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Archive 1 | ← | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | → | Archive 10 |
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)
Hi Trav*,
In some comments above you put forth the idea that I contributed a lot of material to CIA page for the express purpose of forcing a branch for the express purpose of deleting negative information about CIA.
This is incorrect.
The sequence of events for me was as follows:
1. I started reading Tim Weiner's book, and wanted to explore, on a country-by-country basis, exactly what the history of CIA intervention is in that country's local politics.
2. So I started adding detail to CIA page, by geographical region (on the theory that there will be a family of actions related to a particular region) by country (actions focussed on the politics of a particular country) and by date (things change over time).
3. I started getting deletes from someone who evaporated.
4. My edits made the page really big. You complained. Someone else branched it, and another person branched the main page with a spelling error. I did not ask for the branch or contest it. When there was a branch, I put edits appropriate to the branch into the branch. When the branch was undone, I put all my edits into the main page.
5. Howard got involved. He rethought the branches, added 8 which I personally think are well-thought-out, and added his own agenda, which was to emphasize intelligence collection over regime change allegations and flying saucer/mind control/USA spying issues.
6. After adding items for most of the countries listed in Weiner's book (there are 72), I discovered the CIA Operations category. I started going down the items in this category, alphabetically, and entering links to them in the 8 pages in the context Region -> Country -> Date -> Operation. This refinement of categorization is not supplied by the CIA Operations category itself. Howard accused me of focussing on regime change and linking to junk articles. I told him my agenda was to flush out the junk articles by linking to them, where by "junk" I mean something that Howard or someone else thinks is junk. I also asked Howard to be proactive about editing or AfDing junk. Howard's preferred approach is to ignore the junk and not link to it and only put in quotes from government documents or things he has personal experience of.
7. In a couple of cases (one Howard about a CIA Operation JACK wikilink and one by Aldux about Howard’s facts about Chad), assertions were put into Discussion page about something being junk that were not put into Article. I redacted the assertions and put them into Article. I got bitched out by Howard and the other guy. Since then, neither of them has put their assertions into the respective articles.
8. Howard started deleting my in-context wikilinks. One of Howard’s articles got AfD listed. In the AfD discussion the peer comments were that he was unfocussed, spamming government documents, and WP:COAT. Howard also stated as part of his agenda to de-emphasize the issue of regime change. In my response to Howard’s deletions I noted his agenda and the peer criticisms. I predicted to him that over the next year, most of his hard work would get undone by editors such as yourself, to a large extent because his agenda overshadows his very real and strong factual contributions.
9. The predicted onslaught of deletions happened, not in a year’s time, but about a day after I made my prediction. Does that make you, Trav*, the agent of my intuition?
10. You, Trav*, after attempting to delete all of the work done by Howard, myself and others in the last week or so, none of which really eliminated anything on the original CIA page, just redistributed it into a larger context, then accuse me on this page of having an over-arching agenda of whitewashing the CIA page.
11. Do you agree that this is a correct summary of events?
Thanks, Erxnmedia ( talk) 18:21, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Let us say there were no practical restrictions on length of an article. Let us say that the chronological history of the CIA goes in the main article.
Earlier sections of the main article show organizational functions before the NCS and its predecessors, such as the Directorate of Intelligence and the Directorate of Science & Technology. Why would they exist if the agency were totally devoted to covert action? Covert action, incidentally, does not include clandestine intelligence collection, so a large part of what the NCS does is also ignored. This seems incredibly POV, as an attempt to portray CIA as an unsupervised rogue destroyer of countries.
There is also a problem with implying the CIA is the only agency of the US government that has anything to do with changing politics or rule in other countries. Iraq, Panama and Grenada were emphatically regime change, but rather overt in their methods. Overt propaganda from the Voice of America is under the quasi-public Broadcasting Board of Governors, and, earlier, under the US Information Agency of the Department of State, so it seems odd to attribute the broadcasts to Hungary in 1956 as CIA operations.
Another area, incidentally, that is critical, was part of CIA for many years, and has now moved to the DNI is the group (with various names) that prepares National Intelligence Estimates. The fact that the agency did these key documents for many years, as well as the past and recent attempts to interfere with them for political reasons, is as controversial a subject to me as any regime change.
In the history of the organization, the approval authorities for covert action are covered, but there is no mention of CIA having any oversight, or receiving any orders.
There are logical errors in some of the statement. CIA is described as attempting a coup in Albania between 1947 and 1952, a rather long time to be trying to covertly overthrow a government and not be noticed. More to the point, there was no true CIA covert action capability until 1952. Prior to that time, the Office of Policy Coordination was a quasi-autonomous covert action group that drew support from the CIA, but had direct access to the Secretaries of State and Defense.
As to Hungary in 1956, I suggest reading the much more detailed section in the article on the revolt in the CIA Activities in Europe and Soviet Union, with some substantial declassified documents on what capabilities the US, and, for that matter, the political levels of the Soviet Union, actually had in Budapest.
Is there really a consensus that the history of the agency is best expressed solely in terms of covert action, ignoring all other functions, and giving no more than a sentence or two to explain quite complex situations? I suggest looking at the Indonesia section of the CIA Activities in Asia-Pacific, which is hardly a whitewash of either the covert action, covert action approval, intelligence estimation actions. I believe it takes that level of detail to have a full sense of US government destabilization against that country. Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 06:18, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
These are excellent points, and i personally don't have any objection to them. I do, however, think you've needlessly ruffled a few feathers with your editing approach. While the article certainly deserves balance in respect to the agency's internal activities and general organization -- and in this regard i think your suggestions are spot on -- it also clearly demands that the most visible and broad-reaching effects of that activity be clearly stated.
