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Esoteric & Historical Concept
Concept
ColdWar
CIA
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The Cold War
Cold War era
The Cold War was the 1947 to 1991 rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union that produced containment doctrine, the CIA covert-action charter and the psychic espionage programs. 2026-05-14 2026-10-09
type with reverse start role fn
participant_in George Kennan true 1946 author of the Long Telegram and of the article signed X 3
type with reverse start role fn
participant_in James Harold Doolittle true 1954 chairman of the Special Study Group that reported on the CIA's covert activities 14
type with reverse start end role fn
participant_in Giulio Andreotti true 1990 1990 Prime Minister of Italy who made the August 3, October 18 and October 24, 1990 statements on the Gladio stay-behind network and decreed its dissolution on November 27, 1990 29

The Cold War was the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union that began in 1947 and ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. It combined ideological conflict, an arms race and a contest for influence on every continent. The two powers did not fight each other directly. They fought proxy wars, funded insurgencies, ran covert operations and developed psychological warfare techniques. The term "cold" denoted the absence of direct "hot" military confrontation between them.1

Containment and the covert charter

The Cold War emerged from the wartime alliance between the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union that had defeated Nazi Germany in World War II. Disagreements over the postwar order in Europe, particularly over the status of Germany and Poland, developed into systemic antagonism. The United States used nuclear weapons in 1945. On September 23, 1949, Harry S. Truman announced: "We have evidence that within recent weeks an atomic explosion occurred in the U.S.S.R."2

On February 22, 1946, George Kennan, the chargé d'affaires in Moscow, sent the Long Telegram to the Secretary of State. It said that Soviet leaders "learned to seek security only in patient but deadly struggle for total destruction of rival power, never in compacts and compromises with it." Its summary described "a political force committed fanatically to the belief that with US there can be no permanent modus vivendi."3 In July 1947 the Foreign Affairs journal printed "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" over the signature "X". The article held that "the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies."4

On March 12, 1947, Truman told a joint session of United States Congress: "I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."5

The National Security Act of 1947, approved July 26, 1947, provided in section 102(a) that there "is hereby established under the National Security Council a Central Intelligence Agency with a Director of Central Intelligence, who shall be the head thereof," and in section 102(d)(5) that the agency would "perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the National Security Council may from time to time direct."6 The Central Intelligence Agency centralized American foreign intelligence collection and covert action, and its founding personnel came largely from the wartime Office of Strategic Services. Soviet intelligence was consolidated in the KGB (Committee for State Security) in 1954. It had run operations in the United States since the 1930s, through networks that included the Cambridge Five in Britain and atomic spy rings that supplied the Soviet Union with classified nuclear weapons data.7 The KGB's corresponding programs included active measures (dezinformatsiya), political influence operations, and the funding and training of allied intelligence services and insurgent movements in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

On December 17, 1947, the National Security Council approved NSC 4-A, which directed the Director of Central Intelligence, under section 102(d)(5) of the National Security Act, to "initiate and conduct, within the limit of available funds, covert psychological operations designed to counteract Soviet and Soviet-inspired activities which constitute a threat to world peace and security."8

The directive of June 18, 1948, NSC 10/2, on the Office of Special Projects defined covert operations in paragraph 5 as activities "so planned and executed that any US Government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons and that if uncovered the US Government can plausibly disclaim any responsibility for them." Its listed activities included those related to "propaganda," "preventive direct action, including sabotage," and "subversion against hostile states." The definition excluded "armed conflict by recognized military forces, espionage, counter-espionage, and cover and deception for military operations." Paragraph 6 stated that the directive superseded NSC 4-A.9

The Hughes-Ryan Amendment, section 32 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974 (December 30, 1974), added section 662 to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. Section 662(a) provided that no appropriated funds could be expended by or on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency "for operations in foreign countries, other than activities intended solely for obtaining necessary intelligence, unless and until the President finds that each such operation is important to the national security of the United States and reports, in a timely fashion, a description and scope of such operation to the appropriate committees of the Congress."10 The Church Committee investigated the agency's covert activities in 1975 and 1976.

