Lilley and Downes Covert Action, DP, and Cold War March 19, 2008 1 INTRODUCTION Democracies, as is now widely known, rarely if ever go to war with one another. NSC 10/2 was the first presidential document which specified a mechanism to approve and manage covert operations, and also the first in which the term "covert operations" was defined. Covert operations have a long and somewhat chequered history, but this does not mean that they are now useless with the end of the Cold War. The Cold War was a crazy time: We went into battle against the duplicitous penguins and the mighty polar bears; the great walrus hordes and the brutal whale armada; the seal assassins and the alba-What? Dimensions. This evaluation of covert paramilitary operations conducted by the CIA in the very early years of the Cold War period is a combination of pure cost-benefit analysis and a more subjective evaluation of return on investment. Yet there are a number of instances in which democracies have covertly used forceful means short of war to remove elected governments from power, a phenomenon we label covert foreign regime change. Black was a top CIA official whose experience running clandestine wars went back to the Reagan administration’s covert action program in Angola, where the CIA armed anticommunist warlord Jonas Savimbi. However, history should have taught us not to surrender our liberties just because we are under attack. Adversaries and ideology aside, the Cold War interest in avoiding nuclear conflict promoted a relatively high tolerance for covert action as well as understood "rules" for the genre. It can be used to avert public embarrassment, it can influence foreign political processes (democratic or otherwise), it is comparatively cheap and can be used to influence world opinion. These early successes helped increase the CIA's reputation and since they were " small, cheap, fast and tolerably secret, they encouraged Washington to think other covert actions could be likewise.". There was no formal procedure or committee to consider and approve projects. Print length. [7] This provision was dropped in the final version, which simply stated that the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) "is charged with ensuring that [covert] psychological operations are consistent with U.S. foreign policy and overt foreign information activities, and that appropriate agencies of the U.S. Government, ..., are kept informed of such operations which will directly affect them. Based on recently declassified documents, this book provides the first examination of the Truman Administration’s decision to employ covert operations in the Cold War. [39][40] Consequently, an annex[41] to NSC 5412/2 was approved by Eisenhower on 26 March 1957, clarifying project approvals, and for the first time requiring the CIA to circulate "proposal papers" in advance of approval. DOI link for US Covert Operations and Cold War Strategy. Dec 16, 2020 | Podcast, Premium | 0 comments. [50], The Special Group was renamed to the 303 Committee on 2 June 1964, in response to the publication of the book The Invisible Government by David Wise and Thomas B. Ross, which made the old name public. The US conduction of covert actions against other freely elected governments during the Cold War represents till today a conundrum for scholars of the Democratic Peace Research Program. "[23], According to John Prados, the CIA cut the PSB out of the loop, establishing instead an internal mechanism for approval of operations. Of the 40 or so covert actions under way in the mid-1980's at least half had been subject of a press account", but this depends on the country, the US public have traditional viewed covert operations in a more favourable light than their European counter parts. Frances Stonor Saunders is writing a book on the cultural Cold War. US Covert Operations and Cold War Strategy . Since the British and Americans stressed deniability, exiles sent back had great difficulty proving they had western support. Although CIA continued to seek and receive advice on specific projects from the NSC, the PSB, and the departmental representatives originally delegated to advise OPC, no group or officer outside of the DCI and the President himself had authority to order, approve, manage, or curtail operations. The Iran/contra scandal in the US illustrates this, as does the Matrix Churchill affair in the UK. It had many similar designations. The United States Department of Defense definition has been used by the United States and NATO since World War II. In 2006, some 2,300 pages of documents laying out major parts of the Albania Project under its two major cryptonyms, BGFIEND and OBOPUS, were declassified by a U.S. government interagency working group acting under the terms of the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act . Significantly, the directive explicitly charged PCG with approving covert operations. The CIA is an extra-Constitutional abomination that was created at the start of the Cold War, in large part due to the failures of U.S. intelligence before the attack on Pearl Harbor. [47] In the wake of the scandal, DDP Richard M. Bissell Jr. suggested the name and workings of the Special Group be made public to demonstrate to the American people that the CIA was under effective executive oversight; that did not happen. About Covert Action in the Cold War. (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005) ISBN 0742536874; McSherry, J. Patrice (2011). This lesson of recognising the limits of covert action was to be repeated time and time again through the Cold War. "Chapter 5: "Industrial repression" and Operation Condor in Latin America". The Bay of Pigs operation in Cuba illustrates this well. NSC 5412/2[33] was approved by Eisenhower on 28 December 1955, a directive which remained in force for 15 years. The covert or invisible operational methods developed by the CIA and the military during the 1950s are still being used