Excessive secrecy hurting CIA studies
By Shaun Waterman, UPI Apr. 27, 2006 at 9:34AM

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New restrictions on authorizing publications by current and former CIA officials are having a "chilling effect" on the agencies relationships with academics and its ability to exploit open source expertise, according to three former senior intelligence officials.

The officials -- all with continuing ties to U.S. intelligence agencies and knowledge of the process -- told United Press International that it had recently become much harder and more time-consuming to get material cleared for publication.

The changes include an apparent end to the practice of posting online unclassified articles from the CIA's peer-reviewed academic journal "Studies in Intelligence." And a much tougher approach to the vetting of manuscripts submitted for mandatory pre-publication review to a special agency board by current and former employees and contractors.

"Things are taking a lot longer and the redactions are more nit-picking," said one former senior CIA official of the review process.

He said the changes were having "a chilling effect. Especially for... (time sensitive publications like newspaper) op-eds. It takes so long to get approval, you lose the opportunity (to place it for publication). People aren't even bothering to try."

Another said the issue was at least in part the cause of the recent retirement of the two officials who ran "Studies in Intelligence" -- a development first reported by the Washington Spectator magazine.

Barbara Pace, the journal's editor, denied her departure was connected with any changes at the center. "It was just time for me to move on," she told UPI, declining to comment further.

Paul Johnson, who ran the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence, which publishes the journal and other academic papers about the agency's work, could not be reached, and the CIA itself declined to comment, citing the privacy of personnel matters.

Beginning in 1994, the center has published an unclassified version of "Studies in Intelligence" -- both as a printed journal and, later, on the CIA's Web site.

Recently, the center, under Johnson's leadership, put online what some researchers view as a "treasure trove" of more than 600 unclassified and declassified articles and occasional papers from its archives.

"As resources permit, more articles will be included in later releases of this... database," says the center's page on the CIA's Web site.

But there have been no subsequent postings, and Web publication of "Studies in Intelligence" itself appears to have ceased as well, at least for the time being -- no articles from the last three issues of the journal are on the agency's Web site, although hard copies are available from the U.S. Government Printing Office.

A former senior CIA official called the changes "baffling," and said if the journal ceased to publish online it would be a "loss for the (intelligence) community and for scholarship."

Another former senior intelligence official said the changes would be "hurtful" to the agency's relationships with outside academics and others in what he called "the open source community."

"How do you go to people who've been honest critics of the intelligence agencies -- people who believe in what (the agencies) are trying to do but still call it like they see it when (the agencies) get it wrong?" asked the former official.

CIA Spokesman Paul Gimigliano would not comment directly on whether "Studies in Intelligence" would continue to be posted online, but said the agency was considering the future of the journal and the center that produces it in the wake of the overhaul of U.S. intelligence last year.

"This is a time of change throughout the intelligence community and at (the Center for the Study of Intelligence) itself, which is looking for a new, permanent director. It will be an opportunity to explore and discuss ways to further enhance the center's role as an educator of intelligence officers," he told UPI.

As part of the overhaul that began with the establishment of the director of national intelligence last year, reformers plan a single "university system" for the sprawling and sometimes fractious collection of U.S. agencies referred to as the intelligence community.

The Center for the Study of Intelligence and the CIA's vaunted Sherman Kent University will be part of such a system, officials told UPI last year, but the final architecture remains unclear.

But former officials said the changes at the center are also part of a range of efforts to reduce the public profile of the CIA and its employees, and exert closer control over the publications of staff and former staff.

"The agency is going through a phase about... openness," said one. "There's a tendency to be really tight right now."

In particular, several observers singled out a new attitude at the agency's pre-publication review board.

One former CIA official said the board, which in the past had worked sympathetically with would-be authors, was now pushing the envelope of its authority and the regulations.

"Some of what I've heard (about redactions the board had demanded) could be interpreted as going beyond what the rules say" about what cannot be published, the former official said.

In the wake of the publication of "Imperial Hubris," a scathing best-seller blasting the Bush administration's conduct of the war against terrorism written by a serving CIA analyst, agency regulations were changed.

Current employees, who had previously only required clearance from their chain of command to publish, were brought under the ambit of the board, and subject to the requirement that -- in addition to a classification review -- nothing they published could "adversely affect" the agency's mission, the author's ability to do his job or the "foreign relations or security of the United States."

But Mark Zaid, a lawyer who has represented several former intelligence officials, said that changes in the practice of the board were more significant in their impact than any new rules.

Under its former Chairman Paul Chretien, he told UPI, the board had fought "big battles with (directorate of operations) people" over the rights of insiders to publish. "They were one of the best offices in the CIA," he said.

Now, he said, echoing the comments of former officials, the board was essentially a barrier to publication rather than an enabler.

