Intelligence Collection and Covert Action: Time for a Divorce? (Report‪)‬

Editor's Note: A retired CIA station chief examines they marriage between human intelligence collection and covert action that came about in the early years of the Cold War and its detrimental effects on the Agency's ability to produce useful and timely intelligence on U.S. enemies. If we cannot eliminate covert action entirely, he concludes, it should at least be separated from the intelligence collection function.--Ed. America has lived with its "Intelligence Community"--the CIA, NSA, DIA and all the other lesser intelligence organizations--for decades. Depending on your viewpoint, they have been somewhere between successful and unsuccessful in providing our government both with the organizational structure and with the intelligence needed to protect our country and advance its international interests.