The United States has carried out intelligence activities since the days of George Washington, but only since World War II have they been coordinated on a government-wide basis. President .Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed New York lawyer and war hero, William J. Donovan, to become first the Coordinator of Information, and then, after the US entered World War II, head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in 1942. The OSS – the forerunner to the CIA – had a mandate to collect and analyze strategic information. After World War II, however, the OSS was abolished along with many other war agencies and its functions were transferred to the State and War Departments.
It did not take long before President Truman recognized the need for a postwar, centralized intelligence organization. To make a fully functional intelligence office, Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 establishing the CIA. The National Security Act charged the CIA with coordinating the nation’s intelligence activities and correlating, evaluating and disseminating intelligence affecting national security.
On December 17, 2004, President George W. Bush signed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act which restructured the Intelligence Community by abolishing the position of Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) and Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (DDCI) and creating the position the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (D/CIA). The Act also created the position of Director of National Intelligence (DNI), which oversees the Intelligence Community and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC).
The CIA is an independent agency responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior US policymakers. The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (D/CIA) is nominated by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate. The Director manages the operations, personnel, and budget of the Central Intelligence Agency.
The CIA is separated into five basic components: the Directorate of Operations, the Directorate of Analysis, the Directorate of Science & Technology, the Directorate of Support, and the Directorate of Digital Innovation. They carry out “the intelligence cycle,” the process of collecting, analyzing, and disseminating intelligence information to top US government officials.
In addition, the D/CIA has several staffs that deal with public affairs, human resources, protocol, congressional affairs, legal issues, information management, and internal oversight.
The CIA is responsible for providing intelligence on a wide range of national security issues to senior US policymakers. The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (D/CIA) is nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The Director manages the operations, personnel and budget of the Central Intelligence Agency and acts as the National Human Source Intelligence (HUMINT) Manager. Overview of CIA’s Organization
The CIA is separated into five basic components. They carry out “the intelligence cycle,” the process of collecting, analyzing, and disseminating intelligence information to top US government officials.
The Directorate of Operations (DO) has responsibility for the clandestine collection of foreign intelligence, primarily human source intelligence (HUMINT).
The DO serves as the national authority for coordination, de-confliction, and evaluation of clandestine HUMINT operations across the Intelligence Community, consistent with existing laws, executive orders, and interagency agreements. The DO is the front-line source of clandestine intelligence on critical international developments ranging from terrorism and weapons proliferation to military and political issues. To gather this important intelligence, CIA operations officers live and work overseas to establish and maintain networks and personal relationships with foreign “assets” in the field.

The Directorate of Analysis (DA) analyzes all-source intelligence and produces reports, briefings, and papers on key foreign intelligence issues. This information comes from a variety of sources and methods, including US personnel overseas, agent reports, satellite photography, foreign media, and sophisticated sensors.
The DA is responsible for timeliness, accuracy, and relevance of intelligence analysis that is of concern to national security policymakers and other intelligence consumers. While the CIA does not make foreign policy, our analysis of intelligence on overseas developments feeds into the informed decisions by policymakers and other senior decision makers in the national security and defense arenas.
The Directorate of Science and Technology (DS&T) accesses, collects, and exploits information to facilitate the execution of the Agency’s mission by applying innovative, scientific, engineering, and technical solutions to the most critical intelligence problems. The DS&T incorporates over 50 different disciplines ranging from computer programmers and engineers to scientists and analysts. The DS&T partners with many other organizations in the Intelligence Community, using best practices to foster creative thinking and working level coordination. The DS&T continually seeks to push the boundaries of the state-of-the-art, infusing cutting-edge technologies with effective targeting and tradecraft.
The Directorate of Support (DS) provides support that is critical to the Agency's intelligence mission. The DS delivers a full range of support, including: facilities services, financial management, medical services, logistics, and the security of Agency personnel, information, facilities and technology.
DS services are international in focus, clandestine in nature, and offered on a 24/7 basis. Its responsibilities extend well beyond the CIA, into the greater Intelligence Community.
The Directorate of Digital Innovation (DDI) is the Agency’s newest Directorate focused on accelerating innovation across the Agency’s mission activities with cutting-edge digital and cyber tradecraft and IT infrastructure. The DDI will be the powerful engine of creativity, integration, and rigor that CIA needs in the digital age, ensuring that the culture, tradecraft, and knowledge management across the board are more than equal to the challenges and opportunities of the rapidly changing world in which the Agency operates.
The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (D/CIA) has several staffs directly subordinate to him that deal with acquisitions, communications, public affairs, human resources, protocol, congressional affairs, legal issues, information management and technology, strategic resource management, and internal oversight.
CIA’s primary mission is to collect, analyze, evaluate, and disseminate foreign intelligence to assist the President and senior US government policymakers in making decisions relating to national security. This is a very complex process and involves a variety of steps.
First, we have to identify a problem or an issue of national security concern to the US government. In some cases, CIA is directed to study an intelligence issue—such as what activities terrorist organizations are planning, or how countries that have biological or chemical weapons plan to use these weapons—then we look for a way to collect information about the problem.
