CIA: The History

American History Hit

History Hit

America, History

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 20 October 2022

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When the Central Intelligence Agency was created by President Truman in 1947, it was the latest incarnation of an American intelligence-gathering service. Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones tells Don about the evolution that led to the creation of the CIA and the often controversial covert operations it has undertaken in the name of US national security.

Produced by Benjie Guy. Mixed by Aidan Lonergan. Senior Producer: Charlotte Long.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	On the 19th of September 2001, with the ruins of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
0:07.0	still smoldering from the 9-11 terrorist attacks, CIA officer Gary Schrone stepped into his boss's office to receive his latest set of orders.
0:17.0	Capture bin Laden, kill him, and bring his head back in a box on dry ice. Within days, Shrone and his team became the first Americans
0:26.5	on the ground in Afghanistan. Over the next 10 years, intelligence on bin Laden's whereabouts
0:32.1	was gathered, and a trail was followed through the Al Qaeda terrorist network
0:35.8	which eventually led to a compound in Obadabad, Pakistan.
0:40.5	The hunt for bin Laden, who was finally found and killed in 2011, is one of the CIA's most high-profile
0:47.1	missions in the history of the organization, one of thousands of covert, often controversial
0:52.3	assignments, carried out in the name of U.S. national security
0:55.9	since the Central Intelligence Agency's inception in post-World War II America.
1:07.0	Hello, I'm Don Wilden and welcome to American History Hit. Today we're talking about an entity called the agency, the company.
1:18.0	Call it what you will, and some have called it much worse.
1:21.0	It is a proud long-standing off-times, controversial entity of the U.S. federal
1:26.2	government, and it's called the CIA.
1:29.2	The Central Intelligence Agency has existed under that name since 1947, but its roots reach back for centuries,
1:36.0	because one adage remains true no matter the times, you always need a good spy.
1:41.0	Here to report on this covert world of cloak and dagger is
1:44.7	Rodry Jeffries Jones, author of 18 books, many of which are focused on American
1:49.2	spycraft. Indeed he is an expert on U.S. Intelligence and espionage, and it also happens to be the president of the Scottish Association for the Study of America.
1:59.0	Rodry Jeffries Jones, welcome to American History Hit.
2:01.6	Hi, Don, glad to be here.
2:03.0	My goodness, this would be a program made for you.
	...

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