This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | → | Archive 10 |
I see the first responsibility of an article about an agency to describe its current form and give a basic reference. Instead, I find the lead to be a mixture of POV language and dated terminology (NSC 10/2, described here as the basis of clandestine operations, was issued in 1948), a lack of clarity about the relationship of the CIA to other components of the intelligence community as well as other national services, and an apparent willingness to take any accusation at face value.
In no way am I suggesting there have not been improprieties committed by the CIA, but I would expect to see both accusations and defenses, or independent investigations. It's simply hard to read the list.
May I suggest looking at some very specific history and background, comparing the US with other countries, in Clandestine HUMINT and Covert Action? Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 22:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
The bulleted date format takes up a great deal of space on the page. It would read more smoothly if regular paragraphs were used, with dates in context.
Many bulleted comments have no context. Saying "The CIA trained police in country XXX" does not indicate if that training was under a foreign aid authorization, if there were improprieties, and the current relationship. Many of these training comments are not sourced.
Whenever possible, there should be cites from at least two positions, when allegations are made. It's one thing to cite a major newspaper such as the Washington Post, but another to post, without any other context, a website post from a writer for the Revolutionary Worker. Wikipedia policy is neutrality, but when an accusation is made, it needs the other side, or at least some context. Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 15:52, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I've put in a fair bit of time on the article, both in verifying/cleaning content and filling in material, enough that I think I can say I have gone over things in detail.
Look, for example, at Korea and the Caribbean/Cuba/Cuban missile crisis; those are a start on what I think is encyclopedic coverage. Just to say, with no other background, that the CIA trained police or set up an Operation Gladio network really doesn't give information; I'd recommend waiting for more background and context.
There are news reports from reputable journalists, but there are also quite a number from activists for varying positions. I'm afraid I don't give equal credit to a staff writer for the Washington Post and for the Revolutionary Worker.
The article is impossibly long, yet its covert operations section is full of fragments. It's going to have to break up so those fragmentary sections can be edited; it's taking a long time to save the file now. Note that I was able to put estimative/analytic material in for Korea and Cuba. Much data of that sort is available, often in the form of the actual declassified documents. Not to put in relevant reports, National Intelligence Estimates, etc., gives the impression that the agency is purely covert operations, since the reports were almost never mentioned for countries I saw--just controversial "dirty tricks". That's not NPOV.
Many sources are available for the report literature, including the George Washington University National Security Archives, the Avalon Project at Yale, the archives at Mount Holyoke, the military staff colleges and research institutes, the Foreign Relations of the United States series, and even the CIA FOIA Reading Room. There is, for example, a huge amount of analytic reporting about Southeast Asia from 1945 to 1975, including strong disagreements among the CIA, military, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and White House (Sam Adams' book, War of Numbers is excellent, but also see the Pentagon Papers).
I'd like to suggest that people editing this look at some of my articles on the process of intelligence, which may help understand things that aren't just covert destabilization. Start with Intelligence cycle management, which will take you through a hierarchy of articles. The HUMINT sections do deal with clandestine rather than covert activity; I'm actively working on them. The article on Clandestine HUMINT and Covert Action is particularly relevant both in history, and balance between clandestine and covert activities. Especially in WWII, there was often a conflict between operations and intelligence gathering.
Please let me help, but understand that my reaction is that things come across as very accusatory and unbalanced. Believe me, I am very aware of both improprieties and just plain incompetence in intelligence agencies, and they need to be brought out -- but in an encylopedic, not fragmentary and accusatory way. Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 05:05, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I've put some sourced detail under the Directorate of Intelligence, which I may make into a graphic. Unfortunately, I can't find any organization charts online for the ever-changing organization on the DDP/DO/NCS. While I know where to get a number of books that gave a snapshot at some point in time, I have most of my hardcopy books in storage, so I can't source the reference. For anyone that has them, Richelson's The American Intelligence Community is probably most neutral. There are versions, certainly reorganized by now, in Agee, Marchetti & Marks, and (IIRC) Stockwell, among others. Does anyone have access to these books for sourcing? Here's some general text, but it's from my memory rather than something I can cite.
More than most government agencies, the organization of a service that does clandestine intelligence collection, and covert operations, changes frequently. Some reorganizations will be based on geopolitical considerations. Most services, not just the CIA have a set of divisions and subordinate "branches" or "desks" organized around regions and countries. During the Cold War, for example, there was a Soviet Russia Division, where another division might have all of Latin America.
In general, however, the CIA operations side was structured into geographic areas, and then a set of "staffs" that provide various services:
There was usually a unit that worked with NSA to put SIGINT and other sensors into denied areas or diplomatic facilities. At one point, this was "Division D", and may now be the "Special Collection Service".
There has been a trend, visible in the DI, to structure not just geographically, but also by function, especially for transnational issues. For example, Plame worked for a Counterproliferation unit that mixed DO and DI personnel.
