CIA As Organized Crime Essay

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On September 18, 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was established as a result of the United States Congress passing the National Security Act of 1947. The act established the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as a separate intelligence organization with the responsibility of obtaining, analyzing, and disseminating intelligence to aid the President and other government officials in making well-informed decisions regarding problems of national security. However, following the creation of the CIA, President Truman anticipated receiving "a sort of daily newspaper, informing him of developments around the world that could impact American policy"(Establishment of the CIA, n.d). But the CIA began conducting covert operations throughout …show more content…

According to Valentine, the CIA's involvement in the war was not just about fighting communism but also about suppressing dissent and maintaining control over the American public. “The FBI used the same kind of illegal operations Phoenix used in Vietnam: spreading lies and using forged documents to break up marriages and otherwise harass people into submission. FBI agents were able to persuade college administrators to prevent dissidents from giving public addresses. There was no evidence that any of them were Soviet agents fomenting armed rebellion; it was their ideas about a just society the FBI was trying to stamp out, along with the First Amendment”(Valentine, 2017, p.289). This proves that what the CIA used and implemented overseas was later integrated into American society to try and control the public. In addition the CIA used the “MK-ULTRA, which operated from the 1950s until the early '60s, was created and run by a chemist named Sidney Gottlieb. Journalist Stephen Kinzer, who spent several years investigating the program, calls the operation the "most sustained search in history for techniques of mind control"(Gross, 2019). This shows the length the CIA was willing to go to control everyone that opposed …show more content…

The act established the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as a separate intelligence organization with the responsibility of obtaining, analyzing, and disseminating intelligence to aid the President and other government officials in making well-informed decisions regarding problems of national security. However, following the creation of the CIA, President Truman anticipated receiving "a sort of daily newspaper, informing him of developments around the world that could impact American policy"(Establishment of the CIA, n.d). But the CIA began conducting covert operations throughout the world. By concealing spies in hostile or enemy territory and overthrowing their governments from within. This is also shown in the JFK film by Oliver Stone which has a scene where a secret agent is talking to Jim Garrison about the secret operations the CIA runs throughout the world and how many countries they have infiltrated and