National Security Intelligence
Page 1
Table of Contents
Series page
Title page
Copyright page
About the Author
Figures and Tables Figures
Tables
Abbreviations
Roadmap to a Hidden World Notes
Acknowledgments
1: National Security Intelligence The importance of national security intelligence
Mysteries and secrets
Central themes
The intelligence missions
The challenge of intelligence accountability
This book's purpose
The multiple dimensions of national security intelligence
A holistic view of national security intelligence
Intelligence as a cluster of organizations: the American experience
Military intelligence agencies
A flawed plan for U.S. intelligence
Redesigning the leadership of American intelligence
A revolving door at the office of the DNI
A dream still on hold
Notes
2: Intelligence Collection and Analysis The intelligence cycle
Intelligence collection and the “Ints”
The ongoing quest for better collection and analysis
Notes
3: Covert Action Covert action as an intelligence mission
The implementation of covert action
The methods of covert action
The ebb and flow of covert action
A ladder of escalation for covert action
Evaluating covert action
Guidelines for covert action
Notes
4: Counterintelligence The proper focus of counterintelligence as an intelligence mission
The motivations for treason
Catching spies
CI tradecraft: security and counterespionage
Secrecy and the state
Counterintelligence and accountability
Notes
5: Safeguards against the Abuse of Secret Power The evolution of safeguards against intelligence abuse in the United States
A shock theory of intelligence accountability
Key issues of intelligence accountability
The roles played by lawmakers as intelligence supervisors
The dynamic nature of intelligence accountability
In search of guardians
Notes
6: National Security Intelligence National security intelligence as organization
Security intelligence as a set of missions
National security intelligence and the importance of accountability
A citizens intelligence advisory board
Citizen responsibilities
Notes
Suggested Readings
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Table 5.1 Type of stimuli and oversight responses by lawmakers, 1974–2016
Table 6.1 National security intelligence: a reform agenda for the United States
List of Illustrations
Figure 1.1Basic human motivations and the quest for national security intelligence: a stimulus–response model
Figure 1.2The U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) in 2016*
*From 1947 to 2005, a Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) led the IC, rather than a DNI.
Figure 1.3The CIA during the Cold War
Source: Fact Book on Intelligence, Office of Public Affairs, Central Intelligence Agency (April 1983), p. 9.
Figure 1.4The CIA's Operations Directorate during the Cold War
Source: Loch K. Johnson, America's Secret Power: The CIA in a Democratic Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 46.
Figure 2.1The intelligence cycle
Source: Adapted from Fact Book on Intelligence, Office of Public Affairs, Central Intelligence Agency (October 1993), p. 14.
Figure 2.2The relationship between a nation's sense of acceptable risk and its resources committed to intelligence collection and analysis
Source: Adapted from Loch K. Johnson, Bombs, Bugs, Drugs, and Thugs: Intelligence and America's Quest for Security (New York: New York University Press, 2000), p. 136.
Figure 2.3Frequency of NIEs by year, 1950–2005
Source: Central Intelligence Agency, 2006.
Figure 3.1Herblock on blow back
Source: “I SHOT AN ARROW INTO THE AIR…” – a 1956 Herblock Cartoon, copyright by The Herb Block Foundation.
Figure 3.2The ebb and flow of covert actions by the United States, 1947–2010
Source: The author's estimates based on interviews with intelligence managers over the years, along with a study of the literature cited in the notes of this chapter.
Figure 3.3A partial ladder of escalation for covert actions
Source: The author's estimates, based on interviews with intelligence managers and officers over the years, along with a study of the literature cited in the notes of this chapter. Adapted from Loch K. Johnson, Secret Agencies: U.S. Intelligence in a Hostile World Order (New Haven. CT: Yale University Press, 1996), pp. 62–3.