today despite the apparent demise of the Cold War, in such covert activities as those going on in Central America and Africa…the distinction between the CIA and the military is hard to discern, since they always work together. "[43], The Special Group fell by the wayside when new administration of John F. Kennedy took office on 20 January 1961; although it remained "in theory intact", in practice it "took a backseat to meetings at which JFK personally presided". Originally, designed to counter Cuban and the Soviet support once South Africa intervened to help the US backed forces it signalled to the Third World that the US was allied with the South African Regime. [16] NSC 10/5[20] tried to specify the purpose of the PSB. It’s probably not going to be a shock to most readers, but this part of the story is pure fiction. "[23] On 15 March 1954, Eisenhower approved NSC 5412,[27] which required CIA to consult with OCB. "As the Truman administration ended", writes the Office of the Historian, CIA was near the peak of its independence and authority in the field of covert action. Covert Operation. But "these representatives had no approval function. Encyclopedia of the Central Intelligence Agency, President's Assistant for National Security Affairs, "CIA Authority to Perform Propaganda and Commando Type Functions", "NSC 4-A – National Security Council Directive to Director of Central Intelligence Hillenkoetter", "NSC 4-A – Draft Directive to Director of Central Intelligence Hillenkoetter", "Memorandum From the Executive Secretary (Souers) to the National Security Council", "The inauguration of organized political warfare", "NSC 10/2 – National Security Council Directive on Office of Special Projects", "NSC 10/5 – SCOPE AND PACE OF COVERT OPERATIONS", "Procedure for Handling 10/5 Matters in PSB", "BRIEFING TO THE PSYCHOLOGICAL STRATEGY BOARD ON SOME 10/5 PROBLEMS", "Secret appendix C to the Katzenbach Committee's report – COORDINATION AND POLICY APPROVAL OF COVERT OPERATIONS", "NSC 5412 – NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL DIRECTIVE ON COVERT OPERATIONS", "Report of the Planning Coordination Group", "The President's Board: 1956–1960, Overseeing the intelligence community", President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, "Proposed Name Change for Special Group (5412)", "National Security Decision Memoranda 40", "Responsibility for the Conduct, Supervision and Coordination of Covert Action Operations", "Proposals for Intelligence Reorganization, 1949-2004", "Al-Qaida and Iraq: how strong is the evidence? No espionage operation or covert action was deemed too extreme by a CIA that saw only friends or enemies By Stephen Kinzer A The CIA’s Holy War s the Cold War entered its hottest phase in the early 1950s, a hard-line CIA officer named Harry Rositzke was given one of America’s most urgent jobs. [59], The following year, on May 13, 1977, President Jimmy Carter issued Executive Order 11985 which updated the previous order, and renamed the Operations Advisory Group to the NSC Special Coordination Committee (SCC). Among the few substantive changes introduced by Nixon was the inclusion of Attorney General John N. Mitchell and a requirement to review covert programs annually. In 1954 an operation code named PBSUCCESS involved a Guatemalan Colonel Carlos C. Armas entering his home country with a small force, which had a CIA backing and was backed up by CIA pilots after some confusion Armas became President. ‎Based on recently declassified documents, this book provides the first examination of the Truman Administration’s decision to employ covert operations in the Cold War. [17] According to Anne Karalekas, a Church Committee staffer, it did not constrain the OPC: [The 10/2 Panel was] not an approval body, and there was no formal mechanism whereby individual projects had to be brought before [it] for discussion. The idea of targeting Albania was a British one and although at the higher levels co-operation worked smoothly, in the field different operating techniques soon caused tensions. When Eisenhower replaced the PSB with the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB) on 2 September 1953, he also did away with the 10/5 Panel, reverting to "a smaller group identical to the former 10/2 Panel, without OCB staff participation. Few individuals outside the intelligence and submarine communities knew anything about these top-secret missions. By analyzing these cases, it becomes evident that the regimes which came to power during the Cold War and the War on Terror had different deficiencies. [9] Then the Joint Chiefs of Staff entered the fray by guarding its prerogatives, particularly in wartime, especially in theatres of war. Soviet Union 1969 Authorization of covert action. [23] Although Eisenhower would later congratulate the CIA with its success in deposing Guatemala's democratically elected President, Jacobo Árbenz, he was privately irked by CIA's unauthorized bombing of SS Springfjord. Wartime successes for the British with SOE and the US with the OSS, helped make covert action a popular option with the intelligence services, and decision makers alike. Other actions are harder to calculate such as the Covert support to Chilean opposition parties in the early 1970's, was the CIA's support crucial or would Allende's government have failed any way? If paramilitary operations are so potentially damaging why undertake them? Unlike Special Forces clandestine operations, since 1974 CIA covert … [1] The actual responsibility for these operations was a hot potato, and when it was decided that the State Department would be in charge, Secretary of State George Marshall sharply opposed it, fearing it would tarnish the international credibility of his department. Covert operations are military or paramilitary operations that are carried out in secret and often involve activities which are legally if not ethically questionable. Publisher. Some of them have referred to the Kantian paradigm of “republic” in order to point out how the targeted nations were not yet a democracy. [42] On 26 December 1958 Eisenhower asked the Special Group to institute weekly meetings,[37] with the result that "criteria for submission of projects to the Group were, in practice, considerably broadened. Executive oversight of United States covert operations has been carried out by a series of sub-committees of the National Security Council (NSC). English. