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Most of the CIA records have been released over the years, and any major operations have entered the public record by now. Dulles was also very keen to brag abo

by sjburt 8y ago

Most of the CIA records have been released over the years, and any major operations have entered the public record by now. Dulles was also very keen to brag about his successes and intent to bury his failures. The fact is that the CIA in that period was absolutely inept. It failed to build any significant intelligence networks in either the Soviet Union or China, mispredicted critical events such as China's entrance into the Korean War, and squandered thousands of lives by attempting to parachute them into Eastern Europe, China, or North Korea to meet up with fictitious resistance forces. The CIA itself and its intelligence sources were routinely comprised by the Soviets and fed false information to the President. The two "successful" operations of the era (Iran and Guatemala) replaced democratically elected leaders with brutal authoritarian regimes, and both of them barely succeeded though an embarrassing comedy of errors.

ryacko 8y ago
Just to add, the US government didn’t trust Truman about Verona.
TomMckenny 8y ago
> mispredicted critical events such as China's entrance into the Korean War That one may have been MacArthur's misunderstanding rather than the CIA.
briandear 8y ago
> any major operations have entered the public record by now. Not even close to true. There are still Tibetan, Cuban, Southeast Asian, and South American ops that are still highly classified. A considerable number of nuclear-related operations are also unknown to the public. As far as “Democratically elected leaders,” that is subject to debate given the breadth and depth of Soviet operations at the time, especially Department A of the First Chief Directorate. Even the Palestinian “situation” was primarily created with Soviet sponsorship to destabilize America’s chief ally in the region. The history of CIA goes far beyond the sophomoric understanding of many of its detractors. Definitely not angels, but it’s a far more nuanced history, much of it untold.
derefr 8y ago
Was any intelligence agency of the era not incompetent? The GP's assertion of: > I don't know if that makes him a trustworthy authority on intelligence analysis. ...only really applies if there is someone who is a "trustworthy authority on intelligence analysis." If everyone is just flailing around, then we may as well listen to the experiences of a person who's been flailing around for the longest time. At least they've made a lot of mistakes you can learn from.
- tlear 8y ago
  GRU and KGB first directorate. Also Soviet counter intel was orders of magnitude better, it helps when you can roundup anyone you want and brutalize anyone you want any time you want. Western intel agencies were like children playing against professionals. Another example is Mossad orders go magnitude better. Can you imagine Americans, British or hell anyone really pulling off Spring of Youth? Consider the depth of intel needed to pull something like that off. Obviously the Yom Kippur war will be mentioned.. thing was warning were passed to Golda Meir.. Israel should have mobilized and struck first but political decision was made it was not really fault of intel.
  - varjag 8y ago
    GRU and KGB track record is littered with high profile failures.
    - bainsfather 8y ago
      Could you list them please?
      - varjag 8y ago
        Sure, here are some: Georgi Agabekov, uncovered 400 KGB agents in Iran. Vladimir Petrov, uncovered 600 KGB agents, including Kim Philby. Gordievsky, head of KGB residenture in London, exposed all of it. The failure of Berlin Tunnel. Polyakov, head of GRU China sector. Exposed 1650 Soviet and 19 foreign GRU agents and operatives. Penkovsky, provided 7500 pages of documentation on Soviet missile designs and rocket fuel types to CIA.
paganel 8y ago
> The fact is that the CIA in that period was absolutely inept. It failed to build any significant intelligence networks in either the Soviet Union or China, mispredicted critical events such as China's entrance into the Korean War I think that’s mostly because the CIA is focusing on analyzing what I believe is mostly meaningless information about its “adversaries” instead of doing their best to try and get the best information there is, even from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. More to the point, I’m thinking about medieval Venice which I see as the “master of them all” when it comes to collecting meaningful intelligence. When they wanted to know if some other medieval entity was about to enter war against the Turks or not (the Turks had become their greatest foe) they were actually sending some Venice merchant (or at least that was his official guise) to actually live at the ruler’s court of that medieval entity and hear directly from that ruler’s mouth what his intentions were. Venice even had people in Istanbul itself which were often seen at the Sultan’s or the Grand Vizier’s court in order to try and understand what the Turks’ intentions were. Back to the CIA and China, they should have had their men at Mao’s “court” if they really had wanted to know his intentions. They didn’t because they probably couldn’t so that they tried instead to guess his intentions by over-analyzing what Mao and his people decided to publish through Chinese propaganda channels.

by sjburt 8y ago

ryacko 8y ago

Just to add, the US government didn’t trust Truman about Verona.

