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Executive Secrets: Covert Action and the Presidency. By William J. Daugherty. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2004. 328 pp.
This is a fascinating book and one that attempts to strip away some of the myths involving CIA covert actions. William J. Daugherty argues that, although many people (expert and nonexpert) have strong views about the CIA, and even stronger views about its actions, these assessments often are based upon the failure to understand the constant evolution and sometimes dramatic changes in both the institution itself and the wider international system in which it operates.
The first six chapters are designed to construct the framework for understanding the CIA and to define covert action. The second section contains seven chapters assessing these factors within particular presidential periods, ending with Bill Clinton. Daugherty argues throughout that the presidency directs covert action programs. He is equally determined to demonstrate that the CIA does not, and indeed cannot, operate as a "rogue elephant," as Senator Frank Church suggested in the 1970s. For Daugherty, covert action has formed an essential part of U.S. foreign policy not only since 1947 but since the birth of the United States. Because it is covert, much or maybe all of the action can remain hidden from foreign audiences as well as from Americans themselves. Daugherty says that only fragments become public knowledge and even many years later might remain only partially revealed. For example, in both sections of the book, he uses the CIA actions initiated in the early Cold War period in Italy and Japan (to support anti-Communist political parties and civil society organizations) to confirm the view that this established some of the most successful elements of U.S. foreign policy and yet remained virtually...