At various times, CIA operations has had its own information technology unit, as they did not want information on specific HUMINT assets on the general CIA computers, even though those computers are designed to be secure.
The Counterintelligence Staff was most dominant under James Jesus Angleton. While it was reorganized periodically to get rid of Angleton, there is no question that field operators, clandestine and covert, need a counterintelligence support unit. Counterintelligence, for example, would do name checks and other research on potential asset recruitments, to be sure they have not been associated with a foreign intelligence service.
All large bureaucracies, certainly including the CIA, periodically reorganize for reasons such as trying to improve efficiency, or to recover from a scandal. Another factor, specific to intelligence services, is that they do not want details of their organization to be known externally. Some of this is a tradition of secrecy, but there are practical reasons. For example, if a foreign service knows the number of people working in a division, it will give rough priorities. Most importantly, the association of particular people with assignments is sensitive. If, for example, someone posted to an embassy, under diplomatic cover is known to have worked in the paramilitary division, that alerts the country that a covert military operation may be planned.
Alternatively, that paramilitary officer may be assigned to work closely with the government in that area,to help them run paramilitary activities against neighboring country, or for counterinsurgency.
If another officer is assigned to an embassy, and is known to be a scientific rather than geographic specialist, that can alert the host nation that the intelligence service either is going to try to get more information in that field, or may have already recruited human assets that need a specialist case officer, a case officer who will understand their reporting.
Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 20:25, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
In the last two days or so, I have been fairly boldly structuring, reference checking, and doing general editing. In a number of places, especially in South America, I replaced what was clearly partisan sources, written in emotional language, with bureaucratic but damning language from declassified CIA documents. Putting in details from US sources, which are hardly complimentary to the US, should indicate that I'm not an apologist.
At the same time, I do not consider the CIA or the US Intelligence Community the incarnation of evil. I absolutely believe that true intelligence is needed, and I changed the "covert and clandestine actions" to a geographical one in which I have included intelligence reports and estimates. Seeing the analytic product alongside "action", I believe, gives a much more balanced perspective. Also, this article is about the CIA, not all of US foreign policy. If a section discussed US actions but in no way referenced the CIA or any intelligence agency, I removed that content; some were, for example, presidential or private actions. There were times that the same action in Iran and Iraq was essentially cloned in both places, where it belongs only in one. That is one of the reasons I have been substituting Wiki headings for date bullets, so it is possible to Wikilink and avoid duplication.
The article desperately needs to be split into a core agency description, and then history by geographic area (as well as a separate section for transnational issues). We can discuss what the areas should be; I think separating Central and South America is not useful due to transborder events. Whether to split Europe into Western vs. Eastern & Soviet Union/Russia is debatable. East and even Southeast Asia works, but some thought will have to go into the Middle East and the Maghreb of North Africa, East Africa, Subsaharan Africa, and Southwest Asia.
I see little point to putting in "CIA trained the police of country XXX" when there is no other context. To me, those lines, by themselves, and especially without references, come across as vague allegations. Again, to anyone that might suggest I'm being an apologist, I documented some very ugly things done in Guatemala and Honduras, and have more material for Argentina. I also have some material that isn't all that complementary to Cuba, and some, as much as anything can be in a serious subject, that is comical: Brezhnev and Castro apparently each considered the other to be an idiot.
Sorry, I can't get serious about allegations that Afghanistan was the worst catastrophe in history, unless someone hasn't heard of World War II. Looked at objectively, some just doesn't make sense. For example, earlier text on South Sudan mentions that its late leader, John Garang, went to the School of the Americas. ummm...what? Sudan is in East Africa. AFAIK, Garang didn't speak Spanish or Portuguese. Why would he go to the School of the Americas, unless that is the euphemism for conspiracies? In fact, he took the Advanced Infantry Officer School at the Infantry Center. It's quite routine to have foreign personnel in regular US military educational institutions; Advanced (Branch) school is for fairly junior officers (e.g., Army captain), but you will find foreign students at the midcareer Staff Colleges and the senior War Colleges.
There's no way to get real context into an article of this size, but it works much better with links. For example, the Soviet Union and Cuba would certainly be in diferent articles were there a geographic split, but there are important links between them. East Asia has a great deal of transnational issues, especially regarding China, Vietnam and Korea.
I'm a little surprised that there has been no comment; I do welcome working together in good faith.
