The Cold War 2 Essay Research Paper

The Cold War 2 Essay, Research Paper

Introduction

When World War II in Europe finally came to an end on May 7, 1945, a

new war was just beginning. The Cold War: denoting the open yet restricted

rivalry that developed between the United States and the Soviet Union and

their respective allies, a war fought on political, economic, and

propaganda fronts, with limited recourse to weapons, largely because of

fear of a nuclear holocaust.1 This term, The Cold War, was first used by

presidential advisor Bernard Baruch during a congressional debate in 1947.

Intelligence operations dominating this war have been conducted by the

Soviet State Security Service (KGB) and the Central Intelligence Agency

(CIA), representing the two power blocs, East and West respectively, that

arose from the aftermath of World War II. Both have conducted a variety of

operations from large scale military intervention and subversion to covert

spying and surveillance missions. They have known success and failure. The

Bay of Pigs debacle was soon followed by Kennedy’s ft handling of the Cuban

missile crisis. The decisions he made were helped immeasurably by

intelligence gathered from reconnaissance photos of the high altitude plane

U-2. In understanding these agencies today I will show you how these

agencies came about, discuss past and present operations, and talk about

some of their tools of the trade.

Origin of the CIA and KGB

The CIA was a direct result of American intelligence operations during

World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt recognized the need to

coordinate intelligence to protect the interests of the United States. In

1941, he appointed William J. Donovan to the head of the Office of

Strategic Services (OSS) with headquarters in London. Four departments made

up the OSS: Support, Secretariat, Planning, and Overseas Missions. Each of

these departments directed an array of sections known as ‘operation groups’.

This organization had fallen into the disfavor of many involved in the

federal administration at this time. This included the director of the

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), J. Edgar Hoover, who did not like

competition from a rival intelligence organization. With the death of

Roosevelt in April of 1945, the OSS was disbanded under Truman and

departments were either relocated or completely dissolved. Soviet

intelligence began with the formation of the Cheka, secret police, under

Feliks Dzerzhinsky at the time of the revolution. By 1946, this agency had

evolved into the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), and the Ministry of

State Security (MGB) both ruled by Lavrenti Beria. This man was undoubtedly

the most powerful man in the Soviet Union with a vast empire of prison

camps, and informants to crush any traces of dissent. Of considerable

importance to Beria was the race for the atomic bomb. The Soviet Union and

the United States both plundered the German V-2 rocket sites for materials

and personnel. In 1946 the MVD was responsible for the rounding up of 6000

scientists from the Soviet zone of Germany and taking them and their

dependents to the Soviet Union.2 The political conflicts of the 1930’s and

World War II left many educated people with the impression that only

communism could combat economic depression and fascism. It was easy for

Soviet agents to recruit men who would later rise to positions of power

with access to sensitive information. ‘Atom spies’ were well positioned to

keep the Soviets informed of every American development on the bomb. Of

considerable importance was a man by the name of Klaus Fuchs, a German

communist who fled Hitler’s purge and whose ability as a nuclear physicist

earned him a place on the Manhattan Project. Fuchs passed information to

the Soviets beginning in 1941, and was not arrested until 1950. Also

passing secrets to the Soviets were Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, executed in

the United States in 1953. The latter two were probably among the first who

believed in nuclear deterrence, whereby neither country would use nuclear

weapons because the other would use his in response, therefore there would

be no ssible winner. It is generally believed that with such scientists as

Andrei Sakharov, the Soviets were capable of working it out for themselves

without the help of intelligence. (better transition) The National Security

Act of 1947 gave birth to the CIA, and in 1949 the CIA Act was formally

passed. “The act exempted the CIA from all Federal laws that required the

disclosure of ‘functions, names, official titles, and salaries or number of

personnel employed by the agency’. The director was awarded staggering

powers, including the right to ’spend money without regard to the

provisions of law and regulations relating to the expenditure of government

funds’. The act also allowed the director to bring in 100

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