Figure 4.1Key recommendations in the Huston Plan, 1970
Figure 5.1An example of a statement accompanying a presidentially approved covert action: the contra portion of the Iran–contra finding, 1981
Source: “Presidential Finding on Central America, N16574,” Public Papers of the President: Ronald Reagan (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1986). The President approved the finding on March 9, 1981. Originally top secret, it was partially declassified during hearings into the Iran–contra scandal in 1987. The “purpose” section is succinct, leaving considerable leeway for the CIA to fill in the details during implementation. When Congress passed the Boland Amendments to prohibit further covert actions in Nicaragua, the Reagan Administration moved underground and created “The Enterprise” to carry on these operations without the knowledge of Congress.
Figure 5.2Auth on the relationship between Congress and the CIA prior to 1974
Source: Auth, Philadelphia Inquirer (1976). Used with permission.
Figure 5.3The cycle of intelligence shock and reaction by congressional overseers, 1975–2006
Source: Loch K. Johnson, “A Shock Theory of Congressional Accountability for Intelligence,” in Loch K. Johnson, ed., Handbook of Intelligence Studies (New York: Routledge, 2007), pp. 343–360; figure at p. 344.
Figure 5.4A typology of roles assumed by intelligence overseers in the U.S. Congress
Figure 5.5Illustrations of role migration and stability among intelligence overseers in Congress, 1977–2004
Series page
To Loch Lomond Bentley,
RAF pilot,
1913–1941,
who paid the ultimate price in defense of the democracies
Copyright page
Copyright © Loch K. Johnson 2017
The right of Loch K. Johnson to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2012 by Polity Press;
This second edition published in 2017
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Johnson, Loch K., 1942– author.
Title: National security intelligence / Loch Johnson.
Description: Second edition. | Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA : Polity, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016039810 (print) | LCCN 2016059847 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509513048 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509513055 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509513079 (Mobi) | ISBN 9781509513086 (Epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Intelligence service–United States. | National security–United States. | BISAC: POLITICAL SCIENCE / Globalization. Classification: LCC JK486.I6 J64 2017 (print) | LCC JK486.I6 (ebook) | DDC 327.1273–dc23
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About the Author
Loch Kingsford Johnson is the Regents Professor of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia, as well as a Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor. He is the author of more than 200 articles and essays, and the author or editor of more than 30 books, on U.S. national security. The books include, most recently, American Foreign Policy and the Challenges of World Leadership (Oxford, 2015); Essentials of Strategic Intelligence (ABC-Clio/Praeger, 2015, editor); A Season of Inquiry Revisited: The Church Committee Confronts America's Spy Agencies (Kansas, 2015); The Threat on the Horizon: An Inside Account of America's Search for Security After the Cold War (Oxford, 2011); and The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence (Oxford, 2010, editor). He has published editorials in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Baltimore Sun, and elsewhere.
Professor Johnson served as special assistant to the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (1975–76); as a staff aide on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee (1976–77); as the first staff director of the Subcommittee on Intelligence Oversight, U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (1977–79); as a senior staff member on the Subcommittee on Trade and International Economic Policy, Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives (1980); and as special assistant to Chairman Les Aspin of the Aspin–Brown Commission on the Roles and Missions of Intelligence (1995–96). He was the Issues Director in a presidential campaign (1976); served as a foreign policy adviser to President Jimmy Carter in his 1980 re-election campaign (coauthoring the Presidential Briefing Book on Foreign Policy used during the presidential debates); and is currently a consultant to several government and civic organizations.
Professor Johnson has won the “Certificate of Distinction” from the National Intelligence Study Center in Washington, DC; the “Studies in Intelligence Award” from the Center for the Study of Intelligence in Washington, DC; the “Best Article Award” from the Century Foundation's Understanding Government Project; and the V.O. Key “Best Book” Prize (with Charles S. Bullock III) from the Southern Political Science Association. He has served as secretary of the American Political Science Association, and has led its Intelligence Studies Organized Group. He has also been president of the International Studies Association, South.
