Central Intelligence Agency

US intelligence organization established in 1947. It has actively intervened overseas, generally to undermine left-wing regimes or to protect US financial interests; for example, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) and Nicaragua. From 1980 all covert activity by the CIA had by law to be reported to Congress, preferably beforehand, and to be authorized by the president. In 1994 the CIA's estimated budget was around US$3.1 billion. John M Deutsch became CIA director in 1995 after the Agency's standing was diminished by a scandal involving Aldrich Ames, a CIA agent who had been a longtime mole for the KGB. The director of the CIA is Michael Hayden (from 2006).

Developed from the wartime Office of Strategic Services and set up by Congress as part of the National Security Act, on the lines of the British Secret Service, the CIA was intended solely for use overseas in the Cold War. It was involved in, for example, the restoration of the Shah of Iran in 1953, South Vietnam (during the Vietnam War), Chile (the coup against President Allende), and Cuba (the Bay of Pigs). On the domestic front, it was illegally involved in the Watergate political scandal and in the 1970s lost public confidence when US influence collapsed in Iran, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Yemen, and elsewhere.

CIA headquarters is in Langley, Virginia. Past directors include William Casey, Richard Helms, and George Bush. The CIA director is also coordinator of all the US intelligence organizations; the total budget for the US intelligence agencies for 1994 was estimated at $28 billion. Domestic intelligence functions are performed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Details emerged in April 1997 of one of the CIA's greatest failures since its operations began. Up to 300 Iraqis died as the result of a failed attempt by the CIA to overthrow Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader. The CIA financed an Iraqi opposition group (the Iraqi National Accord) which killed 100 people in a bombing campaign against civilian targets in Baghdad and other cities, and fomented a military coup against the Iraqi leader. In June 1996 Saddam Hussein struck first, crushing the CIA-backed coup with ease; as many as 80 officers were executed or died under torture. In August Iraqi tanks also intervened in the Kurdish civil war, catching and killing 120 members of the CIA-backed dissident group. The débâcle led to the liquidation of the agency's extensive operation in northern Iraq, and the then CIA director John Deutsch stepped down 1997.

In October 1997 the CIA released the government's budget for spying for the first time in its history. Its director George Tenet announced that the US government spends US$26.6 billion annually on national intelligence. This covers the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and other intelligence-gathering branches. In revealing this information, the CIA was responding to a lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act.

Under the same act, the CIA internal investigation results in the 1960s into the Bay of Pigs disaster were released in February 1998. The document blamed the agency, rather than President John F Kennedy, for the failure.

The CIA belongs to the executive branch of government and acts on the president's orders. Historically, it runs both covert (secret) and overt (open) operations in the name of national security.