‘Do We Still Need the CIA ?’ D aniel P atrick M oynihan, the C entral I ntelligence A gency and US F oreign Policy

In May 1991, writing in the op‐ed column of the N ew Y ork T imes , the US Senator for N ew Y ork, D aniel P atrick M oynihan, called for the C entral I ntelligence A gency to be disbanded. Arguing that the CIA represented an historical anachronism that had outlived its usefulness to A merican foreign policy‐makers, Moynihan proposed that the A gency should be stripped of its autonomy and have its intelligence functions subsumed by the D epartment of S tate. Moynihan's rhetorical assault on the CIA marked the opening salvo in a protracted campaign that, over the following decade, until his death in March 2003, would see the one‐time member of the S enate S elect C ommittee on Intelligence lobby relentlessly for reform of A merica's intelligence community and against pervasive official secrecy. To date, Moynihan's evangelical fervour in championing a more open intelligence paradigm, which came to incorporate the drafting of congressional bills, the chairmanship of a bipartisan commission on government secrecy, the publication of a book, and innumerable speeches and articles, has been interpreted in a narrow personal and political context. Commentators have tended to characterize Moynihan's turn against the CIA , and towards government transparency as symptomatic of individual eccentricity, disenchantment with purported A gency excesses during the R eagan administration, and ill‐judged post‐ C old W ar hubris. This article breaks new ground by reframing and reperiodizing Moynihan's relationship with intelligence. It suggests that M oynihan's attitudes to intelligence and state secrecy were formulated much earlier than has hitherto been acknowledged, and in an environment far removed from Washington's corridors of power. Specifically, the essay relocates M oynihan's emergence as an advocate of intelligence reform in the global political turmoil of the early 1970s when, as R ichard N ixon's ambassador to I ndia, he was afforded ample scope to assess the CIA 's utility as an instrument of American diplomacy.