---
created: 2025-07-22
updated: 2026-10-05
title: Director of Central Intelligence
aliases:
  - Director of Central Intelligence
  - DCI
  - Director of Central Intelligence (DCI)
  - Director, Central Intelligence Agency
  - DCI Turner
tags:
  - Organization
  - Intelligence
  - Government
  - DCI
  - GrillFlame
  - MKULTRA
  - IranContra
  - AtomicEnergyCommission
category: "U.S. Government"
summary: "The office created by the National Security Act of 1947 to head the CIA, held by nineteen men from 1946 to 2005; it appears here in MKULTRA, the Glomar case, NUMEC, Iran-Contra and Stargate."
start: 1946
end: 2005
location: "Langley, Virginia"
relations:
  - type: head_of
    with: "[[William J. Casey]]"
    reverse: true
    role: "Director of Central Intelligence"
    start: 1981-01-28
    end: 1987-01-29
    fn: 3
  - type: head_of
    with: "[[Stansfield Turner]]"
    reverse: true
    role: "Director of Central Intelligence"
    start: 1977-03-09
    end: 1981-01-20
    fn: 3
  - type: head_of
    with: "[[George H.W. Bush]]"
    reverse: true
    role: "Director of Central Intelligence"
    start: 1976-01-30
    end: 1977-01-20
    fn: 3
  - type: head_of
    with: "[[William Colby]]"
    reverse: true
    role: "Director of Central Intelligence"
    start: 1973-09-04
    end: 1976-01-30
    fn: 3
  - type: head_of
    with: "[[James R. Schlesinger]]"
    reverse: true
    role: "Director of Central Intelligence"
    start: 1973-02-02
    end: 1973-07-02
    fn: 3
  - type: head_of
    with: "[[Richard Helms]]"
    reverse: true
    role: "Director of Central Intelligence"
    start: 1966-06-30
    end: 1973-02-02
    fn: 3
  - type: head_of
    with: "[[John McCone]]"
    reverse: true
    role: "Director of Central Intelligence"
    start: 1961-11-29
    end: 1965-04-28
    fn: 3
  - type: head_of
    with: "[[Allen Dulles]]"
    reverse: true
    role: "Director of Central Intelligence"
    start: 1953-02-26
    end: 1961-11-29
    fn: 3
---
The National Security Act of July 26, 1947 established "under the [[National Security Council]] a Central Intelligence Agency with a Director of Central Intelligence, who shall be the head thereof," to be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate from among commissioned officers of the armed services or from civilian life. The same section provided that the Agency "shall have no police, subpena, law-enforcement powers, or internal-security functions" and that the Director "shall be responsible for protecting intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure."[^1] The Central Intelligence Agency's own history lists the first Director, Rear Admiral [[Sidney Souers]], as serving from January 23, 1946, and nineteen holders in all through [[Porter Goss]], whose service ended on April 21, 2005, when [[John Negroponte]] was confirmed as the first Director of National Intelligence under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of December 17, 2004.[^2] The Directors of Central Intelligence in order, with dates of service from that history, were Souers, [[Hoyt Vandenberg]], [[Roscoe Hillenkoetter]], [[Walter Bedell Smith]], [[Allen Dulles]] (February 26, 1953 to November 29, 1961), [[John McCone]] (November 29, 1961 to April 28, 1965), [[William Raborn]], [[Richard Helms]] (June 30, 1966 to February 2, 1973), [[James R. Schlesinger]] (February 2 to July 2, 1973), [[William Colby]] (September 4, 1973 to January 30, 1976), [[George H.W. Bush]] (January 30, 1976 to January 20, 1977), [[Stansfield Turner]] (March 9, 1977 to January 20, 1981), [[William J. Casey]] (January 28, 1981 to January 29, 1987), [[William Webster]], [[Robert Gates]], [[R. James Woolsey]], [[John Deutch]] (May 10, 1995 to December 15, 1996), [[George Tenet]] and Goss.[^3] The Director chaired the [[Intelligence Advisory Committee]], which included representatives of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] and the [[Atomic Energy Commission]], and its successor, the [[United States Intelligence Board]], on which in 1972 the AEC was represented by [[Donald R. Cotter]] and the [[NSA]] by Lieutenant General [[Samuel C. Phillips]]; on November 28, 1983 Casey sent memoranda to the heads of the Intelligence Community Staff committees, among them the Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee.[^4]

