A new intelligence director's diary: President truman, a young JFK, Ho Chi Minh's ‘Beheading’, and other challenges

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Notes

1 The document can be found in the CIA Records Electronic Search Tool (CREST), National Archives, College Park, MD, using the search term ‘diary’.

2 Hillenkoetter pushed the Air Force to improve capabilities to detect a future Soviet test explosion of an A-bomb. While CIA failed to warn Truman or Congress that the Soviets would do a test in 1949, the intelligence establishment was able to inform policymakers after such a test occurred in August of that year. See David M. Barrett, The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas 2005) pp.51–63; Jeffrey T. Richelson, Spying on the Bomb: American Nuclear Intelligence from Nazi Germany to Iran and North Korea (NY: Norton 2006) pp.73–93.

3 Pforzheimer handled CIG and then CIA's legislative liaison until 1956.

4 Bolton was a Republican member of the House, 1940–69, and its Committee on Foreign Affairs. Periodically, she showed a lively, critical interest in the CIA. It was common for CIA to brief legislators prior to foreign travels and to de-brief them after their return. Infrequently, the Agency would send its personnel to accompany legislators abroad, as in the Bolton case.

5 Houston served as Legal Counsel for the CIA from its founding until 1973. Sometimes he also dealt with legislative and press relations. From CIA's first year, Hillenkoetter and aides actively tried to shape press coverage. See Barrett, CIA and Congress, p.49.