After World War II, Harry S. Truman shut down Americas wartime intelligence service, the OSS. He feared that a permanent spy agency in peacetime could turn into an American Gestapo.
But the Cold War destroyed that illusion fast.
As the Iron Curtain descended, Washington faced a dangerous problem: fragmented intelligence. Military, diplomatic, and intelligence reports contradicted each other, and no single body was responsible for turning raw information into a coherent picture of the Soviet threat.
The answer came in the National Security Act of 1947, which created the Central Intelligence Agency. Its original mission wasnt covert action it was analysis. The CIA was meant to synthesise intelligence and provide the president with a clear daily briefing, preventing disasters like Pearl Harbor.
But buried inside the law was a vague clause allowing the agency to perform other functions and duties. That loophole changed everything. Within months, the CIA expanded beyond analysis into covert operations, coups, and secret interventions becoming the global intelligence force Truman never originally intended.
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