67 Facts About CIA

1.

The CIA serves as the national manager for the coordination of HUMINT activities across the U S intelligence community.

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2.

The CIA was instrumental in establishing intelligence services in several U S allied countries, such as Germany's BND.

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3.

Since 2004 the CIA is organized under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence .

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4.

In 2013, The Washington Post reported that in the fiscal year 2010, the CIA had the largest budget of all IC agencies, exceeding previous estimates.

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5.

CIA has increasingly expanded its role, including covert paramilitary operations.

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6.

CIA established its first training facility, the Office of Training and Education, in 1950.

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7.

CIA University holds between 200 and 300 courses each year, training both new hires and experienced intelligence officers, as well as CIA support staff.

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8.

Robert Baer, a CNN analyst and former CIA operative, stated that normally a CIA employee undergoes a polygraph examination every three to four years.

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9.

CIA was instrumental in the establishment of intelligence services in several U S allied countries, including Germany's BND.

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10.

Lawrence Houston, head counsel of the SSU, CIG, and, later CIA, was principal draftsman of the National Security Act of 1947, which dissolved the NIA and the CIG, and established both the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency.

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11.

CIA had different demands placed on it by the various bodies overseeing it.

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12.

Early track record of the CIA was poor, with the agency unable to provide sufficient intelligence about the Soviet takeovers of Romania and Czechoslovakia, the Soviet blockade of Berlin, and the Soviet atomic bomb project.

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13.

Arlington Hall, the nerve center of CIA cryptanalysis, was compromised by Bill Weisband, a Russian translator and Soviet spy.

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14.

However, the CIA was successful in influencing the 1948 Italian election in favor of the Christian Democrats.

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15.

When China entered the war in 1950, the CIA attempted a number of subversive operations in the country, all of which failed due to the presence of double agents.

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16.

CIA surrendered the next day, and his coup came to an end.

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17.

Return of the Shah to power, and the impression, cultivated by Allen Dulles, that an effective CIA had been able to guide that nation to friendly and stable relations with the West triggered planning for Operation PBSuccess, a plan to overthrow Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz.

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18.

The plan was exposed in major newspapers before it happened after a CIA agent left plans for the coup in his Guatemala City hotel room.

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19.

The CIA mounted a psychological campaign to convince the Guatemalan people and government that Armas' victory was a fait accompli, the largest part of which was a radio broadcast entitled "The Voice of Liberation" which announced that Guatemalan exiles led by Castillo Armas were shortly about to liberate the country.

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20.

The CIA then orchestrated a series of power transfers that ended with the confirmation of Castillo Armas as president in July 1954.

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21.

Three days later, the CIA reported to the White House that the Indonesian Army's actions against the CIA-supported revolution were suppressing communism.

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22.

CIA was particularly worried that U-2 flights could be seen as preparations for first-strike attacks.

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23.

CIA had high hopes for an upcoming meeting with Khrushchev in Paris.

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24.

CIA welcomed Fidel Castro on his visit to DC, and gave him a face-to-face briefing.

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25.

The CIA hoped that Castro would bring about a friendly democratic government, and planned to curry his favor with money and guns.

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26.

The CIA proceeded to organize the operation with the aid of various Cuban counter-revolutionary forces, training Brigade 2506 in Guatemala.

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27.

CIA concluded that there was a need to improve the organization and management of the CIA drastically.

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28.

The operation saw the CIA engage in an extensive campaign of terrorist attacks against civilians and economic targets, killing significant numbers of civilians, and carry out covert operations against the Cuban government.

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29.

CIA established a base for the operation in Miami, given the cryptonym JMWAVE.

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30.

The terrorist activities carried out by agents armed, organized and sponsored by the CIA were a further source of tension between the U S and Cuban governments.

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31.

CIA remained on the CIA's payroll until February 1976, and contact continued through at least June of the same year.

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32.

CIA was involved in anti-Communist activities in Burma, Congo, Guatemala, and Laos.

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33.

One of the most significant operations ever undertaken by the CIA was directed at Zaire in support of general-turned-dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

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34.

The CIA encouraged "pro-democracy street rallies" in Brazil, for instance, to create dissent against Goulart.

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35.

Sometime between 1959 and 1961, the CIA started Project Tiger, a program of dropping South Vietnamese agents into North Vietnam to gather intelligence.

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36.

