In the wake of 11 September 2001, the issue of homeland security spawned a vibrant public discussion about the need to coordinate a wide range of federal governmental activities to achieve greater security for the United States. Congress enacted laws that established a new executive department, the Department of Homeland Security, and a new federal intelligence chief, the director of national intelligence. In both cases, the objective was to integrate activities of disparate organizations better in order to improve critical government functions. In fact, for more than half a century, there have been numerous efforts to enhance cooperation among the many parts of the nation's intelligence establishment under the leadership of a principal intelligence official, called the director of central intelligence. The story of this study is what the nation's leaders expected of directors of central intelligence in accomplishing this task, and how those who held the responsibility attempted to carry it out. The hope is that lessons drawn from that experience can inform today's ongoing debate about how best the new director of national intelligence can accomplish America's national intelligence mission. The study presents an unusual perspective. Examinations of past intelligence performance often focus on how intelligence has played a role in specific circumstances. Studies of directors of central intelligence have usually stressed how they led the Central Intelligence Agency, conducted their relationships with the president, or affected US policy. No study until this one has focused on how each director sought to fulfill his "community" role. This book was prepared under the auspices of the Center for the Study of Intelligence by Dr. Douglas F. Garthoff, a former CIA analyst and senior manager. It reflects the author's deep experience in Intelligence Community affairs as well as his extensive research and interviews. Dr. Garthoff's study represents a valuable contribution to our professional literature and a rich source of insights at a moment when the responsibilities and authorities of the Intelligence Community's senior leadership are again in the public spotlight.

President Harry Truman created the job of director of central intelligence (DCI) in 1946 so that he and other senior administration officials could turn to one person for foreign intelligence briefings. The DCI was the head of the Central Intelligence Group until 1947, when he became the director of the newly created Central Intelligence Agency. This book profiles each DCI and explains how they performed in their community role, that of enhancing cooperation among the many parts of the nationÆs intelligence community and reporting foreign intelligence to the president. The book also discusses the evolving expectations that U.S. presidents through George W. Bush placed on their foreign intelligence chiefs. Although head of the CIA, the DCI was never a true national intelligence chief with control over the governmentÆs many arms that collect and analyze foreign intelligence. This limitation conformed to President TrumanÆs wishes because he was wary of creating a powerful and all-knowing intelligence chief in a democratic society. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Congress and President Bush decided to alter the position of DCI by creating a new director of national intelligence position with more oversight and coordination of the governmentÆs myriad programs. Thus this book ends with Porter Goss in 2005, the last DCI. Douglas GarthoffÆs book is a unique and important study of the nationÆs top intelligence official over a roughly fifty-year period. His work provides the detailed historical framework that is essential for all future studies of how the U.S. intelligence community has been and will be managed.

Author and former senior CIA official Dr. Douglas F. Garthoff explains how each Director of Central Intelligence or DCI sought to fulfill his "community" role, that of enhancing the cooperation among the many parts of the nation's intelligence community under his leadership. Explores that the nation's leaders expected of directors and how those holding the responsibility attempted to carry it out.The story first takes up the roots of the DCI's community role and then proceeds chronologically, describing the various approaches that successive DCIs have taken toward fulfilling their responsibilities in this regard from the launch of the CIA. At the end, it sums up the circumstances as of 2005 under the George W. Bush administration, when a new official--the Director of National Intelligence or DNI--replaced the DCI role, and some observations about these changes and looking to the future.

President Harry Truman created the job of director of central intelligence (DCI) in 1946 so that he and other senior administration officials could turn to one person for foreign intelligence briefings. The DCI was the head of the Central Intelligence Group until 1947, when he became the director of the newly created Central Intelligence Agency. This book profiles each DCI and explains how they performed in their community role, that of enhancing cooperation among the many parts of the nation's intelligence community and reporting foreign intelligence to the president. The book also discusses the evolving expectations that U.S. presidents through George W. Bush placed on their foreign intelligence chiefs. Although head of the CIA, the DCI was never a true national intelligence chief with control over the government's many arms that collect and analyze foreign intelligence. This limitation conformed to President Truman's wishes because he was wary of creating a powerful and all-knowing intelligence chief in a democratic society. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Congress and President Bush decided to alter the position of DCI by creating a new director of national intelligence position with more oversight and coordination of the government's myriad programs. Thus this book ends with Porter Goss in 2005, the last DCI. Douglas Garthoff's book is a unique and important study of the nation's top intelligence official over a roughly fifty-year period. His work provides the detailed historical framework that is essential for all future studies of how the U.S. intelligence community has been and will be managed.

Explains how each director of Central Intelligence sought to fulfill his "community" role, that of enhancing the cooperation among the many parts of the nation's intelligence community under his leadership. Explores that the nation's leaders expected of directors and how those holding the responsibility attempted to carry it out. First published in 2005. Illustrated.

President Truman shuttered the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) as an unneeded, wartime-only special operations/quasi-intelligence agency. The State Department, the Navy, and the War Department quickly recognized that a secret information vacuum loomed and urged the creation of something to replace OSS. These previously declassified and released documents present the thoughtful albeit tortuous and contentious creation of CIA, culminating in the National Security Act of 1947. The declassified historic material dissects the twists and turns and displays the considerable political and legal finesse required to assess the many plans, suggestions, maneuvers and actions that ultimately led to the establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency and other national security entities, which included the incorporation of special safeguards to protect civil liberties. Copies of selected intelligence documents and a timeline of miliestones in the creation of the US Intelligence Community from 1941 through 1964 are included in this resource.

In this "thoughtful, entertaining, and often insightful" book, a former CIA director explores the delicate give-and-take between the Oval Office and Langley. With the disastrous intelligence failures of the last few years still fresh in Americans minds--and to all appearances still continuing--there has never been a more urgent need for a book like this. In Burn Before Reading, Admiral Stansfield Turner, the CIA director under President Jimmy Carter, takes the reader inside the Beltway to examine the complicated, often strained relationships between presidents and their CIA chiefs. From FDR and "Wild Bill" Donovan to George W. Bush and George Tenet, twelve pairings are studied in these pages, and the results are eye-opening and provocative. Throughout, Turner offers a fascinating look into the machinery of intelligence gathering, revealing how personal and political issues often interfere with government business--and the nation's safety.