The impasse we currently see on the page is basically the result of two problems; first, the page is becoming so long that it is unwieldy and difficult to maintain as a single topic. Second, there is a disagreement about how to organize the subject matter.
I would suggest that we divide the page into two main sections: the purpose, primary activities, chain-of-command and bureaucratic organization of the CIA, and then a second section dealing with widely acknowledged CIA actions and programs, the participants involved, and the resulting effects on the geopolitical situation.
It's this last part - the geopolitical effects of these actions - where there will be the most disagreement. As for whether the programs existed or not, why they were initiated, and who the participants were: these things are either reliably sourced or not, and there should be little disagreement about their suitability for inclusion. The ultimate effects, however...for instance, it is quite clear that Iran would today not have an Ayatollah in charge if it had not been for the CIA's overthrow of the Iranian democracy and consequent installation of the brutal Shah. Now, i'm not arguing that we should include this particular sentence on my word alone. But there are untold number of political commentators who, over the last three or four decades, have repeatedly and unequivocally made precisely that point, and IMO it would be a travesty if mention is not made.
Even so, the page will remain too large and unwieldy. So perhaps it would be best to give brief -- as in, one or two sentence summaries, or even just referential phrases -- summaries of these activities, and then link them off to other pages. I have no problem with this method. However, if we choose to go down this route then there should be some equally unequivocal language on this page that draws attention to the international objections that many countries have made to CIA covert activity, and those should reference specific examples.
So essentially, my suggestion is to reorganize the page into two main parts:
I should make reference to II, and if done properly will allow for a more balanced understanding of the organization's activities and its activities. Stone put to sky ( talk) 12:52, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
In the CIA Activities in Europe and Russia article, I have had it arranged by country and year. Now, I have subheadings in the year for each kind of action:
I may break out technical vs. human collection. Does this satisfy the covert action concerns, since they will have explicit headings, just like my concerns are satisfied when I see the analysis, estimates, and clandestine collection clearly marked.
Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 14:07, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Within the context of the current article your suggestion is fine. But again, I would suggest that we undertake a dramatic restructuring of the rticle. For instance, I do not believe that the "History of the CIA" portion of the article is useful or necessary to this main stub. Each one of the summaries given under the CIA directors' names would be more appropriate as a short note somewhere else or a long exposition on each directors' page. With the current structure, it is much as if the main controversies and most notable achievements of each of the U.S. presidents were offered up as a summary of U.S. history.
It would be more accurate for us to give summaries and links. But again, the links and summaries should, in addition to expounding on the mundane affairs and successes of the CIA, reflect the controversy that surrounds the agency, as well. That seems to be the biggest concern with many here, and -- after my experiences on a few other pages -- it is one i also share. Stone put to sky ( talk) 15:37, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
I think the best way to reach a consensus on this is to write up a clear outline of what sort of re-organization you think would be appropriate. As i've explained already, i think including specific sections dealing with each director is a poor approach. It introduces a lot of extraneous stuff to the article thatwould be appropriate in a broad history but is inappropriate for an encyclopedic treatment. Similarly, the risk we run when condensing the information here is that it turns out a whitewash.
While i agree with you that the actions of the CIA should be placed within the context of the political and military command structure to which they are subject, what i think is also quite important is that those actions by the agency that are clearly contrary to the public image projected by the United States are noteworthy and should be included. Yet even as i write that, i also understand that it would be unfair to emphasize these aspects of the issue over its other activities; as CIA people point out, their successes are never noted for the simple reason that their activities are largely prophylactic, and preventing events from occurring can't exactly be memorialized.
I'll offer up my own outline, first; keep in mind this is very rough -- it's just off the top of my head -- but at least it can serve as a starting point:
* 1 Organization o 1.1 Executive offices o 1.2 Directorate of Intelligence + 1.2.1 Regional groups + 1.2.2 Transnational groups + 1.2.3 Support and general units o 1.3 National Clandestine Service + 1.3.1 Mission Definitions # 1.3.1.1 Covert Action # 1.3.1.2 Clandestine Operation # 1.3.1.3 Psychological Operation + 1.3.2 Organization + 1.3.3 Approval of Clandestine and Covert Operations # 1.3.3.1 Period of committee supervision and relative autonomy # 1.3.3.2 Increasing control by CIA management o 1.4 Directorate of Science and Technology o 1.5 Directorate of Support o 1.6 Other offices * 2 Relationship with other US intelligence agencies * 3 Relationship with foreign intelligence services * 4 History * Overview - * Intelligence Gathering Prior to the Formation of the CIA * Origins in the OSS * Political climate under Eisenhower: * The Cold War * J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI, and the China Lobby * The Korean War, Nuclear Brinksmanship, and MAD * Transformations under Kennedy and Johnson * From Nixon to Reagan * The Family Jewels * Central America: from Nixon to Carter * The Mujahideen * Iran/Contra Scandal * From Reagan to Reorganization under Bush * Post 9-11 Controversies * Pre-war Intelligence Failures * Valerie Plame-Wilson * Link to List of Directors * 5 Clandestine history ... * 6 Recent controversies ... * 7 Publications * 8 CIA in fiction and the movies
As you can see from my suggestion, most of the structure of the early article would be kept. I think that the current organization, there, is quite good -- informative, short, to the point -- but i would support a complete re-write of certain sections. For instance, the black/grey/white propaganda categories should be linked to their own respective pages and discussed in detail there, while only a cursory mention plus a link is adequate for this page. I completely agree with your insistence upon a greater clarification of the oversight mechanisms and chain-of-command. These are clearly key aspects of the current organization and it's a shame that more attention hasn't been paid them.
