Early stages in the evolution of covert action governance in the United States, 1951–1961

Abstract

The U.S. government started to establish a formalised covert action capability only in the late 1940s and early 1950s, in response to the perceived Soviet threat. The difficult process of establishing the first inter-agency management organisation for this new activity, the Psychological Strategy Board, and its successor, the Operational Coordination Board, serves to highlight the peculiar characteristics of covert action and its management. Very little current scholarship deals with inter-agency bodies in the U.S. context, and this article aims to fill this void. The article concludes that while covert action itself remains in the shadows, policy coordination for it must be well-managed at the very centre of government to account for strong policy interests in this activity from other agencies, particularly the Departments of State and Defense. This task is complicated by the nature of U.S. national security architecture and U.S. government culture overall, which poses high structural obstacles to inter-agency cooperation.