Limit CIA Role To Intelligence by Harry S Truman, Washington Post, 12/22/63 (2024)

INDEPENDENCE, MO., Dec. 21—I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purposeand operations of our Central Intelligence Agency—CIA. Atleast, I would like to submit here the original reason why Ithought it necessary to organize this Agency during my Administration,what I expected it to do and how it was to operate as an armof the President.

I think it is fairly obvious that byand large a President's performance in office is as effectiveas the information he has and the information he gets. That isto say, that assuming the President himself possesses a knowledgeof our history, a sensitive understanding of our institutions,and an insight into the needs and aspirations of the people,he needs to have available to him the most accurate and up-to-the-minuteinformation on what is going on everywhere in the world, andparticularly of the trends and developments in all the dangerspots in the contest between East and West. This is an immensetask and requires a special kind of an intelligence facility.

Of course, every President has availableto him all the information gathered by the many intelligenceagencies already in existence. The Departments of State, Defense,Commerce, Interior and others are constantly engaged in extensiveinformation gathering and have done excellent work.

But their collective information reachedthe President all too frequently in conflicting conclusions.At times, the intelligence reports tended to be slanted to conformto established positions of a given department. This becomesconfusing and what's worse, such intelligence is of little useto a President in reaching the right decisions.

Therefore, I decided to set up a specialorganization charged with the collection of all intelligencereports from every available source, and to have those reportsreach me as President without department “treatment”or interpretations.

I wanted and needed the information inits “natural raw” state and in as comprehensive a volumeas it was practical for me to make full use of it. But the mostimportant thing about this move was to guard against the chanceof intelligence being used to influence or to lead the Presidentinto unwise decisions—and I thought it was necessary thatthe President do his own thinking and evaluating.

Since the responsibility for decisionmaking was his—then he had to be sure that no informationis kept from him for whatever reason at the discretion of anyone department or agency, or that unpleasant facts be kept fromhim. There are always those who would want to shield a Presidentfrom bad news or misjudgments to spare him from being “upset.”

For some time I have been disturbed bythe way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. Ithas become an operational and at times a policy-making arm ofthe Government. This has led to trouble and may have compoundedour difficulties in several explosive areas.

I never had any thought that when I setup the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak anddagger operations. Some of the complications and embarrassmentI think we have experienced are in part attributable to the factthat this quiet intelligence arm of the President has been soremoved from its intended role that it is being interpreted asa symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue—anda subject for cold war enemy propaganda.

With all the nonsense put out by Communistpropaganda about “Yankee imperialism,” “exploitivecapitalism,” “war-mongering,” “monopolists,”in their name-calling assault on the West, the last thing weneeded was for the CIA to be seized upon as something akin toa subverting influence in the affairs of other people.

I well knew the first temporary directorof the CIA, Adm. Souers, and the later permanent directors ofthe CIA, Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg and Allen Dulles. These were menof the highest character, patriotism and integrity—and Iassume this is true of all those who continue in charge.

But there are now some searching questionsthat need to be answered. I, therefore, would like to see theCIA be restored to its original assignment as the intelligencearm of the President, and that whatever else it can properlyperform in that special field—and that its operational dutiesbe terminated or properly used elsewhere.

We have grown up as a nation, respectedfor our free institutions and for our ability to maintain a freeand open society. There is something about the way the CIA hasbeen functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic positionand I feel that we need to correct it.

Copyright © 1963 by Harry S Truman
Reprinted for Fair Use Only.