Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is a civilian intelligence agency. Its primary function is collecting and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and persons in order to advise public policymakers. Prior to December 2004, the CIA was literally the central intelligence organization for the US government. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 created the office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), who took over some of the government and intelligence community (IC)-wide function that had previously been under the CIA. The DNI manages the United States Intelligence Community and in so doing it manages the intelligence cycle. Among the functions that moved to the DNI were the preparation of estimates reflecting the consolidated opinion of the 16 IC agencies, and preparation of briefings for the President. When discussing the CIA, it is critical to understand when one is speaking of the older IC-wide responsibilities, or its present set of responsibilities. The IC still has internal politics, although an increasing number of interagency "centers", as well as the Intellipedia information sharing mechanism, are hoped to be improvements. The current CIA still has a number of functions in common with other countries' intelligence agencies; see relationships with foreign intelligence agencies. The agency both collects and analyzes intelligence. The CIA's headquarters is in the community of Langley in the McLean CDP of Fairfax County, Virginia, a few miles west of Washington, D.C. along the Potomac River. Sometimes, the CIA is referred to euphemistically in government and military parlance as Other Government Agencies (or OGA), particularly when its operations in a particular area are an open secret. Other terms include The Company and The Agency. (more)
Genres: politics
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McLean, Virginia:
McLean (pronounced McLain) is a community located in Fairfax County in Northern Virginia. Recognized by the United States Census Bureau as a Census-designated place (CDP), the community had a total population of 38,929 as of the 2000 census. The heav
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Langley, Virginia:
Langley is an unincorporated community in the census-designated place of McLean in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. The community was essentially absorbed into McLean many years ago, although there is still a Langley High School. In addition
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HarperCollins:
HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company. The worldwide CEO of HarperCollins is Brian Murray. T
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Philip Agee:
Philip Burnett Franklin Agee (July 19, 1935 - January 7, 2008 Will Weissert, "Ex-CIA Agent Philip Agee Dead in Cuba", Associated Press (sfgate.com), January 9, 2008. ) was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) case officer and writer, best known as aut
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The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence:
The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence is a 1974 controversial non-fiction political book written by Victor Marchetti, a former special assistant to the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and John D. Marks, a former officer of the Unit
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Virginia:
The Commonwealth of Virginia ( ) is one of the fifty United States, located on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. It is named after Queen Elizabeth I of England, who, never having married, was known as the 'Virgin Queen'. The state is
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Director of National Intelligence:
The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) is the United States government official subject to the authority, direction and control of the President who is responsible under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 for: * Servin
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Intelligence cycle management:
Within the context of government and military affairs, intelligence is intended to help decision-makers at every level to make informed decisions. The intelligence cycle is the continuous process by which intelligence priorities are set, raw informat
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The World Factbook:
The World Factbook (ISSN ; also known as the CIA World Factbook) is an annual publication of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States with almanac-style information about the countries of the world. The Factbook provides a two- to three-p
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Operation Mockingbird:
Operation Mockingbird was a Central Intelligence Agency operation to influence domestic and foreign media, whose activities were made public during the Church Committee investigation in 1975 (published 1976). The word Mockingbird was first used by D
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Air America (airline):
Air America was an American passenger and cargo airline covertly owned and operated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1950 to 1976. It supplied and supported covert operations in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.
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Lockheed U-2:
The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed Dragon Lady, is a single-engine, high-altitude aircraft flown by the United States Air Force and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency. It provides day and night, high-altitude (70,000 ft, 21,000 m plus), all
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George Tenet:
George John Tenet (born January 5, 1953) was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency and is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University. Tenet held the position as the D
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Church Committee:
The Church Committee is the common term referring to the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church (D-ID) in 1975. A precurs
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Aldrich Ames:
Aldrich Hazen Ames (born May 26 1941) is a former Central Intelligence Agency counter-intelligence officer and analyst, who, in 1994, was convicted of spying for the Soviet Union and later Russia.
