Fall 1995 Issue No. 4
The CIA Museum, which is located in the Atrium of the New Headquarters Building, has been transferred to the History Staff of the Center for the Study of Intelligence.
The Center maintains a permanent exhibit of intelligence memorabilia and artifacts and organizes special exhibits. Curator Linda McCarthy noted that the Center has especially interesting collections from the Civil War and World War II, including paraphernalia from the Office of Strategic Services. The exhibit includes a mockup of Gary Powers' ill-fated U-2. Powers used the mockup to demonstrate how a Soviet surface-to-air missile hit his aircraft on 1 May 1960 and to describe the damage done to the U-2 after it crashed.
The Center welcomes Ms. Linda McCarthy and Assistant Curator Beth Bruins.
The Center continues to work with the State Department's History Office in preparation of the documentary series Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS). Recently released documents cover such diverse topics as arms control, China, and Cuba. These documents will appear in future FRUS volumes. Over the past six months the Historical Review Group has examined some 3,000 pages of records from CIA and other agencies to be included in the FRUS series covering the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Two recent volumes in the series, Foreign Relations of the United States 1961-63: Vol. VII Arms Control and Disarmament and Foreign Relations of the United States 1964-68: Vol. XIII Western Europe contain recently declassified intelligence records and illustrate the kind of intelligence data being released:
The Academic Coordinator is pleased to announce that the Center for the Study of Intelligence remains committed to an ambitious conference agenda.
The Central Intelligence Agency will sponsor the 63rd annual meeting of the Society for Military History from 18 to 21 April at the Key Bridge Marriott Hotel in Rosslyn, Virginia. As the host institution, the Center for the Study of Intelligence has chosen Intelligence and National Security in Peace, Crisis, and War as the meeting's theme.
In addition to numerous panels, the meeting will include book displays, an awards luncheon on Friday, and a banquet on Saturday. The Center for the Study of Intelligence is arranging a tour and reception at CIA Headquarters on Friday evening. Another tour, perhaps of NSA's National Cryptological Museum, is being planned.
Professional and amateur historians are invited to submit proposals. Papers may treat the meeting's theme in any historical period or era. Topics may include-but should not be limited to-strategic and tactical uses of intelligence, the role of intelligence in national security policy and military affairs, comparative studies of national intelligence services, counterintelligence cases, cooperation and conflict between civilian and military intelligence services, civilian and military covert action and psychological warfare operations, and denial-and-deception operations. Papers on technical intelligence, including signals and communications intelligence, are also welcome.
Researchers interested in US intelligence during World War II and the postwar war period should note that CIA has declassified many relevant records. Since the late 1980s CIA has released virtually all OSS records and deposited them at the National Archives. Many records from the Central Intelligence Group and the early years of the CIA.
Call for Papers
Conference on Intelligence and National Security in Peace, Crisis, and War
18-21 April 1996
Key Bridge Marriott Hotel, Rosslyn, Virginia
Papers and panels on other military history subjects in any period or place are also welcome. To propose either a complete panel or individual paper prospective contributors should submit:
Dr. Kevin C. Ruffner, Coordinator
SMH 1996 Program
History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence
Central Intelligence Agency
Telephone: 703-351-2621
Telefax: 703-522-9280
Proposals should be postmarked no later than 1 November 1995. Information about registration, accommodations, and program will follow in early 1996.
DCI John M. Deutch has committed the Intelligence Community to sponsoring a scholarly conference on Soviet intelligence efforts to penetrate the United States Government during the 1940s and 1950s and US counterespionage against such efforts. He promised the conference at a ceremony marking the official declassification of VENONA-the US codebreaking success against Soviet intelligence-in July 1995. The Center for the Study of Intelligence will host the conference in the Washington area in the fall of 1996 to coincide with the National Security Agency's release of the last of the approximately 2,200 decrypted Soviet messages.
DCI John M. Deutch has committed the Intelligence Community to sponsoring a scholarly conference on Soviet intelligence efforts to penetrate the United States Government during the 1940s and 1950s and US counterespionage against such efforts. He promised the conference at a ceremony marking the official declassification of VENONA-the US codebreaking success against Soviet intelligence-in July 1995. The Center for the Study of Intelligence will host the conference in the Washington area in the fall of 1996 to coincide with the National Security Agency's release of the last of the approximately 2,200 decrypted Soviet messages.
CORONA Conference Is a Big Success
Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Intelligence and George Washington University's Space Policy Institute, the CORONA conference was held 23-24 May 1995. The first-ever public discussion of Cold War satellite reconnaissance was also a milestone in CIA's openness program. Piercing the Curtain: CORONA and the Revolution in Intelligence drew more than 500 persons to George Washington University's Marvin Center in Washington, DC. DCI John M. Deutch and George Washington University President Stephen Trachtenberg welcomed the attendees, who came from all over the United States and abroad.
Five panels explored the development of the KEYHOLE (KH) 1-6 satellites, their role in the US space program, and the impact of satellites on intelligence, national policy, and mapmaking. The concluding session examined the declassification and transfer of CORONA satellite imagery to the National Archives and the US Geological Survey. (For a related note, see David L. Ackerman's article elsewhere in this issue). Several CORONA pioneers, including intelligence officials, military officers, scientists, and engineers who worked on the project were on hand and participated in the panel discussions.
