![]() ![]() In 1974, the CIA spent more than $US800 million on Project Azorian, a mission to recover codebooks and nuclear technology from a sunken Soviet sub, laying under 16,000 feet of water in the Pacific Ocean. The CIA also plotted assassination attempts on foreign leaders, such as Castro. In April 1961, these Cubans landed the island-state with plans to overthrow Fidel Castro, an incident dubbed the Bay of Pigs Invasion.ĬIA pilots flew U-2 flights over Soviet and Cuban territory, collecting data about military facilities, armaments and troop movements. In 1959-61, CIA agents recruited and trained 1,500 Cuban exiles. Several Cold War coups and attempted coups, such as the 1973 overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile, were conducted with the backing or active involvement of the CIA. One of the CIA’s first major missions, for example, was to assist non-communist political parties in Italy in 1948. The CIA also complemented US foreign policy by supporting, funding and equipping anti-communist leaders and groups abroad. The CIA’s Cold War activities ranged from general surveillance of suspected foreign agents to deploying its own agents abroad, to illicit operations like assassinations and human experimentation. CIA activities abroad The Shah of Iran, one of several figures helped into power by the CIA The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI, formed 1908) was responsible for investigating domestic criminal activity, which included espionage, sedition and other treasonable activities. Formed in 1952, the National Security Agency (NSA) gathered information by monitoring, intercepting and decoding signals and radio traffic. The CIA was also supported by other US government agencies. One early directive (1948) authorised the CIA to conduct secret operations “against hostile foreign states or groups or in support of friendly foreign states or groups” so that “US government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorised persons”. The CIA’s structure, mission and methods were shaped by the Cold War. ![]() In 1947, the OSS was reorganised and rebranded as the CIA. ![]() The CIA began as the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a military branch that conducted espionage and undercover operations during World War II. In the United States, this task fell to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Spy agencies A manual for ‘trickery and deception’, produced for CIA field agentsĪll major Cold War powers maintained at least one government agency dedicated to intelligence-gathering and espionage. The success of their missions – and indeed, their survival – usually hinged on looking and behaving like ordinary members of society. Agents sometimes carried out disruptive missions, such as carrying out sabotage operations and kidnapping or assassinating enemy agents or politicians.Ĭold War spies were rarely the flamboyant James Bond types portrayed in literature and film. This information could be harvested from a range of sources, including paid informers, double-agents, stolen documents, intercepted communications, ‘bugs’ (listening devices) or other means of surveillance. The purpose of Cold War espionage was to gather information and intelligence about the enemy, particularly about their military and technical capabilities.
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