TomMckenny 8y ago

> mispredicted critical events such as China's entrance into the Korean War That one may have been MacArthur's misunderstanding rather than the CIA.

briandear 8y ago

> any major operations have entered the public record by now. Not even close to true. There are still Tibetan, Cuban, Southeast Asian, and South American ops that are still highly classified. A considerable number of nuclear-related operations are also unknown to the public. As far as “Democratically elected leaders,” that is subject to debate given the breadth and depth of Soviet operations at the time, especially Department A of the First Chief Directorate. Even the Palestinian “situation” was primarily created with Soviet sponsorship to destabilize America’s chief ally in the region. The history of CIA goes far beyond the sophomoric understanding of many of its detractors. Definitely not angels, but it’s a far more nuanced history, much of it untold.

derefr 8y ago

Was any intelligence agency of the era not incompetent? The GP's assertion of: > I don't know if that makes him a trustworthy authority on intelligence analysis. ...only really applies if there is someone who is a "trustworthy authority on intelligence analysis." If everyone is just flailing around, then we may as well listen to the experiences of a person who's been flailing around for the longest time. At least they've made a lot of mistakes you can learn from.

tlear 8y ago
GRU and KGB first directorate. Also Soviet counter intel was orders of magnitude better, it helps when you can roundup anyone you want and brutalize anyone you want any time you want. Western intel agencies were like children playing against professionals. Another example is Mossad orders go magnitude better. Can you imagine Americans, British or hell anyone really pulling off Spring of Youth? Consider the depth of intel needed to pull something like that off. Obviously the Yom Kippur war will be mentioned.. thing was warning were passed to Golda Meir.. Israel should have mobilized and struck first but political decision was made it was not really fault of intel.
- varjag 8y ago
  GRU and KGB track record is littered with high profile failures.
  - bainsfather 8y ago
    Could you list them please?
    - varjag 8y ago
      Sure, here are some: Georgi Agabekov, uncovered 400 KGB agents in Iran. Vladimir Petrov, uncovered 600 KGB agents, including Kim Philby. Gordievsky, head of KGB residenture in London, exposed all of it. The failure of Berlin Tunnel. Polyakov, head of GRU China sector. Exposed 1650 Soviet and 19 foreign GRU agents and operatives. Penkovsky, provided 7500 pages of documentation on Soviet missile designs and rocket fuel types to CIA.

paganel 8y ago

> The fact is that the CIA in that period was absolutely inept. It failed to build any significant intelligence networks in either the Soviet Union or China, mispredicted critical events such as China's entrance into the Korean War I think that’s mostly because the CIA is focusing on analyzing what I believe is mostly meaningless information about its “adversaries” instead of doing their best to try and get the best information there is, even from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. More to the point, I’m thinking about medieval Venice which I see as the “master of them all” when it comes to collecting meaningful intelligence. When they wanted to know if some other medieval entity was about to enter war against the Turks or not (the Turks had become their greatest foe) they were actually sending some Venice merchant (or at least that was his official guise) to actually live at the ruler’s court of that medieval entity and hear directly from that ruler’s mouth what his intentions were. Venice even had people in Istanbul itself which were often seen at the Sultan’s or the Grand Vizier’s court in order to try and understand what the Turks’ intentions were. Back to the CIA and China, they should have had their men at Mao’s “court” if they really had wanted to know his intentions. They didn’t because they probably couldn’t so that they tried instead to guess his intentions by over-analyzing what Mao and his people decided to publish through Chinese propaganda channels.