The Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency,(CIA) was created by Congress in the National Security Act of 1947, recognizing strategic intelligence as a first line of defense and a crucial instrument in warfare. The attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 had demonstrated the need to gather and coordinate intelligence information. Significantly, the CIA was created the year President Harry S. Truman announced the containment doctrine at the beginning of the Cold War.
Truman abolished the wartime Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in 1945, transferring some of its intelligence‐gathering functions to the State Department and the army and some to a new Central Intelligence Group, created in January 1946. The CIA was established by Congress, not the president, and as an independent agency; the director (DCI) would report directly to the president....
[The entire page is 1747 words long]
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