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ABSTRACT
Despite its portrayal as something new, the concept of the ‘gray zone’ is not novel. It was the Cold War battleground in which the USA and the Soviet Union waged rival unconventional campaigns, and it was there that the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was given responsibility for operating. This was not the organization’s original purpose, but Cold War exigencies forced Washington to improvise and build an organization with unique capabilities. These early years shaped the CIA’s operations directorate, creating two distinct cultures within the larger agency, one focused on intelligence collection and the other focused on covert action.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. The views portrayed in the article are the author’s own and do not reflect official policy or position of the DoD, CIA, or any other United States Government organization.
Notes
1. Barno and Bensahel, “Fighting and Winning in the Gray Zone.”; Mazarr. Mastering the Gray Zone.; and John Chambers, “Owning the Gray Zone.”
2. For a view highlighting the long history of the challenge, see Brands, “Paradoxes of the Gray Zone.”
3. Freier, Outplayed.
4. Mazarr, Mastering the Gray Zone, 10–33.
5. See Klehr, Spies.
6. See Weinstein and Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood..
7. See Healey, “The Cominform and World Communism, 339–49.”
8. Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer, 70.; Stonor Saunder, The Cultural Cold War.
9. Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer, 100; Saunder, The Cultural Cold War, 18.
10. Stuart. Creating the National Security Stat, 7..
11. Mazarr, Mastering the Gray Zone, 43.
12. United States Department of Defense, DoD Dictionary of Military.DoD defines Unconventional Warfare-Activities as those conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary, and guerrilla force in a denied area. DoD defines Irregular Warfare as a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations.
13. Zegart. Flawed by Design, 185
14. Stuart. Creating the National Security State, 265.
15. Immerman, The Hidden Hand, 20-21.; and Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer.also provides a rich background on the rise of covert operations within the CIA. One of the best books on the history of CIA covert action is Executive Secrets: Covert Action and the Presidency, by William J. Daugherty, a scholar and former CIA officer who was also one of the Iranian hostages. He writes about this experience in his book, In the Shadow of the Ayatollah: A CIA Hostage in Iran.
16. Donovan to Roosevelt, 18 November 1944, in “The Donovan Plan for the Establishment.” ; and Perisco, Roosevelt’s Secret War, 64.
17. Alvarez and Mark, Spying Through a Glass Darkly, 12.
18. Rearden, Council of War, 11. The JSSC was created in November 1942 as “an elite advisory body dedicated to long-range planning,”.
19. U.S. Joint Strategic Survey Committee, “Report by the Joint Strategic Survey Committee to the JCS on JCS 1181 and JIC 239/5.” . The JSSC position was supported by the Lovett Committee, which was tasked by the Secretary of War in November 1945 to review the “foreign intelligence activities of the Nation and of the War Department.” See https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945-50Intel/pg_71 (accessed 21 November 2017) for more information.
20. Perisco, Roosevelt’s Secret War, 64.
21. Douglas Waller, Wild Bill Donovan, 321.; and Schroeder, The Foundation of the CIA: Harry Truman, 195–198.
22. Truman, “Executive Order No. 9621 “Termination of OSS and Disposition of Functions”.
23. Alvarez and Mark, Spying Through a Glass Darkly, 16–17.
24. Gaddis, Strategies of Containment. 10.
25. Hamby, “Harry S. Truman: Foreign Affairs.” ; and Stalin, “Meetings of Voters of the Stalin Electoral District.”
26. Gaddis, George F. Kennan, 217–218.
27. Kennan, “George Kennan to George Marshall.” . Part Four of Kennan’s ‘Long Telegram’ described the Soviet Union’s use of covert methods as part of their overall strategy. According to Kennan, the Soviets not only used fellow communists in other countries but non-governmental organizations to “undermine major western powers” and sow internal discord within Western societies, while “accepting no responsibility’ for these groups.
28. Kennan, “George Kennan to George Marshall,” 218.
29. National Intelligence Authority, National Intelligence Authority Directive. ; and Truman, 1946–1952: Years of Trial., Kindle Location 1568–1572. In his memoirs, Truman stated, “The war taught us this lesson – that we had to collect intelligence in a manner that would make the information available where it was needed and when it was wanted, in an intelligent and understandable form. If it is not intelligent and understandable, it is useless. On becoming President, I found that the needed intelligence information was not coordinated at any one place. Reports came across my desk on the same subject at different times from the various departments, and these reports often conflicted”.
30. National Intelligence Authority, National Intelligence Authority Directive .. The section in question reads, “perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the President and the National Intelligence Authority may from time to time direct.”
31. Schroeder, The Foundation of the CIA: Harry Truman, 195–198.; and Central Intelligence Group, Central Intelligence Group Directive No. 1.
32. Darling, Berkowitz, and Goodman, The Central Intelligence Agency, 116; and “Fortier Committee to the Director of Central Intelligence (Souers).”
33. Alvarez and Mark, Spying Through a Glass Darkly, 24.
34. Ibid., 34.
35. Ibid., 24.
36. Executive Director to the Director of Central Intelligence (Souers), “Functions of the Office of Special Operations.”
37. William M. Leary, The Central Intelligence Agency, 21.; There were other clandestine organizations operating in the immediate aftermath of WWII. For example, the Army’s Special Services Branch “The Pond” was conducting clandestine collection activities and passing the information to elements within the State Department. See Alvarez and Marks’ book Spying Through a Glass Darkly, 28.