NSC-68 and the Psychological Strategy Board

The NSC-68 report of April 14, 1950, a report to the National Security Council by its Executive Secretary, contained a section on the Kremlin that stated: "The fundamental design of those who control the Soviet Union and the international communist movement is to retain and solidify their absolute power, first in the Soviet Union and second in the areas now under their control."11

On April 4, 1951, President Truman established the Psychological Strategy Board by directive to the Secretaries of State and Defense and to the Director of Central Intelligence. The directive gave as its goal "more effective planning, coordination and conduct, within the framework of approved national policies, of psychological operations." The Board, made up of the Under Secretary of State, the Deputy Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence, reported to the National Security Council.12

The flying saucer panel of 1953

In January 1953 a panel of scientific consultants, known as the Robertson Panel after its chairman Howard P. Robertson, met to review reports of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena for the CIA. The report is signed by Robertson as chairman and by Luis W. Alvarez, Lloyd V. Berkner, Samuel Goudsmit and Thornton Page, and J. Allen Hynek attended the sessions. The panel proposed an educational program with two aims, training and debunking. The debunking aim would result in "reduction in public interest" in flying saucers. The report gave the reason: "Such a program should tend to reduce the current gullibility of the public and consequently their susceptibility to clever hostile propaganda." The report added: "The Panel noted that the general absence of Russian propaganda based on a subject with so many obvious possibilities for exploitation might indicate a possible Russian official policy." The report's list of evidence reviewed names Project GRUDGE and Project BLUE BOOK as "code names for ATIC study of subject," a reference to the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC).13

The Doolittle Report

On July 26, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote to James Harold Doolittle asking him to chair a panel of consultants for "a comprehensive study of the covert activities of the Central Intelligence Agency, in particular those carried out under the terms of NSCID #5 of August 28, 1951, and NSC 5412 of March 15, 1954." William B. Franke, Morris Hadley and William D. Pawley sat with Doolittle, with S. Paul Johnston as executive director, and the president asked that the report be made to him personally and classified TOP SECRET. The group reported as the Special Study Group under a letter to the president of September 30, 1954.14

The report's introduction stated: "It is now clear that we are facing an implacable enemy whose avowed objective is world domination by whatever means and at whatever cost. There are no rules in such a game. Hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply. If the United States is to survive, long-standing American concepts of 'fair play' must be reconsidered. We must develop effective espionage and counterespionage services and must learn to subvert, sabotage and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated and more effective methods than those used against us. It may become necessary that the American people be made acquainted with, understand and support this fundamentally repugnant philosophy."14 The same page asked for "an aggressive covert psychological, political and paramilitary organization more effective, more unique and, if necessary, more ruthless than that employed by the enemy."14

Field operations

The Cold War produced an unprecedented expansion of covert operations as an instrument of foreign policy. The CIA's history of the August 1953 coup against Iranian premier Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran, known as Operation Ajax and designated TPAJAX in the agency's files, was written by Donald Wilber. The National Security Archive's published excerpt states: "Written in March 1954 by Donald Wilber, one of the operation's chief planners, the 200-page document is essentially an after-action report."15

On April 17, 1961, the landings of the Cuban Expeditionary Force at the Bay of Pigs on the southern coast of Cuba "began as scheduled at 1 a.m."16 On November 25, 1975, according to the NSA Archive, four delegations of Southern Cone secret police chieftains gathered in Santiago, Chile, at the invitation of the Chilean intelligence service DINA, in a meeting whose confidential agenda called for something similar to INTERPOL "but dedicated to Subversion." The archive states that the officials from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay agreed to form "a system of collaboration," and that CIA intelligence reports called it Operation Condor in Latin America.17

On July 19, 1971, William Colby, director of CORDS, testified on the Phoenix Program in Vietnam before the Foreign Operations and Government Information Subcommittee of the House Committee on Government Operations, which held hearings on July 15, 16, 19, 21 and August 2, 1971.18 Representatives Ogden Reid and Paul McCloskey questioned him, and K. Barton Osborn, who had served in Vietnam as an intelligence operative, testified that "I never knew in the course of all those operations any detainee to live through his interrogation. They all died."19 According to the subcommittee's 1972 report, official figures furnished by Colby showed 20,587 suspected Vietcong infrastructure members killed from the beginning of 1968 through May 1971, and Osborn contradicted Colby's testimony that, while the forerunner programs had involved assassinations, such was no longer the case. The same report stated the committee's concern over "serious moral considerations of U.S. support for a program that has allegedly included torture, murder, and inhumane treatment of South Vietnamese civilians."19

