Mister 8

Allen Dulles (1893-1969) had a long and storied career in intelligence, including as the first director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1953-1961. The following is an excerpt from his book The Craft of Intelligence, written in 1963.

There is a fundamental question about our intelligence work which, I realize, worries a good many people. Is it necessary, they ask, for the United States, with its high ideals and its traditions to involve itself in espionage, to send U-2s over other people’s territory, to break other people’s coded messages?

Many people who understand that such activities may be necessary in wartime still doubt that they are justified in time of peace. Do we spy on friend and foe alike, and do we have to do it merely because another less scrupulous and less moral type of country does it to us? I do not consider such questions improper, frivolous or pacifist. Indeed, it does us credit that these questions are raised.

Personally, I see little excuse for peacetime spying on our friends or allies. Apart from the moral issues, we have other and far more important ways of using our limited intelligence resources. Also, there are other ways of getting the information we need through normal diplomatic channels. Of course, we have to take into account the historical fact that we have had friends who became enemies — Germany on two recent occasions, and Italy and Japan. Hence, it is always useful to have “in the bank” a store of basic intelligence — most of it not very secret — about all countries. I recall that in the early days of World War II a call went out to the public for personal photographs of various areas of the world, particularly the islands of the Pacific. We did not then have adequate knowledge of the beaches and the flora and fauna of many places where our forces might shortly be landing.

But the answer to the question of the need for intelligence, particularly on the Communist bloc, is that we are not really “at peace” with them, and we have not been since Communism declared its own war on our system of government and life. We are faced with a closed, conspiratorial, police-dominated society. We cannot hope to maintain our position securely if this opponent is confident that he can surprise us by attacking the Free World at the time and place of his own choosing and without any forewarning.