from engaging in assassinations and initiated the “finding” process. Ex-
ecutive orders during the Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter administra-
tions put additional restrictions on intelligence operations. The U.S.
Congress also began a series of hearings in the late 1970s on U.S. in-
telligence activities, which culminated in the establishment of formal
congressional oversight. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
(SSCI) was established in 1977, and the House Permanent Select Com-
mittee on Intelligence (HPSCI) was established in 1978. Both commit-
tees considered and rejected the notion of an intelligence charter for the
CIA, but Congress passed the Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980, which
put in place, for the first time, a process for the approval of covert ac-
tion by the U.S. Congress.
Despite preoccupation with survival, intelligence agencies forecast
the India-Pakistan War of 1971; the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974;
and the Chinese invasion of Vietnam in 1978. However, they failed to
foresee the Arab-Israeli war in 1973; the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
in 1979; and the fall of the Iranian shah in 1979.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan issued Executive Order 12333,
which still is the legal instrument governing U.S. intelligence activities.
President Reagan’s order described the agencies of the U.S. intelligence
community and their activities, set in place oversight mechanisms in
both the executive and legislative branches, and extended the prohibi-
tion of assassination to the rest of the U.S. government.
Stringent congressional and executive branch oversight did not inhibit
U.S. intelligence from becoming embroiled in the Contra War in
Nicaragua and the Iran-Contra Affair in the mid-1980s. These develop-
ments gave further credence to those who believed that U.S. intelligence
could not refrain from illegal activities despite statutory safeguards.
U.S. intelligence agencies were in no position in the late 1980s to ac-
curately forecast the breakup of the USSR and the fall of communism.
On the one hand, there is substantial evidence that agencies like the DIA
and CIA did produce finished intelligence that marked the slow but
steady deterioration of the Soviet system. On the other hand, the media
has long claimed that U.S. intelligence agencies failed to call the Soviet
breakup. Preoccupation with Soviet developments probably accounted
for the failure of the U.S. intelligence community to anticipate Iraq’s in-
vasion of Kuwait in 1990.INTRODUCTION• xlix05-398 (1) FM.qxd 10/20/05 6:14 AM Page xlix