The Contra resupply program in Nicaragua was the subject of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee subcommittee investigation begun in early 1986 by Senator John Kerry. The subcommittee's report of December 1988 stated: "it is clear that individuals who provided support for the Contras were involved in drug trafficking, the supply network of the Contras was used by drug trafficking organizations, and elements of the Contras themselves knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers. In each case, one or another agency of the U.S. government had information regarding the involvement either while it was occurring, or immediately thereafter."20 The report listed four companies that the Department of State's Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office paid to supply the Contras, SETCO Air, DIACSA, Frigorificos de Puntarenas and Vortex, and stated that in each case federal law enforcement had received information, before the Department of State contracted with the company, that the individuals controlling it were involved in narcotics.21

The covert aid to the Afghan insurgents that became Operation Cyclone in Afghanistan began with a Special Coordination Committee meeting of June 26, 1979, chaired by Zbigniew Brzezinski, at which Director of Central Intelligence Stansfield Turner reported that ties with Afghan dissident leaders had been established in Pakistan. President Jimmy Carter signed two Presidential Findings on Afghanistan on July 3, 1979. The first authorized the CIA to "support insurgent propaganda and other psychological operations in Afghanistan; establish radio access to the Afghan population through third country facilities;" and "provide unilaterally or through third countries as appropriate support to Afghan insurgents, either in the form of cash or non-military supplies." The second, worldwide in scope, authorized the CIA to "expose the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and its leadership as despotic and subservient to the Soviet Union."22 A memorandum of February 21, 1980 from Turner to the chairman of the Special Coordination Committee recorded a second Finding of November 7, 1979 authorizing procurement advice and communications equipment, and a third of December 28, 1979 authorizing lethal military equipment.23 The December 28 Finding listed Afghanistan as its scope with the description: "Provide lethal military equipment either directly or through third countries to the Afghan opponents of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan."24

At a joint hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research on August 3, 1977, Director of Central Intelligence Turner reported the discovery of seven boxes of documents on Project MKULTRA, "a closely held CIA project conducted from 1953-1964," and stated that MKULTRA was an "umbrella project" under which sensitive subprojects were funded, "involving among other things research on drugs and behavioral modification."25 Turner reported 149 MKULTRA subprojects, among them six involving tests on unwitting subjects, and one group of single subprojects in "such areas as effects of electro-shock, harassment techniques for offensive use, analysis of extrasensory perception, gas propelled sprays and aerosols, and four subprojects involving crop and material sabotage."26 Senator Edward Kennedy attributed the January 1973 destruction of the records to Director Richard Helms: "The records of all these activities were destroyed in January 1973, at the instruction of then CIA Director Richard Helms."27 Turner's statement described the 1953 death of Frank Olson, a civilian Army employee at Fort Detrick, about a week after he had "unwittingly consumed LSD administered to him as an experiment at a meeting of LSD researchers called by CIA."25 Turner told the committees that the newly located finance folders had been sent to the Retired Records Center in 1970 and "escaped retrieval and destruction in 1973," and quoted the 1963 Inspector General report: "Present practice is to maintain no records of the planning and approval of test programs."28

Stay-behind networks

The NATO stay-behind networks, known in Italy as Operation Gladio, were prepared to operate after an invasion or occupation. On August 2, 1990, during a session of the Italian Chamber of Deputies on the Bologna station bombing, Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti accepted an order of the day presented by deputies Giulio Quercini, Aldo Tortorella, Luciano Violante and others that committed the government to inform Parliament within 60 days of the existence, characteristics and purposes of a parallel and hidden structure said to have operated inside the military intelligence service. Because Andreotti proposed a more confidential venue, the sponsors agreed that the commission on terrorism and the massacres, chaired by Senator Libero Gualtieri, would receive the documentation.29

