Central Intelligence Agency

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), independent executive bureau of the U.S. government established by the National Security Act of 1947, replacing the wartime Office of Strategic Services (1942-45), the first U.S. espionage and covert operations agency. While the CIA's covert operations receive the most attention, its major responsibility is to gather intelligence, in which it uses not only covert agents but such technological resources as satellite photos and intercepted telecommunications transmissions. The CIA was given (1949) special powers under the Central Intelligence Act: The CIA director may spend agency funds without accounting for them; the size of its staff is secret; and employees, exempt from civil service procedures, may be hired, investigated, or dismissed as the CIA sees fit. Under the U.S. intelligence agency reorganization enacted in 2004, the CIA reports to the independent director of national intelligence, who is responsible for coordinating the work and budgets of all 15 U.S. intelligence agencies. To safeguard civil liberties in the United States, the CIA is denied domestic police powers; for operations in the United States it must enlist the services of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Allen Welsh Dulles, director from 1953 to 1961, strengthened the agency and emboldened its tactics.

The CIA has often been criticized for covert operations in the domestic politics of foreign countries. The agency was heavily involved in the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, deeply embarrassing the United States. In 1971 the U.S. government acknowledged that the CIA had recruited and paid an army fighting in Laos. In 1973 the CIA came under congressional investigation for its role in the Pentagon Papers case. The agency had provided members of the White House staff, on request, with a personality profile of Daniel Ellsberg, defendant in the Pentagon Papers trial in 1973, and had indirectly aided the White House "Plumbers," the special unit established to investigate internal security leaks. This direct violation of the National Security Act's prohibition led Congress to strengthen provisions barring the agency from domestic operations.

Its foreign operations came under attack in 1974 for involvement in Chilean internal affairs during the administration of Salvador Allende, and in 1986 it was shown to be involved in the Iran-Contra affair. Diminished in the early 1990s after the end of the cold war, it began rebuilding later in the decade, accelerating the process after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It was subsequently hurt, however, by the revelation that Director George Tenet had insisted, prior to the Iraq invasion of 2003, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, and the quality of the intelligence that it had provided was criticized. One result of the intelligence failures relating to Sept., 2001, and Iraq was the reorganization of 2004, which demoted the director of the CIA and made the CIA one of several agencies overseen by the new position of director of national intelligence.

Principal intelligence and counterintelligence agency of the U.S., established in 1947 as a successor to the World War II-era Office of Strategic Services. The law limits its activities to foreign countries; it is prohibited from gathering intelligence on U.S. soil, which is a responsibility of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Officially a part of the U.S. Defense Department, it is responsible for preparing analyses for the National Security Council. Its budget is kept secret. Though intelligence gathering is its chief occupation, the CIA has also been involved in many covert operations, including the expulsion of Mohammad Mosaddeq from Iran (1953), the attempted Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba (1961), and support of the Nicaraguan contras in the 1980s.

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The Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (DD/CIA) is a senior United States government official in the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. The DD/CIA assists the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (D/CIA) and is authorized to exercise the powers of the D/CIA when the Director’s position is vacant or in the Director’s absence or disability.

The functions of this position were served by the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (DDCI) until that position was abolished under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. The position of DD/CIA was created administratively by then-D/CIA Porter Goss and is awaiting statutory approval from the U.S. Congress.

The first DDCI was Kingman Douglass, appointed by the Director of Central Intelligence (now the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency) in 1946. In April 1953, Congress amended the National Security Act to allow the President of the United States to appoint the DDCI (with U.S. Senate confirmation). The amendment stipulated that the Director and Deputy Director positions could not be simultaneously filled by military officers.

Under current law, the Deputy Director is appointed by the D/CIA and is not required to be confirmed by the Senate. The current Deputy Director is Stephen R. Kappes.

List of Deputy Directors of Central Intelligence

Name	Appointment Date	End of Term
Kingman Douglass	1946 March	1946 July
Vacant	1946 July	1947 January
Edwin Kennedy Wright	1947 January	1949 March
Vacant	1949 March	1950 October
William Harding Jackson	1950 October	1951 August
Allen Welsh Dulles	1951 August	1953 February
Gen Charles Pearre Cabell	1953 April	1962 January
LTG Marshall Sylvester Carter	1962 April	1965 April
Richard McGarrah Helms	1965 April	1966 June
Rufus Lackland Taylor	1966 October	1969 February
Gen Robert Everton Cushman, Jr.	1969 May	1971 December
Vernon Anthony Walters	1972 May	1976 July
Enno Henry Knoche	1976 July	1977 August
John Francis Blake	1974 August	1978 February
Frank Charles Carlucci III	1978 February	1981 February
ADM Bobby Ray Inman	1981 February	1982 June
John Norman McMahon	1982 June	1986 March
Robert Michael Gates	1986 April	1989 March
Richard James Kerr	1989 March	1992 March
ADM William Oliver Studeman	1992 April	1995 July
George John Tenet	1995 July	1997 July
Gen John Alexander Gordon	1997 October	2000 June
John Edward McLaughlin	2000 October	2004 November
Vacant	2004 November	2005 July

Note: The office of Deputy Director of Central Intelligence was separated into the offices of Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence and Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

List of Deputy Directors of the Central Intelligence Agency

Name	Appointment Date	End of Term
VADM Albert M. Calland	15 July 2005	23 July 2006
Stephen R. Kappes	24 July 2006	Present

References

• CIA Website