Which president headed the cia

It was the product of debates among military, state and defense leaders, with input from the public, thanks to key leaks that took the issue to the newspapers. Coming off of World War II and the defeat of a totalitarian Nazi regime , many Americans feared our own government would become what we just had defeated.

Truman himself had similar concerns, but as the Cold War heated up, he became more open to its development. While Truman had intended to establish an agency that correlated all intelligence and delivered reports to the President, he soon realized that under the Cold War structure, the agency would become more than that. Moreover, Americans who once had feared the establishment of such an agency began to embrace it as a necessary tool to winning the Cold War.

Still, the establishment and use of the CIA, during the Truman administration and subsequent presidencies, remained a topic of controversy, begging the question of its role in a transparent democracy while facing a totalitarian rival in Soviet Russia. Breadcrumb Harry S. Establishment of the CIA. What is the role of a secret intelligence agency in a transparent democracy? CIA Lessons and Goals opens in a new window. Harold D. Neuland, May 6, , with attached newspaper articles Congressman Harold F.

History has demonstrated that it's dangerous when the CIA gets it wrong. And that it's even more dangerous when a president disbelieves the agency when it's right. President Harry Truman started the CIA in , at the dawn of the Cold War, in the hope that it could inform him better than the front page of the daily newspapers.

But his own secretary of state warned him that the CIA could go out of his control. The neophyte intelligence service soon turned to covert operations against communism, and many were disastrous.

They were coordinated with British intelligence, and the senior British intelligence officer assigned to Washington in turned out to be a Soviet mole. President Dwight D. He was enthused early in his first term by successful CIA coups against the elected leaders of Iran and Guatemala. But in his second term, his director of central intelligence, Allen Dulles, failed to keep the White House and the Pentagon informed of precisely what the CIA was doing overseas.

This led to spectacularly unsuccessful attempts to overthrow governments from Indonesia to Syria. Eisenhower concluded in , at the end of his presidency, that American intelligence was in shambles. He said he was leaving, in his words, "a legacy of ashes" to his successor, President John F. Three months later came the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Kennedy vowed to break the CIA into pieces and scatter it to the winds. The agency redeemed itself by providing forewarning of Soviet shipments of nuclear weapons to Cuba; that intelligence helped JFK avert a global war in Castro would outlast 11 U.

President Lyndon B. Johnson wanted one thing above all from the CIA — a strategy to win the war in Vietnam. He was enraged when the agency advised that a cease-fire and a negotiated peace was the only way out. No president did — especially not Richard Nixon. One thing that Helms would not do was to obey Nixon's command to cover up the break-in at Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate Hotel. That was an obstruction of justice, and it led directly to Nixon's resignation two years later.

Three years later, they merged with another company to create Zapata Petroleum. In , Bush became president of a subsidiary, Zapata Off-Shore Company, which developed offshore drilling equipment.

He soon relocated the company and his family to Houston, Texas. Bush began his political career when he became the Republican Party chairman in Harris County, Texas. He developed grassroots connections as chairman and worked hard to strengthen his image as a conservative.

Bush had always been good with people, and as chairman he was able to cultivate relationships in the Republican Party that helped him throughout his political career. In , Bush ran for a U. Senate seat against incumbent Democratic Senator Ralph Yarborough.

Bush ran a hard campaign but struggled against charges of being a carpetbagger from the North. He also faced an uphill battle running as a Republican in Texas because of the strength of the local Democratic Party. In November, Democrat Lyndon Johnson of Texas was overwhelmingly elected President, and Yarborough defeated Bush by a margin of 1,, to 1,, In , Bush ran for a seat in the U. House of Representatives from Houston's Seventh district.

Running as a moderate Republican, he won the election with more than fifty percent of the vote. He was reelected in In Congress, Bush gained a seat on the coveted Ways and Means Committee, which was rare for a freshman congressman.

He supported the Vietnam War and voted for parts of President Johnson's Great Society program, including the Civil Rights Bill of to outlaw discrimination in housing, a courageous vote for a congressman from Texas.

After serving two terms in the House, Bush eyed another run for the Senate in Ralph Yarborough, who had defeated Bush in , was a liberal Democrat from Texas at a time when the state was becoming increasingly conservative. Bush believed that he could defeat Yarborough in the election. But Yarborough did not win the Democratic primary. Instead, Bush ran against Lloyd Bentsen, a conservative Democrat.

Since the Democratic Party was still very strong in Texas and Bush and Bentsen did not differ greatly on the issues, Bush again lost the election. Critics opposed the nomination because Bush lacked foreign policy experience but the Senate confirmed him. Bush was not part of the Nixon administration's inner circle, which undercut his effectiveness at the United Nations. Nonetheless, he used his tenure to continue to make influential friends within the U.

The ambassador relished his person-to-person contacts with foreign envoys and began assembling his legendary rolodex that would serve him well in the years to come. The administration turned to Bush to head the RNC because of his reputation for respectability and integrity. During the Watergate scandal, Bush was a tireless supporter of President Nixon until the release of the White House tapes. Bush then informed the President that he had lost the support of the Republican Party.

After listening to key Republican congressional leaders who told him that he would be impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate, Nixon resigned the presidency in August The new President appointed Bush as the U. Because the United States did not yet have full diplomatic relations with China, Bush served as chief of the U.

Liaison's Office instead of as ambassador. China offered the Bushes a respite from Washington, but they stayed only two years. The CIA was emerging from a controversial period in its history and needed a strong, effective leader to improve morale and reform the agency. By most accounts, Bush was a popular director and able administrator. The Bushes left Washington, D. Bush rejoined the corporate world back in Houston and started planning for the presidential campaign soon after he returned.

He began with reestablishing his Texas contacts and fundraising. On May 1, , Bush announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President.