As an aside, remember that US intelligence is more than the CIA. In discussing the Korean War, I did put in some SIGINT information that affects the CIA reporting. Do remember that during the Korean War, NSA did not yet exist, and the CIA clandestine service was still scattered among several agencies (until near the end). Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 23:04, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
andPresident Eisenhower had created a one-size-fits-all plan called the Overseas Internal Security Program, run by the CIA in concert with the Pentagon and the State Department...The program trained 771,217 foreign military and police officers in twenty-five nations. It found the most fertile ground in nations where covert action by the CIA had prepared the soil. It had helped create the secret police of Cambodia, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Iran, Iraq, Laos, Peru, the Philippines, South Korea, South Vietnam , and Thailand
The CIA was backing the leaders of eleven Latin American nations -- Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru, and Venezuala.
I'm inclined to create a section on transnational issues in the main article, but then split off the geographic sections into three articles, which reflects the CIA geographic organization in the Directorate of Intelligence (with the exception of Iraq as a special office). In doing so, I will have sections on regional issues, such as human rights in Latin America.
The challenge, however, is what to call the geographic sections. They are no longer restricted to covert action, but include analytic reports and intelligence estimates. Including such material is hardly a whitewash of the omniscience of the CIA, as would be evident in looking at Indonesia in 1965: the estimates leading a political action program meant only to strengthen opposition to Communist influences did not expect the massive military purge of the Communist Party.
Another problem is that there can be a very blurry line between CIA, State Department, military and White House direction. CIA has apparently been tasked with hunting al-Qaeda operatives in Somalia and Ethiopia, but State Department officials there say this is at odds with the broader program of stabilization.
So, any suggestions? I don't want to start creating articles that talk about all US policy in an area, but there is a need to show where CIA may differ with other organizations. Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 18:37, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi, I took off the NPOV and length tags because it seems these issues have been largely addressed.
If anybody has an NPOV or length issue now, please add the tag back on and discuss here.
Thanks, Erxnmedia ( talk) 02:14, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Don't many Wikipedia articles have a cultural trivia section? To me, it seems like the perfect receptable into which we could sweep all the "not verifiable" or alleged "conspiracy theory" or alledged not "neutral point of view" elements of this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.111.123.49 ( talk) 19:09, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
This is a pedant speaking, so ignore this freely! :D Anyway, unless the text accompanying the logo is an officially-defined symbology, shouldn't the paragraph read that the coat of arms of the CIA is a white compass star on a white background, with an eagle for the crest? Or some other heraldically-accurate description? I know that this is quite an unimportant issue of no consequence as to whether it is like-this-or-like-that, but maybe it can be looked into by someone more comfortable with this article. 202.89.153.149 ( talk) 03:24, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I almost left Wikipedia because I was disgusted and tired of the POV deletions and having to police articles which I contributed too.
I decided to check on this page, and sure enough, large portions of cited text, with over 93 citations were moved and deleted, replaced with a whitwashed mickey mouse version of the history of the CIA.
It was no surprise that those who wanted to delete this troubling history from wikipedia had no problem with this unrefrenced history of the CIA.
The length tag was removed [even though the article was still 93 kilobytes long], and so was the NPOV tag.
This argument started when a self proclaimed CIA employee started removing sections of this article. It continued with a Single Purpose account who created a dummy page which confused other editors. This argument continues with editors who have less than 100 edits.
REMEDY
I have ask for a third party moderator on this page. I am going to ask other wikipedians who care about a full history of the CIA to get involved with this article too. If this does not resolve the situation we will go to RFA. I think we can avoid and AfD but I don't rule this out. I think a AfD is the only remedy to stop this blatant whitewashing.
I redirected all the split off pages. I couldn't find many of my contributions. The older style was much better of topics instead of regions, the torture manuals are now buried, as are the alleged drug activities of Air America. I will completly rework all the section tonight.
No one who wants to delete this section complains when it is deleted. So I have little sympathy for the changes that were lost in reverting this page. If editors want to add back this information which was removed in the reversion they are welcome. Unlike many editors, I will not delete information which I don't personally agree with. Trav ( talk) 18:06, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Who has proclaimed themself a CIA employee, and what SPA is involved?
Could someone tell me what is involved here? I've done a lot of work on the CIA article, but I've also done a lot of work in other areas, including intelligence concepts not focused on countries, and also written extensively in computer networking and other areas.
I have tried to rearrange the CIA article, which was both long and POV when I started, and preserve well-sourced data in additional articles. Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 19:24, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Please read the portion of this discussion page in the edit diff linked to above carefully, taking special attention of the word not. I am NOT a CIA employee (or former employee for that matter) and have never claimed to be. I am, however, typing this comment out laboriously on the tiny keyboard of a handheld device, and can't really elaborate or get further involved in this current discussion. I have been inactive on Wikipedia of late for a variety of reasons, but felt compelled to break my self-imposed silence to correct the record on this very important point of fact. No barometer of intelligence ( talk) 01:00, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I am going to start restoring certain historical items one by one to this article. Which was moved to other articles.
I have no idea where certain sections went in this move.
I am going to add back information before Erxnmedia's edits. I will explain why in the next post.
