Executive actions of the CIA are directives issued to the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

of the United States.

History

The CIA was created under the National Security Act of 1947, which

Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...

signed on July 26, 1947. Richard Bissell was in charge of Directorate for plans to contain Communism around the world. These operations were called "Black Operations", later known as Executive Actions. It refers to assassination operations. Executive Actions get their power from Article II of the Constitution. Here are different edicts giving power to the president;

presidential proclamation A presidential proclamation is a statement issued by a US president on an issue of public policy and is a type of presidential directive. Details A presidential proclamation is an instrument that: *states a condition, *declares a law and require ...

s to

presidential directive A presidential directive, or executive action, is a written or oral instruction or declaration issued by the president of the United States, which may draw upon the powers vested in the president by the U.S. Constitution, statutory law, or, in cert ...

s. The main ones are

executive order In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of t ...

s and

presidential memoranda A presidential memorandum is a type of directive issued by the president of the United States to manage and govern the actions, practices, and policies of the various departments and agencies found under the executive branch of the United States ...

. Executive orders have the most power. "It's a document that orders the executive branch officials to do something" A memorandum is a "proposal to persuade", and the president uses these for a more general scope of policy. Executive orders must by law be published in the '' Federal Register''.

Assassination orders

Political leaders deposed as a result of 'executive action' include: *

Patrice Lumumba Patrice Émery Lumumba (; 2 July 1925 – 17 January 1961) was a Congolese politician and independence leader who served as the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then known as the Republic of the Congo) from June u ...

of the Congo * the Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo * General Abd al-Karim Kassem of Iraq *

Ngo Dinh Diem Ngô Đình Diệm ( or ; ; 3 January 1901 – 2 November 1963) was a South Vietnamese politician. He was the final prime minister of the State of Vietnam (1954–1955), and then served as the first president of South Vietnam (Republic o ...

, the leader of South Vietnam. In March 1960, President Dwight Eisenhower of the United States approved a CIA plan to overthrow Fidel Castro who had established a socialist government in Cuba. The CIA started to use

drone strikes Drone warfare is a form of aerial warfare using unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV) or weaponized commercial unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The United States, United Kingdom, Israel, China, South Korea, Iran, Italy, France, India, Pakis ...

for

targeted killing Targeted killing is a form of murder or assassination carried out by governments outside a judicial procedure or a battlefield. Since the late 20th century, the legal status of targeted killing has become a subject of contention within and bet ...

under President

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

in 2001, during the

War on Terror The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campaign are militant ...

. It lost authority to do so by order of President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

, but regained it again under President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...

.Trump Restores CIA Power To Launch Drone Strikes
/ref>

Executive Order 11905

The

Ford administration Gerald Ford's tenure as the 38th president of the United States began on August 9, 1974, upon the resignation of Richard Nixon from office, and ended on January 20, 1977, a period of days. Ford, a Republican from Michigan, had served as vic ...

forbade assassination in 1976 with Executive Order 11905. A 1989 article in ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' reported that a "secret" ruling of the

U.S. Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other ...

's Office of Legal Advisor had interpreted that Ford's Executive Order only banned ''intentional'' killings of foreign leaders, thus clearing the way for "accidental" killings of foreign leaders; for example, during the confusion of a or invasion. Since this ruling was one of at least four preceding the U.S. invasion of Panama, some who saw the ruling as giving a green light (approval) for

Manuel Noriega Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno (; February 11, 1934 – May 29, 2017) was a Panamanian dictator, politician and military officer who was the ''de facto'' ruler of Panama from 1983 to 1989. An authoritarian ruler who amassed a personal f ...

to be killed "accidentally". Noriega survived the invasion, and surrendered to US forces.

References

Homicide Central Intelligence Agency operations {{US-hist-stub

History

Assassination orders

Executive Order 11905

See also

References