My view is that the more information available to the public, the better the
public understands and appreciates the role of intelligence in the governmental
process. American intelligence is blessed with a rich literature—perhaps more
voluminous than any other country’s—that is available to the public. The Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency, the country’s premier spying organization, must be
thinking along the same lines, since in the last decade or so, it has begun de-
classifying relevant historical documents and publishing them in volumes that
are available to the public. In 1976, the CIApublished a volume on Intelligence
in the War of Independencethat is particularly useful for those interested in the
early history of American intelligence.
For the modern beginnings of the central intelligence enterprise in the United
States, particularly noteworthy are Douglas J. MacEachin’s monogram on The
Final Months of the War with Japan: Signals Intelligence, U.S. Invasion Plan-
ning, and the A-Bomb Decisionand Michael Warner’s The CIA under Harry
Truman. The CIAhas also published volumes on technical methods of collect-
ing intelligence, such as The CIA and the U-2 Program, 1954–1974and Kevin
C. Ruffner’s CORONA: America’s First Satellite Program.
In 1996, the CIAissued a volume on one of the more esoteric and success-
ful interception programs that began prior to World War II and continued until
the late 1950s: VENONA, Soviet Espionage and the American Response,
1939–1957. It also published documents and commentary on several of the
Cold War’s confrontations between the East and the West: Mary S. McAuliffe,
CIADocuments on the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962; Harold P. Ford, CIA and
the Vietnam Policymakers: Three Episodes, 1962–1968; CIA Activities in Chile;
and U.S. Intelligence and the Polish Crisis, 1980–1981.
Finally, since the CIAhas come under intense criticism for failing to call the
breakup of the Soviet Union, it has issued several volumes on its analyses of So-
viet developments, the most important of which are Scott A. Koch’s Selected Es-
timates on the Soviet Union, 1950–1959; Donald P. Steury’s Intentions and Ca-
pabilities: Estimates on Soviet Strategic Forces, 1950–1983; and Gerald K.
Haines’s and Robert E. Leggett’s CIA’s Analysis of the Soviet Union, 1947–1991.
The historical dictionary series initiated by Scarecrow Press in 2005, of
which this book is an integral part, would be useful to students of comparative
intelligence. The series, an ongoing project spanning several years, will even-
tually cover the principal intelligence services around the globe. For now, the
series’s important contributions are Robert W. Pringle’s Historical Dictionary
of Russian/Soviet Intelligenceand Nigel West’s Historical Dictionary of British
Intelligenceand Historical Dictionary of International Intelligence.
The historical development of American intelligence has been a popular
theme among scholars outside the intelligence community. Of particular inter-
est in this area are Charles D. Ameringer’s U.S. Foreign Intelligence: The Se-
cret Side of American History; G. J. A. O’Toole’s Honorable Treachery: A His-230 • BIBLIOGRAPHY05-398 (5) Bib.qxd 10/20/05 6:28 AM Page 230