Travb 00:13, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
User:Erxnmedia criticized me for deleting his edits, when in reality it was WP:SPA User:Morethan3words who created a misspelled version of Central Intelligence Agency, Central Intellegence Agency, which Erxnmedia edited. [This misspelling tactic is a common tactic of SPA's attempting to cause confusion]. There was no criticism of the SPA after I explained what happened.
After I stopped editing the article on 13 December 2007, Erxnmedia continued to add A LOT of information to the article, he increased the size of all of the small sections. Here is the stark differences before Hcberkowitz started to remove the sections.
[3] User:Lars T. tried to stop Erxnmedia from "needlessly" cut and pasting so much material from other articles, and Erxnmedia reverted him. [4]
Erxnmedia also restored the dozens of === sections which I removed, which made the article look much longer than it was, even after I asked him not to do this. I told him that it would make the article look to big and harken users to complain it was too long.
It was like Erxnmedia intention was to split up the article.
And indeed, when the article was split up Erxnmedia didn't complain. He even suggested to remove the long and NPA tags after all of his edits and the criticism of the CIA was removed. Travb 00:13, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I have no problem with all about having a chronological history. I do have a problem limiting it to covert opeations, and I just don't think that some of the specific matters (I'll give an example) can be covered adequately in a single article.
As an example of how that it's a bad idea to separate covert operations by the CIA, intelligence reports and estimates by the CIA and the intelligence community, and covert action tasking by one of the many NSC committees (e.g., 303 Committee, 54/12 Group, Special Group (counterinsurgency), I'd like to refer to the section on Indonesia in the separate CIA Activities in Asia-Pacific article. Since that article was clearly wikilinked from the start of the main CIA article, and also had a navigation box, I didn't think it would be hard to find.
Very briefly, in the late fifties, CIA got orders to overthrow Sukarno. They organized exiles in the Phillipines and Taiwan, and flew some in and brought in others by US submarine (source: declassified US documents, primarily in the Foreign Relations of the United States) series.
In 1964 and 1965, there were a series of National Intelligence Estimates and other analytic products that suggested ways of strengthening elements of the Indonesian political system, as a means of restraining (I'm not saying this is right or wrong) Sukarno's alliances with China and Russia, and his support of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). The NIEs did not expect Sukarno to fall or the military to take an active political role.
1965, however, brought an extremely bloody civil war/military purge of the PKI, which, if one read the NIEs, should not have happened. As I understand the events, the PKI, on its own, killed six generals, and the military basically ignored Sukarno and tried to kill every member of the PKI.
How can one understand the Indonesian situation, and the Indonesian-US relations since, without looking at both the relevant intelligence estimates and the orders of the (IIRC) 303 Committee? Just looking at covert action proper, IMHO, cannot give a decent picture. Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 04:30, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I seem to remember reading a NYTimes article in the recent past about an inadvertent reveal of the scope of the CIA budget (perhaps through an FOIA request for testimony of a hearing that was mistakenly not closed? Can't remember at the moment). I'll look around and see if I can find the cite, but does anyone remember off hand? If its been revealed by someone who ought to know, then we should put that in as an estimate in the infobox and include "Exact budget remains classified." Avruch talk 04:33, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Oooh I bet its in my secrecy news archive, or the NSA one from gwu. It goes to my work e-mail, I'll check it tomorrow. Avruch talk 04:43, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
There is too much secrecy to tell which agencies might be involved, but if this dispute is getting too heated... A bit of intelligence perspective could come from http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/07/20/280529.aspx. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hcberkowitz ( talk • contribs) 15:53, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
When trying to tell what the CIA has or has not done, especially with respect to recent events, do remember that its bureaucratic position has changed. From 1947 (in theory, more like 1952, to 2004, the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) "wore two hats". One was to run the CIA. The other was to coordinate the entire Intelligence Community.
In late 2004, the position of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) was created, and the position of DCI abolished, as well as most of the IC-wide responsibilities, which moved to the office of the DNI. CIA position titles and functions were changed, for a variety of reasons. Most importantly, the head of the CIA is now the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (DCIA).
I've seen some references saying where the CIA did something, where it really happened in the DNI or sometimes the White House/National Security Council. This is not a simple matter to explain CIA activities, since prior to 2004, the National Intelligence Estimates and similar documents, as well as the Presidential/NSC committee action authorizations, could both be under the CIA for a given year. Now, some of this information goes under several agencies.
It's worth noting that the reorganization still left major intelligence analysis function in CIA, as well as the National Clandestine Service, which does both clandestine intelligence gathering and covert action.