On August 3, 1990 Andreotti was heard by that commission, the Commissione Stragi. He said that the activities, set up on the NATO model for the case of an attack on or occupation of Italy, had continued until 1972 according to the services, after which they were judged unnecessary, and that he would present a detailed report prepared by the General Staff.29 On October 18, 1990 he sent the commission the document titled "Il cosiddetto SID parallelo-il caso Gladio," from which the commission learned that the activities he had considered abandoned in 1972 were still continuing.30 On October 24, 1990 Andreotti addressed the Chamber of Deputies (session 537 of the Tenth Legislature) in reply to interpellations, describing an institution within the NATO framework that provided for an informational and reaction network in the event of occupation by enemy forces. He told the Chamber that after a letter from the Venice magistrate Felice Casson to Gualtieri he had asked to suspend distribution of the document, had sent back a revised text within 24 hours, and that both texts were available to the commission, and Deputy Antonio Bellocchio replied that the commission was still waiting for the earlier text.31

The commission's report of April 14 and 15, 1992 on Gladio recorded as a contradiction the declaration of August 3, 1990, that the structure had been demobilized in 1972, and the information in the October 18, 1990 document, that it was still active and operating in 1990. The same report stated that on August 8, 1990 the director of SISMI (Italian military intelligence), Admiral Fulvio Martini, issued a circular directing the Gladio organization to the fight against drugs, and that on November 27, 1990 Andreotti decreed its dissolution. It described a conversion of the structure from an anti-invasion force into an information network serving the whole SISMI for internal purposes and concluded that the structure's illegitimacy grew over time. The commission had been created by law on May 17, 1988.30

The European Parliament's joint resolution of November 22, 1990 on the Gladio affair, replacing motions B3-2021, 2058, 2068, 2078 and 2087/90, stated in recital B that "for over 40 years this organization has escaped all democratic controls and has been run by the secret services of the states concerned in collaboration with NATO." Paragraph 1 "Condemns the clandestine creation of manipulative and operational networks and Calls for a full investigation into the nature, structure, aims and all other aspects of these clandestine organizations or any splinter groups." Paragraph 2 "Protests vigorously at the assumption by certain US military personnel at SHAPE and in NATO of the right to encourage the establishment in Europe of a clandestine intelligence and operation network." Paragraph 3 "Calls on the governments of the Member States to dismantle all clandestine military and paramilitary networks."32 SHAPE is Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe.

Operation Paperclip

The Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) ran the foreign scientist program that the National Archives describes as "initially code-named Overcast and subsequently code-named Paperclip." The JIOA was disbanded in 1962. Its Foreign Scientist Case Files for 1945 to 1958 contain "personnel dossiers on over 1,500 German and other foreign scientists, technicians, and engineers."33 The program brought German and Austrian specialists from the defeated Third Reich to the United States.

Parapsychology programs

Both superpowers devoted resources to researching claimed Extrasensory Perception and psychokinetic capabilities, driven by concern that the adversary might exploit any genuine psychic capability for intelligence collection. Soviet research that Moscow termed "psychotronics" or "biological communications" was tracked by Western intelligence. The CIA funded ESP research from the early 1950s; the MKULTRA subprojects of 1953 to 1964 included one listed as "analysis of extrasensory perception."26

The Soviet side of the psi race was the subject of a 1972 Defense Intelligence Agency study by Captain John D. LaMothe of the Medical Intelligence Office, Office of the Surgeon General, Department of the Army, titled Controlled Offensive Behavior, USSR (ST-CS-01-169-72, July 1972). Its second section stated: "The Soviet Union is well aware of the benefits and applications of parapsychology research." The study defined controlled offensive behavior as including "Soviet research on human vulnerability as it applies to methods of influencing or altering human behavior."34

The SRI International final report of October 1978, "Advanced Threat Technique Assessment," by Harold Puthoff, Russell Targ, Edwin May and Ingo Swann, covered April 18, 1977 to April 15, 1978 and lists the LaMothe study among its references.35 The American work went under several designations. In a letter of December 1982 the commanding general of the United States Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), Major General Albert Stubblebine, told the Army's Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence that, in keeping with the FY83 congressional decision, INSCOM's GRILL FLAME operation "ceased as of 30 September 1982." The CENTER LANE information papers for the director of the DIA, compiled March 7, 1985, include an approval history paper (TAGPA-F-SD, October 10, 1984) stating that INSCOM's psychoenergetics applications were conducted "under the GRILL FLAME Program until 30 September 1982 when Congress directed that DoD psychoenergetic activities could not be conducted within the NFIP." The same paper stated: "The effective implementation date of CENTER LANE was 3 December 1982."36

