Description
Book SynopsisFrom its inception more than half a century ago and for decades afterward, the Central Intelligence Agency was deeply shrouded in secrecy, with little or no real oversight by Congress–or so many Americans believe. David M. Barrett reveals, however, that during the agency's first fifteen years, Congress often monitored the CIA's actions and plans, sometimes aggressively.
Trade ReviewA truly groundbreaking, eye-opening descent into secret budgeting, espionage, and covert actions."" - Louis Fisher, author of
Military Tribunals and Presidential Power""Barrett reveals a CIA that made its own rules, wrote its own budget, classified its own secrets, and persuaded the Congress to like it. A rich and fabulous story that sheds new light on just about every significant episode in the first decades of the Cold War and confirms what many have long suspected—secrecy is the great enemy of democracy, and vice versa."" - Thomas Powers, author of
Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to Al-Qaeda""A riveting story that helps to untangle one of the Cold War’s most tangled webs."" - Richard H. Immerman, author of
The CIA in GuatemalaTable of Contents
- List of Acronyms
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: First Hidden, Then Lost
- Part 1. The Truman Era, 1947-1952
- No ""American Gestapo, "" But ""No More Pearl Harbors""
- Initial Oversight: Budgets and Covert Action
- ""A South American Pearl Harbor""
- The Soviet A-Bomb: ""We Apparently Don't Have the Remotest Idea""
- Communists and ""Perverts"" in the CIA
- Korea: ""No Better Today Than on December 7, 1941""
- A New DCI
- The ""Dirty Business""
- Portraits
- CIA Subcommittees, Intelligence Roles, and Budgets
- ""We Don't Let Just Anybody Look at Our Files""
- ""There Will Be No Changes""
- Part 2. The Eisenhower Era, 1953-1960
- Meddling?
- Getting ""Taberized""
- Guatemala: ""Sterilizing the Red Infection""
- Mr. Mansfield Goes to the Senate
- Joseph McCarthy: The CIA's Other Would-Be Overseer
- ""You, Who Championed Our Cause""
- Barons Restored
- ""Dodging Dead Cats""
- ""They Have to Have a Building""
- The New Mansfield Resolution: Two Surprises
- ""We Have a History of Underestimation""
- Hungary and the Suez: ""We Had a Very Good Idea, Senator""
- Sputnik
- An Early ""Year of Intelligence""?
- ""I Cannot Always Predict When There Is Going to Be a Riot""
- Iraq: ""Our Intelligence Was Just Plain Lousy""
- Return to the Missile Gap
- From the Pforzheimer Era to the Warner Era
- Subordinating Intelligence?
- In and Out of Hearing Rooms
- ""Who Are Our Liquidators?""
- ""I'd Like to Tell Him to His Face What I Think about Him""
- U-2: ""We Have Felt These Operations Were Appropriate""
- Pouring Oil on Fire
- ""Their Answer to That Demand"": Congressional Paternity?
- ""My Opinion of the CIA Went Skyrocketing""
- Part 3. Cuba, the CIA, and Congress: 1960-1961
- Castro: ""This Fellow Is Bad and Ought to Go""
- ""What is the Rationale behind That?""
- ""I Agree That You Had to Replace Dulles""
- Afterword: Alarms
- Notes
- Selected Bibilography
- Index