### The Atomic Energy Commission chairmen who became Directors

John McCone served as chairman of the [[Atomic Energy Commission]] from July 14, 1958 to January 20, 1961, during which, according to the Eisenhower Library's finding aid to his papers, he adopted a policy of "providing intelligence briefings on Soviet nuclear capabilities" to the [[Joint Committee on Atomic Energy|Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy]]; President [[John F. Kennedy]] named him Director of Central Intelligence later in 1961.[^5] [[James R. Schlesinger]], whose CIA biography lists service as a member of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1971 and as head of the United States delegation to the sixteenth International Atomic Energy Agency general conference, became Director of Central Intelligence in January 1973 (the Agency's table gives February 2) and served until July 2.[^6]

### MKULTRA and the January 1973 destruction of files

The Joint Hearing of the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of August 3, 1977 contains the [[Church Committee]]'s finding that "in January 1973, MKULTRA records were destroyed by Technical Services Division personnel acting on the verbal orders of Dr. [[Sidney Gottlieb]], Chief of TSD," and that "Dr. Gottlieb has testified, and former Director Helms has confirmed, that in ordering the records destroyed, Dr. Gottlieb was carrying out the verbal order of then DCI Helms." In his prepared statement Director Turner reported that in his letter of July 15, 1977 he had told the committee of the "recent discovery of seven boxes of documents related to Project MKULTRA," financial records that had been sent to the Retired Records Center in 1970 by the Budget and Fiscal Section, so that the material "escaped retrieval and destruction in 1973 by the then-retiring Director of the Office as well as discovery in 1975." He said it was found by an employee responding to Freedom of Information Act requests, and that "the Agency failed to uncover these particular documents in 1973 in the process of attempting to destroy them."[^7]

### Phillippi v. CIA

In *Phillippi v. Central Intelligence Agency and George H. Bush, Director* the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decided on November 16, 1976 a Freedom of Information Act suit by the journalist [[Harriet Ann Phillippi]] over records on the Agency's contacts with the news media about the *[[Hughes Glomar Explorer]]*, the vessel publicly listed as a research ship of the [[Summa Corporation]]. The Agency had answered that "any data that might reveal the existence of any such records" was classified and that "the fact of the existence or non-existence of the records you request would relate to information pertaining to intelligence sources and methods which the Director of Central Intelligence has the responsibility to protect," citing section 102(d)(3) of the 1947 act; the Agency's reply of May 21, 1975 states that "Mr. Duckett has determined that, in the interest of national security, involvement by the U.S. Government in the activities which are the subject matter of your request can neither be confirmed nor denied." The district court had granted summary judgment on December 1 after considering two sealed affidavits. The appeals court reversed and remanded, requiring the Agency to create as complete a public record as possible, and observed that the Director's statutory responsibility "is apparently not limited to keeping Agency-sponsored activities secret."[^8]

### NUMEC, Israel and the Director's knowledge

The Washington Star reported on March 2, 1978 that [[Carl E. Duckett]], whom the Star called the CIA's former chief of research and technology and the Post the CIA's third-ranking official at the time, told [[Nuclear Regulatory Commission]] officials in a closed February 1976 briefing that Helms had told President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] in 1968 that the CIA had evidence [[Israel]] possessed atomic bombs, and that Johnson replied "Don't tell anyone else, even [[Dean Rusk]] and [[Robert McNamara]]." Helms, then operating a private consulting firm, said "I have no recollection of any such conversation," and when asked whether he would deny any of the events Duckett described said "I don't say they didn't happen." The Washington Post of the same date reported that, according to the classified record of the briefing, Duckett also said the CIA considered the question of whether highly enriched uranium had been diverted from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation plant at Apollo, Pennsylvania "academic" because Israel had developed its own weapons, and that "if any such scheme was under consideration, he would have known about it and he never heard so much as a rumor." [[Walt Rostow]], Johnson's national security adviser in 1968, told the Times he could not remember the events.[^9] A Washington Star article of March 23, 1978 reported that the Atomic Energy Commission, "confused and embarrassed by the worst loss of nuclear materials in its history," had decided in 1966 to conceal the loss of 202 pounds of highly enriched uranium from the Apollo plant from the public, according to a document released by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.[^10]

