The end of the was signaled a whole new age of gathering intelligence. Methods now included radar, aerial photography and other devices that were very different from the pre-war methods. This influx of intelligence was overwhelming and without being organized was also useless.
Congress understood that to be effective, the information must be coordinated so they wrote the language that created the CIA. Congress’ exact wording was, “To coordinate the intelligence for the rest of the government.” In no manner did they suggest the CIA collect intelligence, only coordinate what was collected by the other agencies and the military. They most certainly didn’t say the CIA was to ever get involved in any covert operations. The Central Intelligence Agency was only supposed to be the place it all came together.
In 1960 or 1961 the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff remarked that he’d known of two or three Army units who were CIA. He was astonished to learn that there were actually six-hundred and five units. The top-ranking military man in the US had no idea there were so many agents within the military. There were agents in the White House even. Every area of government was covered. There are for sure no less and very likely far more agents infiltrated today.
One of the CIA’s first major operations was to hire leaders from the Corsican drug syndicate from 1947 to 1950 to infiltrate France’s popular Socialist party. Thugs were hired to physically break up labor strikes. This gave the syndicate much more political power and they became the number one supplier of heroin to the US.
Much of the Agency’s business during the 1980’s involved importing cocaine and exporting millions of dollars worth of weapons to Latin American guerrillas, the Contras of Nicaragua, who were led and trained by the CIA. (President Reagan referred to them as “freedom fighters.”)
The CIA is directly responsible for the connection between the cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Cocaine was virtually impossible to get in black neighborhoods until the CIA’s “army” of contras brought in cut-rate cocaine at “affordable” prices.
Oliver North was the CIA man to answer to when it came to the arms/drug smuggling. His handwritten notebooks contained 543 pages with references to the drug trade. When the Iran/Contra scandal broke, North had spent the previous night shredding documents with references to Barry Seal (who was dead nine months by then.)
One can only believe that the antics of the CIA continue today. They ARE the Octopus and they’re too big and powerful to be stopped. You can’t catch what you can’t see and thousands of agents are not seen every day. There’s no way of knowing who they are when they’ll spend twenty years or more undercover. - Plus, I haven’t even covered the CIA assassination of Kennedy, that’s a whole story unto itself....
The cold war inspired many attitude changes. For the most part the operatives were young and gung-ho and the agency began morphing into what it is today - the Cocaine Importing Agency. Some residual former OSS operatives were still around, too, and they were extremely well trained in covert missions, including clandestine operations. One of these ex-OSS men was put in charge of all covert operations.
In true CIA business there was a need to work closely with all branches of the military, so each day hundreds of experienced officers were assigned to work with the CIA. This worked well in that if the CIA had a need to glean knowledge from a particular group of people, such as pilots or mechanics, they would call the Department of Defense to send these particular people over to work. Since the CIA reimbursed the Department of Defense for these men’s salaries, they were technically employees of the CIA. It was strictly volunteer, though. No one had to go, it was not an assignment, but rather the acceptance of an offer by the CIA. Duel personnel records were kept on these men so as not to penalize their military service or retirement.
On to Southern Air Transport
