CIA's Clandestine Services:
Histories of Civil Air Transport [PDF 7.1MB]
This booklet and CD represent the public release of some of the most closely held activities in CIA history concerning one of the most controversial operations in American history. Within these pages, you will find excerpts of the CIA’s Clandestine Services Histories of Civil Air Transport (CAT) – the precursor to Air America. The Histories were written by Alfred T. Cox who was named the President of CAT when CIA acquired it, and guided both the covert operations side and the public commercial side of the airline for a number of years. As the name suggests, these histories are normally not released in any form to the public. In this case, time and circumstances allow us to release these particular products in concert with the 2011 CAT Association Reunion. You also will find pictures of the men and women who dedicated their lives to keeping the airline afloat through good times and bad. These people became a family in the early days and, although many of the founding members have passed on, the CAT community remains committed to the memory of the enormous accomplishments they and their families
achieved with this airline.
Ronald Reagan:
Intelligence and the End of the Cold War [PDF 9.0MB]
Ronald Reagan became the 40th president of the United States more than thirty years ago, and ever since he stepped down to return to California eight years later, historians, political scientists, and pundits of all stripes have debated the meaning of his presidency. All modern presidents undergo reappraisal after their terms in office. Reagan has undergone a similar reappraisal. The old view, exemplified by Clark Clifford’s famous characterization that Reagan was “an amiable dunce,” posited Reagan as a great communicator, to be sure, but one without substance, a former actor who knew the lines others wrote for him, but intellectually an empty suit. Reagan, in the old narrative, simply could not be the architect of anything positive that happened while he was president. That perspective has changed forever and is marked by the continually improving regard historians have for Reagan.
View the videos for this publication on the CIA'sYouTube Channel.
View the Ronald Reagan FOIA documents.
A City Torn Apart:
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Building of the Berlin Wall [PDF 5.1MB]
From the end of World War II in 1945, the question of Berlin’s status 90 miles within the
Deutsche Demokratische Republik (East Germany) and the Soviet Union’s zone of occupation,
along with the status of Germany among the community of nations, remained a source of tension
between the East and West. Premier Khrushchev continued to push President Eisenhower
and the other Western leaders for resolution of the issue.
View The Berlin Wall FOIA documents.
Penetrating the Iron Curtain:
Resolving the Missile Gap with Technology [PDF 21.0MB]
In the mid-1950s the US faced the first real challenge since World War II to its strategic superiority over any nation on earth. The attempt to collect intelligence on the Soviets began with an initial period of poor collection capabilities and consequent limited analysis. With few well-placed human sources inside the Soviet Union, it was only with the CIA’s development of, what can only be called, timely technological wizardry—the U-2 aircraft and Corona Satellite reconnaissance program—that breakthroughs occurred in gaining valuable, game-changing intelligence. Coupled with the innovative use of aerial and satellite photography and other technical collection programs, the efforts began to produce solid, national intelligence.
Stories of Sacrifice and Dedication:
Civil Air Transport, Air America, and the CIA [PDF 18.5MB]
Booklet featuring two specific stories that exemplify
the themes of sacrifice and dedication: Lima Site 85 and a CIA mission
utilizing CAT flight support to recover an
agent inside Communist China.
View the movie Extraordinary Fidelity on the CIA'sYouTube Channel.
Air America:
Upholding the Airmen's Bond [PDF 9.0MB]
Quietly and courageously throughout the
long and difficult Vietnam War, Air America,
a secretly owned air proprietary of
the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),
remained the indispensable instrument of
CIA’s clandestine mission.
View the Air America FOIA documents.
Baptism by Fire:
CIA Analysis of the Korean War [PDF 116.5MB]
The Korean War erupted less than three years after President Harry
S. Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947, establishing the
Central Intelligence Agency. Before North Korean forces invaded the
South on 25 June 1950, the CIA had only a few officers in Korea, and
none reported to the Agency’s analytic arm, the Office of Research and
Estimates (ORE). Analytical production relating to Korea reflected the
generally low priority given the region by the Truman Administration’s
State Department and the military services.
View the Baptism by Fire FOIA documents.
Office of Scientific Intelligence:
The Original Wizards of Langley [PDF 12.0MB]
The emergence of the Cold War accelerated the development of ever
more technically advanced weapons and generated early recognition of
the need for additional technical intelligence. For U.S. policymakers this
meant obtaining data on Soviet weapons developments and operational
concepts, identifying important new systems and, most important, developing the technical means for collecting and processing such data.
View the Original Wizards of Langley FOIA documents.
The Warsaw Pact:
Treaty of Friensdhip, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance [PDF 12.2MB]
After Communist regimes in Eastern Europe collapsed twenty years ago and the Soviet Union disintegrated two years later, immense opportunities for archival research opened. Even though serious obstacles to archival work have persisted in Russia (which houses the central repositories of the Soviet regime), the archives of nearly all of the former Warsaw Pact countries are now fully or at least largely open. As a result, scholars have been able to explore many aspects of the Warsaw Pact that could only be guessed at in the past, including questions of military planning, force preparations and operations, nuclear command arrangements, and civil-military issues.
View the Warsaw Pact FOIA documents.
Wartime Statues:
Instruments of Soviet Control [PDF 7.6MB]
Soviet military planning for conflict in Europe after World War II from the outset harnessed East European military capabilities to Soviet military purposes and assumed operational subordination of East European military formations to higher-level Soviet commands. A Polish command-staff exercise in 1950, for example, assumed subordination of a Polish Army (comprised of five divisions and other units) to a Soviet Maritime Front (tasked in the exercise with occupying Denmark).1 Following founding of the Warsaw Treaty Organization (Warsaw Pact) in May 1955, a supreme Warsaw Pact military command was established in Moscow, but this institution existed largely on paper until the 1960’s.
View the Wartime Statutes FOIA documents.
A Life in Intelligence:
The Richard Helms Collection [PDF 3.0MB]
This collection of material by and about Richard Helms as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) and Ambassador to Iran comprises the largest single release of Helms-related information to date. The documents, historical works, essays, interviews, photographs, and video offer an unprecedented wide-ranging look at the man and his career as the United States’ top intelligence official and one of its most important diplomats during a crucial decade of the Cold War. From mid-1966, when he became DCI, to late 1976, when he left Iran, Helms dealt directly or indirectly with numerous events whose impact remains evident today and which are covered in the release.
View the Richard Helms FOIA documents.
Strategic Warning & The Role of Intelligence:
Lessons Learned from the 1968 Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia [PDF 27.8MB]
The Czechoslovak crisis, as it became known, started in January 1968, when Alexander Dubček was elevated to the post of First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPCz), replacing moribund Antonin Novotny, who had served as First Secretary since 1957. Under Dubček, the communist leadership embarked on a program of dramatic liberalization of the Czechoslovak political, economic, and social order, including the overhaul of the CPCz leadership, increased freedom of speech, surrender of authority to the Czech National Assembly by the Communist Party, real elections at local and national levels, and even the suggestion of legalizing non-communist political parties.
View the Czech Invasion FOIA documents.
To request that a printed copy of a booklet—complete with an interactive DVD—be mailed to you free of charge, contact OPA.