“I’m going to be so much better a president for having been at the CIA that you’re not going to believe it.”
–George H. W. Bush
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an agency that is tasked with gathering intelligence and international security information from foreign countries by the US government. Its history dates back to WW1 as it played a key role in combatting the Axis powers. It also played a major role in the Cold War that followed. The way it came into being was through President Franklin D. Roosevelt who established the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and appointed General William J. Donovan to head the agency. Its original mission was to collect and analyse strategic information to use in war but by 1947, Congress passed the National Security Act which led to the formation of the National Security Council and the CIA as we know it today.