The CIA S Failures and the Country S Loss of Faith

Gruppo 1

Peter Gruppo

Professor Beyer

Angels & Demons

October 22, 2009

The CIA’s Failures and the Country’s Loss of Faith

The Lost Symbol, the novel by Dan Brown, is replete with historical references to important events, people, and institutions. Any reader is bound to feel overwhelmed by the immense amount of information, most of it new to the general reader. Consequently, it only seems right to reflect on some of the topics discussed. One particular organization that plays a very prevalent role in the book is an office of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Many different aspects of the CIA deserve scrutiny. First and foremost, the historical background of the institution warrants examination. The CIA was created in 1947 as a means to gather information and conduct secret operations to protect the welfare of the United States. Accordingly, the agency has engaged in thousands of assignments that it believed were best kept from the nation’s population. However, it is nearly impossible to keep everything invisible to the public and minimal research reveals several hundred online listings mentioning “secret” missions. The majority of the listings touch on a number of failures, scandals, and conspiracy theories regarding this covert institution. The breakdowns in each of these particular cases are all viewed as “failures” or “scandals” for different reasons. The CIA may have “succeeded” in completing a mission, but in the end it failed in the eyes of many as its reasons for embarking on the undertaking were skewed. For example, many claim that the CIA initiated numerous tasks solely so that the upper echelon of the CIA and the American Government could pursue their own personal agendas. The second common failure or scandal is more concrete. There were failed operations that lead to terrible outcomes in which people died, the county was put in danger, and the country was negatively affected. As one top CIA official once said, “The public seems to only find out about our failures and never hears of our successes.” While there may be some truth to this, every mentioned collapse or catastrophe the CIA is connected to leads many American citizens to doubt the effectiveness of the institution. The failures of the CIA invariably lead to the questioning of the agency and its ability to deliver necessary and straightforward intelligence.
After its creation in 1947, the CIA began looking into matters where intervention would directly benefit those with powerful roles in government. During the early 1950’s, the US was always looking for ways to undermine the Communist regime of Russia and protect the world from the threat of Communism. Iran was always looked upon as a great asset because of its close proximity to Russia. The US felt the Communist country, the USSR, would soon make moves to spread its views and governing methods into Iran. Concurrently, Iran had one of the most vast and fertile oil reserves in the world. At the time, Britain had exclusive control over the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, a firm that had amassed millions of dollars for the UK. In 1951, the newly elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh,[1] immediately declared that the oil reserves of Iran should be nationalized. Britain obviously was outraged at the proposition and planned a coup d'Ètat of Mossadegh. President Dwight Eisenhower, once elected in 1952, decided to support the British in their coup of Mossadegh because he “was motivated mainly by fears of communist takeover in Iran.”[2] However, according to the sentiments of a number of Americans, historians, and the US scholar Mark Gasiorowski, “the main motive behind the coup was the desire of U.S. policy makers to help U.S. oil companies gain a share in Iranian oil production.”[3] Upon the CIA’s discreet entry into Iran, numerous steps were taken to accelerate the departure of Mossadegh. First and foremost, they turned to the Shah Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi as an immediate replacement who would professedly return Iran to a monarchial state. CIA agents crippled Mossadegh’s government by bribing Pahlavi and his consorts while organizing riots, a strategy that eventually led to the deaths of 300 people in the streets of Tehran. The CIA and Eisenhower ultimately got what they wanted and Mossadegh was imprisoned and succeeded by Pahlavi.

While Eisenhower and other prominent government officials profited from the coup of Mossadegh in 1953, it served as a failure and disheartened US Citizens for two reasons. The CIA and the government entered into the project partly so that Eisenhower and the Republican Party could reap the benefits of American oil companies increased profits, and conjointly, the US was ultimately endangered as a result of the decision to invade.During Eisenhower’s campaign in 1952 he collected $6.6 million to help promote his candidacy, a bulk of which was donated by American oil companies. His decision to invade was certainly influenced by the lobbying of oil companies’ who were waiting for Eisenhower to thank them for their contributions. Considering the subsequent $147 million jump in the oil companies’ revenues the year after the attainment of Iranian oil, the thanks was surely immense.[4] The CIA had used the threat of communism as a “smokescreen” to justify their invasion. Adding to the already increasing suspicions amongst many regarding Eisenhower’s reasons for entry, “The Central Intelligence Agency, which has repeatedly pledged for more than five years to make public the files from its secret mission to overthrow the government of Iran in 1953, said today that it had destroyed or lost almost all the documents decades ago.”[5] American’s can’t help but question the agency whose motto states, “Ye shall find truth” when all they hear about is the institution’s deception and lies.

