CIA Director Mike Pompeo today announced that President Trump has selected Gina Haspel to be the new Deputy Director of CIA. Ms. Haspel is a career intelligence officer, having joined the CIA in 1985. She has extensive overseas experience and served as Chief of Station in several of her assignments. Ms. Haspel is the first female career CIA officer to be named Deputy Director.
CIA #Museum Artifact of the Week: William J. Donovan’s Duffle Bag
This duffle bag belonged to General William "Wild Bill" Donovan, founder of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency.
CIA Posts More Than 12 Million Pages of CREST Records Online
17 January 2017
LANGLEY, VA – The largest collection of declassified CIA records is now accessible online. The documents were previously only available to the public at the National Archives in Maryland. Approximately 930,000 documents, totaling more than 12 million pages, are now available in the CIA’s Electronic Reading Room on CIA's website.
...Since 1999, the CIA has regularly released its historical declassified records to the standalone CIA Records Search Tool (CREST) system that was only accessible in person at the National Archives Records Administration (NARA) in College Park, Maryland. Moving these documents online highlights the CIA’s commitment to increasing the accessibility of declassified records to the public.
“Access to this historically significant collection is no longer limited by geography. The American public can access these documents from the comfort of their homes,” notes Joseph Lambert, the CIA Director of Information Management.
The CREST collection covers a myriad of topics, such as the early CIA history, the Cold War, Vietnam, the Berlin Tunnel project, the Korean War, and the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. The documents also extensively address developments on terrorism, as well as worldwide military and economic issues.
The documents include a wide variety of records, including collections of finished intelligence from the 1940s to the 1990s prepared by the Directorate of Analysis (or its predecessors, such as the Directorate of Intelligence), Directorate of Operations reports from the late 1940s through the early 1960s, Directorate of Science and Technology research and development files, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency policy files and memoranda, National Intelligence Council estimates, National Intelligence Surveys, Office of Strategic Services (OSS) records, Directorate of Support administrative records, and imagery reports from the former National Photographic Interpretation Center (reviewed jointly with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)).
CREST records also include large specialized collections of foreign translations, scientific abstracts, ground photo descriptions, and special collections such as STAR GATE remote viewing program files, Henry Kissinger Library of Congress files, and other miscellaneous CIA records.
The declassification of 25-year-old records is mandated by Executive Order 13526, which requires agencies to review all such records categorized as permanent under the Federal Records Act for declassification. As a result, following CIA’s review, documents are regularly added to this collection.
The CIA’s Electronic Reading room offers a full-text search capability of CREST records, and the collection can be viewed at: http://bit.ly/2jH2Hpc.
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CIA #Museum Artifact of the Week: Plaster Cast of CIA Seal
CIA designers developed a rubber mold that they used to produce this plaster cast of the CIA seal with the words “For Exceptional Service” inscribed at the bottom.
CIA #Museum Artifact of the Week: Uniform of #OSS Officer Col. William H. Pietsch, Jr.
Colonel William Pietsch, Jr. began his intelligence career at age 21, as youngest in the Office of Strategic Services’ (OSS) inaugural class of paratroopers. He parachuted into the Nazi-occupied Burgundy region of France in 1944 to help coordinate the activities of resistance forces in advance of the US 3rd and 7th Armies liberating the area. In a second mission in the fall of that year, he and his team located and turned over arms caches to the French Provisional Government. In his military service after the war, Col. Pietsch and his colleagues were instrumental in developing and refining the techniques of guerrilla warfare.
#OSS75
Watch Judy Woodruff's full PBS NewsHour interview with Director John Brennan.
CIA's Top 10 Stories of 2016
Interested in taking a peek into our X-Files? Want to know more about Hamilton’s spy on the inside? Curious how to make invisible ink? Then you’re in luck.
This year’s most popular stories on cia.gov have a little something for everyone.
...From tributes to our unsung heroes who lost their lives in service to their country, to the surprising truth behind who was the first to crack the ENIGMA cipher (hint: it wasn’t Alan Turing), our articles have covered a lot of topics.
We hope you enjoy this year’s Top 10 stories, and we can’t wait to surprise you with more untold tales, little know wonders, and heroic endeavors in 2017!
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#10. Bush as Director of Central Intelligence: http://1.usa.gov/1P4JJD6
#9. The Spy Catcher: Jeanne Vertefeuille: http://bit.ly/2bEiBzd
#8. Who First Cracked the ENIGMA Cipher? http://bit.ly/2a1NsEE
#7. Remembering CIA’s Heroes: Leslianne Shedd: http://bit.ly/2gzoIrC
#6. Secret Writing: http://1.usa.gov/1Tgxkeu
#5. The Spymaster’s Toolkit: http://1.usa.gov/1Tj3hqe
#4. The Mystery of Jane Wallis Burrell: First CIA Officer To Die in the Agency’s Service: http://bit.ly/29Yq8ss
#3. Minutes and Years: The Bin Ladin Operation: http://1.usa.gov/1VY0Lst
#2. The Legend of Hercules Mulligan: http://1.usa.gov/296cnrH
#1. Take a Peek Into Our X-Files: http://1.usa.gov/1SCbcjj
Surprising Stories You May Have Missed in 2016
Vietnam, cartography, the Bay of Pigs, UFOs … curious what CIA has to say about these topics? You’re not alone. That’s why we dug deep into our archives to uncover the stories behind some of the most asked about Agency history, and then wrote about what we found as articles throughout this past year.
If you missed any of the articles, don’t worry.
...Below, in no particular order, are the tales of CIA’s past that you might have wondered about, but never knew we wrote about in 2016.
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-Flying Saucers or Soviets? How to Investigate a UFO: http://1.usa.gov/1OM0GQx
-TRIGON: Spies Passing in the Night: http://1.usa.gov/28Jp87E
-The Negotiator: http://1.usa.gov/1Sr6frq
-The Bay of Pigs Invasion: http://1.usa.gov/23XmdyT
-Telling Data Stories: An Interview: http://bit.ly/2b5bo7P
-CIA and the Wars in Southeast Asia: http://bit.ly/2dN8xEZ
-The Mapmaker’s Craft: A History of Cartography at CIA: http://bit.ly/2emNSsU
-Remembering CIA’s Heroes: Nels “Benny” Benson: http://1.usa.gov/1XkD0vt
-A Contingency for Every Action: http://1.usa.gov/1OnS7vm
-Twenty Years of Pride: http://bit.ly/29lWgBF
Today, NGA and Director Cardillo welcomed Judge William H. Webster, former director of FBI – Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to our Virginia headquarters.
CIA #Museum Artifact of the Week: Infrared Lantern Beacon
Modifications by Agency technicians transformed this commercial Coleman lantern into an infrared beacon that could be seen from as far away as 250 feet. Gasoline powered and painted dull black, the beacon emitted a narrow vertical infrared beam as well as some visible light, making it useful for marking air-drop and landing-field locations during the Vietnam War.
Happy New Year from the women & men silently serving around the globe
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CIA #Museum Artifact of the Week: Tobacco Pouch Camera
A miniature 35-mm film camera manufactured in Switzerland is concealed in this modified tobacco pouch. A spring-wound mechanism advances the film between exposures.
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