There are several ways to collect information. Translating foreign newspaper and magazine articles and radio and television broadcasts provides open-source intelligence. Imagery satellites take pictures from space, and imagery analysts write reports about what they see–for example, how many airplanes are at a foreign military base. Signals analysts work to decrypt coded messages sent by other countries. Operations officers recruit foreigners to give information about their countries.
After the information is collected, intelligence analysts pull together the relevant information from all available sources and assess what is happening, why it is happening, what might occur next, and what it means for US interests. The result of this analytic effort is timely and objective assessments, free of any political bias, provided to senior US policymakers in the form of finished intelligence products that include written reports and oral briefings. One of these reports is the President’s Daily Brief (PDB), an Intelligence Community product, which the US president and other senior officials receive each day.
It is important to know that CIA analysts only report the information and do not make policy recommendations—making policy is left to agencies such as the State Department and Department of Defense. These policymakers use the information that CIA provides to help them formulate US policy toward other countries. It is also important to know that CIA is not a law enforcement organization. That is the job of the FBI; however, the CIA and the FBI cooperate on a number of issues, such as counterintelligence and counterterrorism. Additionally, the CIA may also engage in covert action at the President’s direction and in accordance with applicable law.
The US Congress has had oversight responsibility of the CIA since the Agency was established in 1947. However, prior to the mid-1970’s, oversight was less formal. The 1980 Intelligence Oversight Act charged the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) with authorizing the programs of the intelligence agencies and overseeing their activities.
Vision
CIA’s information, insights, and actions consistently provide tactical and strategic advantage for the United States.
Mission
Preempt threats and further US national security objectives by collecting intelligence that matters, producing objective all-source analysis, conducting effective covert action as directed by the President, and safeguarding the secrets that help keep our Nation safe.
Ethos
The officers of the CIA are guided by a professional ethos that is the sum of our abiding principles, core values, and highest aspirations. This ethos holds us on course as we exercise the extraordinary influence and authorities with which we have been entrusted to protect the Nation and advance its interests. CIA’s ethos has many dimensions, including: * Service. We put Nation first, Agency before unit, and mission before self. We take pride in being agile, responsive, and consequential. * Integrity. We uphold the highest standards of lawful conduct. We are truthful and forthright, and we provide information and analysis without institutional or political bias. We maintain the Nation’s trust through accountability and oversight. * Excellence. We bring the best of who we are to everything we do. We are self aware, reflecting on our performance and learning from it. We strive to give our officers the tools, experiences, and leadership they need to excel. * Courage. We accomplish difficult, high-stakes, often dangerous tasks. In executing mission, we carefully manage risk but we do not shy away from it. We value sacrifice and honor our fallen. * Teamwork. We stand by and behind one another. Collaboration, both internal and external, underpins our best outcomes. Diversity and inclusion are mission imperatives. * Stewardship. We preserve our ability to obtain secrets by protecting sources and methods from the moment we enter on duty until our last breath.
Key Challenges * Close intelligence gaps with enhanced collection and analysis on the countries, non-state actors, and issues most critical to the President and senior national security team. * Fulfill our global mission to give customers decision advantage as they confront an unprecedented volume and diversity of worldwide developments that affect US interests. * Leverage technological advances for better performance in all mission areas—collection, analysis, covert action, and counterintelligence—while protecting against technological threats to the security of our information, operations, and officers. * Improve the ways we attract, develop, and retain talent to maximize each CIA officer’s potential to contribute to achieving mission. * Better manage Agency resources during a period of fiscal austerity
The need for more comprehensive basic intelligence in the postwar world was well expressed in 1946 by George S. Pettee, a noted author on national security. He wrote in The Future of American Secret Intelligence (Infantry Journal Press, 1946, page 46) that world leadership in peace requires even more elaborate intelligence than in war. "The conduct of peace involves all countries, all human activities - not just the enemy and his war production." The three types of finished intelligence are: basic, current, and estimative. Basic intelligence provides the fundamental and factual reference material on a country or issue. Current intelligence reports on new developments. Estimative intelligence judges probable outcomes. The three are mutually supportive: basic intelligence is the foundation on which the other two are constructed; current intelligence continually updates the inventory of knowledge; and estimative intelligence revises overall interpretations of country and issue prospects for guidance of basic and current intelligence. The World Factbook, The President's Daily Brief, and the National Intelligence Estimates are examples of the three types of finished intelligence.The United States has carried on foreign intelligence activities since the days of George Washington but only since World War II have they been coordinated on a government-wide basis. Three programs have highlighted the development of coordinated basic intelligence since that time: (1) the Joint Army Navy Intelligence Studies (JANIS), (2) the National Intelligence Survey (NIS), and (3)The World Factbook.During World War II, intelligence consumers realized that the production of basic intelligence by different components of the US Government resulted in a great duplication of effort and conflicting information. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 brought home to leaders in Congress and the executive branch the need for integrating departmental reports to national policymakers. Detailed and coordinated information was needed not only on such major powers as Germany and Japan, but also on places of little previous interest. In the Pacific Theater, for example, the Navy and Marines had to launch amphibious operations against many islands about which information was unconfirmed or nonexistent. Intelligence authorities resolved that the United States should never again be caught unprepared |