Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The significance of spies during the cold war
Espionage during the cold war
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: The significance of spies during the cold war
The history of the Central Intelligence Agency has been shrouded in infamy since it’s introduction in 1947. The Common goal of an organization, such as the CIA, is to protect the people they govern. This may includes collected efforts, publicly acknowledged by the common people as the best way to use a nation’s time and effort towards peace. On the other hand, organizations like these have also worked in complete secrecy and these efforts have more or less molded the foundation of the american way as we see it today. During the period of the 1950’s and early to mid 1960’s, this time was the height of the Cold War. The two main competitors were the U.S. and the Soviet Union, along with all countries that were within the reach of these nations.
The ever-growing conflict was escalating into an all out pissing match. There was the Division of Easter and Western Berlin after World war 2; which eventually lead to the creation of the Nato and Warsaw pact. Then, we had the Red Scare, with Senator Joe McCarthy’s propaganda about the idea of Soviet sleeper spies in the U.S. There was also the threat of the Nuclear arms race between the two rivaling superpowers. This in turn, gave birth to the era of espionage, between the United States C.I.A, and the Soviet Union’s K.G.B. With all of these in place, there was the notion of paranoia, because each country did not really know what the other country was going to do next. Among these missions taken by the U.S, one had a particularly big impact in it’s own way. The Mission was Operation MK-Ultra. The Purpose of Mk-Ultra was to secretly gather information on its people and focus on the american public. Everyone was included, from the average joe’s all the way to the higher up of the government. The operation was officially sanctioned in 1953, and from 1953 to 1964, the Central Intelligence Agency conducted dozens of experiments on the effects of biological and chemical agents on American citizens without their knowledge of Project MK-Ultra. These covert tests included subjecting the unwitting subjects to hallucinogenic drugs and other chemicals, among other things. other forms of mind-altering methods included hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, as well as various forms of torture. This was how this idea came to be. During the mid- 1940’s, The United States originally created something called Operation Paperclip. Operation Paperclip was more of an idea to be debated on, rather than something to attempt at the time. The idea was simple, the United States led the world to pursue many of the Nazi military officers who committed gross atrocities against their civilians, prisoners and pow’s. The idea was to use this knowledge in an attempt to convict the Nazi’s of crimes against humanity. This was highly publicized with a media. In the inner workings however, US Intelligence communities were recruiting Nazi scientists and renowned concentration camp medical doctors and psychiatrists. These men were all high ranking Nazi SS officers, who were guilty of committing mentally disrupting offenses that surpassed all else during the span of the war. Many of these men being recruited to work for us were the very men who were responsible for the horrors at Auschwitz and many other camps. They received the option to either come work for us in such labs as Los Alamos for much more money than they received from the Germans, or be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for their crimes; Of course the decision for most was almost instant.
Guilford, CT: Dushkin/ McGraw-Hill, 1997. Chiatkin, Anton. A. Treason in America. Washington DC: Executive Intelligence. Review, a review of the book, Divine, Breen, Frederickson, and Williams. America Past and Present.
Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union began with mutual distrust in World War II, intense rivalry, and conflicting ideologies. Cold War was fought with four major weapons. The weapons were propaganda, economic and military aid to devastated nations after World War II, arms race, and the alliances. Propagandas were used for containment and to raise the people’s morale and patriotism. Economic aid of the devastated nations was also used as a method of containment, as it prevented the desperate nations from falling under communism. Arms race was one way of representing the nation’s military pride and the ability to retaliate when attacked, although the arms were not developed to dominate world power. Finally, alliances were created and its scale was compared to verify the superior side of the Cold War.
The Cold War in 1945 to 1953 brought about a period of tension and hostility due to the feud between the United States and the Soviet Union. The period began with the end of the Second World War. The situation acquired the title for there was no physical active war between the two rivals. The probability of the tension got to be the fear of the then rise in nuclear ammunition. Things began to roll when a US based U2 sky plane got to take photos of some USSR intermediate ballistic missiles with the capability of transporting nuclear heads.
The Cold War was the most important historic event in the 20th century after the Second World War, from 1945 till 1991 between two most powerful countries in that period – Soviet Union and USA. The Cold War invested a lot in world politics. What is the Cold War? This was a war for dominance in the world. In 1945 the USA was the only one country in the world that had the nuclear weapons. But in the 1949 USSR started to learn their nuclear weapons. In further developments forced the USSR was soon created by nuclear, and then thermonuclear weapons. (Isaacs J, 2008) Fight has become very dangerous for all.