Famously, Nixon's Plumbers had in their number many former CIA officers, including Howard Hunt, Jim McCord, and Eugenio Martinez.

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37.

The CIA was the only part of the government that had the power to make off the book payments, but it could only be done on the orders of the CI, or, if he was out of the country, the DCI.

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38.

CIA demanded the CIA produce a signed document attesting to the national security threat of the investigation.

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39.

Nixon had long been frustrated by what he saw as a liberal infection inside the CIA and had been trying for years to tear the CIA out by its roots.

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40.

William J Casey, a member of Ford's Intelligence Advisory Board, obtained Bush's approval to allow a team from outside the CIA to produce Soviet military estimates as a "Team B " The "B" team was composed of hawks.

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41.

The CIA seized the opportunity to arm and finance Chad's Prime Minister, Hissene Habre, after he created a breakaway government in western Sudan, even giving him Stinger missiles.

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42.

The CIA later operated a program to recover the Stingers through cash buy-backs.

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43.

Under President Jimmy Carter, the CIA was conducting covertly funded pro-American opposition against the Sandinista.

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44.

In March 1981, Reagan told Congress that the CIA would protect El Salvador by preventing the shipment of Nicaraguan arms into the country to arm Communist rebels.

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45.

The CIA was arming and training Nicaraguans Contras in Honduras in hopes that they could depose the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

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46.

Reagan testified before Congress, assuring them that the CIA was not trying to topple the Nicaraguan government.

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47.

CIA reached out to the agency offering a back channel to Iran, suggesting a trade of missiles that would be lucrative to the intermediaries.

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48.

CIA officers were barred from meeting Solidarity leaders, and the CIA's contacts with Solidarnosc activists were weaker than those of the AFL–CIO, which raised 300 thousand dollars from its members, which were used to provide material and cash directly to Solidarity, with no control of Solidarity's use of it.

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49.

The CIA didn't know that it was a civilian bomb shelter.

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50.

Too often the CIA relied on inexperienced people supposedly deemed experts.

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51.

In Guatemala, the CIA produced the Murphy Memo, based on audio recordings made by covert listening devices planted by Guatemalan intelligence in the bedroom of Ambassador Marilyn McAfee.

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52.

The CIA's surprise at India's detonation of an atom bomb was a failure at almost every level.

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53.

On top of that, it was discovered that, in some cases, the CIA suspected at the time that the sources were compromised, but the information was sent up the chain as genuine.

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54.

The CIA arranged the arrests of suspected Al Qaeda members through cooperation with foreign agencies, but the CIA could not definitively say what effect these arrests have had, and it could not gain hard intelligence from those captured.

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55.

CIA had long been dealing with terrorism originating from abroad, and in 1986 had set up a Counterterrorist Center to deal specifically with the problem.

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56.

In January 1996, the CIA created an experimental "virtual station, " the Bin Laden Issue Station, under the Counterterrorist Center, to track bin Laden's developing activities.

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57.

At some point during this period Johnny "Mike" Spann, a CIA officer sent to question the prisoners, was beaten to death.

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58.

CIA became the first American to die in combat in the war in Afghanistan.

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59.

CIA considered that the CIA's efforts had put the agency in a position to respond rapidly and effectively to the attacks, both in the "Afghan sanctuary" and in "ninety-two countries around the world".

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60.

CIA had put out feelers to Iraq in the form of eight of their best officers in Kurdish territory in Northern Iraq.

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61.

The rollup would happen as predicted, 37 CIA sources recognized by their Thuraya satellite telephones provided for them by the CIA.

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62.

CIA ran a fake vaccination clinic in an attempt to locate Osama bin Laden.

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63.

The CIA has been sending weapons to anti-government rebels in Syria since at least 2012.

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64.

Around February 2017, the CIA was instructed to halt military aid to Syrian rebels, which included training, ammunition, guided missiles, and salaries.

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65.

CIA sold compromised encryption devices to over 120 countries, allowing Western intelligence to eavesdrop on communications that the users believed to be secure.

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66.

Until the 2004 reorganization of the intelligence community, one of the "services of common concern" that the CIA provided was open source intelligence from the Foreign Broadcast Information Service .

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67.

So, not only does the CIA have trouble hiring, but those hires will frequently leave their permanent employ for shorter term contract gigs which have much higher pay and allow for more career mobility.

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