During that time he called Eisenhower. I imagine they both had concerns that the country had just had a coup. Eisnehower warned the country about the MIC 3 years earlier in his final speech as president. Op-ed was published weeks later in WAPO, back b4 it became a Bezo's propaganda rag. Dulles tried to get him to retract and he refused. The op-ed was picked up by most papers in the country. Dulles announced that Truman told him he misspoke. Truman announced he had not misspoke. The CIA bought up as many papers as they could country wide to limit ppl reading the op-ed.
Summary of Op-ed:
The op-ed said that the CIA was meant to organize and analyze all intell gathered by existing agencies to present them to the president with the biases and agendas that were attached by the intell gathering agencies removed. That the CIA was surpassing that purpose to be an operations and even decision making branch of the gov and that this was dangerous. He states: I never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations. He praises previous leaders Souers and Vandenburg as men of the highest character, patriotism and integrity, and says he assumes all leadership of CIA since have been as well. He ends by saying CIA is casting a shadow over our historic image as a free and open society.
First half just explains why he formed them. Here's the second half of Truman's op-ed:
For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive areas.
I never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations. Some of the complications and embarrassment I think we have experienced are in part attributable to the fact that this quiet intelligence arm of the President has been so removed from its intended role that it is being interpreted as a symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue—and a subject for cold war enemy propaganda.
With all the nonsense put out by Communist propaganda about "Yankee imperialism," "exploitive capitalism," "war-mongering," "monopolists," in their name-calling assault on the West, the last thing we needed was for the CIA to be seized upon as something akin to a subverting influence in the affairs of other people.
I well knew the first temporary director of the CIA, Adm. Souers, and the later permanent directors of the CIA, Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg and Allen Dulles. These were men of the highest character, patriotism and integrity—and I assume this is true of all those who continue in charge.
But there are now some searching questions that need to be answered. I, therefore, would like to see the CIA be restored to its original assignment as the intelligence arm of the President, and that whatever else it can properly perform in that special field—and that its operational duties be terminated or properly used elsewhere.
We have grown up as a nation, respected for our free institutions and for our ability to maintain a free and open society. There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position and I feel that we need to correct it.
Here is a link to his op-ed
http://www.maebrussell.com/Prouty/Harry%20Truman%27s%20CIA%20article.html
VIPS officer Mcgovern wrote analysis of this op-ed and made reflections on how Obama appeared intimidated by his Intell heads. he gives examples of how Obama deferred to them frequently, even instructing his first CIA chief Leon Panetta to become, in effect, the agency’s lawyer rather than leader. More examples are given involving Clapper and more.
In Truman's papers his notes about this show that Souers, His CIA first head called him applauding his outspokenness and blaming Dulles for making the CIA “a different animal than the one I tried to set up for you.” He goes on to complain that their main purpose had become causing “revolutions in smaller countries around the globe”.
https://consortiumnews.com/2013/12/22/trumans-true-warning-on-the-cia/
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[–] OriginalRealityCheck 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Something similar seems to have happened to the FBI.
I think all we really need is Military Intelligence and Federal Marshals.
Of what good use is anything further?
[–] grace8 [S] 0 points 3 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago
My fantasy is that over the next 6 years Trump rolls back 80% of the new laws passed since 1938. Most of them have not been of good use either.
[–] Blacksmith21 ago
It's a little more complicated than that. There are 17 major "intelligence" agencies, including the ODNI, created by the PATRIOT/IRTPA acts after 9/11.
THe goal was to "break down intelligence sharing silos". In other words, MILINT collections (NSA, DIA, others) were now to be shared with bad state actors within the CIA/State and corrupt non-MIL IC members.
There are intelligence agencies which focus on special areas, many are .MIL not .GOV - NGA, NSA/CSS, DIA, INSCOM, AFOSI, NRO, USCYBERCOM, etc. All of these entities are under military and not Federal bureaucratic control.