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Porter J. Goss:
Porter Johnston Goss (born December 10 1938) is an American politician, who was the last Director of Central Intelligence and the first Director of the Central Intelligence Agency following the passage of the IRTPA 2004 Act, which abolished the DCI p
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Family Jewels (Central Intelligence Agency):
The Family Jewels is the informal name used to refer to a set of reports that detail activities conducted by the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Considered illegal or inappropriate, these actions were conducted over the span of decades, fr
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James Jesus Angleton:
James Jesus Angleton (December 9, 1917 - May 12, 1987), known to colleagues as Jim and nicknamed "the Kingfisher", was a long-serving chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) counter-intelligence (CI) staff (Associate Deputy Director of Opera
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Operation CHAOS:
] Operation CHAOS or Operation MHCHAOS was the code name for a domestic espionage project conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency. A department within the CIA was established in 1967 on orders from President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnso
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Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency:
The Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (DD/CIA) is a senior United States government official in the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. The DD/CIA assists the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (D/CIA) and is authorized to exe
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Director of the Central Intelligence Agency:
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (D/CIA) serves as the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, which is part of the United States Intelligence Community. He/She reports to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The Director is assis
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Edward Lansdale:
Edward Geary Lansdale (February 6, 1908-February 23, 1987) was a U.S. Air Force officer who served in the Office of Strategic Services and the Central Intelligence Agency. He rose to the rank of Major General, was awarded the Distinguished Service Me
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Walter Bedell Smith:
General Walter Bedell "Beetle" Smith GBE KCB (October 5, 1895 – August 9, 1961) was Dwight D. Eisenhower's Chief of Staff during Eisenhower's tenure at SHAEF and Director of the CIA from 1950 to 1953. He also served as U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet U
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Anatoliy Golitsyn:
Anatoliy Mikhaylovich Golitsyn CBE (Анатолий Михайлович Голиц9ын;born August 25, 1926 in Piryatin, Ukrainian SSR) is a Soviet KGB defector and author of two books about alleged long-term deception strategy of the KGB leadership. He provided "a wide r
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Robertson Panel:
The Robertson Panel was a committee commissioned by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1952 in response to widespread Unidentified Flying Object reports, especially in the Washington DC area. The panel was briefed on U.S. military activities and inte
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Operation Cyclone:
Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central Intelligence Agency program to arm the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, 1979 to 1989. Operation Cyclone is one of the longest and most expensive covert CIA opera
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Cofer Black:
J. (Joseph) Cofer Black had a 28-year career in the Directorate of Operations at the Central Intelligence Agency, culminating in his appointment as Director of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center (CTC) in June 1999. Testifying at the Congressional Join
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Civil Air Transport:
Civil Air Transport (CAT) was a Chinese airline, later owned by the CIA, that supported United States covert operation throughout East and Southeast Asia. During the Cold War, missions consisted in assistance to Free World allies according to the Mut
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Foreign Broadcast Information Service:
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) is an open source intelligence component of the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology that monitors, translates, and disseminates within the US Government openly available news and information from n
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In-Q-Tel:
In-Q-Tel of Arlington, Virginia, United States is a not-for-profit venture capital firm that invests in high-tech companies for the sole purpose of keeping the Central Intelligence Agency equipped with the latest in information technology in support
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William Harding Jackson:
William Harding Jackson (1901 - 1971) was a U.S. civilian administrator. He served as Deputy Director of the CIA, and as the United States National Security Advisor in 1956.
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Bin Laden Issue Station:
The Bin Laden Issue Station (1996-2005) was a unit of the Central Intelligence Agency dedicated to tracking Osama bin Laden. Soon after its creation the Station developed a new, deadlier vision of bin Laden's activities. In 1999 the CIA inaugurated a
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Tracy Barnes:
Tracy Barnes (1911 - 1972) was a senior staff member at the United States' Central Intelligence Agency, serving as first head of the agency's Domestic Operations Division. Born in Manhasset, Long Island, Barnes was educated at Groton School and Yale,
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Harvey Point:
The Harvey Point Defense Testing Activity facility, owned by the Department of Defense, is located on a peninsula in Perquimans County, North Carolina, along the Albemarle Sound, near the city of Hertford. Established in World War II as an operating
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1993 CIA shootings:
An attack took place on January 25, 1993 near the entrance of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters in Langley, Virginia where two CIA employees were murdered and three others wounded. The perpetrator, Mir Aimal Kasi, shot CIA employees in t
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Edward Lee Howard:
Edward Lee Howard (born in New Mexico 1951; died 12 July 2002 in Moscow) was a CIA case officer who defected to the Soviet Union. Howard served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bucaramanga, Colombia. There he met Mary Cedarleaf in 1973, and they were ma
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Charles E. Allen:
Charles E. Allen (born 1936) is an American public servant, notable for his roles at the United States Department of Homeland Security's Office of Intelligence and Analysis and, before that, the Central Intelligence Agency.