The Stargate Project's Remote Viewing training was undertaken at Fort Meade, Maryland, after work with SRI in California. A CIA paper on the transfer stated that "Senate conferees directed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to transfer the 'Star Gate' program from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to CIA," specifying ten civilian billets and $500,000 by July 1, 1995, and that "DIA's direct involvement began later and continued until Star Gate was transferred to CIA this July." The same paper described Star Gate as "a DIA program which involved the use of paranormal phenomena, primarily 'remote viewing,' for intelligence collection," and stated that "CIA's program began in 1972, but was discontinued in 1977."37

A Office of Research and Development (CIA) working paper of June 7, 1995 (ORD-374-95) took a position against the transfer: "We oppose any action to transfer these people to CIA at this time." Its reasons included that "it is likely that the AIR review will conclude (as did the NRC) that the remote viewing operations are without utility" and that "The Inspector General of DOD strongly recommended in a 1989 memorandum that this program be terminated at DIA."38

The American Institutes for Research (AIR) evaluation, "An Evaluation of Remote Viewing: Research and Applications," dated September 29, 1995 and written by Mumford, Rose and Goslin, concluded: "Even though a statistically significant effect has been observed in the laboratory, it remains unclear whether the existence of a paranormal phenomenon, remote viewing, has been demonstrated." It also concluded: "Thus, remote viewing failed to produce actionable intelligence," and, in its final sentence of the summary, "Thus, we conclude that continued use of remote viewing in intelligence gathering operations is not warranted."39 A CIA briefing set for the review listed the panel as including Jessica Utts, "Primary Proponent," and Ray Hyman, "Primary Skeptic," with Lincoln Moses, David Goslin, Michael Mumford and Andrew Rose.40

The CIA Director of Research and Development sent the Executive Director a memorandum on September 27, 1995 (ORD-0520-95) stating that the key recommendations of the management strategy were to "Terminate remote viewing operations within the intelligence community" and to "Terminate research and development relating to remote viewing within the intelligence community." The memorandum quoted the CIA Directorate of Intelligence as viewing "developments in parapsychology as a relatively low threat to the United States."41

Able Archer and the war scare

In November 1983 NATO conducted the Able Archer nuclear release exercise. The President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) report of February 15, 1990, "The Soviet 'War Scare,'" was quoted at length in the appendix to the editorial note of Foreign Relations of the United States for 1981 to 1988, volume IV. The PFIAB wrote: "We believe that the Soviets perceived that the correlation of forces had turned against the USSR, that the US was seeking military superiority, and that the chances of the US launching a nuclear first strike" were growing, "perhaps under cover of a routine training exercise." The board also wrote that "the US intelligence community did not at the time, and for several years afterwards, attach sufficient weight to the possibility that the war scare was real."42

The board quoted two Special National Intelligence Estimates of May and August 1984, which stated: "We believe strongly that Soviet actions are not inspired by, and Soviet leaders do not perceive, a genuine danger of imminent conflict or confrontation with the United States." Elsewhere in the report the board wrote: "In cases of great importance to the survival of our nation, and especially where there is important contradictory evidence, the Board believes that intelligence estimates must be cast in terms of alternative scenarios that are subjected to comparative risk assessments. This is the critical defect in the war scare episode."42

The end of the Cold War

At a joint press conference at the Malta summit on December 3, 1989, Mikhail Gorbachev said: "We stated, both of us, that the world leaves one epoch of cold war and enters another epoch."43 The Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989. Contributing factors included the economic exhaustion produced by military competition with the United States, the political reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika programs, and the collapse of communist governments in Eastern Europe in 1989.

On December 25, 1991, Gorbachev announced on Soviet television: "I cease my activities in the post of the U.S.S.R. president."44 On December 26, 1991, the Council of Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, chaired by Alexander Alimzhanov, adopted Declaration No. 142-N in connection with the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Relying on the will expressed by the highest state bodies of eleven republics, the Council of Republics stated that with the creation of the Commonwealth the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a state and subject of international law ceased to exist, and proposed that the heads of the independent states consider succession to the Union and its bodies, an interparliamentary body of the Commonwealth, and the ratification, execution and denunciation of the Union's international treaties.45 The institutional structures created by the Cold War, including the CIA, the national security state and the alliance relationships, persisted after its end and shaped the post-Cold War intelligence landscape.7

Footnotes

  1. "Cold War," Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/event/Cold-War ↩︎

