and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.
In a great number of countries, far from the Russian frontiers and throughout the world, Communist fifth columns are established and work in complete unity and absolute obedience to the directions they receive from the Communist centre. Except in the British Commonwealth and in the United States where Communism is in its infancy, the Communist parties or fifth columns constitute a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization . . . I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines.
The Central Intelligence Agency was created by a National Security Act passed by Congress on 26 July 1947 and began operating in September, replacing the Central Intelligence Group which had been brought into existence in January 1946, once Truman appreciated that coordination of the various sources of intelligence data was vital. Admiral Sidney Souers, General Hoyt Vandenburg and then Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter were successive Directors of Central Intelligence during the CIG years, with Hillenkoetter transferring over to the CIA on its formation.
It’s fair to say that the CIA was not an immediate success. According to some reports, they simply weren’t up to the job. There’s a story that is still told in Berlin about the early days of the Agency’s involvement there: networks of agents would be set up secretly operating within the Soviet sector, in accordance with normal espionage principles, but then all those involved were invited to a cocktail party at the American base. This was great in terms of boosting morale for the agents – but it meant that all the Stasi, or the NKVD, had to do was arrest one person, and they could ascertain the identities of not just their one or two contacts, but potentially a whole host of them.
A similar error of judgement caused the loss of multiple teams during the Korean War: ethnic agents who were goingto be parachuted into mainland China were trained and lived together, and inevitably shared information about their missions. Betrayal of one team would lead to betrayal of others.
There certainly appeared to be a sorry litany of key world events that the fledgling agency failed to predict, which were highlighted by an article in the
New York Herald Tribune
in August 1950. Much of this work was carried out by the Office of Reports and Estimates (ORE), which would pay the price for the various failures when the Agency was reorganized in late 1950.
This began with the Soviet takeover of Czechoslovakia in the spring of 1948. The Communists had become the single largest political party in Czechoslovakia in the elections held in 1946, with Klement Gottwald taking office as prime minster under President Edvard Beneš. Even though Beneš hoped to maintain diplomatic links with the West, the Communists took control of key ministries and started a drive towards total power. In September 1947, the newly formed Cominform (a group comprising members from the Communist parties around the world which aimed to spread the communist creed worldwide) noted that Czechoslovakia was the sole East European country in which ‘the complete victory of the working class over the bourgeoisie’ had not been achieved.
Action against non-communist ministers was stepped up, leading to the mass resignation by twenty-one of them in February 1948. Beneš was pushed into a corner, unable to back the non-communists for fear of the Red Army using a communist-backed insurrection as a pretext to invade. Gottwald threatened a general strike unless Beneš created a communist-led government – still technically a coalition, since it included the Communist Party, and the
In a great number of countries, far from the Russian frontiers and throughout the world, Communist fifth columns are established and work in complete unity and absolute obedience to the directions they receive from the Communist centre. Except in the British Commonwealth and in the United States where Communism is in its infancy, the Communist parties or fifth columns constitute a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization . . . I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines.
The Central Intelligence Agency was created by a National Security Act passed by Congress on 26 July 1947 and began operating in September, replacing the Central Intelligence Group which had been brought into existence in January 1946, once Truman appreciated that coordination of the various sources of intelligence data was vital. Admiral Sidney Souers, General Hoyt Vandenburg and then Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter were successive Directors of Central Intelligence during the CIG years, with Hillenkoetter transferring over to the CIA on its formation.
It’s fair to say that the CIA was not an immediate success. According to some reports, they simply weren’t up to the job. There’s a story that is still told in Berlin about the early days of the Agency’s involvement there: networks of agents would be set up secretly operating within the Soviet sector, in accordance with normal espionage principles, but then all those involved were invited to a cocktail party at the American base. This was great in terms of boosting morale for the agents – but it meant that all the Stasi, or the NKVD, had to do was arrest one person, and they could ascertain the identities of not just their one or two contacts, but potentially a whole host of them.
A similar error of judgement caused the loss of multiple teams during the Korean War: ethnic agents who were goingto be parachuted into mainland China were trained and lived together, and inevitably shared information about their missions. Betrayal of one team would lead to betrayal of others.
There certainly appeared to be a sorry litany of key world events that the fledgling agency failed to predict, which were highlighted by an article in the
New York Herald Tribune
in August 1950. Much of this work was carried out by the Office of Reports and Estimates (ORE), which would pay the price for the various failures when the Agency was reorganized in late 1950.
This began with the Soviet takeover of Czechoslovakia in the spring of 1948. The Communists had become the single largest political party in Czechoslovakia in the elections held in 1946, with Klement Gottwald taking office as prime minster under President Edvard Beneš. Even though Beneš hoped to maintain diplomatic links with the West, the Communists took control of key ministries and started a drive towards total power. In September 1947, the newly formed Cominform (a group comprising members from the Communist parties around the world which aimed to spread the communist creed worldwide) noted that Czechoslovakia was the sole East European country in which ‘the complete victory of the working class over the bourgeoisie’ had not been achieved.
Action against non-communist ministers was stepped up, leading to the mass resignation by twenty-one of them in February 1948. Beneš was pushed into a corner, unable to back the non-communists for fear of the Red Army using a communist-backed insurrection as a pretext to invade. Gottwald threatened a general strike unless Beneš created a communist-led government – still technically a coalition, since it included the Communist Party, and the
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