Volume 44, Number 13 · August 14, 1997
Is the CIA Necessary?
By Theodore H. Draper
Operation PBSUCCESS: The United States and Guatemala 1952-1954 Intelligence Agency, Washington, D.C.
by Nicholas Cullather. History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central
available from the National Archives, Washington, D.C., 116 pp.
CIA and Guatemala Assassination Proposals 1952-1954
by Gerald K. Haines. CIA History Staff Analysis
available from the National Archives, Washington, D.C., 12 pp.
Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs
by Richard M. Bissell Jr.
Yale University Press, 268 pp., $35.00
Secrecy: Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy
Chairmen: Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Larry Combest
Government Printing Office, 114 with appendices pp.
Of all the organizations that miss having the Soviet Union as an enemy, the CIA has undoubtedly been hit the hardest. The reason is that the CIA was specifically established in 1947 to struggle with the Soviet enemy. Whatever sins the CIA was later guilty of, they could always be excused by its defenders on the ground that the Soviet Union did the same things or worse; one had to fight fire with fire. But now, the enemy has vanished. Its most dedicated American antagonist has been deprived of its mission. The CIA wanders about in a wilderness of self-doubt and recrimination.
Review, 5866 words
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