Similarly, i support a complete re-write of the "History" section; as it is -- and this is a common problem on Wikipedia -- it's just a mish-mash of a thousand little facts that various people think are important. A history should have a clear "This is where it began, this is what happened next, and this describes the process that led us to where it is now." The current "history" does that quite poorly. I think that if we include a detailed early history, describing the origins of the CIA as (at least in part) a specific reaction by Eisenhower to erode the power of Hoover and the China Lobby -- describing its origins in military special forces -- and attending to the cold war international climate -- then it would be an easy thing to move from there through the next couple of decades. As it develops, such a history section should provide more than enough opportunity for everyone here to touch upon what they consider significant as well as plenty of opportunities for gratuitous linking.
Finally, I support a complete re-write of the last two sections, especially the "covert actions" section, which i consider to be quite as bad as the list of directors. This should be relocated to its own "List" page, and a summary should instead be provided here that describes all of the current material in an evenhanded manner. Certainly, the CIA has been guilty of some horrendous human rights abuses, as well as other mistakes; but the page should also clearly show that the CIA is a f---ing huge organization, and most of what it does is little more than common police work. It should show that its work is an incontrovertibly necessary role in the day-to-day functions of the U.S. government as currently organized, but because of the nature of this work the organization is prone to abuse -- both by people who wish to use it as a political tool against domestic opponents as well as cynical leaders who use its powers to abuse international rivals. Just as there are some evil people who operate under its conscious protection (after E. Howard Hunt do we really need any more proof?), there are also evil people who have used it unethically against rival nations (Kissinger, anyone?). Even so, these failings have been condoned for political reasons, and no matter how fervently one might disagree with them (and in that respect i'm pretty damned fervent), those reasons are not irrational. Stone put to sky ( talk) 10:07, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Without trying to figure out where to put it -- maybe just before internal organization, I'm working on a section that looks at the organizations that, in one way or another, tell the CIA what to do. As with so many other things, the shift of the CIA from having two hats -- heading the intelligence community (now the Office of the DNI) and also two major functions: human intelligence/covert operations, and all-source intelligence analysis. So, while not much changes about the two major functions, the budget is in a different category.
I'd like opinions on where this should go. Most of it, I believe, should be in the main article, because for most covert action, it shows who issued the orders. For the cases where someone in CIA did something on their own, it shows who was not told and may take action.
The fundamental decisions to do covert actions, and risky clandestine intelligence collection, are in a committee at White House level, although sometimes the decisions are made by the President and a very small number of advisors. There is a requirement to notify the Congress of certain operations, although the nature of the notification varies with the sensitivity of the project. For the most sensitive, typically eight members are briefed, without staff and without being allowed to take notes -- not necessarily the best way to do it. At least one proposal is floating around, from Paul Pillar, about setting up a mechanism that would get appropriate professional staff for the most sensitive analysis. After all, the Executive Branch uses experts in planning the proposal.
I've detailed things in the Classified information in the United States, and actually for Special Access Programs rather than the Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) that is the category that holds the most sensitive intelligence. From a Congressional and budget standpoint, there are three general categories: one where "classified activity" shows up as a line item in the budget, one where the money is hidden but the entire relevant committees are briefed on the details, and on the most sensitive, the money is hidden and only the "Big 8" hear about it.
While the law is a little vague, the Executive Branch is simply keeping Congress informed, rather than asking permission. Congress can refuse to appropriate the basic budget, and this actually is being threatened unless appropriate members get all the US knows about the Israeli attack on a Syrian facility.
In principle, Congress could pass, with a veto-proof supermajority, legislation to cut off funding on a specific project, which is more or less what led to Iran-Contra after Congress said that money could not be committed to that purpose. Whenever and wherever Iran-Contra is written up, this is one of those areas where the Presidential and Congressional intent is as important, constitutionally, as the covert action itself.
Budget, of course, is part of oversight. I'll give the total budget, and some indication of how it is allocated. Question: is the history of getting to a point where any budget figures were disclosed appropriate for the main article, or a side page? It is important to understand, broadly, how the money goes, to CIA as well as the larger amount that goes to the military.
Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 17:58, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
First, let me say that I don't have any WP:OWN feelings about the listing of directors. I am a little surprised about the reactions it seemed to have generated, so I thought I might explain a bit of why I put in what I considered a short section.
Each of the directors, of course, has an individual article. I have no problem, as some have suggested, of putting in a chronological history; that's what I had been doing in the subsidiary regional/functional articles. That which I wrote about directors was an attempt to capture only the politics and management styles and actions associated with each director. Let me make some informal, nonchronological comments about knowing about certain directors is significant in understanding the behavior of the CIA.
For example, three directors, Dulles, Helms and Colby, came through the ranks, counting OSS. Dulles and Helms were clandestine intelligence collectors, while Colby was on the covert action side. I'll count Casey as half a director, as he was an OSS clandestine intelligence officer running the penetrations into Germany, but didn't stay in CIA, and came to the directorship through a political path. I believe that the OSS/CIA experience of these people affected how they ran things.
Smith is significant in that he was able to force the disparate operations groups into firm CIA control. Given he was Eisenhower's WWII Chief of Staff, he presumably enjoyed a Presidential trust that few other DCIs had.
Turner and Schlesinger were disastrous to morale, and probably caused the loss of a good deal of HUMINT corporate knowledge.