I don't have a simple answer moving forward, but I hate to see covert actions alone presented without the directly relevant intelligence estimates and NSC authorization. This is not too much of a problem right now, since the more recent actions are classified, but it is something to consider when discussing things like "budget". Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 16:03, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | → | Archive 10 |
I see the first responsibility of an article about an agency to describe its current form and give a basic reference. Instead, I find the lead to be a mixture of POV language and dated terminology (NSC 10/2, described here as the basis of clandestine operations, was issued in 1948), a lack of clarity about the relationship of the CIA to other components of the intelligence community as well as other national services, and an apparent willingness to take any accusation at face value.
In no way am I suggesting there have not been improprieties committed by the CIA, but I would expect to see both accusations and defenses, or independent investigations. It's simply hard to read the list.
May I suggest looking at some very specific history and background, comparing the US with other countries, in Clandestine HUMINT and Covert Action? Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 22:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
The bulleted date format takes up a great deal of space on the page. It would read more smoothly if regular paragraphs were used, with dates in context.
Many bulleted comments have no context. Saying "The CIA trained police in country XXX" does not indicate if that training was under a foreign aid authorization, if there were improprieties, and the current relationship. Many of these training comments are not sourced.
Whenever possible, there should be cites from at least two positions, when allegations are made. It's one thing to cite a major newspaper such as the Washington Post, but another to post, without any other context, a website post from a writer for the Revolutionary Worker. Wikipedia policy is neutrality, but when an accusation is made, it needs the other side, or at least some context. Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 15:52, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I've put in a fair bit of time on the article, both in verifying/cleaning content and filling in material, enough that I think I can say I have gone over things in detail.
Look, for example, at Korea and the Caribbean/Cuba/Cuban missile crisis; those are a start on what I think is encyclopedic coverage. Just to say, with no other background, that the CIA trained police or set up an Operation Gladio network really doesn't give information; I'd recommend waiting for more background and context.
There are news reports from reputable journalists, but there are also quite a number from activists for varying positions. I'm afraid I don't give equal credit to a staff writer for the Washington Post and for the Revolutionary Worker.
The article is impossibly long, yet its covert operations section is full of fragments. It's going to have to break up so those fragmentary sections can be edited; it's taking a long time to save the file now. Note that I was able to put estimative/analytic material in for Korea and Cuba. Much data of that sort is available, often in the form of the actual declassified documents. Not to put in relevant reports, National Intelligence Estimates, etc., gives the impression that the agency is purely covert operations, since the reports were almost never mentioned for countries I saw--just controversial "dirty tricks". That's not NPOV.
Many sources are available for the report literature, including the George Washington University National Security Archives, the Avalon Project at Yale, the archives at Mount Holyoke, the military staff colleges and research institutes, the Foreign Relations of the United States series, and even the CIA FOIA Reading Room. There is, for example, a huge amount of analytic reporting about Southeast Asia from 1945 to 1975, including strong disagreements among the CIA, military, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and White House (Sam Adams' book, War of Numbers is excellent, but also see the Pentagon Papers).
I'd like to suggest that people editing this look at some of my articles on the process of intelligence, which may help understand things that aren't just covert destabilization. Start with Intelligence cycle management, which will take you through a hierarchy of articles. The HUMINT sections do deal with clandestine rather than covert activity; I'm actively working on them. The article on Clandestine HUMINT and Covert Action is particularly relevant both in history, and balance between clandestine and covert activities. Especially in WWII, there was often a conflict between operations and intelligence gathering.
Please let me help, but understand that my reaction is that things come across as very accusatory and unbalanced. Believe me, I am very aware of both improprieties and just plain incompetence in intelligence agencies, and they need to be brought out -- but in an encylopedic, not fragmentary and accusatory way. Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 05:05, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I've put some sourced detail under the Directorate of Intelligence, which I may make into a graphic. Unfortunately, I can't find any organization charts online for the ever-changing organization on the DDP/DO/NCS. While I know where to get a number of books that gave a snapshot at some point in time, I have most of my hardcopy books in storage, so I can't source the reference. For anyone that has them, Richelson's The American Intelligence Community is probably most neutral. There are versions, certainly reorganized by now, in Agee, Marchetti & Marks, and (IIRC) Stockwell, among others. Does anyone have access to these books for sourcing? Here's some general text, but it's from my memory rather than something I can cite.
More than most government agencies, the organization of a service that does clandestine intelligence collection, and covert operations, changes frequently. Some reorganizations will be based on geopolitical considerations. Most services, not just the CIA have a set of divisions and subordinate "branches" or "desks" organized around regions and countries. During the Cold War, for example, there was a Soviet Russia Division, where another division might have all of Latin America.
In general, however, the CIA operations side was structured into geographic areas, and then a set of "staffs" that provide various services:
There was usually a unit that worked with NSA to put SIGINT and other sensors into denied areas or diplomatic facilities. At one point, this was "Division D", and may now be the "Special Collection Service".
There has been a trend, visible in the DI, to structure not just geographically, but also by function, especially for transnational issues. For example, Plame worked for a Counterproliferation unit that mixed DO and DI personnel.
