TELEVISION

Agency: A History of the CIA

Series: Agency: A History of the CIA
4.6
(22)
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Episodes
24
Rating
TVPG
Year
2019
Language
English
Publisher
The Great Courses

About

CIA expert Hugh Wilford transforms decades of research into a 24-episode series that helps you better understand the roles the CIA has played in recent American history, from the eve of the Cold War to the 21st-century War on Terror. You'll explore the CIA's successful (and disastrous) operations, its technological innovations, and its complex relationship with presidents and pop culture.

Related Subjects

Episodes

1. Secrecy, Democracy, and the Birth of the CIA

29m

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Why did the United States create a secret foreign intelligence service in the first place? For the answer, examine three key periods of U.S. government intelligence before the birth of the CIA: the American Revolution to the late 1930s, World War II, and the postwar years from 1945 to 1947.

2. George Kennan and the Rise of Covert Ops

30m

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Professor Wilford reveals how the CIA transformed from an intelligence agency to housing the United States' premier covert-action unit in the space of just two years. Central to this conversion is George F. Kennan, who declared "political warfare" against the Soviet Union through his policies of both containment and "rollback."

3. The CIA, China, and the Korean War

29m

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Discover how the CIA, with its attention drawn to Asia, failed to rein in the growing emphasis on covert operations and restore its focus on intelligence gathering and analysis. Two factors you'll focus on: the lack of public scrutiny of the CIA's actions and the arrival of future CIA director Allen Dulles.

4. The Iran Coup of August 1953

27m

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More than any other operation, the 1953 Iran Coup created a culture of covert action that would shape the CIA's future. First, study the shifting political attitudes toward Iranian nationalism. Then, learn about the Iran operation itself (TP-AJAX). Finally, ponder who was most responsible for Mohammad Mosaddeq's fall from power.

5. Regime Change in Guatemala

30m

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In this episode, explore the CIA's role in the Guatemalan coup (the operation codenamed PB-SUCCESS) that brought about a new era of murderous dictatorship to the country and a surge of anti-American sentiment across Central and South America that has haunted U.S. relations with the region to this day.

6. Operation Rollback in Eastern Europe

29m

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One of the CIA's first major setbacks was the tragic failure of the Hungarian uprising, despite the agency's attempts to liberate the Eastern Bloc countries during the early 1950s. Here, investigate CIA efforts to organize anti-communist Eastern European emigres to liberate their homelands and the creation of Radio Free Europe to counteract communist-controlled media.

7. U-2 Spy Missions and Battleground Berlin

29m

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Focus on the CIA's efforts to gain intelligence about its chief Cold War enemy: the Soviet Union. Professor Wilford covers how the CIA employed human agents as spies (HUMINT), how the CIA attempted to intercept Soviet signals (SIGINT), and how the CIA used advanced technology like the U-2 spy plane to gather intelligence (TECHINT).

8. The CIA in Syria, Indonesia, and the Congo

30m

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Go inside the CIA's three major covert ops setbacks of the late 1950s. The first was a follow-up attempt at regime change in Syria (1957), the second was an attempt to unseat the Indonesia leader Sukarno (1958), and the last was the effort to remove the Congolese prime minster, Patrice Lumumba (1960).

9. Under Orders: The Agency Targets Castro

28m

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Why were both Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy so dead-set on removing Fidel Castro from power? How did the CIA plan to use hallucinogens to assassinate the communist dictator? What made the CIA's Bay of Pigs covert operation such a resounding (and public) disaster?

10. Missile Crisis in Cuba and at Langley

27m

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The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was arguably the defining moment in the Cold War: 13 days in which the world came closest to a nuclear confrontation. Using recent scholarship, Professor Wilford unpacks the CIA's performance during the crisis and how it sparked a return to traditional intelligence work instead of covert ops.

Extended Details

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