### Bush, Turner and psychic research

An Air War College research report by Lieutenant Colonel Dolan M. McKelvy, citing Ronald McRae's *Mind Wars* (1984), states that in 1976 "CIA director George [Bush] enthusiastically gave retired astronaut [[Edgar Mitchell]] 'permission to organize high-level seminars at the CIA to discuss possible intelligence applications' of parapsychology," and that interest waned in 1977 when Admiral Stansfield Turner replaced Bush.[^11] A Defense Intelligence College thesis by Captain Michael E. Zarbo cites the *New York Times* reporter William J. Broad for the claim that in 1977 President [[Jimmy Carter]] ordered the CIA to conduct a high-level review of Soviet psychic research, and reports that Turner, "a self-confessed skeptic of parapsychology," said at a 1977 breakfast with journalists that the CIA "had an individual who from time to time was able to draw very elementary sketches of street scenes in foreign countries where he had never been," but that "this subject died in 1975, and we haven't heard from him since," and that Turner once remarked, "twenty years from now, I may wonder how I could be so dumb as to question the evidence for psychic phenomena, but then again, I may feel the same way I do now."[^12]

An Army memorandum for the record states that Vice President Bush was briefed for 30 minutes on March 31, 1983 on the Army and DIA remote viewing work by Dr. [[Jack Vorona]] of the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]], and that the Vice President's chief of staff had not initiated the briefing, "so it appears that the Vice President personally requested it."[^13] An undated Army information paper on Grill Flame states that a senior official whose name is redacted was "vitally concerned that the US has fallen behind on this 'survival issue,'" had "expressed his feelings to the DCI" and had offered a letter over his signature supporting any Department of Defense effort, and that the CIA, "from about 1972 to 1974, were actively investigating the Remote Viewing aspects of Psychoenergetics."[^14]

The program passed to the CIA in 1995. A CIA memorandum of September 21, 1995 states that "at the direction of Congress, DIA's Stargate program" had been transferred to the CIA, that the Directorate of Science and Technology was to assess the utility of remote viewing and that the Directorate of Intelligence recommended that no resources be dedicated to assessing foreign parapsychology. Two years earlier a DIA officer's note of June 4, 1993 recorded that a Stargate briefing for the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, Dr. [[Anita Jones]], was a follow-on to a briefing hosted for Dr. [[William Perry]] and Dr. John Deutch, and that Jones said it was Deutch who had asked her to hear it.[^15] Deutch became Director of Central Intelligence on May 10, 1995.[^3]

### Casey and the Enterprise

William J. Casey served from January 28, 1981 until he resigned on January 29, 1987, "incapacitated by a brain tumor." The final report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters, [[Lawrence Walsh]], states that there is "evidence that Casey played a role as a Cabinet-level advocate both in setting up the covert network to resupply the contras during the [[Boland Amendment|Boland]] funding cut-off, and in promoting the secret arms sales to Iran in 1985 and 1986," and that Casey, with national security advisers [[Robert McFarlane]] and [[John Poindexter]], approved conducting the operations out of the National Security Council staff with [[Oliver North]] as action officer and retired Air Force Major General [[Richard Secord]] assisting. Because Casey could not answer questions, the Independent Counsel "did not conduct his investigation with an eye toward establishing Casey's guilt or innocence." On March 27, 1984 Casey wrote McFarlane endorsing a plan to seek funding from third countries, including Israel, and stated that the CIA was exploring possible contributions from the Israelis and another country. North testified that in October 1986 Casey told him to destroy the ledger of payments to contra leaders.[^16]