The invasion has been influential in the outbreak of US problems even today. After the original coup in 1953, Pahlavi ruled Iran as a harsh dictator for more than two decades while receiving US aid and arms. The dismissal of Mossadegh and a true hope of democracy in the Middle East led to a significant presence of anti-American sentiment. Many Iranians blamed America for the harsh treatment and substandard life styles they experienced under Pahlavi. Their blame evolved into hatred, a hatred that eventually was put on display in the acts of violence staged by Islamic militant groups. Notably, on November 4, 1979 Iranian militants stormed the US Embassy and took 53 Americans hostage. They held the Americans hostage for 444 days in order to further the Iranian Revolution against Pahlavi and his government that the US had supported and influenced. Tim Weiner notes in Legacy of Ashes that, “A bad CIA track record has encouraged many of our gravest contemporary problems. A generation of Iranians grew up knowing that the CIA had installed Pahlavi. In time, the chaos that the CIA created in the streets of Tehran would return to hurt the United States.” Today, a time where tensions between the Middle East and America are higher than ever, US Citizens live in fear of terrorist attacks and war. To think that these tensions are, on some scale, a direct result of the decision made by the CIA and President Eisenhower is truly disheartening and scary.

Another equally damaging failure of the CIA, known as “The Bay of Pigs Invasion”, took place under the presidency of John F. Kennedy on April 17, 1961. “The Bay of Pigs Invasion” was a CIA organized plan in which 1,400 Cuban exiles, trained under CIA officials and agents, would enter southern Cuba and attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro. Unlike the Coup of Mossadegh, the reasons for this invasion were justifiable and clear cut. Cuba was a Communist country and would grow to be a legitimate threat to democracy across the world, especially in Central and Southern America. However, many overlooked the factors that led the CIA to fight communism in Cuba as the mission was poorly executed. The force deployed by the CIA was too large to operate covertly in Cuba, yet was much too small to have an actual chance at challenging the enormous military force of Fidel Castro. To make matters even worse, Cuba was aware that the invasion was coming after their secret intelligence network picked up on the information. Also, prior to the invasion many of the Cuban exiles carelessly talked about their involvement in the operation. Their stories traveled by word of mouth and eventually ended up in newspaper reports. All these missteps by the CIA came together and put an almost immediate end to the invasion. After just three days of fighting, the US force was defeated and Castro’s troops captured 1,189 prisoners and killed 114—a day that many declared an obvious misstep for the CIA and the US Government.

The aftermath of “The Bay of Pigs Invasion” illustrated a certain level of distrust felt by much of the US population. Kennedy, initially the recipient of significant student support, began to lose favor of the academic community. Students were originally enthralled by his plans for a new, ideal American society that would be made up of transformative programs such as the Peace Corps. However, after the miscue in Cuba they were immediately disheartened by his involvement and questioned whether he was truly dedicated to creating a “nation of strength and peace.” On the day of the invasion, one thousand students gathered in Berkeley, California to rally against the government’s decision to attack. Just days later on April 22nd, two thousand students assembled in San Francisco’s Union Square to demonstrate against America’s involvement in the situation. The protests led to the forced resignation of several high-ranking CIA Officers including: CIA director Allen Dulles, deputy CIA director Charles Cabell, and Deputy Director of Operations Richard Bissell. The resignations, while meant to alleviate the population’s mistrust of the CIA, did little to satisfy them and a number of political protests continued throughout the sixties.

“The Bay of Pigs Invasion” became a thorn in America’s side as it contributed the growing threat of Communism in the Western Hemisphere. The invasion was ultimately beneficial to Fidel Castro as he preached the glory of Communism versus the ill will of American imperialism. The widespread malevolence felt by Cubans after the invasion enhanced the staying power of Castro and his Communist Government. Che Guevera spoke of the newly energized revolution in a letter aimed at Kennedy, “Thanks for Playa Girón. Before the invasion, the revolution was weak. Now it's stronger than ever.”[6] He also noted that after the raid, “the number of counter-revolutionaries and defectors of the Castro government fell drastically to zero.”[7] This new countrywide exuberance for Communism propelled Castro to expand his vision and export Communism further. He eventually developed a tighter alliance with the Soviet Union, an action that immediately spurred international tensions. The new coalition had a direct effect on the Cuban Missile Crisis as Russia began to use Cuban soil as a base for nuclear weapons—weapons that were pointed directly at the United States. This contributed to the increasing tension in the Cold War, a time of great distress and fear amongst the American people. The new threat was considered by many to be a result of the prior failure in the “Bay of Pigs”. Former President Eisenhower seemed to be prophetic as he predicted shortly after the invasion, “The failure of the Bay of Pigs will embolden the Soviets to do something that they would otherwise not do.”[8] The USSR felt secure enough to threaten the US with the nuclear bombs because they believed Kennedy wasn’t able to make tough decisions when pressured. One Soviet advisor commented, “He is not prepared well for decision making in crisis situations.”