At various times, CIA operations has had its own information technology unit, as they did not want information on specific HUMINT assets on the general CIA computers, even though those computers are designed to be secure.
The Counterintelligence Staff was most dominant under James Jesus Angleton. While it was reorganized periodically to get rid of Angleton, there is no question that field operators, clandestine and covert, need a counterintelligence support unit. Counterintelligence, for example, would do name checks and other research on potential asset recruitments, to be sure they have not been associated with a foreign intelligence service.
All large bureaucracies, certainly including the CIA, periodically reorganize for reasons such as trying to improve efficiency, or to recover from a scandal. Another factor, specific to intelligence services, is that they do not want details of their organization to be known externally. Some of this is a tradition of secrecy, but there are practical reasons. For example, if a foreign service knows the number of people working in a division, it will give rough priorities. Most importantly, the association of particular people with assignments is sensitive. If, for example, someone posted to an embassy, under diplomatic cover is known to have worked in the paramilitary division, that alerts the country that a covert military operation may be planned.
Alternatively, that paramilitary officer may be assigned to work closely with the government in that area,to help them run paramilitary activities against neighboring country, or for counterinsurgency.
If another officer is assigned to an embassy, and is known to be a scientific rather than geographic specialist, that can alert the host nation that the intelligence service either is going to try to get more information in that field, or may have already recruited human assets that need a specialist case officer, a case officer who will understand their reporting.
Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 20:25, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
In the last two days or so, I have been fairly boldly structuring, reference checking, and doing general editing. In a number of places, especially in South America, I replaced what was clearly partisan sources, written in emotional language, with bureaucratic but damning language from declassified CIA documents. Putting in details from US sources, which are hardly complimentary to the US, should indicate that I'm not an apologist.
At the same time, I do not consider the CIA or the US Intelligence Community the incarnation of evil. I absolutely believe that true intelligence is needed, and I changed the "covert and clandestine actions" to a geographical one in which I have included intelligence reports and estimates. Seeing the analytic product alongside "action", I believe, gives a much more balanced perspective. Also, this article is about the CIA, not all of US foreign policy. If a section discussed US actions but in no way referenced the CIA or any intelligence agency, I removed that content; some were, for example, presidential or private actions. There were times that the same action in Iran and Iraq was essentially cloned in both places, where it belongs only in one. That is one of the reasons I have been substituting Wiki headings for date bullets, so it is possible to Wikilink and avoid duplication.
The article desperately needs to be split into a core agency description, and then history by geographic area (as well as a separate section for transnational issues). We can discuss what the areas should be; I think separating Central and South America is not useful due to transborder events. Whether to split Europe into Western vs. Eastern & Soviet Union/Russia is debatable. East and even Southeast Asia works, but some thought will have to go into the Middle East and the Maghreb of North Africa, East Africa, Subsaharan Africa, and Southwest Asia.
I see little point to putting in "CIA trained the police of country XXX" when there is no other context. To me, those lines, by themselves, and especially without references, come across as vague allegations. Again, to anyone that might suggest I'm being an apologist, I documented some very ugly things done in Guatemala and Honduras, and have more material for Argentina. I also have some material that isn't all that complementary to Cuba, and some, as much as anything can be in a serious subject, that is comical: Brezhnev and Castro apparently each considered the other to be an idiot.
Sorry, I can't get serious about allegations that Afghanistan was the worst catastrophe in history, unless someone hasn't heard of World War II. Looked at objectively, some just doesn't make sense. For example, earlier text on South Sudan mentions that its late leader, John Garang, went to the School of the Americas. ummm...what? Sudan is in East Africa. AFAIK, Garang didn't speak Spanish or Portuguese. Why would he go to the School of the Americas, unless that is the euphemism for conspiracies? In fact, he took the Advanced Infantry Officer School at the Infantry Center. It's quite routine to have foreign personnel in regular US military educational institutions; Advanced (Branch) school is for fairly junior officers (e.g., Army captain), but you will find foreign students at the midcareer Staff Colleges and the senior War Colleges.
There's no way to get real context into an article of this size, but it works much better with links. For example, the Soviet Union and Cuba would certainly be in diferent articles were there a geographic split, but there are important links between them. East Asia has a great deal of transnational issues, especially regarding China, Vietnam and Korea.
I'm a little surprised that there has been no comment; I do welcome working together in good faith.
As an aside, remember that US intelligence is more than the CIA. In discussing the Korean War, I did put in some SIGINT information that affects the CIA reporting. Do remember that during the Korean War, NSA did not yet exist, and the CIA clandestine service was still scattered among several agencies (until near the end). Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 23:04, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
andPresident Eisenhower had created a one-size-fits-all plan called the Overseas Internal Security Program, run by the CIA in concert with the Pentagon and the State Department...The program trained 771,217 foreign military and police officers in twenty-five nations. It found the most fertile ground in nations where covert action by the CIA had prepared the soil. It had helped create the secret police of Cambodia, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Iran, Iraq, Laos, Peru, the Philippines, South Korea, South Vietnam , and Thailand
The CIA was backing the leaders of eleven Latin American nations -- Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru, and Venezuala.