### Footnotes
[^1]: National Security Act of 1947, Public Law 253, 61 Stat. 495, July 26, 1947, section 102(a), (b)(1), (d), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-61/pdf/STATUTE-61-Pg495.pdf.
[^2]: Douglas F. Garthoff, *Directors of Central Intelligence as Leaders of the U.S. Intelligence Community, 1946-2005* (Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 2007), introduction and chapter on the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/159886efc8ff17ac93a5ffc027d9a6a0/dci_leaders.pdf.
[^3]: Garthoff, *Directors of Central Intelligence*, table "Directors of Central Intelligence, 1946-2005."
[^4]: Garthoff, *Directors of Central Intelligence*, discussion of the Intelligence Advisory Committee and United States Intelligence Board, the 1972 photograph caption, and note 17 on the Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee.
[^5]: "McCone, John A.: Papers, 1958-1961," Dwight D. Eisenhower Library finding aid, Accession A79-9, https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/research/finding-aids/pdf/mccone-john-papers.pdf.
[^6]: "Biography, James R. Schlesinger," Central Intelligence Agency, CIA-RDP75B00380R000400150017-8, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp75b00380r000400150017-8; Garthoff, *Directors of Central Intelligence*, table of Directors.
[^7]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Intelligence and Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, *Project MKULTRA, The CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification*, 95th Cong., 1st sess., August 3, 1977 (prepared statement of Admiral Stansfield Turner; Church Committee summary of MKULTRA), https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/9D/9D9A27BD7241E2074EAF81C7FC2C86CF_MK.Ultra_Senate.Hearings.pdf.
[^8]: *Phillippi v. Central Intelligence Agency*, 546 F.2d 1009 (D.C. Cir. 1976), https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F2/546/546.F2d.1009.76-1004.html.
[^9]: John Fialka, "Helms Says He Can't Recall LBJ Talk on Israeli A-Bomb," *The Washington Star*, March 2, 1978, CIA-RDP88-01315R000400060012-2, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000400060012-2; "Ex-CIA Aide Says Johnson Quashed Israel A-Bomb Data," *The Washington Post*, March 2, 1978, CIA-RDP88-01315R000400060010-4, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000400060010-4.
[^10]: John J. Fialka, "Why the AEC Failed to Tell of Lost Nuclear Materials," *The Washington Star*, March 23, 1978, CIA-RDP88-01315R000400060009-6, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000400060009-6.
[^11]: Dolan M. McKelvy, *Psychic Warfare: Exploring the Mind Frontier*, Air War College research report, Air University, CIA-RDP96-00789R001001420001-3, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00789r001001420001-3, citing Ronald M. McRae, *Mind Wars* (1984), p. 103.
[^12]: Michael E. Zarbo, *Remote Viewing: Parapsychological Potential for Intelligence Collection?*, Defense Intelligence College thesis, CIA-RDP96-00789R002600250001-6, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00789r002600250001-6.
[^13]: Memorandum for the record, "Briefing," Major Gerald Fox, April 1, 1983, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700270002-4, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001700270002-4 (the memorandum names Admiral Daniel J. Murphy, chief of staff to the Vice President, and Donald Gregg as present; the record spells Vorona's name "Verona").
[^14]: Information paper, "GRILL FLAME," CIA-RDP96-00788R002000140004-2, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r002000140004-2.
[^15]: Memorandum for the Deputy Director for Intelligence, OSWR-054-95, September 21, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000100180001-8, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00791r000100180001-8; mail listing of John T. Berbrich, June 4, 1993, CIA-RDP96-00789R002500240003-6, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00789r002500240003-6.
[^16]: Lawrence E. Walsh, *Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters*, vol. 1 (August 4, 1993), chapter 15, "William J. Casey," and chapter 2, https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_15.htm and https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_02.htm.