It is the job of the CIA to give the President adequate information and strategies to go forward with determinations. They did not provide Kennedy with a plan that could be executed successfully in “The Bay of Pigs” and ultimately allowed Russia and Cuba to go forth with their threats. A New York Times columnist summed up the invasion by saying it amounted to nothing but a wounded national image in which the US looked like “fools to our friends, rascals to our enemies, and incompetents to the rest.”[9]

In more recent years, the CIA has been criticized for its actions regarding the alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in Iraq. After the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Centers on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush promised to fight terrorism across the globe. He immediately pointed to Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s regime as a high priority danger to US security and world peace. The CIA provided the justification for the perceived danger in a report entitled “Iraq’s Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction”.[10] The report started off with anunderstandably alarming statement, “Iraq has continued its weaponsofmassdestruction (WMD) programs in defiance of UN resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade.” It was the information found in this report that helped Bush justify a decision to wage war on Saddam Hussein and Iraq in 2003.

As the war continued on, many people began to question whether the weapons of mass destruction actually ever existed. In October 2003 “The Iraq Survey Group,” a team of US Weapons inspectors led by David Kay, released a report on the presence of the weapons in Iraq. The report was the first evidence that proved the CIA’s asserted claims were totally inaccurate. The report states, “The assertion that Iraq had tried to obtain pure uranium—a claim that was featured prominently in President Bush’s State of the Union speech in January 2003—was shown to be based on forged documents.” Following the initial testimony, a special panel was appointed in February 2004 to further investigate why the CIA had provided wrong information. The panel found that the CIA’s prewar reports were “either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting.”[11] In fact, the panel found that while Iraq had a nuclear weapons program in the past, it had been closed in 1991 and the country progressively became less able to reconstitute the program. All of the supposed weapon threats that the CIA had found were completely artificial. The report concluded that the CIA had subscribed to “groupthink” and based its conclusions on what others expected rather than looking at the actual evidence that provided no substantial proof of banned weapons in Iraq.

As soon as the public discovered the reasons for going to war were based on spurious claims, an onslaught of criticism directed at the CIA and the government erupted amongst various groups of American citizens. High-level officials within the Bush administration revealed that Bush had planned on invading Iraq ever since he was elected into office in January 2001. His desire to invade was seen by many as a means to step out of his father’s shadow. George W. Bush’s biographer, Mickey Herskowitz, wrote that, “Bush expressed frustration at a lifetime as an underachiever in the shadow of an accomplished father.” He also wrote that during an interview in 1999 Bush remarked, “If I have a chance to invade Iraq…. if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.” While there was a great amount of speculation as to why the invasion was actually ever prompted, people were more concerned about the amount of troop deaths caused by a war with no basis. A month after the release of the scathing report by the US Select Committee on Intelligence, 300 soldiers had died in Iraq. Soon after, an ABC-Washington Post poll indicated that well over sixty percent of people interviewed found the number of deaths unacceptable considering the circumstances. As of October 28, 2009, 4,352 American soldiers have died in combat. The citizens of America are even more disturbed than ever as polls indicate over seventy percent of Americans are unhappy with the way the government, in particular the CIA, has handled the war from beginning to present, almost a seven year span.[12]

The CIA, an extremely important organization in regards to the security of the United States, often engages in secret missions and operations. Throughout history, many of the missions have gone wrong and a number of them have come under scrutiny by American citizens. Those unsuccessful missions have influenced American citizens and how they view the CIA and the government. The CIA and American government’s involvement in the coup of Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran negatively affected Americans. The government’s reasons for invading Iran and overthrowing the prime minister neglected the best interests of US Citizens. Also, it ultimately put the country in danger as the coup contributed to the great tension between Iranians and Americans that is felt even today. The subsequent protests and negative comments by the public media regarding the decision to invade clearly display that Americans were greatly disturbed by the CIA’s involvement. Next, the CIA acted as an arm of the US government and decided to attack Cuba in “The Bay of Pigs Invasion”. The attack ended after thousands of people under the direction of American forces died and a new, more pronounced threat to America emerged. Americans spoke out against the invasion all across the country and the CIA experienced serious changes in leadership in order to quiet the protests. Another negative result was when the USSR made moves to become even more dangerous to the US—a move the people knew was related to the failed invasion. And lastly, the CIA provided information that political powers wanted to hear so they could justify the US-Iraq War. Its incorrect claims concerning weapons of mass destruction led to a war in which thousands of American’s have died. The mind of the CIA was already made up in this instance and it didn’t offer objective, reassured facts. Rather, the report to the top political powers was a reaffirmation of intentions and beliefs that were already held.