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Intelligence Authorization Act:
The United States Central Intelligence Agency’s Intelligence Authorization Act was implemented in order to enforce an article of the Constitution which has not been followed since Washington’s presidency. The American Constitution states, in Article
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President's Daily Brief:
The President's Daily Brief (PDB), sometimes incorrectly referred to as the President's Daily Briefing or the President's Daily Bulletin, is a top-secret document produced each morning for the President of the United States. Responsibility for produc
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John A. Gordon:
General John Alexander Gordon (born August 22, 1946, in Jefferson City, Missouri ) was deputy director of central intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, D.C. He served as the President's Homeland Security advisor from 2003 to 2004. Na
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Strategic Assessments Branch:
The strategic assessments branch of the Counterterrorist Center (CTC) of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was established in 2001 to plug a gap in strategic analysis of the terrorism threat, particularly that due to al-Qaeda. In la
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Lyman Kirkpatrick:
Lyman Kirkpatrick (1916-1995) served as inspector general and executive director of the CIA. He wrote a number of books about intelligence after his retirement. Here is an excerpt from the introduction to his book "The Real CIA", written in 1968: Whe
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CIA influence on public opinion:
At various times, under its own authority or in accordance with directives from the President or White House/National Security Council staff, the Central Intelligence Agency has attempted to influence domestic and international public opinion, and so
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CIA activities in the Americas:
This article deals with activities of the United States Central Intelligence Agency in North and South America. For issues regarding possible improprieties in police training, see Latin American police training. Drug issues, and CIA involvement in th
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Vietnam War:
The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, or the Vietnam Conflict, occurred from 1959 to April 30, 1975. The war was fought between the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), supported by its communist allies, and th
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Paramilitary:
A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military force, but which are not regarded as having the same status. The term uses the Greek prefix para- ("beside"), also seen in words such as paramed
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Office of Strategic Services:
The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency and was the predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency.
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Counter-intelligence:
National intelligence programs, and, by extension, the overall defenses of nations, are vulnerable to attack. It is the role of intelligence cycle security to protect the process embodied in the intelligence cycle, and that which it defends. A number
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HUMINT:
HUMINT, a syllabic abbreviation of the words HUMan INTelligence, refers to intelligence gathering by means of interpersonal contact, as opposed to the more technical intelligence gathering disciplines such as SIGINT, IMINT, and MASINT. NATO defines H
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Intelligence analysis:
Intelligence Analysis is the process of taking known information about situations and entities of strategic, operational, or tactical importance, characterizing the known, and, with appropriate statements of probability, the future actions in those s
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National Reconnaissance Office:
The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), located in Chantilly, Virginia, is one of the 16 intelligence agencies in the U.S. It designs, builds and operates the reconnaissance satellites of the United States government. It also coordinates collection
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Allen Welsh Dulles:
Allen Welsh Dulles (April 7, 1893 - January 29, 1969) was the first civilian and the longest serving (1953-1961) Director of Central Intelligence (de-facto head of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency) and a member of the Warren Commission. Between s
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H. R. Haldeman:
Harry Robbins Haldeman (publicly known as H. R. Haldeman, and informally as Bob Haldeman) (October 27, 1926 - November 12, 1993) was a U.S. political aide and businessman, best known for his service as White House Chief of Staff to President Richard
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Bay of Pigs:
For the United States invasion at the Bay of Pigs, see Bay of Pigs Invasion. The Bay of Pigs (Bahía de Cochinos, also known as Playa Girón) is an inlet of the Gulf of Cazones on the south coast of Cuba. It is located in the province of Matanzas, east
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William Joseph Donovan:
Major General William Joseph Donovan, KBE United States Army (January 1, 1883 - February 8, 1959) was an American soldier, lawyer and intelligence officer, best remembered as wartime head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). He is also widely k
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National Clandestine Service:
The National Clandestine Service (NCS) is the main United States intelligence agency for coordinating human intelligence (HUMINT) services. The organization absorbed the entirety of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)'s Directorate of Operations, a
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National Security Act of 1947:
The National Security Act of 1947, Pub. L. No. 235, 80 Cong., 61 Stat. 496 (July 26, 1947), signed by U.S. President Harry S. Truman realigned and reorganized the United States' armed forces, foreign policy, and Intelligence Community apparatus in th
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Richard Helms:
Richard McGarrah Helms (March 30, 1913 - October 23, 2002) was the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from 1966 to 1973. He was the only director to have been convicted of lying to Congress over Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) undercover activi
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Australian Secret Intelligence Service:
The Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) is the Australian government intelligence agency responsible for collecting foreign intelligence, undertaking counter-intelligence activities and cooperation with other intelligence agencies overseas.