38. U.S. Congress, The National Security Act of 1947.
39. Stuart, Creating the National Security State, 230; and National Security Council, National Security Council Intelligence Directive No. 5.
40. Alvarez and Mark, Spying Through a Glass Darkly, 30; and Executive Director to the Director of Central Intelligence (Souers), “Functions of the Office of Special Operations.”
41. Truman, “Address Before a Joint Session of Congress.”
42. Gaddis, George F. Kennan: An American Life, 265–267.
43. Darling et al., The Central Intelligence Agency, 245.
44. Pisani, The CIA and the Marshal Plan, 68. The author makes clear policymakers understood that the Marshall Plan had to be coordinated with efforts to counter Soviet psychological operations.
45. Ad Hoc Subcommittee of the State-Army-Navy-Air Force Coordinating Committee, SANACC 304/11.
46. Souers, Executive Secretary (Souers) to the Members of the National Security Council.; and Central Intelligence Agency, “Coordination and Policy Approval of Covert Operations.”
47. Darling, et al., The Central Intelligence Agency, 245.
48. Gaddis, George F. Kennan: An American Life, 317.
49. Department of State Office of the Historian, U.S. Covert Actions. NSC 10/2 assigned CIA responsibility for “propaganda; economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberations groups, and support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in threatened countries of the free world. Such operations should not include armed conflict by recognized military forces, espionage, counter-espionage, and cover and deception for military operations.”
50. Central Intelligence Agency,“Coordination and Policy Approval.”
51. Gaddis, George F. Kennan: An American Life, 317; Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer, 27.
52. From National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Records of the Department of State.; and Department of State Briefing Memorandum, “Coordination of Foreign Measures (NSC 4) Psychological Operations (NSC 4-A).”
53. Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer, 27.
54. Ibid., 7.
55. Ibid., 27.
56. Elizabeth Edwards Spalding, The First Cold Warrior, 165–169. According to Spalding, NSC 20/1 also provided guidance, but focused on Russia and not the entire Soviet Union; and Gaddis, George F. Kennan: An American Life, 326–327.
57. Gaddis, George F. Kennan: An American Life, 318 and 326–327.
58. Thompson, The Hawk and the Dove, 107–113..
59. Executive Secretary of the National Security Council, United States Objectives and Programs.
60. Dulles and Correa Committee, The Central Intelligence Agency. The NSC asked the Committee to investigate: “a) The adequacy and effectiveness of the present organizational structure of the CIA; b) The value and efficiency of existing CIA activities; c) The relationship of these activities to those of other Departments and Agencies; d) The utilization and qualifications of CIA personnel.”; and Kinzer, The Brothers.
61. The committee understood the need for covert action to be informed by foreign intelligence collection, but it is uncertain if they also appreciated the friction that would arise with having these two missions within the same organization.
62. Darling, et al., The Central Intelligence Agency, 412; and Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer, 46.
63. Central Intelligence Agency’s Center for the Study of Intelligence, The Creation of the Intelligence Community.
64. Oakley, Subordinating Intelligence., 295.
65. Executive Secretary of the National Security Council, A Report to the National Security Council.
66. Harry S. Truman, Directive Establishing the Psychological Strategy Board.; and Central Intelligence Agency, “Coordination and Policy Approval.” NSC-10/5 slightly changed the “10/2 Panel” by adding a representative from the PSB, thus becoming the “10/5” panel The Eisenhower administration in September 1953 renamed the PSB as the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB) and removed the OCB representative from the panel. NSC 5412 required the DCI to “consult with the OCB and with other government departments and agencies as appropriate to ensure that covert operations with consistent with U.S. polices.” NSC-5412/1 directed that the DCI “consult with the Planning and Coordination Group (PCG) of the OCB and made the PCG the “normal channel for the policy approval of covert actions.” Adjustments were made again in 1957 with NSC-5412/2, when it was made permissible for “sensitive” operations with no “military implication” to be approved “solely by the Secretary of State.”
67. Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer, 153; and Prados, Presidents’ Secret Wars, 108.
68. Houston, “Central Intelligence Agency.”
69. Greenberg, “The Doolittle Commission of 1954.”, 688; Doolittle Commission, Report on the Covert Activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (Washington, D.C., 26 July 1954); available at: https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP86B00269R000100040001-5.pdf (accessed 8 April 2018).
70. Greenberg, “The Doolittle Commission of 1954,” 690; Doolittle Commission, Report on the Covert Activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (Washington, D.C., 26 July 1954); available at: https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP86B00269R000100040001-5.pdf (accessed 8 April 2018).
71. Central Intelligence Agency, Background of Counter-Guerrilla.
72. Kennedy, National Security Action Memorandum No. 2.
73. \ Bissell, Reflections of a Cold Warrior, 149.
74. Ibid, 92.
75. Taylor, Report on General Taylor’s Mission.
76. Counter-Guerrilla Warfare Task Force, Elements of US Strategy to Deal.
77. Kennedy, National Security Action Memorandum No. 124.. Membership included the President’s Military Representative, the Attorney General, the Deputy Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the DCI, the National Security Advisor, and the Administrator for the Agency for International Development.
78. Ahearn, Vietnam Declassified.
79. Douglas Jehl, “2 CIA Reports Offer Warnings on Iraq’s Path.”; and Miller, “CIA Expanding Presence in Afghanistan.”
80. Helms, A Look over My Shoulder.
81. Oakley, Subordinating Intelligence. 295–296.