AHC: Disband the CIA

Here's a reading list for you:

Secret Warriors: Inside the Covert Military Operations of the Reagan Era
, by Steven Emerson

Shadow Warrior, by Felix Rodriguez

Wedge: The Secret War Between the FBI and CIA, by Mark Riebling

The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, by Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks

Presidents' Secret Wars: CIA and Pentagon Covert Operations from World War II Through the Persian Gulf, by John Prados

And of course, my particular favorite:
Inside the Company: CIA Diary, by Philip Agee

As for the laughable idea that the CIA outsources it's paramilitary work, that's easily dismissed with a review of the sizes and budgets of the various directorates. And it's not going in the right direction, either.

All no doubt written by people who have their biases and/or want to sell their own books. 99%+ of what the CIA does is boring as hell and won't sell book one. Any big organization is going to have corruption , shady deals, and screw-ups because all organizations are run by human beings are thus effected by human nature. Is the CIA guilty of this? Hell, yes but so is any other large organization. Large corporations, labor unions, all government agencies at all levels that are anything more than pork barrel projects with tiny staffs and even the tiny ones have screw-ups, universities, NGOs etc. all have these problems . You can't build any organization without corruption and screw-ups because of human nature.
 

CalBear

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Easy.

Make it all part of the Military. CIA is gone since it is a civilian organization.
 
Easy.

Make it all part of the Military. CIA is gone since it is a civilian organization.

You need to have it separate from the military as the US Army, Navy , Airforce and Marines all have their own intelligence branches. You would never get them to agree who is in charge of coordinating it all.
 

CalBear

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You need to have it separate from the military as the US Army, Navy , Airforce and Marines all have their own intelligence branches. You would never get them to agree who is in charge of coordinating it all.
No, you just need to designate the lead dog. The Army doesn't love that the Air Force controls its ground attack assets. The Corps doesn't love that the Navy controls its budget. Too bad, so sad.

Tell one Branch that it is in charge of gathering all data from the various branches. As an alternative create a Joint Command, as exists for SPECOPS. Tell the rest to salute and do their jobs.

Nice thing about the military is that you can actually do that.
 
No, you just need to designate the lead dog. The Army doesn't love that the Air Force controls its ground attack assets. The Corps doesn't love that the Navy controls its budget. Too bad, so sad.

Tell one Branch that it is in charge of gathering all data from the various branches. As an alternative create a Joint Command, as exists for SPECOPS. Tell the rest to salute and do their jobs.

Nice thing about the military is that you can actually do that.

Yeah, but all the services have their favorite congress critters who will back them. It might not be impossible but it is very difficult. Join Command might be somewhat easier as there would be no top dog.
 
One idea would be to have the files on the really nasty stuff they got up to with Project MKUltra leak in early to mid-1973s. All the files, so that then Director Richard Helms doesn't get to order them destroyed in 1973 as he did in our timeline. Their reputation had already taken a battering, Watergate was helping contribute to a culture of distrust of government, and then this hits.

Even if a scandal large enough to fierce their closure did occur as Cook said the main problem is that any new organisation is likely going to have to hire a large number of former CIA employees since they're the only ones who have the required clearances and training to do the job.
 
Daniel Patrick Moynihan proposed abolishing the CIA and making the intelligence-gathering functions a part of the State Department.
 
Daniel Patrick Moynihan proposed abolishing the CIA and making the intelligence-gathering functions a part of the State Department.

the State Department already had (and still does) an intelligence gathering and analysis division

http://www.state.gov/s/inr/

really, we have a LOT of intelligence gathering agencies.... now if they would only talk to each other and for that matter there are a number of times when that would have been helpful going back decades
 
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