L. Fletcher Prouty - The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World

Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (Special Operations) is the principal staff assistant to the Secretary of Defense in the functional fields of intelligence, counterintelligence (except as otherwise specifically assigned), communications security, Central Intelligence Agency relationship and special operations, and psychological warfare operations. He performs functions in his assigned fields of responsibility such as: (1) recommending policies and guidance governing Department of Defense planning and program development; (2) reviewing plans and programs of the military departments for carrying out approved policies and evaluating the administration and management of approved plans and programs as a basis on which to recommend to the Secretary of Defense necessary actions to provide for more effective, efficient, and economical administration and operations and the elimination of duplication; (3) reviewing the development and execution of plans and programs of the National Security Agency and related activities of the department of Defense; and (4) developing Department of Defense positions and providing for Department of Defense support in connection with special operations activities of the United States Government. In the performance of his functions, he coordinates actions, as appropriate, with the military departments and other Department of Defense agencies having collateral or related functions and maintains liaison with the Department of State, the Director of Central Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States Information Agency, and other United States and foreign government organizations on matters in his assigned fields of responsibility. In the course of exercising full staff functions, he is authorized to issue instructions appropriate to carrying out policies approved by the Secretary of Defense for his assigned fields of responsibility. He also exercises the authority vested in the Secretary of Defense relating to the direction and control of the National Security Agency and related activities of the Department of Defense. The Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (Special Operations) is appointed by the Secretary of Defense.

U .S. Title 50War and National Defense, Chapter 15National Security contains, in one place, a collation of most of the law as it pertains to the Central Intelligence Agency. Most people who write about the CIA and who talk about the CIAindeed, many who have served with the CIAhave never read this law. It is most significant that the legislation that pertains to war and national defense is the same legislation that includes all reference to the CIA. It is almost as if the bomb contained its own live fuse or the gun came with the trigger cocked for action. As we have seen, during the past twenty-five years the CIA has become the active agent that ignites the military establishment whenever that great mass becomes supercritical.

Fundamental to the whole concept and character of the CIA is the statement of the five powers and duties, which appears in Section 403 (d). This is a precise, clear, and unequivocal delineation of what Congress and the President wanted the Central Intelligence Agency to be. The language of the law has never been substantively altered; yet in practice the CIA and its Secret Team mentors have changed it beyond recognition. (This appendix includes all important material relevant to the CIA from the National Security Act.)