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CIA Facts & Worksheets

The CIA is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the United States. It gathers, processes, and analyzes national security information from different countries around the world.

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The CIA is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the United States. It gathers, processes, and analyzes national security information from different countries around the world.

See the fact file below for more information on the CIA or alternatively, you can download our 26-page CIA worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

HISTORY OF THE CIA

  • America’s first peacetime intelligence organization was created at the beginning of World War II.
  • However, the United States’ State Department, Army, Navy, and FBI espionage were not designed to collect strategic and economic intelligence that was required during the war.
  • President Franklin D. Roosevelt founded the Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI) to coordinate the collection, organization, and dissemination of the intelligence gathered by the agencies.
  • He appointed General William “Wild Bill” Donovan, a World War I veteran, to head the organization.
  • COI accumulated intelligence overseas and cooperated with British intelligence to gain information, training, and experience from them.
  • The COI was then renamed Office of Strategic Services (OSS).
  • It was re-established to gather information by conducting unconventional and paramilitary operations.
  • It also developed counterintelligence apparatus overseas, drawing on military, diplomatic, and non-official cover, and began building a worldwide capability.
  • It was then renamed the Strategic Services Unit (SSU) and eventually the Central Intelligence Group (CIG).
  • In 1946, the US President and Congress appointed the SSU’s duties, responsibilities, staff, overseas field stations, communications, and logistical capacities to the CIG.
  • The Deputy Chief of Naval Intelligence, Rear Admiral Sidney Souers, USNR, was made Executive Secretary of the CIG to carry out its responsibilities.

EARLY YEARS OF THE CIA

  • The CIA was created under the National Security Act of 1947, which President Truman signed on July 26, 1947.
  • It came into operation by 18 September 1947.
  • The CIA was authorized to fund intelligence operations and conduct personnel actions outside of standard US Government procedures.
  • By 1953, the Agency was an established element of government.
  • The agency hired some of the country’s most skilled professionals like lawyers, academicians, and patriots.
  • In late 1961, employees moved from Washington to a newly built headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
  • US Air Force general Hoyt Vandenberg, CIG’s second director, created agencies that extended information gathering overseas.
  • However, like all other starting agencies, the CIA also had its failures.
  • It did not predict the Chinese entry into the Korean War with 300,000 troops.

KNOWN CIA OPERATIONS

  • Operation Ajax – This was the first covert action of the CIA to overthrow a foreign government through the 1953 Iranian coup d’état.
  • Bay of Pigs Invasion – This was a failed military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the CIA-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade 2506 on April 17, 1961 to overthrow the communist government of Fidel Castro.
  • Operation CHAOS – This was a domestic espionage project targeting the American people from 1967 to 1974, established by Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. It aimed to uncover possible foreign influence on domestic race, anti-war and other protest movements.
  • Operation Cyclone – The CIA armed and financed the mujahideen (jihadists) in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, during the military intervention by the USSR supporting the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
  • Operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield – The CIA provided intelligence support to the US military forces during the Gulf War from 1990 to 1991.
  • Cold War Espionage – The CIA monitored the USSR’s warheads and coordinated hundreds of airdrop operations inside the iron curtain during the Cold War.
  • Project Dark Gene – This was an aerial reconnaissance program run by the CIA and Imperial Iranian Air Force from bases inside Iran against the Soviet Union.
  • The Vinh wiretap – This was an espionage operation during the Vietnam War. CIA telephones intercepted North Vietnamese military communications, which were supplied to American diplomat Henry Kissinger.
  • Operation Cannonball – This was intended as part of an effort to capture Osama Bin Laden and eliminate Al Qaeda forces in Pakistan.

MEDIA AND THE CIA

  • For a long time, the CIA has been a topic for many books, films and video games.
  • Movie – In Person of Interest, Jim Caviezel plays John Reese, a retired CIA operative working with a hacker to stop violent crimes in New York.
  • Video game – The CIA is a central player in the events of Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell.
  • Comedy – American Dad! is an animated comedy series that spoofs the CIA.

CIA Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about the CIA across 26 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use CIA worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about the CIA which is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the United States. It gathers, processes, and analyzes national security information from different countries around the world.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

  • World Intelligence
  • Virginia Hall
  • I-Spy
  • Power of Intelligence
  • Spy Codes
  • Neptune Spear
  • Photo Analysis
  • Modern Agent
  • Seek and You’ll Find
  • Secret Message

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Link will appear as CIA Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com - KidsKonnect, March 1, 2020

Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

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