Official reports by the U.S. Government on the CIA
These reports were the result of internal or presidential studies, external investigations by congressional committees or other arms of the Federal government of the United States, or even the simple releases and declassification of large quantities of documents by the CIA.The task force concluded that the system of the day led to an adversarial relationship, with little effective coordination, among the CIA, the military, and the State Department.In large measure, the military and State Department were blamed for their failure to consult and share pertinent information with the CIA.The task force recommended "that positive efforts be made to foster relations of mutual confidence between the [CIA] and the several departments and agencies that it serves."To alleviate concerns expressed by the military who viewed this proposal as encroaching upon their prerogatives, the report stated that clandestine operations should be the responsibility of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in time of war.The report declared that the failure to appraise scientific advances (e.g., biological and chemical warfare, electronics, aerodynamics, guided missiles, atomic weapons, and nuclear energy) in hostile countries might have more immediate and catastrophic consequences than failure in any other field of intelligence."On January 8, 1948, the National Security Council established the Intelligence Survey Group (ISG) to "evaluate the CIA's effort and its relationship with other agencies.Like the Hoover Commission, this group was chartered at the request of President Truman, and was made up of Allen W. Dulles, who had served in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during the Second World War and would become DCI in 1953, William Jackson, a future Deputy DCI, and Matthias Correa, a former assistant to Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal when the latter had served as Secretary of the Navy during the war."He approached it from the standpoint of 'what right have we to go barging into other countries buying newspapers and handing money to opposition parties or supporting a candidate for this, that or the other office?'The 1956 report, written in Bruce's spirited style, condemned the increased mingling in the internal affairs of other nations of bright, highly graded young men who must be doing something all the time to justify their reason for being.... Once having been conceived, the final approval given to any project (at informal lunch meetins of the OCB [Operations Coordinating Board] inner group) can, at best, be described as pro forma."With "a horde of CIA representatives" swarming around the planet, CIA covert action was exerting "significant, almost unilateral influences ... on the actual formulation of our foreign policies ... sometimes completely unknown" to the local American ambassador.Bruce and Lovett concluded with a plea about taking control of covert operations and their consequences: Should not someone, somewhere in an authoritative position in our government, on a continuing basis, be ... calculating ... the long-range wisdom of activities which have entailed a virtual abandonment of the international "golden rule," and which, if successful to the degree claimed for them, are responsible in a great measure for stirring up the turmoitl and raising the doubts about us that exist in many countries of the world today?"He approached it from the standpoint of 'what right have we to go barging into other countries buying newspapers and handing money to opposition parties or supporting a candidate for this, that or the other office?'[6] Congress merged divergent proposals from studies of the Aspin–Brown Commission (successively chaired by former Secretaries of Defense Les Aspin and Harold Brown, and whose members were mostly appointed by President Bill Clinton) and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (chaired by Republican Larry Combest of Texas) in crafting the Intelligence and Defense Authorization Acts for fiscal year 1997, enacting them as amendments to the National Security Act of 1947.The revised Act now gave the DCI a new DDCI for Community Management, along with three “Assistant Directors of Central Intelligence” to coordinate collection, administration, and analysis and production.The first collection, the "Family Jewels," consists of almost 700 pages of responses from CIA employees to a 1973 directive from Director of Central Intelligence James Schlesinger requesting information about activities inconsistent with the Agency's charter.