I'm inclined to create a section on transnational issues in the main article, but then split off the geographic sections into three articles, which reflects the CIA geographic organization in the Directorate of Intelligence (with the exception of Iraq as a special office). In doing so, I will have sections on regional issues, such as human rights in Latin America.
The challenge, however, is what to call the geographic sections. They are no longer restricted to covert action, but include analytic reports and intelligence estimates. Including such material is hardly a whitewash of the omniscience of the CIA, as would be evident in looking at Indonesia in 1965: the estimates leading a political action program meant only to strengthen opposition to Communist influences did not expect the massive military purge of the Communist Party.
Another problem is that there can be a very blurry line between CIA, State Department, military and White House direction. CIA has apparently been tasked with hunting al-Qaeda operatives in Somalia and Ethiopia, but State Department officials there say this is at odds with the broader program of stabilization.
So, any suggestions? I don't want to start creating articles that talk about all US policy in an area, but there is a need to show where CIA may differ with other organizations. Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 18:37, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi, I took off the NPOV and length tags because it seems these issues have been largely addressed.
If anybody has an NPOV or length issue now, please add the tag back on and discuss here.
Thanks, Erxnmedia ( talk) 02:14, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Don't many Wikipedia articles have a cultural trivia section? To me, it seems like the perfect receptable into which we could sweep all the "not verifiable" or alleged "conspiracy theory" or alledged not "neutral point of view" elements of this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.111.123.49 ( talk) 19:09, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
This is a pedant speaking, so ignore this freely! :D Anyway, unless the text accompanying the logo is an officially-defined symbology, shouldn't the paragraph read that the coat of arms of the CIA is a white compass star on a white background, with an eagle for the crest? Or some other heraldically-accurate description? I know that this is quite an unimportant issue of no consequence as to whether it is like-this-or-like-that, but maybe it can be looked into by someone more comfortable with this article. 202.89.153.149 ( talk) 03:24, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I almost left Wikipedia because I was disgusted and tired of the POV deletions and having to police articles which I contributed too.
I decided to check on this page, and sure enough, large portions of cited text, with over 93 citations were moved and deleted, replaced with a whitwashed mickey mouse version of the history of the CIA.
It was no surprise that those who wanted to delete this troubling history from wikipedia had no problem with this unrefrenced history of the CIA.
The length tag was removed [even though the article was still 93 kilobytes long], and so was the NPOV tag.
This argument started when a self proclaimed CIA employee started removing sections of this article. It continued with a Single Purpose account who created a dummy page which confused other editors. This argument continues with editors who have less than 100 edits.
REMEDY
I have ask for a third party moderator on this page. I am going to ask other wikipedians who care about a full history of the CIA to get involved with this article too. If this does not resolve the situation we will go to RFA. I think we can avoid and AfD but I don't rule this out. I think a AfD is the only remedy to stop this blatant whitewashing.
I redirected all the split off pages. I couldn't find many of my contributions. The older style was much better of topics instead of regions, the torture manuals are now buried, as are the alleged drug activities of Air America. I will completly rework all the section tonight.
No one who wants to delete this section complains when it is deleted. So I have little sympathy for the changes that were lost in reverting this page. If editors want to add back this information which was removed in the reversion they are welcome. Unlike many editors, I will not delete information which I don't personally agree with. Trav ( talk) 18:06, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Who has proclaimed themself a CIA employee, and what SPA is involved?
Could someone tell me what is involved here? I've done a lot of work on the CIA article, but I've also done a lot of work in other areas, including intelligence concepts not focused on countries, and also written extensively in computer networking and other areas.
I have tried to rearrange the CIA article, which was both long and POV when I started, and preserve well-sourced data in additional articles. Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 19:24, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Please read the portion of this discussion page in the edit diff linked to above carefully, taking special attention of the word not. I am NOT a CIA employee (or former employee for that matter) and have never claimed to be. I am, however, typing this comment out laboriously on the tiny keyboard of a handheld device, and can't really elaborate or get further involved in this current discussion. I have been inactive on Wikipedia of late for a variety of reasons, but felt compelled to break my self-imposed silence to correct the record on this very important point of fact. No barometer of intelligence ( talk) 01:00, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I am going to start restoring certain historical items one by one to this article. Which was moved to other articles.
I have no idea where certain sections went in this move.
I am going to add back information before Erxnmedia's edits. I will explain why in the next post.