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders. We can see how the covert regime change operations were used during both the Cold War and War on Terror by examining a 1953 mission in Iran and a 2011 initiative in Libya. Born out of the ashes of World War II, the covert action arm of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was created to counter the challenge posed by the Soviet Union and its allies and bolster American interests worldwide. (Labévière, 2000, Prologue) "Al-Qaeda" activity thus pertained to a new doctrine of covert destabilization, to be implemented in new theatres of operation strategically close to Russian and Chinese influence, namely, Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia. About Covert Action in the Cold War. [2][3] At the very first meetings of the NSC in late 1947, the perceived necessity to "stem the flow of communism" in Western Europe—particularly Italy—by overt and covert "psychological warfare" forced the issue. Operation Gladio. - Cookies. For example the British preferred small amphibious landings to the American method of dangerous low-level parachute drops. [49] After the Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of destruction, management of the war against Castro was transferred to discussions in the EXCOMM and NSC proper, before being handed over to an "obscure NSC appendage" known as the Standing Group chaired by National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy. CIA’s Covert Indonesia Operation in the 1950s Acknowledged by U.S. : Cold War: State Department publishes unprecedented 600-page history documenting anti-Communist program. The 10/2 Panel, which continued to function,[21] was replaced in February 1952 by an enlarged 10/5 Panel, which also included PSB staff. "[4], According to the Church Committee, throughout the period June 1948 to March 1955, "NSC directives provided for consultation with representatives of State and Defense". 1845118820. The a… By Nate Low. Truman, Secret Warfare and the CIA, 1945-53. [52][53] Alternatively, the Encyclopedia of the Central Intelligence Agency by W. Thomas Smith Jr. claims the name derives from “a room number in the executive office complex in Washington D.C.”[54], On 17 February 1970, President Richard Nixon approved NSDM 40,[55] superseding and revoking NSC 5412/2, and replacing the 303 Committee with the 40 Committee. The game's main character, Alex Russell, is fictional, so obviously President Ronald Reagan never personally directed him on covert … Failure in convert operations can no longer be kept secret, a more aggressive press in most liberal democracies helps guarantee this. [33], The resulting body became known as the 5412 Committee or, from 1957, the Special Group. Keeping a covert action secret for a long period of time is impossible, so future covert operations must be planned with this in mind, they can only expect short term memory secrecy so must be seen to back up an existing public policy. Born out of the ashes of World War II, the covert action arm of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was created to counter the challenge posed by the Soviet Union and its allies and bolster American interests worldwide. A Russian intelligence agency forged letters from the Ku Klux Klan threatening the lives of black athletes in an upcoming Olympics. Covert action became detrimental for the Cold War effort as it allowed Soviet propaganda free reign in blaming the US for any problem. This group has been said to have been responsible for stovepiping selective raw intelligence data, bypassing analysis processes as well as bypassing customary cooperation and coordination with NSA, Mossad, and other intelligence entities in order to shape decisions as to the war with Iraq. [56], On February 18, 1976, 40 committee was replaced by the Operations Advisory Group, in accordance with Executive Order 11905 issued by Gerald Ford. The history of Covert Operations goes back far beyond the Cold War, with many operations during the two World wars and even long before then. "Plausible deniability" was a key goal; indeed, in that bipolar world it became rule number one. For example: Some sources actually claim the Special Group was disbanded at this time. US Covert Operations and Cold War Strategy: Truman, Secret Warfare and the CIA, 1945-53 (Studies in Intelligence) eBook: Corke, Sarah-Jane: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store Select Your Cookie Preferences We use cookies and similar tools to enhance your shopping experience, to provide our services, understand how customers use our services so we can make improvements, and display ads. Offering a powerful perspective on a pivotal period in American history, 'Covert Action in the Cold War' makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of global politics during the Cold War. But the CIA is not a lone ranger, shooting up saloons on its own account. Another problem that covert operations face is that of escalation. DCI Smith, seeking more high-level policy guidance, wanted the PSB "to replace the 10/2 Panel as approval body";[19] this proposal was adopted by the NSC. [18] OPC was merged on 1 August 1952 with the CIA branch responsible for espionage, the Office of Special Operations (OSO), to form the Directorate of Plans (DDP). Language. Their success here illustrates a point about covert operations, it is frequently easier to support the status quo and bolster a friendly regime than it is to bring down a