McCone is very interesting to me. If I were to pick the best DCI, it would probably be McCone, who was a manager and engineer, not at all an intelligence specialist. It's also significant that he had a close relationship with JFK, but left because he and LBJ didn't trust one another. It's only speculation, of course, but I believe if he had stayed, he might have injected much more realism into Vietnam. He was known for making sure all sides of an issue were heard. Somewhat surprisingly, I've known people in CIA that said George HW Bush did that as well.
Some DCIs, I will be the first to admit, really didn't do much to put their stamp on the Agency. In a way, it's worth examining Raborn, a very smart man in other contexts who was completely clueless when it came to intelligence. There are lessons from Raborn, Schlesinger, Turner, and, in a very different way, Dulles, about characteristics you do not want in a DCI.
Anyway, I have no problem if the section with the brief bios of directors is cut back, but I really hoep that we don't lose the effects of different management styles, and, especially with Dulles and Casey, when a DCI is more prone to run rogue. Having Dulles' brother as Secretary of State did not help oversight of CIA. Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 02:20, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
HCB, i just can't tell you what a breath of fresh air it is to deal with a guy like you. You're clearly someone who understands a LOT about military history, but are also not so blinded by the current hype that passes for popular "patriotism" these days that you must turn a blind eye to the abuses and mistakes that have sometimes plagued U.S. history. Thanks a lot for being so reasonable.
@Erxnmedia; Your suggestion is precisely what i had in mind. So consider this an enthusiastic agreement. Stone put to sky ( talk) 09:07, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Hey guys, I think the section on the CIA's connection to former Nazis can be expanded. Tim Weiner dedicates nearly an entire chapter to it in his book (legacy of ashes). However, given that this article is already massive (too massive IMO), I think what I'll do is create a new article on it and then provide a link to it here. Nonetheless, I wanted to give you all a heads-up that I might change the current wording on the CIA's connection with the Nazis section. Of course I'll welcome any fair critiques thereof. My changes to this article should be fairly minor, so I don't think a sandbox is necessary (plus I don't know how to do a sandbox). ( Morethan3words ( talk) 04:51, 11 January 2008 (UTC))
Ernxmedia,
I don't understand, given that I thought there was some consensus on working with a sandbox or subsidiary articles, and not adding to the main article covert action section, that you put in an allegation about Darfur. Your edit note said this was from an "opinion site", but I do not see that as an excuse for apparently cutting and pasting with no checking.
You inserted (I put many of these comments inline),
"In an opinion piece from the website of the anti-globalization organization Centre for Research on Globalization, author Jay Janson writes, in an article entitled "Early CIA Involvement in Darfur Has Gone Unreported"
This source contains major errors. Yes, oil was discovered in 1978 and the Second Sudanese Civil War began five years later. Your source called it "rebellious war" rather than the generally accepted name used in the Wikipedia article for it.
At that point, your source started departing significantly from fact. The major opposition movement, the Sudan People's Liberation Army and Movement (SPLA/SPLM), was a secular African movement opposed to the North's demands for the Arabic language and conversion to Islam.
John Garang, according to Wikipedia, went to he second-level US Infantry Advanced Infantry Officer Course, intended for captains. The School of the Americans reference is inconsistent. SOA and its successors were for Spanish and Portuguese speakers, which Garang was not.
Further, Darfur is not in South Sudan and the SPLA was not fighting for it.
Sorry, this is coming across as conspiracy theory, with the CIA being responsible for any regime change. I don't consider the mere fact that something is on an opinion page justifies putting it into an article, especially the controversial covert action part of the main article.
I thought we had some agreement about working in sandboxes. Why are you adding unchecked conspiracy theory material about regime change to the main page? This "opinion" source is inconsistent after even minor checking, even if one had no knowledge of Sudanese history. Why are you putting in? Why do I need to find the errors in it? Where does the "opinion" piece have any credible evidence of CIA involvement in the Second Sudanese Civil War, which was a completely different war than the Darfur conflict? Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 19:39, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Hey, guys -- we're all good here so far, right? No need to get upset about anything at all, so far -- at least not from my perspective.
@Erxnmedia: No worries on the comments, o.k? It just so happens that one of the things you marked is something Howard pays particularly close attention to and so he quickly noticed the changes in that section. While Howard's got a clear grasp of some things on the site, my guess is that he's not coming at it from an informed Internet-youth standpoint. It looks to me as if the only thing going on here is that Howard misinterpreted a simple notational action as somehow adding content. It's an innocent mistake, and while his words are dry i see nothing in them that i would call accusatory, volatile, or provocative. He was just asking for clarification, that's all. For my part, i really, really hope you stay around. I think we three could make an excellent team to bring this article around into shape.
@Howard: I presume that, by now, you apprehend what Erxn's saying: he didn't really change any of the content, but instead just flagged some of it as problematic and added some reference notes. Correct me if i'm wrong, Howard - please? -- this is an innocent question: it seems as if you're a few years older than i (38), and i myself am right on the edge of the I-tech revolution. I wonder if you know how to use the "history" tab, up top? If you do, then i suggest you check on it -- it makes clear that Erxn didn't add any of the content you're objecting to, but instead just flagged it as problematic. That actually is a BIG help to our project, here, so that when we start on that section we'll be able to note the various sources and declarations quickly and without a lot of confusion. In addition, it's quite ethical wiki-behavior, since others who visit the page will be able to check up on the sources without any trouble (and know that there might be some problems with it). Stone put to sky ( talk) 09:00, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
This is directed primarily at Morethan3words -- do you think this would be a good place for you to start with your CIA/Nazi info? It would be a great page for us to link to from here. Stone put to sky ( talk) 09:02, 12 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 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | → | Archive 10 |
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)
Hi Trav*,
In some comments above you put forth the idea that I contributed a lot of material to CIA page for the express purpose of forcing a branch for the express purpose of deleting negative information about CIA.
