ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Espionage, Intelligence, and Security Volume ...

CIAfurther decided that such actions could be prevented bythe establishment of a permanent means of congressionalreview for the intelligence community. The Senate createdthe Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, a modifiedversion of the Church Committee, as an oversight andinvestagatory committee for the nation’s intelligence services.In the 1970s and 1980s, the committee formalized thereview and oversight process, and clearly defined instancesof abuse of power and illegal activities that warrantcommittee investigation. The Senate Select Committeeon Intelligence continues to operate today.❚ FURTHER READING:BOOKS:Kurland, Philip B. Watergate and the Constitution (TheWilliam R. Kenan, Jr., Inaugural Lectures). Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press, 1978.Kutler, Stanley I. The Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis ofRichard Nixon. New York: W.W. Norton and Company,1992.ELECTRONIC:United States National Archives and Records Administration.Watergate resources. (01 December2002).SEE ALSOCIA (United States Central Intelligence Agency)❚ JUDSON KNIGHTCIA (United States CentralIntelligence Agency)The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an independentgovernment organization, founded under the NationalSecurity Act of 1947. The agency is a leader among the 14agencies and organizations in the United States IntelligenceCommunity. The mission of CIA is to support thepresident, the National Security Council (NSC), and otherofficials involved in national security policy by providingaccurate, comprehensive, and timely foreign intelligenceon national security topics. CIA also supports the chiefexecutive and the national security policy leadership byconducting counterintelligence operations, special activities,and other duties relating to foreign intelligence andnational security as directed by the president. The CIA inEncyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Securitythe 1990s increased its openness with the American public,and provides relatively detailed information about itsorganizational structure, through which the director ofCentral Intelligence (DCI) oversees the four directorates(Administration, Intelligence, Science and Technology,and Operations), as well as numerous other offices.BackgroundCIA’s headquarters is in Langley, a neighborhood inMcLean, Virginia; hence the term “Langley” is used as ametonym for the entire organization, or its leadership.(The terms “CIA” and “the CIA” are used interchangeably,while “the Company” is a term by which some employeesrefer to the agency.) Information on its budget is classified,but the entire U.S. intelligence budget, of which CIAcomprises but a portion, was $26.6 billion in 1997, the firstyear in which such figures were reported. (The 1998 budgetfigures, the only other ones released as of early 2003,showed an increase of $100 million, to $26.7 billion.)Also classified is the number of persons employed byCIA, but the agency is more open concerning the variety ofpersonnel it hires. There is no one single type of CIAemployee, and the popular image of CIA operatives ascutthroats and assassins is a bankrupt cliché. As of 2003,the agency had a particular interest in hiring scientists,engineers, economists, linguists, mathematicians, secretaries,accountants, and computer specialists, althoughthe scope of employment opportunities exceeded eventhis wide range.In order to be considered for employment with CIA,an applicant must have a college degree, with a minimumgrade point average of 3.0. The applicant must submit to apolygraph and medical examination, as well as backgroundchecks. Once hired, the new employee must bewilling to relocate to Washington, D.C., or to CIA stationsin various locales throughout the world. Many CIA officerswork under some form of cover, either as employees ofother government organizations (for example, some CIAoperatives serve under diplomatic cover in the State Department),or under nonofficial cover, whereby an intelligenceofficer lives as a private citizen who ostensibly has no tiesto the U.S. government.In accordance with the CIA’s mission, the majority ofactivity by its operatives is directed toward the gathering,production, and analysis of political, economic, and militaryintelligence on foreign governments, terrorist groups,and criminal organizations. This information originatesfrom documents obtained either openly or illegally, fromhuman sources (human intelligence or HUMINT), fromelectronic eavesdropping (signals intelligence, or SIGINT),or from images collected by spy cameras or satellites inspace (imagery intelligence, or IMINT). Once gathered,intelligence must be processed and analyzed, after whichthe CIA passes information on to its clients, which include193