Intelligence shocks, media coverage, and congressional accountability, 1947–2012

Abstract

Recent research indicates that most lawmakers rarely engage in intensive intelligence oversight unless a major scandal or failure – a shock – forces them to pay more attention to the dark side of a government. Still, the question remains: what degree of shock is necessary to stir members of the Congress into taking a closer look at the clandestine activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the other fifteen organizations that comprise the US Intelligence Community? This report examines ten major intelligence shocks since the creation of the CIA in 1947 and explores the extent of media coverage associated with each. The findings suggest that the level of media coverage often corresponds with the degree of energetic intelligence oversight exercised by government officials: low oversight if a low level of media coverage, moderate if moderate, and high if high.

Keywords:

• intelligence
• media
• CIA
• oversight
• accountability

Notes

1 On this relationship, see Loch K. Johnson, “Supervising America’s Secret Foreign Policy: A Shock Theory of Congressional Oversight for Intelligence,” in American Foreign Policy in a Globalized World, eds., David P. Forsythe, Patrice C. Mahon, and Andrew Wedeman (New York: Routledge, 2006), 173–92. On the question of intelligence, the media, and oversight, see Claudia Hillebrand, “The Role of News Media in Intelligence Oversight,” Intelligence and National Security 27 (October 2012): 689–706; Robert Dover and Michael S. Goodman, eds., Spinning Intelligence: Why Intelligence Needs the Media, Why the Media Needs Intelligence (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009); Loch K. Johnson, “The CIA and the Media,” Intelligence and National Security 1 (May 1986): 143–69; and Amy B. Zegart, “The Domestic Politics of Irrational Intelligence Oversight,” Political Science Quarterly 126 (Spring 2011): 1–27.

2 Harry H. Ransom, “Secret Intelligence Agencies and Congress,” Society 123 (1975): 38.

3 See Loch K. Johnson, A Season of Inquiry (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1985).

4 See, for example, Christopher J. Deering, “Alarms and Patrols: Legislative Oversight in Foreign and Defense Policy,” in Congress and the Politics of Foreign Policy, ed. C.C. Campbell, N.C. Rae, and J.F. Stack, Jr. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2003), 112–38.

5 David Mayhew, The Electoral Connection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1974).

6 M.D. McCubbins and T. Schwartz, “Congressional Oversight Overlooked: Police Patrols and Fire Alarms,” American Journal of Political Science 28 (1984): 165–79.

7 Quoted by Philip Shenon, “As New ‘Cop on the Beat,’ Congressman Starts Patrol,” New York Times, February 6, 2007), A18.

8 These 10 shock cases strike the author as the most important since the creation of the CIA in 1947. Nonetheless, there is room for disagreement on these choices and one can think of other high-profile intelligence failures that could qualify as contenders, such as the mistaken Agency estimate about the timing of a first Soviet nuclear test in 1949 or, more recently, the scandal related to the CIA’s use of harsh interrogation methods in the context of the Second Persian Gulf War as well as the struggle against a global terrorism. The weakest entry on the list of shocks presented here is the CIA-Watergate case, because it proved not to be much of a scandal; it is included, however, because it was widely received at the time as a potential major shock, had the CIA truly been involved in the cover-up. While the list could vary somewhat, certainly the 10 cases examined here are widely viewed as significant scandals or intelligence failures; and arguable all of the most significant shocks appear on this list.

9 Title VI, Sec. 601, 50 U.S.C. 421; Public law 97–200.

10 Title VII, Intelligence Authorization Act for FY 1999. When the Whistleblowers Protection Act passed, it inadequately covered intelligence community employees. On October 10, 2012, President Barack Obama issued Presidential Policy Direction 19 to provide more comprehensive protections for these potential whistle blowers [see: Joe Davidson, “Obama Issues Whistleblower Directive to Security Agencies,” Washington Post, October 11, 2012, Federal Eye Blog; Thomas F. Gimble, testimony, “National Security Whistleblower Protection,” Hearings, House Committee on Government Reform (February 14, 2006), especially p. 6; and Federation of American Scientists, Secrecy News (Washington, DC: Federation of American Scientists, October 11, 2012). An executive order is no substitute for enduring statutory language, however, and reformers urged the Congress to make the provisions of the order permanent.