  2. Harry S. Truman, "Statement by the President on Announcing the First Atomic Explosion in the U.S.S.R.," September 23, 1949, Public Papers of the Presidents, Harry S. Truman Library. https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/public-papers/216/statement-president-announcing-first-atomic-explosion-ussr ↩︎

  3. Telegram, Chargé in the Soviet Union (Kennan) to the Secretary of State, Moscow, February 22, 1946, 9 p.m., file 861.00/2-2246, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, vol. VI (Washington: GPO), pp. 699 and 706. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1946v06 ↩︎

  4. X [George F. Kennan], "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," Foreign Affairs 25 (July 1947): 566-582. Text as reproduced at https://worldjpn.net/documents/texts/docs/19470700.O1E.html ↩︎

  5. Harry S. Truman, "Special Message to the Congress on Greece and Turkey: The Truman Doctrine," March 12, 1947, Public Papers of the Presidents, Harry S. Truman Library. https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/public-papers/56/special-message-congress-greece-and-turkey-truman-doctrine ↩︎

  6. National Security Act of 1947, Pub. L. 80-253, approved July 26, 1947, 61 Stat. 495, sec. 102(a) and (d)(5). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-61/pdf/STATUTE-61-Pg495.pdf ↩︎

  7. Weiner, Tim. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. Doubleday, 2007. ↩︎

  8. NSC 4-A, "Psychological Operations," approved December 17, 1947, transmitted in Souers to Hillenkoetter, December 17, 1947, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945-1950, Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment, Document 257, pp. 650-651, para. 2. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945-50Intel ↩︎

  9. National Security Council Directive on Office of Special Projects (NSC 10/2), Washington, June 18, 1948, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945-1950, Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment, Document 292, pp. 714-715, paras. 5 and 6. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945-50Intel ↩︎

  10. Foreign Assistance Act of 1974, Pub. L. 93-559, sec. 32, December 30, 1974, 88 Stat. 1795, 1804 (adding sec. 662, "Limitation on Intelligence Activities," to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961; formerly 22 U.S.C. 2422, repealed by Pub. L. 102-88, Aug. 14, 1991). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-88/pdf/STATUTE-88-Pg1795.pdf ↩︎

  11. "A Report to the National Security Council by the Executive Secretary (Lay)," NSC 68, April 14, 1950, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, vol. I, Document 85, p. 238. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1950v01 ↩︎

  12. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950-1955, The Intelligence Community, Document 60, Editorial Note on the Psychological Strategy Board, pp. 120-121. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1950-55Intel/d60 ↩︎

  13. "Report of Meetings of Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects Convened by Office of Scientific Intelligence, CIA, January 14-18, 1953," CIA-RDP81R00560R000100030027-0 (CIA Reading Room); the same report as CIA-UAP-002 on The Black Vault, where the quoted passage is on printed page 20 (PDF page 30), checked against the page image; signature block (Berkner, Robertson, Chairman, Alvarez, Goudsmit, Page); Tab B, "Evidence Reviewed," item 2. https://documents3.theblackvault.com/documents/UFOFiles/pdf/CIA-UAP-002_Scientific-Advisory-Panel-on-Unidentified-Flying-Objects_Report_1952-1953.pdf ↩︎

  14. "Report on the Covert Activities of the Central Intelligence Agency," Special Study Group, transmitted under a letter of September 30, 1954, CIA-RDP86B00269R000100040001-5 (CIA Reading Room), including Eisenhower to Doolittle, July 26, 1954 (Appendix A); the passage quoted is in the Introduction, pp. 2-3 of the report. Also printed as "Report by the Special Study Group," Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950-1955, Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment, Document 192, pp. 542-543. https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP86B00269R000100040001-5 and https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1950-55Intel ↩︎

  15. National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 28, Iran Declassification Project, posted November 29, 2000, excerpting the CIA history of TPAJAX by Donald Wilber (March 1954). https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB28/ ↩︎

  16. Editorial Note, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, vol. X (Cuba, January 1961-September 1962), Document 112, p. 258. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v10 ↩︎

  17. National Security Archive, Operation Condor briefing, November 26, 2025, describing the November 25, 1975 Santiago meeting. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/southern-cone/2025-11-26/operation-condor-network-transnational-repression-50-years ↩︎

