Provides for the first time a complete and dispassionate history of the most discussed and least known agency in the history of the American Republic

In late 1974 the U.S. Senate Select Committee on the CIA, headed by Frank Church of Idaho, began collecting documents and materials to buttress the committee hearings on the CIA’s role and activities that were to begin in the fall of 1975. Among the materials prepared for the Church Committee is History of the Central Intelligence Agency, which was written by committee staff member Anne Karalekas.

This book reproduces the History, with an introduction by Leary that establishes the historical framework for the Church Committee hearings, and also includes ten relevant documents covering events from 1944 to 1981.

William Leary is associate professor of history, University of Georgia, and the author of Perilous Missions: Civil Air Transport and CIA Covert Operations in Asia (UAP, 1984).