Central Intelligence Agency: Historical View of CIA Leadership

During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed New York Lawyer and war hero General William J. Donovan who led the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) after the US entered WWII in 1942. After WWII, the Office of Strategic Services was abolished since there was no longer a need for a war agency at the time of United States inactive war status. However, the Truman administration established a centralized intelligence organization through the necessity of intelligence gathering for foreign and domestic threats against the United States. President Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 creating the Central Intelligence Agency.

How to collect Intelligence?

Intercepting radio transmissions from foreign news papers, magazines, radio, television broadcasts, education institution articles and podcasts from foreign officials. Accessibility of open source information systems must have accountability through the foreign agency networks. All paid subscriptions to open source information must be granted on the basis that intelligence could be inadvertently issued through public media.

The National Clandestine Service (NCS) is the organization that demonstrates the coordination, deconfliction and evaluation of clandestine human intelligence. Human intelligence gathering can be secret agents that join a terrorist organization to gather movements, weapon stock piles, areas of drug trafficking, human trafficking and vehicle traffic, business fronts, and political sympathizers to terrorist organizations.

The Directorate of Intelligence helps the President, Vice President and others protecting America to secure our foreign and domestic interests. The information that gets introduced to the President on daily briefings decides the movement of American intelligence gathering frameworks.

Important Figures in CIA

William J. Donovan was the director of the Office of Strategic Services which would eventually be transformed into the CIA. Donovan served during the Second Battle of the Marne in September 1918. The Second Battle was a historical landmark during World War II because the German forces were trying to divide the French from their strong hold on the Marne river. British, Italians and American allies joined to help the French from losing their stronghold point on the river and strategically push the Germans back. This landmark event achieved their mission goal by pushing the Germans back to their original Aisne-Vesle lines and weakened the German forces. The Second Battle of the Marne gave the Western Powers the momentum they needed to keep fighting to regain full control of France. Donovan spent time with the British Intelligence Operations and aspired for the US operations to be modeled on a similar system. Donovan led the OSS in espionage operations in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and East Asia to gather intelligence and counterterrorism tactics.

Sidney W. Souers helped establish the Central Intelligence Group (CIG) which was to create daily reports for the President. Clandestine methods of collecting foreign intelligence was the mission to re-engage research and analysis of foreign governments. The CIG would begin to transform the framework for the CIA. Hoyt S. Vandenberg assisted in the intelligence of the Foreign Broadcast Information Service which was a part of the Manhattan Project which produced the Atomic Bomb.

The Foreign Broadcast Information Service was a federal agency that monitored foreign open source data and converted them into reports for political, military and economic sectors. The information was categorized by world regions like Eastern Europe, Central Eurasia, African, Middle East, Asia and Pacific, East Asia and South Asia.

The Manhattan Project was the American-led effort to develop an atomic weapon during World War II. The Project was in response to the intelligence gathering that the Germans were also creating a weapon using nuclear technology to expand their control of Europe. By January 1,1943, the first atomic bomb was successfully detonated which passed the Trinity Test. Thus the Atomic Age was declared which led to Oppenheimer and other scientists working to produce the weapon that would end World War II.

President Truman, introduced to the new weapon, asked the CIG to formulate a report on the strength and capabilities of the Soviet Union and if their military has the capacity to wage war with the western powers. The report came back on July 23, 1946 which stated that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin did not have the capability or desire to wage war with western powers. Frustrated by the response of the CIG, Truman signed the National Security Act in 1947 two years later which created the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The National Security Council (NSC) forms a survey group which writes an assessment of the CIA operations that includes recommended improvements. The assessment identifies key issues of failure to coordinate the Intelligence Community to the best capacities. For instance, East Bloc capabilities were not informational that gave little knowledge on the communist states in Eastern and Central Europe or countries known as the Warsaw Pact. Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) intention was to the fight Nazi Germany and forced neighboring countries to pledge their allegiance to Moscow. The National Security Council knew there was little American intelligence on the process of Soviet and German political and military control within their regions.

The Intelligence Community failed to provide sufficient warning about North Korea’s invasion of South Korea in June 1950. The Soviets were using North Korea as a strong hold within South East Asia to convert all neighboring countries within the region to reject capitalism. Yet, the American military advancement projected that South Korea and Taiwan were domestic conflicts between their neighboring countries. The American Intelligence Community was reluctant to get involved, which was stated by the U.S. Secretary of State Dean Archeson, South Korea and Taiwan are not part of the American “defensive perimeter”. The American Intelligence Community was focused on taking back strategic stronghold points in the European continent.

Project MK-Ultra (Secret MindWars)

Project MK-Ultra was a top secret CIA operation that was secretly conducted on hundreds of people, even unknowing US citizens. The program involved LSD and other drugs for mind control, information gathering and psychological torture. The project was created when the United States government collected information that the Soviet, Chinese and North Korean agents were using mind control to brainwash U.S. prisoners of war in Korea. The CIA approved the project MK-Ultra in 1953, which was to be used against Soviet bloc enemies to control human behavior with drugs and other manipulators. Electroshock therapy, paralytics and psychedelic drugs were used in many research institutions, universities, hospitals, and prisons in the United States and Canada. Citizens of the United States would be subject to mind control tactics unknowingly and knowingly for a long period of time. The United States government eventually abolished the program when there was an investigation and the CIA allegedly kept poor records for the public. According to History, there were willing volunteers that joined project MK-Ultra which was part of the hippie culture during the 1960s. Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, was part of the MK-Ultra experiment for drug induced mind control. After the Nixon Administration’s Watergate scandal, the investigation on the CIA concluded Project MK-Ultra.

OSS Morale Operations (MO) branch

The OSS Morale Operations (MO) branch was directed to create and disburse “black” propaganda to destabilize enemy governments and encourage resistance forces. The strategic and tactical value of the Morale Operations was to have undercover agents in enemy and sympathizer country media circuits to give false information, disinformation, and misinformation to their citizens. During the second world war, the MO branch played a critical role in defying the enemy with open source information. Seeping through enemy minds with the counter propaganda articles written by MO media women, the allied forces were able to win the art of surprise for critical battles. The art of persuasion, penetration and intimidation were the modern day tactics for winning strategic warfare. MO radio broadcasts played popular songs to get German soldiers to listen and intermittently spread black propaganda.

Operation Sauerkraut (July 21, 1944 - April 1945)

The Operation Sauerkraut was to undermine the morale of the German Forces in and around the Italian city of Siena. Agent code name Barbara Lauwers was born in Austro-Hungary in 1914 and moved to the United States when recruited in the US Army. Mrs. Lauwers worked for the Czech embassy in Washington D.C. then the Women's Army Corps. When Lauwers joined the OSS Morale Operations she was ranked corporal and created a team of German prisoners to work on counter-intelligence and psychological warfare. During 1944 to 1945, the United States government was highly invested in changing the hearts and minds of enemy soldiers. The US recognized the struggle between the Warsaw Pact and the Allied Forces when there was a psychological barrier to the soldiers on the front lines and higher military personnel. Each prisoner worked under a false identity to create fake field reports that were mass produced into the Italian campaign. Mrs. Lauwers spread the disinformation of German wives creating the false papers about German women having casual relations with other soldiers. The significance of this tactic was to spread that the German soldiers would not have a happy home to come back from the war because their women were unfaithful. The greatest achievement was Sauerkraut which spread black propaganda about Adolf Hitler in German-occupied Italian towns. Deceiving the enemy to believe that Hitler was not in Germany running the war but instead in the occupation of foreign land.