  18. Memorandum, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (International Security Affairs) for the Office of Special Assistant for Vietnamese Affairs, CIA, "The Geneva Conventions and the Phoenix Program," August 1971 (stating that "On 19 July 1971, Ambassador William E. Colby appeared before the House Subcommittee on Foreign Operations and Government Information to testify concerning CORDS operations in South Vietnam"), CIA-RDP80R01720R001100060018-1; House Committee on Government Operations, U.S. Assistance Programs in Vietnam, 92d Cong., 2d Sess. (committee print of the report, September 1972, "Hold until release date approved by full committee"), CIA-RDP74B00415R000200100010-4, p. 1 (hearings held in Washington on July 15, 16, 19, 21 and August 2, 1971). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp74b00415r000200100010-4 ↩︎

  19. U.S. Assistance Programs in Vietnam, House Committee on Government Operations report, 1972, CIA-RDP74B00415R000200100010-4, pp. 33 (Osborn), 34 (20,587 figure), 39 (committee concern); the report's text on Osborn's contradiction of Colby's testimony is at p. 30. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp74b00415r000200100010-4 ↩︎

  20. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, S. Prt. 100-165, 100th Cong., 2d Sess. (December 1988), Introduction ("Origins and Methodology") and ch. 2, "Narcotics Traffickers and the Contras," p. 36. https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras ↩︎

  21. Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, S. Prt. 100-165, p. 43 (SETCO Air, DIACSA, Frigorificos de Puntarenas, Vortex; NHAO and GAO screening statements). https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras ↩︎

  22. Summary of Conclusions of a Special Coordination Committee Meeting, June 26, 1979, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, vol. XII, Afghanistan, Document 53, pp. 155-157 and footnote 5 at p. 157 (the two Presidential Findings of July 3, 1979). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v12 ↩︎

  23. Memorandum From Director of Central Intelligence Turner to the Chairman of the Special Coordination Committee, February 21, 1980, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, vol. XII, Afghanistan, Document 214, p. 593. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v12 ↩︎

  24. Minutes of a National Security Council Meeting, December 28, 1979, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, vol. XII, Afghanistan, Document 107, p. 302 and footnote 6. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v12 ↩︎

  25. Project MKULTRA, the CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification, Joint Hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, U.S. Senate, 95th Cong., 1st Sess., August 3, 1977, prepared statement of Admiral Stansfield Turner, p. 4. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/hearings/95mkultra.pdf ↩︎

  26. Project MKULTRA, the CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification, August 3, 1977, Turner statement, pp. 5-6 (149 subprojects; categories 1 and 13). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/hearings/95mkultra.pdf ↩︎

  27. Project MKULTRA, the CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification, August 3, 1977, statement of Senator Kennedy, p. 3. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/hearings/95mkultra.pdf ↩︎

  28. Project MKULTRA, the CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification, August 3, 1977, Turner statement, pp. 4-5. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/hearings/95mkultra.pdf ↩︎

  29. Commissione parlamentare d'inchiesta sul terrorismo in Italia e sulle cause della mancata individuazione dei responsabili delle stragi (established by law 17 May 1988, n. 172), Relazione sull'inchiesta condotta sulle vicende connesse all'operazione Gladio, Doc. XXIII n. 51, approved April 14-15, 1992, pp. 29-30 (chap. 3.5, "La pubblicizzazione e lo scioglimento di Gladio": Chamber session of August 2, 1990 and Andreotti's hearing of August 3, 1990). Translated from the Italian. https://www.parlamento.it/service/PDF/PDFServer/BGT/909971.pdf ↩︎

  30. Doc. XXIII n. 51, pp. 12-13 (contradiction between the August 3 declaration and the October 18, 1990 document), p. 30 (document of October 18, 1990, circular of August 8, 1990, dissolution of November 27, 1990) and p. 38 (chap. 6, Conclusioni). Translated from the Italian. https://www.parlamento.it/service/PDF/PDFServer/BGT/909971.pdf ↩︎

  31. Camera dei deputati, X Legislatura, Discussioni, seduta del 24 ottobre 1990 (no. 537), Resoconto stenografico, pp. 71561-71562 (statement of the President of the Council Andreotti and exchange with Deputies Staiti di Cuddia delle Chiuse and Bellocchio). Translated from the Italian. https://legislature.camera.it/_dati/leg10/lavori/stenografici/sed0537/sed0537.pdf ↩︎

