Warner, Michael. "The CIA's Internal Probe of the Bay of Pigs Affair." Studies in Intelligence (Winter 1998-1999): 93-101.
The author argues that neither the IG's Survey nor the DDP's response (drafted by Tracy Barnes) presented "clear insights that could instruct Agency leaders and planners." The DDP could "have served the CIA better by drafting a careful analysis of the operation" and its underlying assumptions. On Kirkpatrick's side, the IG "approved a rambling report and then bungled its presentation to CIA's principals."
[CIA/90s/98/BoP][c]
Warner, Michael. "The CIA's Office of Policy Coordination: From NSC 10/2 to NSC 68." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 11, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 211-219.
"OPC grew because State and Defense wanted it to grow. Covert action was viewed by State, by Defense, and, by extension, the Truman administration, as a routine instrument of cold war foreign policy. OPC followed the trajectory plotted by NSC 10/2. The office had built a permanent covert action structure and prepared itself for an expanded cold war mission even before the exigencies of NSC-68 and the Korean War caused it to grow even faster than its creators and administrators had envisioned."
[CIA/40s/Gen][c]
Warner, Michael. "The Creation of the Central Intelligence Group: Salvage and Liquidation." Studies in Intelligence 39, no. 5 (1996): 111-120.
"Thanks in part to [Assistant Secretary of War John J.] McCloy's order to preserve OSS's SI [Secret Intelligence] and X-2 [Counterintelligence] Branches, the 'cloak and dagger' capability ... was waiting in the War Department for transfer to the new CIG."
[CIA/40s/Gen]
Warner, Michael. "Did Truman Know about Venona?" Center for the Study of Intelligence Bulletin 11 (Summer 2000): 2-4. .
Given the existence of information implicating Harry Dexter White, passed by the FBI in "carefully paraphrased" form to Admiral Souers in October 1950, the author concludes that "there are two possibilities. Either Truman was not informed about the Venona messages that implicated White, or he disregarded them. In light of the timing and circumstances of this 17 October FBI report to Adm. Souers, this author votes for the former interpretation."
[SpyCases/U.S./Venona][c]
Warner, Michael. "The Divine Skein: Sun Tzu on Intelligence." Intelligence and National Security 21, no. 4 (Aug. 2006): 483-492.
"Sun Tzu presented a marvelously concise treatment of espionage that gives us a window on the nature of intelligence writ large."
[Historical/Ancient]
Warner, Michael. "Intelligence Transformation and Intelligence Liaison." SAIS Review 24, no. 1 (Winter-Spring 2004): 77-89.
[Liaison]
Warner, Michael. "Protecting the Homeland the First Time Around: The Kaiser Sows Destruction." Studies in Intelligence 46, no. 1 (2002): 3-9.
"Few today remember the Black Tom explosion or the Kingsland fire, but incidents like these made a deep and lasting impression on the minds of two generations of American leaders."
[WWI/U.S.]
Warner, Michael. The Office of Strategic Services: Americas First Intelligence Agency. Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, [n.d]. Previously available at: https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/oss/ [not valid 6/1/07].
This is an excellent brief overview of the contribution of OSS to the waging of World War II, and of its heritage for intelligence in the years that followed.
[WWII/OSS/Gen]
Warner, Michael. "Origins of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, 1949-50." Studies in Intelligence 38, no. 5 (1995): 89-98.
The author credits Michael Josselson (and covert CIA funding) with establishing and maintaining this "daring and effective" covert operation. When the Congress convened for the first time, in Berlin on 26 June 1950, the North Koreans had just invaded the South, an event which highlighted that the time had come to choose sides. When the organization was formally established in November 1950, Josselson became the Congress' Administrative Secretary, a post he would hold for the next 16 years.
[CA; CIA/40s/Gen][c]
Warner, Michael. "Prolonged Suspense: The Fortier Board and the Transformation of the Office of Strategic Services." Journal of Intelligence History 2, no. 1 (Summer 2002). [http://www. intelligence-history.org/jih/previous.html]
Abstract: "American intelligence faced major challenges at the end of World War II. Organizations and practices hurriedly established during the war seemed to many Washington decisionmakers to be deficient as bases for peacetime intelligence. In evaluating the remnants of the Office of Strategic Services, Truman administration officials found that the leaders of OSS had developed a sophisticated understanding of how a permanent intelligence service could work. Declassified records of their discussions illuminate that understanding and the ways in which it guided the reform of American intelligence that culminated in the National Security Act of 1947 and the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency."
[CIA/40s/Gen]
Warner, Michael. "Sophisticated Spies: CIA's Links to Liberal Anti-Communists, 1949-1967." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 9, no. 4 (Winter 1996/97): 425-433.
This is a useful review of the issues surrounding the Ramparts (and subsequent) "revelations" in February 1967 about the CIA's subsidizing of the National Student Association and other private organizations. The CIA took flack from both sides of the political spectrum for its activities, as did the anti-Communist left.
[CA; CIA/60s/Subsidies][c]
Warner, Michael. "Two Steps Backward: The Collapse of Intelligence Support for Air Power, 194452." Studies in Intelligence 49, no. 3 (2005).
"[F]rom the closing of World War II through the Korean conflict ... American military intelligence lost, rather than gained, organizational sophistication and analytic proficiency.... The militarys wartime progress in command and control ... was not matched by progress in intelligence capabilities. The decline was particularly jarring in air intelligence.... [I]n the very years when strategic airpower was being advocated and recognized as a key component of national security, intelligence to guide strategic bombing campaigns, especially at the operational-level, faced institutional jeopardy and professional stagnation."
[MI/AF/To89]
Warner, Michael. "Wanted: A Definition of 'Intelligence.'" Studies in Intelligence 46, no. 3 (2002): 15-22.
After a useful discussion, Warner offers the following: "Intelligence is secret, state activity to understand or influence foreign entities."
[WhatIsIntel?]
Warner, Michael, ed. CIA Cold War Records: The CIA Under Harry Truman. Washington, DC: History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1994.
MacPherson, I&NS 10.2, notes that this collection "is comprised of 81 documents numbering over 460 pages, most of which could be termed 'sign-posts' in the creation and history of CIA during the formative Truman years.... This edited collection obviously implies ... support for the Montague version of CIA's paternity, but there is no clear resolution of the Darling-Montague debate.... The editor in fact places more emphasis on the influence of the Pearl Harbor experience combined with the rise of a Soviet threat during the birth of modern American intelligence."
[CIA/40s/Gen][c]
Warner, Michael, and Robert Louis Benson. "Venona and Beyond: Thoughts on Work Undone." Intelligence and National Security 12, no. 3 (Jul. 1997): 1-13.
The authors state their goal as follows: "Venona, incomplete as it is, opens large areas for research. This essay is intended to point scholars toward various records, individuals, and issues that need closer scrutiny." This goal is admirably achieved, as numerous potential research matters (some, perhaps, never knowable with certainty) are raised.
[SpyCases/U.S./Venona]
Warner, Michael, and J. Kenneth McDonald. US Intelligence Community Reform Studies Since 1947. Washington, DC: Strategic Management Issues Office, Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, Apr. 2005.
This work examines "the origins, context, and results of 14 significant official studies that have surveyed the American intelligence system since 1947." It explores "the reasons these studies were launched, the recommendations they made, and the principal results that they achieved. It should surprise no one that many of the issues involved -- such as the institutional relationships between military and civilian intelligence leaders -- remain controversial to the present time."
[Reform/00s/Gen]
Return to War-Warn