Operation History: Central Intelligence Homepage For kids

History of American Intelligence
Espionage, counterintelligence, and covert action have been important tools of US political leaders since the founding of the Republic. During the Revolutionary War, General George Washington and patriots such as Benjamin Franklin and John Jay directed a broad range of clandestine operations that helped the colonies win independence. They ran networks of agents and double agents, employed deceptions against the British army, launched sabotage operations and paramilitary raids, used codes and ciphers, and disseminated propaganda and disinformation to influence foreign governments. America's founders all agreed with General Washington that the "necessity of procuring good intelligence is apparent and need not be further urged&[U]pon Secrecy, Success depends in Most Enterprises&and for want of it, they are generally defeated&"

Presidents in the early Republic were actively involved in intelligence activitiesespecially covert actions. In his first State of the Union message, Washington requested that Congress establish a "secret service fund" for clandestine activities. Within two years the fund represented over ten percent of the federal budget. Thomas Jefferson drew on it to finance the United State's first covert attempt to topple a foreign government, one of the Barbary Pirate States, in 1804-05. It failed. James Madison employed agents of influence and clandestine paramilitary forces in trying to acquire territory in the Florida region from Spain during 1810-12. Several presidents dispatched undercover agents on espionage missions overseas. One spy, disguised as a Turk, obtained a copy of a treaty between the Ottoman Empire and France. Also during this period, Congress first tried to exercise oversight of the secret fund, but President James K. Polk rebuffed the lawmakers, saying, "The experience of every nation on earth has demonstrated that emergencies may arise in which it becomes absolutely necessary&to make expenditures, the very object of which would be defeated by publicity."

In the Civil War both Union and Confederacy extensively engaged in clandestine activities. They acquired intelligence from clandestine agents, military scouts, captured documents, intercepted mail, decoded telegrams, newspapers, and interrogations of prisoners and deserters. Neither side had a formal, high-level military intelligence service. The North's principal spymasters were Allen Pinkerton and Lafayette Bakerwho both proved most effective at counterespionageand military officers George Sharpe and Grenville Dodge. The confederacy had a loose array of secret services that collected intelligence and conducted sabotage and other covert actions. Three of the South's most celebrated agents were womenRose Greenhow, Belle Boyd, and Nancy Hart. In 1864 Confederate operatives tried to organize antiwar elements in Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio into a secession movement, and set a rash of fires in New York City in an attempt to burn it down. Northern and Southern agents in Europe engaged in propaganda and secret commercial activities. Overall, the North was more effective at espionage and counterintelligence, while the South had more success at covert action. The hard-won expertise and organization built up during the Civil War was soon demobilized and dispersed.

The United States' first formal permanent intelligence organizations were formed in the 1880s: the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Army's Military Intelligence Division. They posted attaches in several major European cities principally for open-source collection. When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898, the attaches switched to espionage. They created informant rings and ran reconnaissance operations to learn about Spanish military intentions and capabilitiesmost importantly, the location of the Spanish Navy. One U.S. military officer used well-placed sources he had recruited in the Western Union telegraph office in Havana to intercept communications between Madrid and Spanish commanders in Cuba. The US Secret Servicein charge of domestic counterintelligence during the warbroke up a Spanish spy ring based in Montreal that planned to infiltrate the US Army.

When World War I started in 1914, the United States' ability to collect foreign intelligence had shrunk drastically because of budget cuts and bureaucratic reorganizations. The State Department began small-scale operations against the Central Powers in 1916, but not until the United States declared war on Germany in 1917 did Army and Navy intelligence receive infusions of personnel and moneytoo late to increase their intelligence output correspondingly. The most significant advance for US intelligence during the war was the establishment of a permanent communications intelligence agency in the Armythe forerunner of the National Security Agency. Meanwhile, the Secret Service and military counterintelligence aggressively interdicted numerous German covert actions inside the United States that included psychological warfare, political and economic operations, and dozens of acts of sabotage against British-owned firms and factories supplying munitions to Britain and Russia. The Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation (forerunner of the FBI) took on a counterintelligence role in 1916, and Congress passed the first federal espionage law in 1917.

Between the wars, American Intelligence officers concentrated on codebreaking and counterintelligence operations against Germany and Japan. Notwithstanding Secretary of State Henry Simson's alleged dictum that "gentlemen do not read each other's mail," by 1941 the United States had built a world-class signals intelligence capability. The "Black Chamber" under Herbert Yardley, the Army's Signal Intelligence Service under William Friedman, and Navy cryptanalysts cracked Tokyo's diplomatic encryption systems. Working backward from intercepts, Friedman's team figured out what kind of cipher device the Japanese usedthe "Purple" machine. During the 1930s, the FBI launched an extremely effective counterintelligence attack on German and Japanese espionage and sabotage operations in the Western Hemisphere, infiltrating many networks and arresting dozens of agents. The Bureau had less success against Soviet efforts to penetrate US governmental and economic institutions.

