2007年VOA标准英语-US Central Intelligence Agency 60 Years Old thi

By Gary Thomas
Washington
14 September 2007
 

The Central Intelligence Agency marks its 60th birthday this month.  The CIA has had a colorful and often controversial history.  In this background report, VOA correspondent Gary Thomas looks at the CIA's past and its current state.

CIA seal in the headquarters lobby

Some historians say various sectors¹ of the government had enough information to warn of the impending² Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.  But no one  -- as spies say -- connected the dots.

That led President Franklin Roosevelt to create the Office of Strategic Services to carry out espionage³ and sabotage⁴ in German and Japanese-occupied territories.

Sixty years after Pearl Harbor and billions of dollars spent on intelligence, the United States was the target of another surprise attack on September 11th, 2001.  The debate over the failure to intercept⁵ that attack continues.

With the end of the war the old OSS faded into history -- replaced by the CIA on September 18, 1947. 

The man known as "Wild Bill" -- OSS chief William Donovan -- lobbied vigorously for a post war intelligence agency to ensure that America's leaders would not make policy in ignorance. "America cannot afford to resume its prewar indifference," he said, "and here's a fact we must face: today there is not a single permanent agency to take over in peace time certain of the functions which OSS has performed in war time."

Peter Earnest

Former CIA officer Peter Earnest joined the agency in the 1950s.  Earnest, who now runs the International Spy Museum in Washington, says the agency was a very different creature in the Cold War era. "It was a very heady atmosphere.  We were very highly mission-oriented.  We really did feel we were the front line of the United States in fighting the Cold War."

Oleg Kalugin, once a major general in the Soviet⁶ intelligence service, says the KGB [Soviet-era intelligence service] did not take the CIA lightly. "In terms of professional respect, the KGB viewed the CIA as, well, equal counterparts.  In fact, this is part of Russian intelligence and counterintelligence cultures: never underestimate your adversaries⁷."

But the CIA has often come under fire for intelligence lapses⁸ such as the failure to foresee the collapse⁹ of the Soviet Union and the mistaken assertion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Most controversial were the CIA's covert¹⁰ actions, such the 1953 coup¹¹ in Iran that installed the Shah, or the overthrow¹² of the Salvador Allende government in Chile in 1973 -- both by presidential order.

In his new history of the CIA, journalist Tim Weiner is sharply critical of the CIA's 60-year record. "The legacy¹³ of operational failures is long, very long, and the successes don't always stand."

John McLaughlin

But former CIA deputy director John McLaughlin says that, while the CIA deserves criticism, Weiner is being unfair to the agency. "I have serious concerns about Tim Weiner's book.  It could be subtitled 'Failures-Are-Us' because it looks at every single episode in CIA history and finds something dark about it, something that is a failure.  And he even turns many successes into failures."

McLaughlin sees success in the CIA's quick response in Afghanistan after the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks and the breakup of the A.Q. Khan nuclear proliferation network.

Still, many CIA veterans concede that the U.S. officials came to favor spy technology in place of the spies themselves -- or what professionals call "HUMINT," human intelligence. 

Eugene Poteat

Former CIA science and technology officer Eugene Poteat, who helped design an early spy plane -- the SR-71, says technology is only one tool in the espionage arsenal¹⁴. "Spying has war-winning potential.  And the only way you can get what the enemy is thinking and planning and his intentions is through human spying.  You can't do that with a satellite or even an aircraft."

Former deputy CIA chief John McLaughlin says in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks, it is especially important to get a proper balance when collecting intelligence. "Right now, the pendulum¹⁵ is over to the side of the spectrum¹⁶ that says HUMINT, that is, classic espionage -- human spies -- are the keys to success.  But we have to be careful not to do that to the exclusion¹⁷ of technology.  Where we make a mistake is when we put all of our eggs in one of these baskets."

Almost half of the CIA's current workforce¹⁸ was hired after September 11th, 2001.  This new computer-literate generation of analysts¹⁹ and field officers are now on watch -- snooping with technology the old Cold War spies never envisioned.

