Executive Secrets: Covert Action and the Presidency - Hardcover

Daugherty, William J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0813123348 ISBN 13: 9780813123349

Publisher: Univ Pr of Kentucky, 2004

Synopsis

In Executive Secrets, Covert Action and the Presidency, William J. Daugherty, a seventeen-year veteran operations officer with the C.I.A., explains the nature of the intelligence discipline of covert action and presidential decision making processes since World War II. By examining the agency's history in this way, he establishes and clarifies the role of covert action as a necessary tool of presidential statecraft.
Citing congressional investigations, recently declassified documents, and his own experiences in covert action policy and oversight, Daugherty demonstrates that the C.I.A.'s covert programs were initiated by the president. In addition to explaining how covert programs transform presidential foreign policy into reality, he details how each president conducted the approval, oversight, and review processes for covert action and examines specific instances in which U.S. presidents have expressly directed C.I.A. covert action programs to suit their broader policy objectives.
Daugherty's first tour with the C.I.A. was in Iran, where he was one of fifty-two Americans held hostage for 444 days during the Carter administration. Combining inside perspectives with objectivity in judging the true nature and scope of C.I.A. covert actions during the last half century, Daugherty reveals an agency whose essential functions are necessary in a complex and dangerous modern world.

About this title

From the Publisher

Foreword by Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War

About the Author

William J. Daugherty is associate professor of government at Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, Georgia.

Edition details

• Publisher: Univ Pr of Kentucky
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0813123348
• ISBN 13: 9780813123349
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 298