Description
This work is a study of presidential employments of covert action as a foreign policy tool during six presidential administrations from Kennedy through Reagan. It offers the reader brief accounts of covert operations undertaken by the American intelligence community during the critical period from 1961 to 1989. The accounts examine and illustrate the evolving nature of the relationship between the American presidency and the burgeoning intelligence community during the middle to late Cold War era. Much of the analysis focuses on the recurring tension between presidential efforts to subordinate and control the intelligence community and the centrifugal forces of bureaucratic politics which led the key agencies of the community to seek larger roles and more important positions within the executive policy making process. Between 1961 and 1989, both the presidency and the intelligence community faced significant challenges from within both their political and policy environments. This work analyzes how these challenges combined with the Cold War international environment to motivate some of the most controversial and dangerous employments of covert action in the history of Americas secret foreign policy.
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