11 S. Timmermans and A. Mauck, “The Promises and Pitfalls of Evidence-Based Medicine,” Health Affairs 24 (2005): 18–28.

12 For recent appraisals of the intelligence studies field, see Loch K. Johnson, “The Development of Intelligence Studies,” in The Routledge Companion to Intelligence Studies, ed. Robert Dover, Michael S. Goodman, and Claudia Hillebrand (London: Routledge, 2013), Chapter 1; and Loch K. Johnson and Allison M. Shelton, “Thoughts on the State of Intelligence Studies: A Survey Report,” Intelligence and National Security 28 (February 2013): 109–120.

13 Mike McConnell, Remarks on Lessons from the World of Journalism (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center (November 13, 2007)), cited by David Omand, “Intelligence Secrets and Media Spotlights: Balancing Illumination and Dark Corners,” Spinning Intelligence, ed. Dover and Goodman, 55 (emphasis added). Recent heated congressional attention to the use of drones by the CIA for killing suspected terrorists abroad seems to have been prodded by the extensive news coverage of these paramilitary operations. One media analyst concluded, for example: “The news coverage has finally goosed Congress off the sidelines” [David Carr, “Debating Drones, in the Open,” New York Times, February 11, 2013, B8].

14 This examination of the Korean case draws on David M. Barrett, The CIA and the Congress (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005), 82–9, quotes from pp. 83, 86.

15 On the Bay of Pigs operation, see Peter Wyden, The Bay of Pigs: The Untold Story (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979). Hillebrand refers to several roles the media plays with respect to intelligence oversight, highlighting (as does this piece) “the media as an information transmitter and stimulator for formal scrutinizers” (“The Role of News Media,” 692).

16 Barrett, The CIA and the Congress, 453.

17 Cited in Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence (New York: Knopf, 1974), 52.

18 Barrett, The CIA and the Congress, 455. Unlike Barrett’s book, this study does not count letters to the Times.

19 See Sol Stern, “A Short Account of International Student Politics & the Cold War, with Particular Reference to the NSA, CIA, etc.,” Ramparts (March 1967): 87–97. On the CIA’s ties to domestic organizations in the United States, see Loch K. Johnson, America’s Secret Power: The CIA in a Democratic Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).

20 Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, The Final Days (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976).

21 Samuel Dash, Chief Counsel: Inside the Ervin Committee – The Untold Story of Watergate (New York: Random House 1976), 214.

22 Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, All the President’s Men (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974).

23 Sec. 662(a) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974 (22 U.S.C. 2422).

24 See Frederick A.O. Schwarz Jr. and Aziz Z. Huq, Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power in a Time of Terror (New York: New Press, 2007).

25 See Loch K. Johnson, “Congressional Supervision of America’s Secret Agencies: The Experience and Legacy of the Church Committee,” Public Administration Review 64 (January 2004): 3–14.

26 US Congress, Report on the Iran-Contra Affair, Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition and House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran, S. Rept. 100–216 and House Rept. 100–433 (November 1987).

27 Tower Commission, Report of the President’s Special Review Board (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, February 26, 1987), led by former Senator John Tower (R, Texas).

28 Preparing for the 21st Century: An Appraisal of US Intelligence, Report of the Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the United States Intelligence Community (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, March 1, 1996).

29 US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, Final Report (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, December 2002); and the Kean Commission (led by former GOP governor of New Jersey, Thomas H. Kean), The 9/11 Commission Report, or more formally, Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (New York: Norton, 2004).

30 Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal year 2005, Report 108–558, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, 108th Cong., 2d Sess. (US House of Representatives, June 21, 2004, 23–7.

31 Report of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction.

32 Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (the Roberts Committee), Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq (the Roberts Report), 108th Cong., 2nd Sess. (US Senate, July 7, 2003).

33 Remark, Bill Keller, managing editor of the New York Times, interviewed by Terry Gross, “FreshAir,” National Public Radio, February 1, 2011.

34 James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, “Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts,” New York Times, December 16, 2005: A1.

35 James Risen, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration (New York: Free Press, 2006), 57.

36 Charles Babington and Carol D. Leonnig, “Senate Rejects Wiretapping Probe,” Washington Post, February 17, 2006: A6.

37 Cited by Risen, State of War, 56.

38 Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (the Church Committee), Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Foreign and Military Intelligence, Book IV, Final Report. Rept. No. 94-755, US Senate, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, April 23, 1976), 158.

39 See John Yoo, The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs after 9/11 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010).

40 On the Patriot Act (Pub.L.No. 107-56), see David Cole and James X. Dempsey, Terrorism and the Constitution (New York: New Press, 2006).

41 A. Glees and P.H.J. Davies, Spinning the Spies (London: Social Affairs Unit, 2004), 35.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Loch K. Johnson

Loch K. Johnson is Regents Professor of International Affairs at the University of Georgia.