As American entry into World War II seemed to draw closer in 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt created the country's first peacetime, civilian intelligence agencythe Office of the Coordinator of Informationto organize the activities of several agencies. Soon after, however, the United States suffered its most costly intelligence disaster ever when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. That failurea result of analytical misconceptions, collection gaps, bureaucratic confusion, and careful Japanese denial and deception measuresled to the establishment of a larger and more diversified intelligence agency in 1942, the Office of Strategic Services.

History of the CIA
The United States has carried on foreign intelligence activities since the days of George Washington, but only since World War II have they been coordinated on a government-wide basis.

Even before Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was concerned about American intelligence deficienciesparticularly the need for the State and War Departments to cooperate better and to adopt a more strategic perspective. He asked New York attorney William J. Donovan to draft a plan for a new intelligence service. In July 1941, Roosevelt appointed Donovan as the Coordinator of Information (COI) to direct the nation's first peacetime, nondepartmental intelligence organization. America's entry into World War II in December 1941 prompted new thinking about the place and role of the COI. As a result, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was established in June 1942 with a mandate to collect and analyze strategic information required by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to conduct special operations not assigned to other agencies.

During the War, the OSS supplied policymakers with essential facts and intelligence estimates and often played an important role in directly aiding military campaigns. However, the OSS never received complete jurisdiction over all foreign intelligence activities. The FBI formally received responsibility for intelligence work in Latin America when its Secret Intelligence Service was established in June 1940, and the military branches conducted intelligence operations in their areas of responsibility.

As World War II drew to a close, Donovan's civilian and military rivals feared that he might win his campaign to create a peacetime intelligence service modeled on the OSS. President Harry S. Truman, who succeeded Roosevelt in April 1945, felt no obligation to retain OSS after the war. Once victory was won, the nation wanted to demobilize quicklywhich included dismantling wartime agencies like the OSS. Although it was abolished in October 1945, however, the OSS's analytic, collection, and counterintelligence functions were transferred on a smaller scale to the State and War Departments.

President Truman soon recognized the need for a centralized intelligence system. Taking into account the views of the military services, the State Department, and the FBI, he established the Central Intelligence Group (CIG) in January 1946. The CIG had two missions: providing strategic warning and conducting clandestine activities. Unlike the OSS, it had access to all-source intelligence. The CIG functioned under the direction of a National Intelligence Authority composed of a Presidential representative and the Secretaries of State, War and Navy. Rear Admiral Sidney W. Souers, USNR, who was the Deputy Chief of Naval Intelligence, was appointed the first Director of Central Intelligence.

Twenty months later, the National Intelligence Authority and the CIG were disestablished. Under the provisions of the National Security Act of 1947 (which became effective on 18 December 1947) the National Security Council (NSC) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were created. The 1947 Act charged the CIA with coordinating the nation's intelligence activities and correlating, evaluating, and disseminating intelligence which affects national security. In addition, the Agency was to perform other duties and functions related to intelligence as the NSC might direct. The Act defined the DCI's authority as head of the Intelligence Community, head of the CIA, and principal intelligence adviser to the President, and made him responsible for protecting intelligence sources and methods. The act also prohibited the CIA from engaging in law enforcement activity and restricted its internal security functions. The CIA carries out its responsibilities subject to various directives and controls by the President and the NSC.

In 1949, the Central Intelligence Agency Act was passed and supplemented the 1947 Act. The addendum permitted the Agency to use confidential fiscal and administrative procedures and exempted CIA from many of the usual limitations on the expenditure of federal funds. It provided that CIA funds could be included in the budgets of other departments and then transferred to the Agency without regard to the restrictions placed on the initial appropriation. This Act is the statutory authority which allows for the secrecy of the Agency's budget.

In 1953, Congress amended the National Security Act to provide for the appointment of the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. This amendment also provided that commissioned officers of the armed forces, whether active or retired, could not occupy both DCI and DDCI positions at the same time. The DDCI assists the Director by performing such functions as the DCI assigns or delegates. The DDCI acts for and exercises the powers of the Director during his absence or disability, or in the event of a vacancy in the position of the Director.

Congressional oversight has existed to varying degrees throughout the CIA's existence. Today the CIA reports regularly to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, as required by the Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980 and various Executive Orders. The Agency also reports regularly to the Defense Subcommittees of the Appropriations Committees in both Houses of Congress. Moreover, the Agency provides substantive briefings to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and the Armed Services Committees in both bodies, as well as other committees and individual members.

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