CIA Agency Development

Since the CIA involved in the scandal, Congress debriefed them and their services became public. (Streissguth 28). Lawmakers put an end to some of the CIA’s operations (Streissguth 28). I was amazed at how many agencies were formed and botched before the final product-the CIA- was developed. However, agencies were not the only thing that impacted the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency. Another influence on the development of the CIA were the amendments and creation of laws surrounding espionage. One of the first bills to pass that distinctly influenced the CIA’s development was the National Security Act of 1947 (“History”). It gave the CIA the duties of planning and carrying out the intelligence operations of the U.S., and evaluating

Their main mission is to intercept communications (“Streissguth 46”). The NSA’s history is not as long as the CIA’S. It did not start as different agency and morph into another, but instead changed throughout time based on both technology and laws. The NSA originated in 1952 when President Truman created it (Streissguth 46). However, as George Howe stated in the file “The Early History of the NSA”, “the protection of the security of U.S communications by codes, ciphers, and other measures can be traced back as far as the war for American Independence, cryptologic activities resembling those of the NSA could not originate until the advent of radio communications” (11). That is true; tracking radio communications drastically changed how intelligence was gathered and sent. I cannot imagine how difficult it would have been to have to track letters and paper documents; it must have been a fragile task, decoding physical letters and redistributing them without the interception being noticed. Communication intelligence sent by machines includes the famous example of Enigma. During World War II, the British Intelligence broke Enigma and shared the information with the U.S Communication Security, which was a predecessor of the NSA (Streissguth 46). Today, the National Security Agency completes similar tasks. After learning about the CIA’s long and complex history, I was surprised and somewhat bored with the NSA’s. Their agency is young and relatively simple in terms of what drove its evolution. One of the key factors were the statutes passed that directly related to its tasks. The NSC Intelligence Directive No. 9 was revised on October 24, 1952 (Howe 11). The Secretary of Defense had issued this change and thus created the NSA. It was formally named so on November 4, 1952 (Howe 11). Throughout the rest of the year, changes in the communications intelligence took place (Howe 11).