore, it is fair to say that the actions taken to limit the scope of intelligence operations was one taken as a reacting measure to the events taking place at the time. In this sense, for most of its history the CIA in particular was molded by the effects the historical background had on the evolution of events, and was less the result of pro-active measures or forth-seeing decisions.

The end of the Cold War changed the perspective on intelligence activities in a decisive manner. This was largely due to the fact that the main threat the U.S. had to deal with, the U.S.S.R., no longer represented an issue in the framing of foreign policy. It was even considered at the time that covert operations and espionage actions were dissolute seeing that the main challenge, the red threat, ceased to exist. In this sense, recent articles point out that "The cold war and the Soviet threat generated the rules that historically governed the use of covert action. But the end of the cold war and the dissolution of the Soviet Union have made the need for covert action less demonstrable and should prompt a reexamination of every aspect of these activities."

The 1996 Aspin-Brown Commission on the Role and Capabilities of the United States Intelligence Community concluded on a series of important issues regarding future activities in the intelligence field. These included the extensive need for the maintenance of intelligence services because the "U.S. intelligence has made, and continues to make, vital contributions to the nation's security, informing its diplomacy and bolstering its defenses." However, the Commission underlined the need for a more coherent policy which would integrate the entire intelligence community resources and foster better cooperation among its members. Even more, covert operations were considered to remain an important tool in foreign affairs in the situations in which the diplomatic means of resolution of conflicts were not available or failed. Finally, concerning the CIA in particular, the Commission considered that a new improved system of recruitment of personnel and staff would increase the efficiency of the Agency and would enable it to better conduct its activities.

Throughout the years the historical background changed and along with it the traditional challenged labeled as threats to the national security of the state. The Oklahoma terrorist attacks, along with the Embassy bombings of Kenya and Tanzania put to the forefront a new type of challenge, terrorism. The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon came as the peak of what would trigger "the fight against terrorism." Unlike the traditional enemies that were visible and identifiable, terrorism is seen as the most difficult to deal with issue from the perspective of the damage it can produce at the level of the national security. In this sense, following 2001, a new Security Strategy was set in place, one that gave the intelligence community an increased role in defending the interests of the American state.