Examination of CIA Misconduct
Examination of CIA Misconduct
“For some time I have been disturbed by the way the CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational arm and at times a policy making arm of the government”
– President Harry S. Truman, December 1963.
What president Truman meant by this statement was that when the Central Intelligence Agency first came about in 1947, its original intent was to further the foreign policies of the United States government by covert means, while containing the spread of its sworn enemy – communism, and that the agency has strayed from that original goal to a less ostentatious one. The CIA is heavily involved in espionage and counterespionage, propaganda and disinformation (the deliberate circulation of false, one-sided information), and psychological warfare (which includes many attempts to control the minds of human beings using various brainwashing techniques). The CIA also makes extensive use of forged documents on many accounts to accomplish its tasks and to shield the public from knowledge of their illegal activities. In order to fund such extravagant objectives the agency has imported large quantities of hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin to be sold through out the United States.
The CIA was originally meant to be a coordination agency responsible for gathering, evaluating and preparing foreign intelligence. President Truman proposed this to congress in the National Security Act (NSA) of 1947. Since then, the CIA’s mission has become more towards interfering with the domestic affairs of other nations, while conducting their operations in secrecy, and concealing their illegal activities by censoring many publications that reveal the truth about the CIA’s clandestine operations. The CIA and the Cult of the Intelligence, by Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks, was the first book the U.S. government ever took to court to censor before publication with 168 deletions through out the book. “Traditionally, the [CIA’s] hope has been to foster a world order in which America would rein supreme, the unchallenged international leader. Today, however…the [CIA’s] objectives are now less grandiose but no less disturbing.” (Marchetti 4). The CIA now seeks mostly to advance America’s self-appointed role as the foremost authority of social, economic, and political change in the regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
“The ability to control and manipulate the mind of an enemy is the dream of every...