The conference presented nearly two dozen newly declassified images taken from around the world by CORONA satellites. These photographs supplement those already released in February 1995 during Vice President Al Gore's visit to CIA Headquarters, when he announced the declassification of CORONA, ARGON, and LANYARD imagery. CIA has declassified and transferred to the National Archives a one-hour documentary on the history of the CORONA, A Point in Time.
The CIA History Staff published its fourth volume in the Cold War Records Series for the CORONA conference. CORONA: America's First Satellite Program contains 360 pages of declassified reports pertaining to CORONA. It also includes a previously Top Secret article published in 1973 in Studies in Intelligence . Both the book and the film A Point in Time are available from the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) at 703-487-4650. The National Reconnaissance Office released its own 20-minute film CORONA: Teamwork and Technology, which also is available from NTIS.
CORONA received a great deal of publicity following the conference. The New York Times gave front page coverage to the release of CORONA imagery on the eve of the conference, and 30 journalists covered the conference itself. More than a dozen industrial, trade, and defense industry publications reported the CORONA story. For a wrap-up of the conference and the history of CORONA, see William J. Broad, "Spy Satellites' Early Role as 'Floodlight' Coming Clear" in the Science Times section of The New York Times , 12 September 1995.
Within the next year, 2 million linear feet of KH 1-6 imagery will be released to the National Archives and US Geological Survey.
Dr. Kevin C. Ruffner, CIA History Staff
Founded in 1987 in cooperation with CIA, this project conducts research and training on the role of intelligence in policymaking. The project includes an annual executive program for intelligence professionals held at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and preparation of case studies that illustrate the role of intelligence in national policymaking. The case studies are available for purchase from Harvard and are being used in many college and university courses. Titles include:
For information regarding price and availability, contact:
CASE PROGRAM
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
79 John F. Kennedy Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Telephone: 617-496-6255
Telfax: 617-495-8878
January 1996 marks the 50th anniversary of President Harry S Truman's appointment of the first Director of Central Intelligence and the creation of the Central Intelligence Group (CIG), the nation's first peacetime, nondepartmental intelligence organization and CIA's institutional predecessor.
President Truman, remembering Pearl Harbor, wanted CIG primarily to provide strategic warning. He and his advisers, however, also intended CIG to be the nation's clandestine service. In mid-1946, CIG began assimilating the espionage (SI) and counterespionage (X-2) branches of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which the President had dismantled soon after Japan's surrender.
Historical accounts of American intelligence in the year after V-J Day pay close attention to the dissolution of OSS and the interdepartmental battles over CIG, but generally overlook the discussions that led to the preservation of a large portion of OSS and its transfer to the Central Intelligence Group. Declassified records suggest that the White House and the War Department carefully retained key OSS personnel and operations while Truman's lieutenants argued over the structure and mission of a peacetime intelligence establishment.
The President dismantled OSS with Executive Order 9621 on 20 September 1945, before his aides and the Office itself had completed liquidation plans. Two administration officials-Donald Stone of the White House's Bureau of the Budget and Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy-took steps to preserve vital functions of OSS for future use. The President himself almost certainly did not know of their actions until after the fact, but their initiative made it easier for the Truman administration to create a central organization that could collect as well as analyze foreign intelligence.
Donald Stone helped draft Executive Order 9621, which dissolved OSS while transferring its Research and Analysis unit to the State Department. Stone apparently conceived the idea of giving everything else to the War Department for final disposition. He tried to reassure frustrated OSS officers that all was not lost. Indeed, he all but promised them that SI and X-2 would be preserved in the War Department "for probably another year."
The task of assimilating OSS into the War Department fell to Assistant Secretary McCloy, who had long promoted an improved national intelligence capability, according to his biographer Kai Bird. The War Department could have assimilated OSS' remaining personnel and files into its own intelligence organization, the G-2, but McCloy, in consultation with Donald Stone, ensured that that did not happen. McCloy ordered Brig. Gen. John Magruder of OSS to preserve SI and X-2 "as a going operation," which the Assistant Secretary dubbed the "Strategic Services Unit" (SSU) and hoped could be handed intact to a new peacetime intelligence organization. Secretary of War Robert Patterson confirmed this directive just before the formal dissolution of OSS on 1 October 1945, ordering Magruder to "preserve as a unit such of these functions and facilities as are valuable for permanent peacetime purposes."
What did the President and Congress know about McCloy's initiative? Gen. Magruder briefed the House Appropriations Committee and staffers of the House Military Affairs Committee that October. He told the latter that SSU had been Assistant Secretary McCloy's idea, designed to preserve the core of OSS until the administration decided how it wanted to build its peacetime intelligence structure. The President seems to have learned of SSU in late October or early November. On 7 November he asked Congress for a supplemental appropriation for the State Department to be used to maintain its portion of OSS for the remainder of the fiscal year. Congress quickly approved the requested $2,000,000; this approval apparently left enough unused OSS funds with the War Department to keep SSU alive well into 1946.