Prados, John. Safe for Democracy The Secret Wars of the CIA. Chicago, IL: Ivan R Dee, Publisher, 2006.
In times of great terror and panic, the citizens of a nation must decide what they value most: their right to privacy or the lives of the innocent. Government surveillance is criticized, however there are times in a nation’s history where, in order to ensure the safety of their citizens, they must surveill the country for potential hazards that might exist in the world. The government-issued program, COINTELPRO--a series of illegal projects during the twentieth century organized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation--while heavily criticized for its unconstitutional grounds--was justified because it benefitted the nation during a period of upheaval. COINTELPRO is popularly condemned by historians and professors such as Brandeis University Professor of Sociology, David Cunningham, who asserts that the FBI counterintelligence program was only a form of repression that allowed for the government to suppress matters that they consider bothersome (234) This however was not the case. COINTELPRO was necessary because of the great social unrest, individuals posed threats to society, and creating operations that were beneficial to the United States.
The Cold War was a post-World War II struggle between the United States. and its allies and the group of nations led by the Soviet Union. Direct military conflict did not occur between the two superpowers, but intense economic and diplomatic struggles erupted in the country. Different interests led to mutual suspicion and hostility in a rising philosophy. The United States played a major role in the ending of the Cold War.
“President Bush has stated that about a hundred detainees were held under the Central Intelligence Agency secret detention program, about a third of whom were questioned using “enhanced interrogation techniques. The CIA has a way of very publicly blowing their cover seeming to pop up wherever turmoil, and political problems arise. The CIA exists to prevent threats, its operations involve covert actions or spying through various means to gather critical intelligence data. The CIA dates back to 1947. The qualifications and skills are above average. The job of the CIA is to anticipate and quickly assess rapidly evolving international developments and their impact, both positive and negative, on US policy concerns. When researching the career of
During the late 1940's and the 1950's, the Cold War became increasingly tense. Each side accused the other of wanting to rule the world (Walker 388). Each side believed its political and economic systems were better than the other's. Each strengthened its armed forces. Both sides viewed the Cold War as a dispute between right and wron...
& nbsp ; & nbsp ; & nbsp ; & nbsp ; & nbs The time period between 1945 and 1991 is considered to be the era of the Cold War. The Cold War, known as the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, was known during this time as the “super powers”. This conflict consisted of the differing attitudes on the ideological, political, and military interests of these two states and their allies, extended around the globe.
knowledge of the CIA and who would later would be involved in the clash between the
Nedzi (D-Mich.), Luclen N. “Oversight or Overlook: Congress and the US Intelligence Agency.” A Congressman talk to the CIA senior seminar, November 14, 1979, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol18no2/pdf/v18i2a02p.pdf (accessed January 7, 2014).
Throughout the years most country's governments have established some sort of secret police. No matter what the government called it, whether it is the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or her Majesty's secret service (MI6), whatever name the government used, the international term of "secret police" could always be applied. Many agencies of secret police have had their success and failures, some more than others. The KGB, which in English means "the Committee of Public Safety," has had their share of both successes and failures. Most secret police agencies have been used primarily to obtain information from other countries. This was also a primary goal for the KGB, but one of their other goals, which was just as important, was to keep unwanted outside information from the Russian people. This was only one out of many the KGB's objectives. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to prove that the actions of the KGB were, all in all, a success.
America’s international supremacy originates from the hard work of her agencies at home which provide a strong foundation for security and international diplomacy. One of these security agencies is the National Security Agency, or NSA. “By 2008, the NSA had become the largest, most costly, and most technologically sophisticated spy organization the world has ever known” (Bamford 1). The National Security Agency is a beneficial government program and a core component of protecting America from terrorist attacks.
The Central Intelligence Agency was created September 18, 1947, with the National Security Act. The authors of the Call to Freedom textbook, Sterling Stuckey, and Linda Salvucci, define the CIA as, “A secretive organization created by the National Security Act in 1947”. The author of “Cold War: Almanac”, Sharon M. Hanes, states clearly what the purpose of the CIA is, “In the United States, responsibility for gathering intelligence and carrying out spy operations, often called covert operations, in foreign countries fell to the CIA”. This makes the CIA and FBI different. The FBI interferes with issues in the United States while the CIA interferes with international issues.