Huw Dylan

Since its creation in 1947, the CIA has been at the heart of America's security apparatus. It has also been the subject of major national and international controversies, and been subject to accusations of poor performance and failure, most notably over the 9/11 attacks and Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Written by intelligence scholars and experts, this book offers the reader a lively and authoritative survey of the CIA past and present. The history of the agency is presented through the prism of its declassified documents, with each being supplemented by insightful contextual analysis. The book chronicles the evolution of the CIA, its remarkable successes, clandestine operations, and its ongoing struggle to maintain American security in an age of proliferating threats.

Since its creation in 1947, the CIA has been at the heart of America's security apparatus. Written by intelligence scholars and experts, The CIA and the Pursuit of Security offers the reader a lively survey of the CIA past and present. The history of the agency is presented through the prism of its declassified documents, with each being supplemented by insightful contextual analysis. The book chronicles the evolution of the CIA, its remarkable successes, clandestine operations, and its ongoing struggle to maintain American security in an age of proliferating threats.

During the Second World War British intelligence provided politicians and soldiers with invaluable knowledge. Britain was determined to maintain this advantage following victory, but the wartime machinery was uneconomical, unwieldy, and unsuitable for peace. Drawing on oral testimony, international archives, and private papers, Defence Intelligence and the Cold War provides the first history of the hitherto little-known organisation designed to preserve and advance British capability in military and military-related intelligence for the Cold War: the Joint Intelligence Bureau (JIB). Headed by General Eisenhower's wartime intelligence man, Major General Kenneth Strong, the JIB was central to the mission to spy on and understand the Soviet Union, and the broader Communist world. It did so from its creation in 1946 to its end in 1964, when it formed a central component of the new Defence Intelligence Staff. This volume reveals hitherto hidden aspects of Britain's mission to map the Soviet Union for nuclear war, the struggle to understand and contain the economies of the USSR, China, and North Korea in peace and during the Korean War, and the urgent challenge to understand the nature and scale of the Soviet bomber and missile threat in the 1950s and 1960s. The JIB's dedicated work in these fields won it the support of some politicians and military men, but the enmity of others who saw the centralised organisation as a threat to traditional military intelligence. The intelligence officers of the JIB waged Cold War not only with Communist adversaries but also in Whitehall.