This is incorrect.
The sequence of events for me was as follows:
1. I started reading Tim Weiner's book, and wanted to explore, on a country-by-country basis, exactly what the history of CIA intervention is in that country's local politics.
2. So I started adding detail to CIA page, by geographical region (on the theory that there will be a family of actions related to a particular region) by country (actions focussed on the politics of a particular country) and by date (things change over time).
3. I started getting deletes from someone who evaporated.
4. My edits made the page really big. You complained. Someone else branched it, and another person branched the main page with a spelling error. I did not ask for the branch or contest it. When there was a branch, I put edits appropriate to the branch into the branch. When the branch was undone, I put all my edits into the main page.
5. Howard got involved. He rethought the branches, added 8 which I personally think are well-thought-out, and added his own agenda, which was to emphasize intelligence collection over regime change allegations and flying saucer/mind control/USA spying issues.
6. After adding items for most of the countries listed in Weiner's book (there are 72), I discovered the CIA Operations category. I started going down the items in this category, alphabetically, and entering links to them in the 8 pages in the context Region -> Country -> Date -> Operation. This refinement of categorization is not supplied by the CIA Operations category itself. Howard accused me of focussing on regime change and linking to junk articles. I told him my agenda was to flush out the junk articles by linking to them, where by "junk" I mean something that Howard or someone else thinks is junk. I also asked Howard to be proactive about editing or AfDing junk. Howard's preferred approach is to ignore the junk and not link to it and only put in quotes from government documents or things he has personal experience of.
7. In a couple of cases (one Howard about a CIA Operation JACK wikilink and one by Aldux about Howard’s facts about Chad), assertions were put into Discussion page about something being junk that were not put into Article. I redacted the assertions and put them into Article. I got bitched out by Howard and the other guy. Since then, neither of them has put their assertions into the respective articles.
8. Howard started deleting my in-context wikilinks. One of Howard’s articles got AfD listed. In the AfD discussion the peer comments were that he was unfocussed, spamming government documents, and WP:COAT. Howard also stated as part of his agenda to de-emphasize the issue of regime change. In my response to Howard’s deletions I noted his agenda and the peer criticisms. I predicted to him that over the next year, most of his hard work would get undone by editors such as yourself, to a large extent because his agenda overshadows his very real and strong factual contributions.
9. The predicted onslaught of deletions happened, not in a year’s time, but about a day after I made my prediction. Does that make you, Trav*, the agent of my intuition?
10. You, Trav*, after attempting to delete all of the work done by Howard, myself and others in the last week or so, none of which really eliminated anything on the original CIA page, just redistributed it into a larger context, then accuse me on this page of having an over-arching agenda of whitewashing the CIA page.
11. Do you agree that this is a correct summary of events?
Thanks, Erxnmedia ( talk) 18:21, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Let us say there were no practical restrictions on length of an article. Let us say that the chronological history of the CIA goes in the main article.
Earlier sections of the main article show organizational functions before the NCS and its predecessors, such as the Directorate of Intelligence and the Directorate of Science & Technology. Why would they exist if the agency were totally devoted to covert action? Covert action, incidentally, does not include clandestine intelligence collection, so a large part of what the NCS does is also ignored. This seems incredibly POV, as an attempt to portray CIA as an unsupervised rogue destroyer of countries.
There is also a problem with implying the CIA is the only agency of the US government that has anything to do with changing politics or rule in other countries. Iraq, Panama and Grenada were emphatically regime change, but rather overt in their methods. Overt propaganda from the Voice of America is under the quasi-public Broadcasting Board of Governors, and, earlier, under the US Information Agency of the Department of State, so it seems odd to attribute the broadcasts to Hungary in 1956 as CIA operations.
Another area, incidentally, that is critical, was part of CIA for many years, and has now moved to the DNI is the group (with various names) that prepares National Intelligence Estimates. The fact that the agency did these key documents for many years, as well as the past and recent attempts to interfere with them for political reasons, is as controversial a subject to me as any regime change.
In the history of the organization, the approval authorities for covert action are covered, but there is no mention of CIA having any oversight, or receiving any orders.
There are logical errors in some of the statement. CIA is described as attempting a coup in Albania between 1947 and 1952, a rather long time to be trying to covertly overthrow a government and not be noticed. More to the point, there was no true CIA covert action capability until 1952. Prior to that time, the Office of Policy Coordination was a quasi-autonomous covert action group that drew support from the CIA, but had direct access to the Secretaries of State and Defense.
As to Hungary in 1956, I suggest reading the much more detailed section in the article on the revolt in the CIA Activities in Europe and Soviet Union, with some substantial declassified documents on what capabilities the US, and, for that matter, the political levels of the Soviet Union, actually had in Budapest.
Is there really a consensus that the history of the agency is best expressed solely in terms of covert action, ignoring all other functions, and giving no more than a sentence or two to explain quite complex situations? I suggest looking at the Indonesia section of the CIA Activities in Asia-Pacific, which is hardly a whitewash of either the covert action, covert action approval, intelligence estimation actions. I believe it takes that level of detail to have a full sense of US government destabilization against that country. Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 06:18, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
These are excellent points, and i personally don't have any objection to them. I do, however, think you've needlessly ruffled a few feathers with your editing approach. While the article certainly deserves balance in respect to the agency's internal activities and general organization -- and in this regard i think your suggestions are spot on -- it also clearly demands that the most visible and broad-reaching effects of that activity be clearly stated.