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Maktab al-Khidamat:
The Maktab al-Khidamat, also Maktab Khadamāt al-Mujāhidīn al-'Arab (Arabic: مكتب الخدمات or مكتب خدمات المجاهدين العرب, MAK), also known as the Afghan Services Bureau, is reliably believed to have been founded in 1984 by Abdullah Azzam and Osama bin
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Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter:
Roscoe Henry Hillenkoetter (May 8, 1897 - June 18, 1982), born in St. Louis, Missouri, was the third director of the post-WWII U.S. Central Intelligence Group (CIG), and the first director of the Central Intelligence Agency, created by the National S
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Pike Committee:
The Pike Committee is the common name for the House Select Committee on Intelligence during the period when it was chaired by Democratic Representative Otis G. Pike of New York. The Select Committee had originally been established in February 1975 un
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Ferdinand Eberstadt:
Ferdinand A. Eberstadt (June 19, 1890 — November 11, 1969) was an American lawyer, investment banker, and an important policy advisor to the United States government who was instrumental in the creation of the National Security Council. Ferdinand Ebe
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Yuri Nosenko:
Lt. Col. Yuri Ivanovich Nosenko was a KGB defector and a figure of significant controversy within the U.S. intelligence community, since his claims contradicted another defector, Anatoliy Golitsyn. The harsh treatment he received as part of the early
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Sherman Kent:
Sherman Kent, (December 6, 1903 - March 11, 1986), was a Yale University history professor who during World War II pioneered many of the methods of intelligence analysis. He is often described as "the father of intelligence analysis". Sherman Kent fi
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Worldwide Attack Matrix:
The Worldwide Attack Matrix is a document describing covert counter-terrorism operations in 80 countries in Asia, the Middle East and Africa created in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It was presented by Central Intelligence Ag
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Strategic Services Unit:
The Strategic Services Unit was an intelligence agency of the United States government which existed in the immediate post-World War II period. It was created from the Secret Intelligence and Counterespionage branches of the wartime Office of Strateg
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Central Intelligence Agency Act:
The Central Intelligence Agency Act, , is a United States federal law enacted in 1949. The Act (also called "Public Law 110") permitted the Central Intelligence Agency to use confidential fiscal and administrative procedures and exempting it from man
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CIA transnational anti-terrorism activities:
This article deals with activities of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) related to terrorism. Especially after the CIA lost its coordinating role over the entire Intelligence Community (IC), it is impossible to understand US counterterrorism
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CIA transnational health and economic activities:
This article deals with activities of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency related to human survival issues, emphasizing disease and basic needs such as water and agriculture. CIA activities in this area include the preparation of National Intelligen
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CIA transnational anti-crime and anti-drug activities:
This article deals with activities of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency related to transnational crime, including the illicit drug trade. Two offices of the CIA Directorate of Intelligence have analytical responsibilities in this area. The Office
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CIA activities in Asia and the Pacific:
This article deals with activities of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in the Asia/Pacific geopolitical area. In this region we include East Asia, Central Asia (except Afghanistan), Southeast Asia (but not South Asia and Southwest Asia), and Ocea
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CIA transnational activities in counterproliferation:
This article deals with activities of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, specifically dealing with arms control, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and weapons proliferation. It attempts to look at the process of tasking and analyzing, rather than
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