Historical Dictionary of United States Intelligence

inspector general, who is nominated by the president and confirmed

by the Senate.

AFGHANISTAN.SeeMUJAHIDEEN, AFGHAN.

AIR AMERICA.Afront company, formally known as a proprietary,

of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Air America was estab-

lished in the early 1950s essentially to support American military op-

erations in Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. It hauled refugees, ammu-

nition, and troops through Laos; inserted and extracted

reconnaissance teams; worked with Thai police to stem communist

guerrilla infiltrations; and carried refugees and CIAagents between

Hanoi and Saigon from 1954 until the end of the war. An Air Amer-

ica helicopter was the last to leave Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City,

with a load of passengers before the city fell to Viet Cong guerrillas

and North Vietnamese troops in 1975.

AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RE-

CONNAISSANCE (ISR). A formal member of the intelligence

community (IC), Air Force ISR specialists are embedded in each air

force component, preparing for and conducting operations that range

from disaster and humanitarian relief, peacekeeping, counterterror-

ism, and counternarcotics, to full-scale conflict. The air force ac-

quired its own intelligence capability soon after the National Secu-

rity Act of 1947established the air force as an independent service

within America’s military structure.

Air Force ISR is the latest iteration in the evolution of air force in-

telligence. It now has the responsibility to provide accurate, timely in-

telligence on air and space forces for U.S., allied, and coalition forces

at all echelons and levels of command. It does so by employing ana-

lytic tools and dissemination systems to tailor intelligence information

for all levels of the air force, including theater commanders.

ISR contains several subordinate elements, the most important of

which is the National Air Intelligence Center (NAIC), which exploits

and analyzes adversary air, space, and long-range ballistic missile

systems using all-source information. Another major subordinate unit

is the Air Force Information Warfare Center (AFIWC), which works

on the development of information warfare concepts, tools, and a

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