The impasse we currently see on the page is basically the result of two problems; first, the page is becoming so long that it is unwieldy and difficult to maintain as a single topic. Second, there is a disagreement about how to organize the subject matter.
I would suggest that we divide the page into two main sections: the purpose, primary activities, chain-of-command and bureaucratic organization of the CIA, and then a second section dealing with widely acknowledged CIA actions and programs, the participants involved, and the resulting effects on the geopolitical situation.
It's this last part - the geopolitical effects of these actions - where there will be the most disagreement. As for whether the programs existed or not, why they were initiated, and who the participants were: these things are either reliably sourced or not, and there should be little disagreement about their suitability for inclusion. The ultimate effects, however...for instance, it is quite clear that Iran would today not have an Ayatollah in charge if it had not been for the CIA's overthrow of the Iranian democracy and consequent installation of the brutal Shah. Now, i'm not arguing that we should include this particular sentence on my word alone. But there are untold number of political commentators who, over the last three or four decades, have repeatedly and unequivocally made precisely that point, and IMO it would be a travesty if mention is not made.
Even so, the page will remain too large and unwieldy. So perhaps it would be best to give brief -- as in, one or two sentence summaries, or even just referential phrases -- summaries of these activities, and then link them off to other pages. I have no problem with this method. However, if we choose to go down this route then there should be some equally unequivocal language on this page that draws attention to the international objections that many countries have made to CIA covert activity, and those should reference specific examples.
So essentially, my suggestion is to reorganize the page into two main parts:
I should make reference to II, and if done properly will allow for a more balanced understanding of the organization's activities and its activities. Stone put to sky ( talk) 12:52, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
In the CIA Activities in Europe and Russia article, I have had it arranged by country and year. Now, I have subheadings in the year for each kind of action:
I may break out technical vs. human collection. Does this satisfy the covert action concerns, since they will have explicit headings, just like my concerns are satisfied when I see the analysis, estimates, and clandestine collection clearly marked.
Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 14:07, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Within the context of the current article your suggestion is fine. But again, I would suggest that we undertake a dramatic restructuring of the rticle. For instance, I do not believe that the "History of the CIA" portion of the article is useful or necessary to this main stub. Each one of the summaries given under the CIA directors' names would be more appropriate as a short note somewhere else or a long exposition on each directors' page. With the current structure, it is much as if the main controversies and most notable achievements of each of the U.S. presidents were offered up as a summary of U.S. history.
It would be more accurate for us to give summaries and links. But again, the links and summaries should, in addition to expounding on the mundane affairs and successes of the CIA, reflect the controversy that surrounds the agency, as well. That seems to be the biggest concern with many here, and -- after my experiences on a few other pages -- it is one i also share. Stone put to sky ( talk) 15:37, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
I think the best way to reach a consensus on this is to write up a clear outline of what sort of re-organization you think would be appropriate. As i've explained already, i think including specific sections dealing with each director is a poor approach. It introduces a lot of extraneous stuff to the article thatwould be appropriate in a broad history but is inappropriate for an encyclopedic treatment. Similarly, the risk we run when condensing the information here is that it turns out a whitewash.
While i agree with you that the actions of the CIA should be placed within the context of the political and military command structure to which they are subject, what i think is also quite important is that those actions by the agency that are clearly contrary to the public image projected by the United States are noteworthy and should be included. Yet even as i write that, i also understand that it would be unfair to emphasize these aspects of the issue over its other activities; as CIA people point out, their successes are never noted for the simple reason that their activities are largely prophylactic, and preventing events from occurring can't exactly be memorialized.
I'll offer up my own outline, first; keep in mind this is very rough -- it's just off the top of my head -- but at least it can serve as a starting point:
* 1 Organization o 1.1 Executive offices o 1.2 Directorate of Intelligence + 1.2.1 Regional groups + 1.2.2 Transnational groups + 1.2.3 Support and general units o 1.3 National Clandestine Service + 1.3.1 Mission Definitions # 1.3.1.1 Covert Action # 1.3.1.2 Clandestine Operation # 1.3.1.3 Psychological Operation + 1.3.2 Organization + 1.3.3 Approval of Clandestine and Covert Operations # 1.3.3.1 Period of committee supervision and relative autonomy # 1.3.3.2 Increasing control by CIA management o 1.4 Directorate of Science and Technology o 1.5 Directorate of Support o 1.6 Other offices * 2 Relationship with other US intelligence agencies * 3 Relationship with foreign intelligence services * 4 History * Overview - * Intelligence Gathering Prior to the Formation of the CIA * Origins in the OSS * Political climate under Eisenhower: * The Cold War * J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI, and the China Lobby * The Korean War, Nuclear Brinksmanship, and MAD * Transformations under Kennedy and Johnson * From Nixon to Reagan * The Family Jewels * Central America: from Nixon to Carter * The Mujahideen * Iran/Contra Scandal * From Reagan to Reorganization under Bush * Post 9-11 Controversies * Pre-war Intelligence Failures * Valerie Plame-Wilson * Link to List of Directors * 5 Clandestine history ... * 6 Recent controversies ... * 7 Publications * 8 CIA in fiction and the movies
As you can see from my suggestion, most of the structure of the early article would be kept. I think that the current organization, there, is quite good -- informative, short, to the point -- but i would support a complete re-write of certain sections. For instance, the black/grey/white propaganda categories should be linked to their own respective pages and discussed in detail there, while only a cursory mention plus a link is adequate for this page. I completely agree with your insistence upon a greater clarification of the oversight mechanisms and chain-of-command. These are clearly key aspects of the current organization and it's a shame that more attention hasn't been paid them.