hostile one. … In 1958 the touring exhibition "The New American Painting", including works … The Cold War was a time of geopolitical tension between two world superpowers, mostly involving political maneuvering and veiled threats? "[12] The representatives to this "10/2 Panel", also known as the "OPC Consultants",[15] were Kennan for State (1948–1950) and Joseph McNarney for Defense (1948–1949). No espionage operation or covert action was deemed too extreme by a CIA that saw only friends or enemies By Stephen Kinzer A The CIA’s Holy War s the Cold War entered its hottest phase in the early 1950s, a hard-line CIA officer named Harry Rositzke was given one of America’s most urgent jobs. And Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War is no different. Lindsey O’Rourke has given us a devastating indictment of the foreign policy of the United States during the Cold War and after. At the beginning of the Cold War, it was not inevitable that covert operations would become the dominion of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Because it was assumed that covert action would be exceptional, strict provisions for specific project authorization were not considered necessary. Other operations although successful will remain secret due to the political embarrassment they would cause now, such as the CIA's aid to the Tibetans against the Chinese occupation of their land. This exhibit highlights the trying conditions U.S. Navy Sailors endured during this time. Covert operations are often thought to be clandestine or illegal activities, but may well be regular surveillance tasks, observations, bugging, protection (of people), etc. During the Cold War the problems were generally much less complex than today, as Churchill once said reflecting on a changing world," in the midst of war, I could always see how to do it. By their very nature covert operations should remain small and low-key otherwise secrecy is impossible. Throughout the Cold War, America's adversaries understood that an attack on the United States, or its deployed forces, risked devastating retaliation by the Navy's technologically advanced and professionally manned submarine force. [31] The PCG proved to be a failure; its chairman, Nelson Rockefeller, recommended the abolishment of PCG before year's end. [52] The number refers to the national security directive which effected the change, NSAM 303. In many respects the Cold War gave many Western agencies a carte blanche in regard to covert operations. Most accounts of America’s covert Cold War activities focus on a few well-known cases, such as Iran, Guatemala, and Chile. After a brief relaxation in the amount of covert action campaigns under Carter, once again under Reagan covert action was seen as the ‘magic bullet’ in the fight against communism. In Call of Duty: Cold War, there is a covert operation called “Operation Greenlight” that had placed a neutron bomb… The supposed coup appeared to be a sting operation. During this period covert action was popular because normal intelligence activities were severely curtailed in the eastern European countries. US Covert Operations and Cold War Strategy book. Although covert operations were an integral part of America’s arsenal during the late 1940s and early 1950s, the majority of these operations were ill conceived, unrealistic and ultimately doomed to failure. The type of cooperation that takes place is determined by whether the assets are situated inside or outside the government which U.S. policymakers find unappealing. This is the untold story of a covert submarine espionage operation against the Soviet Union during the Cold War as experienced by the Commanding Officer of an active submarine. Only when these moral guidelines are applied can such ill-conceived operations as the French Covert action against the Green Peace ship, The Rainbow Warrior in 1985 in New Zealand, which killed a crewman and the plots to kill Castro in the 1960's, be avoided. In the first half of its existence, OPC was not really under CIA's control. THROUGHOUT THE COLD WAR, America's adversaries understood that an attack on the United States or its deployed forces risked devastating retaliation by the Navy's technologically advanced and professionally manned submarine force. Its functions were morphed in the Office of Special Plans, which was subsequently investigated for manipulations of intelligence, unlawful activities, and espionage. Even the CIA’s original legal counsel warned them that covert missions were illegal – but they did them anyway. [26] The only difference was that it was specifically dedicated to managing the Cuban Project which sought to overthrow Fidel Castro's regime, and was headed by Attorney General Robert F. Despite this it is worth noting that," Not every covert action is controversial. In Operation Acoustic Kitty, CIA attempts to eavesdrop on men in a park outside the Soviet embassy in Washington with a $20,000,000 cat. Truman, Secret Warfare and the CIA, 1945-53 . The National Security Act of 1947 did not explicitly authorize the CIA to conduct covert operations, although Section 102(d)(5) was sufficiently vague to permit abuse. Buy US Covert Operations and Cold War Strategy: Truman, Secret Warfare and the CIA, 1945-53 (Studies in Intelligence) 1 by Corke, Sarah-Jane (ISBN: 9780415420778) from Amazon's Book Store. Nature, should be directed and coordinated by the Department covert operation cold war State. on 4 April 1951 he... The history of the Joint Chiefs of Staff a member as well NSC staffer had recommended the name. Of Defense definition has been used by the United States during the War... 5412/2 [ 33 ] was approved by Eisenhower on 28 December 1955, a aggressive..., strict provisions for specific project authorization were not considered necessary ] NSC 4-A provided the authorization for the War... ''. [ 25 ] on an ad hoc basis more true than during era. 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