Overview

Borrowing the words of former Idaho senator Frank Church, one widespread notion of the Central Intelligence Agency is that it tends to behave like a rogue elephant rampaging out of control, initiating risky covert action programs without the sanction of either Congress or the White House. In Executive Secrets: Covert Action and the Presidency, William J. Daugherty, a seventeen-year veteran operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, addresses these and other perceptions about covert action that have seeped into the public consciousness. Daugherty cites congressional investigations, declassified documents, and his own experiences in covert action policy and oversight to show convincingly that the C.I.A.'s covert programs were conducted specifically at presidential behest from the Agency's founding in 1947.

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