Similarly, i support a complete re-write of the "History" section; as it is -- and this is a common problem on Wikipedia -- it's just a mish-mash of a thousand little facts that various people think are important. A history should have a clear "This is where it began, this is what happened next, and this describes the process that led us to where it is now." The current "history" does that quite poorly. I think that if we include a detailed early history, describing the origins of the CIA as (at least in part) a specific reaction by Eisenhower to erode the power of Hoover and the China Lobby -- describing its origins in military special forces -- and attending to the cold war international climate -- then it would be an easy thing to move from there through the next couple of decades. As it develops, such a history section should provide more than enough opportunity for everyone here to touch upon what they consider significant as well as plenty of opportunities for gratuitous linking.
Finally, I support a complete re-write of the last two sections, especially the "covert actions" section, which i consider to be quite as bad as the list of directors. This should be relocated to its own "List" page, and a summary should instead be provided here that describes all of the current material in an evenhanded manner. Certainly, the CIA has been guilty of some horrendous human rights abuses, as well as other mistakes; but the page should also clearly show that the CIA is a f---ing huge organization, and most of what it does is little more than common police work. It should show that its work is an incontrovertibly necessary role in the day-to-day functions of the U.S. government as currently organized, but because of the nature of this work the organization is prone to abuse -- both by people who wish to use it as a political tool against domestic opponents as well as cynical leaders who use its powers to abuse international rivals. Just as there are some evil people who operate under its conscious protection (after E. Howard Hunt do we really need any more proof?), there are also evil people who have used it unethically against rival nations (Kissinger, anyone?). Even so, these failings have been condoned for political reasons, and no matter how fervently one might disagree with them (and in that respect i'm pretty damned fervent), those reasons are not irrational. Stone put to sky ( talk) 10:07, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Without trying to figure out where to put it -- maybe just before internal organization, I'm working on a section that looks at the organizations that, in one way or another, tell the CIA what to do. As with so many other things, the shift of the CIA from having two hats -- heading the intelligence community (now the Office of the DNI) and also two major functions: human intelligence/covert operations, and all-source intelligence analysis. So, while not much changes about the two major functions, the budget is in a different category.
I'd like opinions on where this should go. Most of it, I believe, should be in the main article, because for most covert action, it shows who issued the orders. For the cases where someone in CIA did something on their own, it shows who was not told and may take action.
The fundamental decisions to do covert actions, and risky clandestine intelligence collection, are in a committee at White House level, although sometimes the decisions are made by the President and a very small number of advisors. There is a requirement to notify the Congress of certain operations, although the nature of the notification varies with the sensitivity of the project. For the most sensitive, typically eight members are briefed, without staff and without being allowed to take notes -- not necessarily the best way to do it. At least one proposal is floating around, from Paul Pillar, about setting up a mechanism that would get appropriate professional staff for the most sensitive analysis. After all, the Executive Branch uses experts in planning the proposal.
I've detailed things in the Classified information in the United States, and actually for Special Access Programs rather than the Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) that is the category that holds the most sensitive intelligence. From a Congressional and budget standpoint, there are three general categories: one where "classified activity" shows up as a line item in the budget, one where the money is hidden but the entire relevant committees are briefed on the details, and on the most sensitive, the money is hidden and only the "Big 8" hear about it.
While the law is a little vague, the Executive Branch is simply keeping Congress informed, rather than asking permission. Congress can refuse to appropriate the basic budget, and this actually is being threatened unless appropriate members get all the US knows about the Israeli attack on a Syrian facility.
In principle, Congress could pass, with a veto-proof supermajority, legislation to cut off funding on a specific project, which is more or less what led to Iran-Contra after Congress said that money could not be committed to that purpose. Whenever and wherever Iran-Contra is written up, this is one of those areas where the Presidential and Congressional intent is as important, constitutionally, as the covert action itself.
Budget, of course, is part of oversight. I'll give the total budget, and some indication of how it is allocated. Question: is the history of getting to a point where any budget figures were disclosed appropriate for the main article, or a side page? It is important to understand, broadly, how the money goes, to CIA as well as the larger amount that goes to the military.
Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 17:58, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
First, let me say that I don't have any WP:OWN feelings about the listing of directors. I am a little surprised about the reactions it seemed to have generated, so I thought I might explain a bit of why I put in what I considered a short section.
Each of the directors, of course, has an individual article. I have no problem, as some have suggested, of putting in a chronological history; that's what I had been doing in the subsidiary regional/functional articles. That which I wrote about directors was an attempt to capture only the politics and management styles and actions associated with each director. Let me make some informal, nonchronological comments about knowing about certain directors is significant in understanding the behavior of the CIA.
For example, three directors, Dulles, Helms and Colby, came through the ranks, counting OSS. Dulles and Helms were clandestine intelligence collectors, while Colby was on the covert action side. I'll count Casey as half a director, as he was an OSS clandestine intelligence officer running the penetrations into Germany, but didn't stay in CIA, and came to the directorship through a political path. I believe that the OSS/CIA experience of these people affected how they ran things.
Smith is significant in that he was able to force the disparate operations groups into firm CIA control. Given he was Eisenhower's WWII Chief of Staff, he presumably enjoyed a Presidential trust that few other DCIs had.
Turner and Schlesinger were disastrous to morale, and probably caused the loss of a good deal of HUMINT corporate knowledge.