Dr. Michael Warner, CIA History Staff
On February 22, 1995, President Clinton signed an Executive Order declassifying imagery collected by the first US satellite reconnaissance systems from 1960 to 1972. The original negatives recovered from space will be declassified and transferred-along with a complete set of duplicate positives-to the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, within 18 months of the issuance of the Executive Order. The positives will be available for public examination. Customer orders for reproductions will be made from the original negatives. The National Archives will also receive declassified documents that support the imagery.
In addition to the transfer of imagery and records, the CIA will transfer Metadata (index data), reduced resolution digital browse imagery, and duplicate negatives for the CORONA, ARGON, and LANYARD imagery to the US Geological Survey's EROS Data Center (EDC) in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The Metadata and browse imagery will be available using the Global Land Information System (GLIS) which is accessible through the INTERNET. Customers can order imagery through GLIS which will reproduce them from the duplicate negative copies at EDC. A workstation to access GLIS will also be available at the National Archives.
Creation of the Metadata was completed in September 1995. Preparation of the duplicate positives, duplicate negatives, and the browse imagery has begun and will be completed in the fourth quarter of 1995. It is anticipated that incremental releases by EDC to the public of the imagery, Metadata, and browse imagery will begin in early 1996 and be complete by August 1996. Incremental releases by the National Archives will also begin in early 1996 and finish in August 1996.
For up-to-date information concerning the availability of satellite imagery, please contact the EROS Data Center at 1-800-252-4547 or the National Archives at 301-713-7030, ext. 224.
David L. Ackerman, US Geological Survey
The 1995 unclassified version of the Intelligence Community's professional journal Studies in Intelligence is now available and includes the articles and reviews listed in the inset.
Please note that copies of Studies in Intelligence are available only from:
Document Expediting (DOCEX) Project
Exchange and Gift Division (subscriptions)
or
Photoduplication Service (individual copies)
Library of Congress
Washington, DC 20504
National Technical Information Service
5285 Port Royal Road
Springfield, VA 22161
703-487-4650
Studying and Teaching Intelligence
A Policymaker's Perspective on Intelligence Analysis
British and American Policy on Intelligence Archives
Honoring Two World War II Heroes
Some Lessons in Intelligence
The Komsomolets Disaster
Fifteen DCIs' First 100 Days
Truman and Eisenhower: Launching the Process
The Fall of Lima Site 85
Origins of the Congress of Cultural Freedom, 1949-50
Robert Fulton's Skyhook and Operation Coldfeet
The Role of US Army Attaches Between the World Wars
Historical Intelligence Documents
General de Gaulle in Action
Of Moles and Molehunters
New Publication
Yale University Press has just published H. Bradford Westerfield, Inside the CIA's Private World: Declassified Articles from the Agency's Internal Journal 1955-1992, 489 pages. It includes 32 previously classified articles from Studies in Intelligence.
It may not be the rarest book in the CIA collection, but it certainly is one of the most unusual. The book in question is a privately published history of the Boer War, written in 1901 by an eight-year-old boy living in Watertown, New York, who wanted to raise money for Boer veterans. The boy's family paid to have the book published-without emendation.
Sales actually reached the $1,500 mark-a princely sum in those days. Despite the author's tender age, the book is quite well written with a minimum of misspellings (troup for troop) and solecisms.
The author? Allen Welsh Dulles, future Director of Central Intelligence.
The following CSI publications and videos are available from the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) of the Department of Commerce.
CIA Documents on the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
NTIS Order Number: PB 92 79 06
Price: $44.50
Selected Estimates on the Soviet Union, 1950-1959
NTIS Order Number: PB 93 928 112
Price: $28.50
The CIA Under Harry S. Truman
NTIS Order Number: PB 94 928 005
Price: $28.50
The Origin and Development of the CIA in the Administration
of Harry S. Truman: A Conference Report
NTIS Order Number: PB 95 928 006
Price: $28.50
Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 36, No. 5
NTIS Order Number: PB 94 928 013
Price: $27.00
Studies in Intelligence Index, 1955-1992
NTIS Order Number: PB 93 928 014
Price: $19.50
Molehunters: A Review of Counterintelligence
Literature, 1977-1992
NTIS Order Number: PB 93 928 019
Price: $20.50
Symposium on the Cuban Missile Crisis (video)
NTIS Order Number: PB 94 780 186
Price: $ 22.50
Symposium on Teaching Intelligence,
October 1-2, 1993: A Report
NTIS Order Number: PB 94 928 008
Price: $15.50
Sherman Kent and the Board of National Estimates: Collected
Essays
NTIS Order Number: PB 95 928 001
Price: $22.50
CORONA: America's First Satellite Program
NTIS Order Number: PB 95 928 007
Price: $44.50
CORONA: Teamwork and Technology (video)
NTIS Order Number: A 19783VNB1
Price: $45.00
CIA intelligence products such as the World Factbook and Factbook on Intelligence as well as other items are now available via Internet. New additions will include selected examples of declassified imagery from the CORONA program noted above. You can address the CIA Homepage as follows: http:\\www.odci.gov\cia