Professor Johnson is senior editor of the international journal Intelligence and National Security, and he serves on the editorial advisory board for several other journals, including the Journal of Intelligence History and the Journal for Intelligence, Propaganda, and Security Studies. In 2008–09, he was named a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, and is now on the Phi Beta Kappa National Board for the Visiting Scholar Program. He has been a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Yale University and at Oxford University. In 2012, he was selected as the inaugural “Professor of the Year” by the consortium of fourteen universities in the Southeast Conference (SEC). At the 2014 Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association, he was awarded the “Distinguished Professor” prize, a recognition bestowed occasionally by the Intelligence Studies Section; and, in 2015, he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Association for Intelligence Education.
Born in Auckland, New Zealand, Professor Johnson received his PhD in political science from the University of California, Riverside. In postdoctoral activities, he was awarded an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellowship. He has also studied nuclear weapons policy at Harvard University and MIT. Professor Johnson has lectured at more than 140 universities and think-tanks worldwide. At the University of Georgia, he led the founding of the School of Public and International Affairs in 2001, the first new college at the university since the 1940s.
Figures and Tables
Figures
1.1 Basic human motivations and the quest for national security intelligence: a stimulus–response model
1.2 The U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) in 2016
1.3 The CIA during the Cold War
1.4 The CIA's Operations Directorate during the Cold War
2.1 The intelligence cycle
2.2 The relationship between a nation's sense of acceptable risk and its resources committed to intelligence collection and analysis
2.3 Frequency of NIEs by year, 1950–2005
3.1 Herblock on blow back
3.2 The ebb and flow of covert actions by the United States, 1947–2010
3.3 A partial ladder of escalation for covert actions
4.1 Key recommendations in the Huston Plan, 1970
5.1 An example of a statement accompanying a presidentially approved covert action: the contra portion of the Iran–contra finding, 1981
5.2 Auth on the relationship between Congress and the CIA prior to 1974
5.3 The cycle of intelligence shock and reaction by congressional overseers, 1975–2006
5.4 A typology of roles assumed by intelligence overseers in the U.S. Congress
5.5 Illustrations of role migration and stability among intelligence overseers in Congress, 1977–2004 196
Tables
5.1 Type of stimuli and oversight responses by lawmakers, 1974–2016
6.1 National security intelligence: a reform agenda for the United States 211
Abbreviations
ATC air traffic control
BENS Business Executives for National Security
CA covert action
CAS Covert Action Staff
CASIS Canadian Association of Security and Intelligence Studies
CE counterespionage
CHAOS cryptonym (codename) for CIA domestic spying operation
CI counterintelligence
CIA Central Intelligence Agency (the “Agency”)
CIAB Citizens’ Intelligence Advisory Board (proposed)
CIG Central Intelligence Group
COCOM combatant commander (Pentagon)
COINTELPRO FBI Counterintelligence Program
comint communications intelligence
COS Chief of Station (the top CIA officer in the field)
CTC Counterterrorism Center (CIA)
D Democrat
DA Directorate of Administration
DBA
dominant battle field awareness
DC District of Columbia (Washington)
DCI Director of Central Intelligence
DCIA or D/CIA Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
DDI Deputy Director for Intelligence
DDNI Deputy Director of National Intelligence
DDO Deputy Director for Operations
DEA Drug Enforcement Administration
DHS Department of Homeland Security; also, Defense Humint Service (DoD)
DI Directorate of Intelligence (CIA)
DIA Defense Intelligence Agency
DIAC Defense Intelligence Agency Center
DNC Democratic National Committee
DNI Director of National Intelligence
DO Directorate of Operations (CIA), also known at times earlier in the CIA's history as the Clandestine Services and the National Clandestine Services
DoD Department of Defense
DS Directorate of Support
DS&T Directorate for Science and Technology (CIA)
elint electronic intelligence
FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation
FISA Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
FISA Court Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
fisint foreign instrumentation intelligence
GAO Government Accountability Office (U.S. Congress)
geoint geospatial intelligence
GID General Intelligence Directorate (the Jordanian intelligence service, also known as the Mukhabarat)
GPS Global Position Service
GRU Soviet Military Intelligence
HPSCI House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
humint human intelligence (espionage assets)
IC Intelligence Community
ICBM intercontinental ballistic missile
IG Inspector General
imint imagery intelligence (photography)
INR Bureau of Intelligence and Research (Department of State)