Intelligence_ From Secrets to Policy - Mark M. Lowenthal [16]
PEARL HARBOR (1941). Japan’s surprise attack in 1941 was a classic intelligence failure. The United States overlooked a variety of signals: U.S. processes and procedures were deeply flawed, with important pieces of intelligence not being shared across agencies or departments; and mirror imaging blinded U.S. policy makers to the reality in Tokyo. The attack on Pearl Harbor was most important as the purpose of the community that was established after World War II. Its fundamental mission was to prevent a recurrence of a strategic surprise of this magnitude, especially in an age of nuclear-armed missiles.
MAGIC AND ULTRA (1941-1945). One of the Allies’ major advantages in World War II was their superior signals intelligence, that is, their ability to intercept and decode Axis communications. MAGIC refers to U.S. intercepts of Japanese communications: ULTRA refers to British, and later British-U.S., interceptions of German communications. This wartime experience demonstrated the tremendous importance of this type of intelligence, perhaps the most important type practiced during the war. Also, it helped solidify U.S.-British intelligence cooperation, which continued long after the war. Moreover, in the United States the military, not the OSS, controlled MAGIC and ULTRA. This underscored the friction between the military and the OSS. The military today continues to direct signals intelligence, in the National Security Agency (NSA). NSA is a DOD agency and is considered a combat support agency, a legal status that gives DOD primacy over intelligence support at certain times. Both the secretary of defense and the DNI have responsibility for NSA.
THE NATIONAL SECURITY ACT (1947). The National Security Act gave a legal basis to the intelligence community, as well as to the position of director of central intelligence, and created a CIA under the director. The act signaled the new importance of intelligence in the nascent cold war and also made the intelligence function permanent, a significant change from the previous U.S. practice of reducing the national security apparatus in peacetime. Implicitly, the act made the existence and functioning of the intelligence community a part of the cold war consensus.
Several aspects of the act are worth noting. Although the DCI could be a military officer, the CIA was not placed under military control, nor could a military DCI have command over troops. The CIA was not to have any domestic role or police powers, either. The legislation does not mention any of the activities that came to be most commonly associated with the CIA—espionage, covert action, even analysis. Its stated job, and President Harry S. Truman’s main concern at the time, was to coordinate the intelligence being produced by various agencies.
Finally, the act created an overall structure that included a secretary of defense and the National Security Council; this structure was remarkably stable for fifty-seven years. Although minor adjustments of roles and functions were made during this period, the 2004 intelligence legislation (see chap. 3 for a fuller discussion of this act) and the establishment of a director of national intelligence brought about the first major revision of the structure created in the 1947 act.
KOREA (1950). The unexpected invasion of South Korea by North Korea, which triggered the Korean War, had two major effects on U.S. intelligence. First, the failure to foresee the invasion led DCI Walter Bedell Smith (1950-1953) to make some dramatic changes, including increased emphasis on national intelligence estimates. Second, the Korean War made the cold war global. Having previously been confined to a struggle for dominance in Europe, the cold war spread to Asia and, implicitly, to the rest of the world. This