Several CIA Clandestine Services Histories Declassified
The Central Intelligence Agency has recently declassified and released several additional volumes of its coveted Clandestine Services History series. These are official Agency histories prepared for internal use regarding significant episodes in the Agency’s cold war record. Scholarly access to such documents has been sporadic and subject to strict controls.
The following clandestine service history volumes were approved for release in July 2007 following a new declassification review and were recently disclosed (all pdf).
“The Secret War in Korea, June 1950 to June 1952,” March 1964.
“Record of Paramilitary Action Against the Castro Government of Cuba, 17 March 1960 – May 1961,” May 1961.
“The Evolution of Ground Paramilitary Activities at the Staff Level, October 1949-September 1955,” November 1968.
“The Berlin Tunnel Operation, 1952-1956,” 24 June 1968.
The declassified documents were made available on CIA’s useful Freedom of Information Act site at www.foia.cia.gov.
January saw us watching whether the government would fund science. February has been about how that funding will be distributed, regulated, and contested.
This rule gives agencies significantly more authority over certain career policy roles. Whether that authority improves accountability or creates new risks depends almost entirely on how agencies interrupt and apply it.
Our environmental system was built for 1970s-era pollution control, but today it needs stable, integrated, multi-level governance that can make tradeoffs, share and use evidence, and deliver infrastructure while demonstrating that improved trust and participation are essential to future progress.
Durable and legitimate climate action requires a government capable of clearly weighting, explaining, and managing cost tradeoffs to the widest away of audiences, which in turn requires strong technocratic competency.