  32. European Parliament, joint resolution replacing B3-2021, 2058, 2068, 2078 and 2087/90, "Resolution on the Gladio affair," November 22, 1990, Official Journal of the European Communities C 324, December 24, 1990, pp. 201-202. English text as reproduced at https://www.statewatch.org/statewatch-database/gladio-resolution-of-the-european-parliament (Wayback copy); German text of the Official Journal at https://www.cloeser.org/ext/Gladio-Entschlie%DFung_des_EP_von_1990.pdf ↩︎

  33. National Archives, Interagency Working Group, Record Group 330, Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency and Foreign Scientist Case Files 1945-1958 (Entry A1-1B), boxes 1-186. https://www.archives.gov/iwg/declassified-records/rg-330-defense-secretary ↩︎

  34. John D. LaMothe, Controlled Offensive Behavior, USSR, DIA ST-CS-01-169-72, July 1972, CIA-RDP96-00787R000100120001-9 and CIA-RDP96-00792R000600360001-2. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000100120001-9 ↩︎

  35. Harold E. Puthoff, Russell Targ, Edwin C. May and Ingo Swann, "Advanced Threat Technique Assessment," final report covering April 18, 1977 to April 15, 1978, SRI International, October 1978, CIA-RDP96-00787R000500150001-2 (reference 6, "Controlled Offensive Behavior (U)," DIA Document No. ST-CS-01-169-72). https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000500150001-2 ↩︎

  36. CENTER LANE Information Papers, March 7, 1985, CIA-RDP96-00788R000400060001-2, including the papers "CENTER LANE Approval History" (TAGPA-F-SD, 10 Oct 84), paragraphs 2 and following, and the letter of Major General Albert N. Stubblebine, Commanding General, INSCOM, to Major General W. E. Odom, Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, "GRILL FLAME," December 1982. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r000400060001-2 ↩︎

  37. "Proposed Star Gate Management Strategy," CIA, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000100150002-0, sec. I.A and I.B. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00791r000100150002-0 ↩︎

  38. CIA Office of Research and Development, working paper ORD-374-95, "Star Gate - Program Status and Proposed Response to Richard D'Amato," June 7, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000100160002-9, para. 2 (reasons a to c). https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00791r000100160002-9 ↩︎

  39. Michael D. Mumford, Andrew M. Rose and David A. Goslin, An Evaluation of Remote Viewing: Research and Applications, American Institutes for Research, September 29, 1995, Executive Summary, pp. E-4 and E-5, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200180006-4. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00791r000200180006-4 ↩︎

  40. "STAR GATE" briefing slides ("Blue-Ribbon Panel"; "Proposed Management Strategy"), CIA-RDP96-00791R000200080001-8. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00791r000200080001-8 ↩︎

  41. CIA Director of Research and Development to Executive Director, memorandum ORD-0520-95, "Star Gate - Final Response to CDA," September 27, 1995, paras. 3 and 4, CIA-RDP96-00791R000100150004-8. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00791r000100150004-8 ↩︎

  42. President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, "The Soviet 'War Scare,'" February 15, 1990, as quoted in the appendix to the editorial note, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981-1988, vol. IV, pp. 1421 (first, second and SNIE quotations) and 1434 (PFIAB page ix, "critical defect" passage). https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/documents/1%20FRUS%20Appendix.pdf ↩︎

  43. "Joint Press Conference of President Bush and Chairman Gorbachev at the Malta Summit," December 3, 1989, transcript from the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library, as reproduced by World History Commons. https://worldhistorycommons.org/joint-press-conference-president-bush-and-chairman-gorbachev-malta-summit ↩︎

  44. Mikhail Gorbachev, resignation address, December 25, 1991, English translation as reproduced by World History Commons (CC BY 4.0). https://worldhistorycommons.org/mikhail-gorbachevs-resignation-speech ↩︎

  45. Declaration of the Council of Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR No. 142-N, "in connection with the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States," December 26, 1991, signed by the Chairman of the Council of Republics A. Alimzhanov, Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR 1991, no. 52, item 1561 (operative sentence: "с созданием Содружества Независимых Государств Союз ССР как государство и субъект международного права прекращает свое существование"). Translated from the Russian. http://vedomosti.sssr.su/1991/52/#1561 ↩︎