CIA History: Attempted Reform Under President Carter in the United States
Central Intelligence Agency History: Attempted Reform Under President Carter
When Jimmy Carter became president in 1977, he supported the principle of open government and regarded the CIA’s secrecy with suspicion. During Carter’s presidency hundreds of CIA employees were laid off, many of them from the Operations Directorate. Morale sank within the CIA, especially when it was accused of failing to predict the fall of Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in January 1979. The CIA failure was one of the agency’s most infamous because the fall of the shah deprived the United States of one of its main suppliers of crude oil and forced the closure of United States surveillance stations in Iran that tracked Soviet military activity. The CIA’s failure to predict the demise of the shah also left the U.S. Embassy in Tehr_n vulnerable and, soon after the shah fell, Iranian militants seized the embassy and took dozens of Americans hostage. The standing of the CIA was so low that the Senate did not trust the agency’s ability to monitor a strategic arms limitation agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union, and this contributed to the refusal by Congress to ratify the treaty.
About halfway through his presidency Carter realized that he needed the assistance of the CIA, but only if he could monitor its behavior. But by then there was so much bitterness between the CIA and Carter that it was too late to make amends. In the 1980 presidential election campaign, the Republican candidate Ronald Reagan condemned Carter’s intelligence policy, and promised to rebuild and “unleash” the CIA. Reagan’s stance on the CIA contributed to his victory over Carter. (1)
In this Section: CIA History: Early Years, CIA History: Iran, Guatemala, and the Bay of Pigs, CIA History: Early Intelligence Gathering, CIA History: The Mid-1960s Through the 1970s, CIA History: Controversies of the Early and Mid-1970s, CIA History: Attempted Reform Under President Carter, CIA History: The CIA Under President Reagan
CIA History: Covert Operations in Central and South America, CIA History: Covert Operations in Non-Latin Countries, Iran-Contra, CIA History: The 1990s, September 11 Attacks, Weapons of Mass Destruction, CIA History: Secret Prisons, Torture, and Renditions, Valerie Plame Wilson, CIA Inspector General and CIA Obstruction.
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