1 sectors   

n.部门( sector的名词复数 )；领域；防御地区；扇形

参考例句：

• Berlin was divided into four sectors after the war. 战后柏林分成了4 个区。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Industry and agriculture are the two important sectors of the national economy. 工业和农业是国民经济的两个重要部门。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

2 impending   

a.imminent, about to come or happen

参考例句：

• Against a background of impending famine, heavy fighting took place. 即将发生饥荒之时，严重的战乱爆发了。
• The king convoke parliament to cope with the impending danger. 国王召开国会以应付迫近眉睫的危险。

3 espionage   

n.间谍行为，谍报活动

参考例句：

• The authorities have arrested several people suspected of espionage.官方已经逮捕了几个涉嫌从事间谍活动的人。
• Neither was there any hint of espionage in Hanley's early life.汉利的早期生活也毫无进行间谍活动的迹象。

4 sabotage   

n.怠工，破坏活动，破坏；v.从事破坏活动，妨害，破坏

参考例句：

• They tried to sabotage my birthday party.他们企图破坏我的生日晚会。
• The fire at the factory was caused by sabotage.那家工厂的火灾是有人蓄意破坏引起的。

5 intercept   

vt.拦截，截住，截击

参考例句：

• His letter was intercepted by the Secret Service.他的信被特工处截获了。
• Gunmen intercepted him on his way to the airport.持枪歹徒在他去机场的路上截击了他。

6 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

7 adversaries   

n.对手，敌手( adversary的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• That would cause potential adversaries to recoil from a challenge. 这会迫使潜在的敌人在挑战面前退缩。 来自辞典例句
• Every adversaries are more comfortable with a predictable, coherent America. 就连敌人也会因有可以预料的，始终一致的美国而感到舒服得多。 来自辞典例句

8 lapses   

n.失误，过失( lapse的名词复数 )；小毛病；行为失检；偏离正道v.退步( lapse的第三人称单数 )；陷入；倒退；丧失

参考例句：

• He sometimes lapses from good behavior. 他有时行为失检。 来自辞典例句
• He could forgive attacks of nerves, panic, bad unexplainable actions, all sorts of lapses. 他可以宽恕突然发作的歇斯底里，惊慌失措，恶劣的莫名其妙的动作，各种各样的失误。 来自辞典例句

9 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

10 covert   

adj.隐藏的；暗地里的

参考例句：

• We should learn to fight with enemy in an overt and covert way.我们应学会同敌人做公开和隐蔽的斗争。
• The army carried out covert surveillance of the building for several months.军队对这座建筑物进行了数月的秘密监视。

11 coup   

n.政变；突然而成功的行动

参考例句：

• The monarch was ousted by a military coup.那君主被军事政变者废黜了。
• That government was overthrown in a military coup three years ago.那个政府在3年前的军事政变中被推翻。

12 overthrow   

v.推翻，打倒，颠覆；n.推翻，瓦解，颠覆

参考例句：

• After the overthrow of the government,the country was in chaos.政府被推翻后，这个国家处于混乱中。
• The overthrow of his plans left him much discouraged.他的计划的失败使得他很气馁。

13 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。

14 arsenal   

n.兵工厂，军械库

参考例句：

• Even the workers at the arsenal have got a secret organization.兵工厂工人暗中也有组织。
• We must be the great arsenal of democracy.我们必须成为民主的大军火库。

15 pendulum   

n.摆，钟摆

参考例句：

• The pendulum swung slowly to and fro.钟摆在慢慢地来回摆动。
• He accidentally found that the desk clock did not swing its pendulum.他无意中发现座钟不摇摆了。

16 spectrum   

n.谱，光谱，频谱；范围，幅度，系列

参考例句：

• This is a kind of atomic spectrum.这是一种原子光谱。
• We have known much of the constitution of the solar spectrum.关于太阳光谱的构成，我们已了解不少。

17 exclusion   

n.拒绝，排除，排斥，远足，远途旅行

参考例句：

• Don't revise a few topics to the exclusion of all others.不要修改少数论题以致排除所有其他的。
• He plays golf to the exclusion of all other sports.他专打高尔夫球，其他运动一概不参加。

18 workforce   

n.劳动大军，劳动力

参考例句：

• A large part of the workforce is employed in agriculture.劳动人口中一大部分受雇于农业。
• A quarter of the local workforce is unemployed.本地劳动力中有四分之一失业。

19 analysts   

分析家，化验员( analyst的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• City analysts forecast huge profits this year. 伦敦金融分析家预测今年的利润非常丰厚。
• I was impressed by the high calibre of the researchers and analysts. 研究人员和分析人员的高素质给我留下了深刻印象。