Executive Secrets: Covert Action and the Presidency

"This is by a CIA officer who turned historian. This is a really useful book because it cuts through a lot of the myths. There are so many books on the CIA. Many of them focus on failure and many of them heavily mythologise the CIA as this rampant organisation running wild, going around and killing people left right and centre without any oversight and without any accountability. They’re shown as an absolute nightmare for the president and for America’s global image. What Daugherty says is that, actually, presidents have a role in covert action. He says that members of the public who are inherently opposed to covert action don’t like to think that it’s traced back to the president. He says that even presidents who are publicly opposed to covert action, such as Jimmy Carter, still use it. Carter launched propaganda campaigns and supported underground printing presses behind the Iron Curtain, all to try and attack the legitimacy of the Soviet Union. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . The other argument Daugherty makes, which I think is really important, is that it can be successful. He argues that it helped end the Cold War, and that covert support for trade unions and political parties in Europe helped to stave off Soviet encroachment in western Europe. He also argues that covert support for minorities behind the Iron Curtain helped to enable their cultural identities to flourish and to carry on existing, despite Soviet oppression, and this kept the flame of resistance alive. So, I think this book is a really useful one for anyone wanting to understand the role of covert action—the role of deniable or unacknowledged intervention—in today’s world because it offers such a balanced approach. It’s not just criticising the CIA, he’s saying, ‘Look, this is linked back to the president and sometimes it works.’ I do, yes. I certainly agree that covert action has been thoroughly mythologised and this idea that they’re all going around and killing people is a myth based on things like James Bond. I also certainly agree that it is traced back to presidents and, in Britain, to prime ministers. Nine times out of ten, British covert action can be traced back to 10 Downing Street and the Foreign Office. I also agree with the conclusion that it can be successful. “Nine times out of ten, British covert action can be traced back to 10 Downing Street and the Foreign Office.” I think Treverton, my first choice, is right that it must be used cautiously and we definitely shouldn’t get carried away. It should not be seen as a silver bullet by presidents and prime ministers to do something quickly, cheaply, and quietly, without proper scrutiny. But when it is used properly, when it has been properly scrutinised and when it has been properly integrated into foreign policy, then I think there is a place for it as one method in the state’s foreign policy arsenal. Eden famously abused it in the 1950s over Suez. He was so blinded by his personal hatred of the Egyptian president Nasser that he turned to MI6 to launch their own parallel foreign policy, in contrast to what the Foreign Office were doing, just to try and kill him, basically. It didn’t work out as Eden had intended, and he came up with a load of crazy schemes, none of which worked. The other prime ministers who really liked this stuff were Churchill and Thatcher. Churchill loved special operations and anything secret. Thatcher loved MI6 and wanted to harness the power of intelligence and special forces as a force multiplier to ensure Britain’s role in the world, even though our economic and military capabilities were declining. Yes, I think so. She took quite a macho approach to it. The covert action in Afghanistan in the 1980s, when we supported the Mujahedeen against Soviet occupation, is widely considered an example of successful covert action, particularly in the early years."