ABSTRACT
The transformation of the American intelligence service into an all-purpose action instrument for secretly executing presidential policies began with the start of the Cold War. On June 18, 1948, the National Security Council issued a directive establishing a new agency to carry out covert political, psychological, economic, and paramilitary operations to counter the "vicious covert activities of the USSR." It listed a broad variety of specific actions: propaganda; economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, antisabotage, demolition, and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assist ance to guerrillas and refugee liberation groups; and support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in the threatened countries of the free world. The new agency, the Office of Policy Coordination, was to operate under the policy direction of the departments of State and Defense. Although independent of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, it was housed within CIA for administrative support.