McCone is very interesting to me. If I were to pick the best DCI, it would probably be McCone, who was a manager and engineer, not at all an intelligence specialist. It's also significant that he had a close relationship with JFK, but left because he and LBJ didn't trust one another. It's only speculation, of course, but I believe if he had stayed, he might have injected much more realism into Vietnam. He was known for making sure all sides of an issue were heard. Somewhat surprisingly, I've known people in CIA that said George HW Bush did that as well.
Some DCIs, I will be the first to admit, really didn't do much to put their stamp on the Agency. In a way, it's worth examining Raborn, a very smart man in other contexts who was completely clueless when it came to intelligence. There are lessons from Raborn, Schlesinger, Turner, and, in a very different way, Dulles, about characteristics you do not want in a DCI.
Anyway, I have no problem if the section with the brief bios of directors is cut back, but I really hoep that we don't lose the effects of different management styles, and, especially with Dulles and Casey, when a DCI is more prone to run rogue. Having Dulles' brother as Secretary of State did not help oversight of CIA. Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 02:20, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
HCB, i just can't tell you what a breath of fresh air it is to deal with a guy like you. You're clearly someone who understands a LOT about military history, but are also not so blinded by the current hype that passes for popular "patriotism" these days that you must turn a blind eye to the abuses and mistakes that have sometimes plagued U.S. history. Thanks a lot for being so reasonable.
@Erxnmedia; Your suggestion is precisely what i had in mind. So consider this an enthusiastic agreement. Stone put to sky ( talk) 09:07, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Hey guys, I think the section on the CIA's connection to former Nazis can be expanded. Tim Weiner dedicates nearly an entire chapter to it in his book (legacy of ashes). However, given that this article is already massive (too massive IMO), I think what I'll do is create a new article on it and then provide a link to it here. Nonetheless, I wanted to give you all a heads-up that I might change the current wording on the CIA's connection with the Nazis section. Of course I'll welcome any fair critiques thereof. My changes to this article should be fairly minor, so I don't think a sandbox is necessary (plus I don't know how to do a sandbox). ( Morethan3words ( talk) 04:51, 11 January 2008 (UTC))
Ernxmedia,
I don't understand, given that I thought there was some consensus on working with a sandbox or subsidiary articles, and not adding to the main article covert action section, that you put in an allegation about Darfur. Your edit note said this was from an "opinion site", but I do not see that as an excuse for apparently cutting and pasting with no checking.
You inserted (I put many of these comments inline),
"In an opinion piece from the website of the anti-globalization organization Centre for Research on Globalization, author Jay Janson writes, in an article entitled "Early CIA Involvement in Darfur Has Gone Unreported"
This source contains major errors. Yes, oil was discovered in 1978 and the Second Sudanese Civil War began five years later. Your source called it "rebellious war" rather than the generally accepted name used in the Wikipedia article for it.
At that point, your source started departing significantly from fact. The major opposition movement, the Sudan People's Liberation Army and Movement (SPLA/SPLM), was a secular African movement opposed to the North's demands for the Arabic language and conversion to Islam.
John Garang, according to Wikipedia, went to he second-level US Infantry Advanced Infantry Officer Course, intended for captains. The School of the Americans reference is inconsistent. SOA and its successors were for Spanish and Portuguese speakers, which Garang was not.
Further, Darfur is not in South Sudan and the SPLA was not fighting for it.
Sorry, this is coming across as conspiracy theory, with the CIA being responsible for any regime change. I don't consider the mere fact that something is on an opinion page justifies putting it into an article, especially the controversial covert action part of the main article.
I thought we had some agreement about working in sandboxes. Why are you adding unchecked conspiracy theory material about regime change to the main page? This "opinion" source is inconsistent after even minor checking, even if one had no knowledge of Sudanese history. Why are you putting in? Why do I need to find the errors in it? Where does the "opinion" piece have any credible evidence of CIA involvement in the Second Sudanese Civil War, which was a completely different war than the Darfur conflict? Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 19:39, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Hey, guys -- we're all good here so far, right? No need to get upset about anything at all, so far -- at least not from my perspective.
@Erxnmedia: No worries on the comments, o.k? It just so happens that one of the things you marked is something Howard pays particularly close attention to and so he quickly noticed the changes in that section. While Howard's got a clear grasp of some things on the site, my guess is that he's not coming at it from an informed Internet-youth standpoint. It looks to me as if the only thing going on here is that Howard misinterpreted a simple notational action as somehow adding content. It's an innocent mistake, and while his words are dry i see nothing in them that i would call accusatory, volatile, or provocative. He was just asking for clarification, that's all. For my part, i really, really hope you stay around. I think we three could make an excellent team to bring this article around into shape.
@Howard: I presume that, by now, you apprehend what Erxn's saying: he didn't really change any of the content, but instead just flagged some of it as problematic and added some reference notes. Correct me if i'm wrong, Howard - please? -- this is an innocent question: it seems as if you're a few years older than i (38), and i myself am right on the edge of the I-tech revolution. I wonder if you know how to use the "history" tab, up top? If you do, then i suggest you check on it -- it makes clear that Erxn didn't add any of the content you're objecting to, but instead just flagged it as problematic. That actually is a BIG help to our project, here, so that when we start on that section we'll be able to note the various sources and declarations quickly and without a lot of confusion. In addition, it's quite ethical wiki-behavior, since others who visit the page will be able to check up on the sources without any trouble (and know that there might be some problems with it). Stone put to sky ( talk) 09:00, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
This is directed primarily at Morethan3words -- do you think this would be a good place for you to start with your CIA/Nazi info? It would be a great page for us to link to from here. Stone put to sky ( talk) 09:02, 12 January 2008 (UTC)