Travb 00:13, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
User:Erxnmedia criticized me for deleting his edits, when in reality it was WP:SPA User:Morethan3words who created a misspelled version of Central Intelligence Agency, Central Intellegence Agency, which Erxnmedia edited. [This misspelling tactic is a common tactic of SPA's attempting to cause confusion]. There was no criticism of the SPA after I explained what happened.
After I stopped editing the article on 13 December 2007, Erxnmedia continued to add A LOT of information to the article, he increased the size of all of the small sections. Here is the stark differences before Hcberkowitz started to remove the sections.
[3] User:Lars T. tried to stop Erxnmedia from "needlessly" cut and pasting so much material from other articles, and Erxnmedia reverted him. [4]
Erxnmedia also restored the dozens of === sections which I removed, which made the article look much longer than it was, even after I asked him not to do this. I told him that it would make the article look to big and harken users to complain it was too long.
It was like Erxnmedia intention was to split up the article.
And indeed, when the article was split up Erxnmedia didn't complain. He even suggested to remove the long and NPA tags after all of his edits and the criticism of the CIA was removed. Travb 00:13, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I have no problem with all about having a chronological history. I do have a problem limiting it to covert opeations, and I just don't think that some of the specific matters (I'll give an example) can be covered adequately in a single article.
As an example of how that it's a bad idea to separate covert operations by the CIA, intelligence reports and estimates by the CIA and the intelligence community, and covert action tasking by one of the many NSC committees (e.g., 303 Committee, 54/12 Group, Special Group (counterinsurgency), I'd like to refer to the section on Indonesia in the separate CIA Activities in Asia-Pacific article. Since that article was clearly wikilinked from the start of the main CIA article, and also had a navigation box, I didn't think it would be hard to find.
Very briefly, in the late fifties, CIA got orders to overthrow Sukarno. They organized exiles in the Phillipines and Taiwan, and flew some in and brought in others by US submarine (source: declassified US documents, primarily in the Foreign Relations of the United States) series.
In 1964 and 1965, there were a series of National Intelligence Estimates and other analytic products that suggested ways of strengthening elements of the Indonesian political system, as a means of restraining (I'm not saying this is right or wrong) Sukarno's alliances with China and Russia, and his support of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). The NIEs did not expect Sukarno to fall or the military to take an active political role.
1965, however, brought an extremely bloody civil war/military purge of the PKI, which, if one read the NIEs, should not have happened. As I understand the events, the PKI, on its own, killed six generals, and the military basically ignored Sukarno and tried to kill every member of the PKI.
How can one understand the Indonesian situation, and the Indonesian-US relations since, without looking at both the relevant intelligence estimates and the orders of the (IIRC) 303 Committee? Just looking at covert action proper, IMHO, cannot give a decent picture. Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 04:30, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I seem to remember reading a NYTimes article in the recent past about an inadvertent reveal of the scope of the CIA budget (perhaps through an FOIA request for testimony of a hearing that was mistakenly not closed? Can't remember at the moment). I'll look around and see if I can find the cite, but does anyone remember off hand? If its been revealed by someone who ought to know, then we should put that in as an estimate in the infobox and include "Exact budget remains classified." Avruch talk 04:33, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Oooh I bet its in my secrecy news archive, or the NSA one from gwu. It goes to my work e-mail, I'll check it tomorrow. Avruch talk 04:43, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
There is too much secrecy to tell which agencies might be involved, but if this dispute is getting too heated... A bit of intelligence perspective could come from http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/07/20/280529.aspx. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hcberkowitz ( talk • contribs) 15:53, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
When trying to tell what the CIA has or has not done, especially with respect to recent events, do remember that its bureaucratic position has changed. From 1947 (in theory, more like 1952, to 2004, the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) "wore two hats". One was to run the CIA. The other was to coordinate the entire Intelligence Community.
In late 2004, the position of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) was created, and the position of DCI abolished, as well as most of the IC-wide responsibilities, which moved to the office of the DNI. CIA position titles and functions were changed, for a variety of reasons. Most importantly, the head of the CIA is now the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (DCIA).
I've seen some references saying where the CIA did something, where it really happened in the DNI or sometimes the White House/National Security Council. This is not a simple matter to explain CIA activities, since prior to 2004, the National Intelligence Estimates and similar documents, as well as the Presidential/NSC committee action authorizations, could both be under the CIA for a given year. Now, some of this information goes under several agencies.
It's worth noting that the reorganization still left major intelligence analysis function in CIA, as well as the National Clandestine Service, which does both clandestine intelligence gathering and covert action.
I don't have a simple answer moving forward, but I hate to see covert actions alone presented without the directly relevant intelligence estimates and NSC authorization. This is not too much of a problem right now, since the more recent actions are classified, but it is something to consider when discussing things like "budget". Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 16:03, 5 January 2008 (UTC)