The CIA and congressional oversight: learning and forgetting lessons

Abstract

Organizations both learn lessons and forget lessons. A lesson said to be learned by the CIA as a result of the negative reaction of congressional overseers to its interrogation program was the need to create opportunities to provide information and interact with them. The historical record shows that this was a lesson already learned. Why then the need to relearn it? It is suggested here that organizational forgetfulness may be triggered by the same factors which promote learning: perceived problems with organizational performance, opportunities to act, and people.

Notes

1. Mazzett and Apizzo, “Deep Support in Washington.”

2. Ackerman, “Inisde the Fight.”

3. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “Executive Summary.”

4. Schulberg and Peck, ‘Biggest Lies the CIA Told Congress.’

5. PBS Newshour, “CIA Leaked False Information.”

6. Hall and Deardorff, “Lobbying as Legislative Subsidy,” 69–84.

7. Wood and Waterman, Bureaucratic Dynamic, 147.

8. McCubbins and Schwartz, “Congressional Oversight Overlooked,” 165–179.

9. Ibid., 315.

10. Barrett, The CIA and Congress, 251–61.

11. Ibid., 231.

12. Colby and Forbath, Honorable Men, 345.

13. Snider, The Agency and the Hill, 81.

14. Ibid., 375.

15. Ibid., 325.

16. CNN, “CIA Caught Off Guard.”.

17. Snider, The Agency and the Hill, 126.

18. Maury, “CIA and Congress.”

19. Barrett, The CIA and Congress, 156–7.

20. Snider, The Agency and the Hill, 173.

21. Smist, Jr., Congress Oversees, 6.

22. Barrett, The CIA and Congress, 231.

23. Snider, 16.

24. Ibid., 155.

25. Jeffrey-Jones, The CIA & American Democracy, 159.

26. Snider, The Agency and the Hill, 93.

27. Ibid., 125.

28. Colby and Forbath, Honorable Men, 311.

29. Ibid., 128–9.

30. Barrett, The CIA and Congress, 376.

31. Ibid., 375–76.

32. Snider, The Agency and the Hill, 118.

33. Colby and Forbath, Honorable Men, 357–58.

34. Ibid., 18.

35. Ibid., 223.

36. Smist Jr., Congress Oversees, 5.

37. Hathaway and Smith, Richard Helms, 60.

38. Snider, The Agency and the Hill, 116.

39. Ibid.,167.

40. Ibid., 41.

41. Barrett, The CIA and Congress, 63.

42. Snider, The Agency and the Hill, 20.

43. Barrett, The CIA and Congress, 388.

44. Snider, The Agency and the Hill, 18–19.

45. Ibid., 99.

46. Smist, Jr., Congress Oversees, 60–180.

47. Colby and Forbath, Honorable Men, 16.

48. Ibid., 99.

49. Smist, Jr., 111.

50. Johson, Secret Agencies, 58.

51. Hedberg, “How Organizations Learn and Unlearn”, 3–27; and Nicander, “Understanding Intelligence Community Innovation,” 534–568.

52. Lovell, “Lessons of U.S. Military Involvements,” 134.

53. Hedberg, “How Organizations Learn and Unlearn,” 18.

54. Whitelaw, “CIA’s use of contractors.”