ABSTRACT
From Beijing, Bush followed developments at the CIA as closely as possible, little knowing that he would become a key player. The agency was fighting for its very existence, its first institutional crisis in its twenty-seven-year history. “We were fighting for our survival,” recalled CIA Director William Colby. “Politically, the president had to assert his own role in running this thing, not just let it run out of hand.” 1 Post-Vietnam, post-Watergate public cynicism made for popular acceptance and indignation in the face of revelations about an intelligence agency apparently out of control, unimpeded by the Congress, the presidency, or public opinion. It operated, in fact, with its “black budget” that kept it unaccountable, waging its own clandestine cold war as it saw fit, ascribing sometimes controversial tactics to the interests of “national security.” Rumblings about doings out of CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia, on the banks of the Potomac, had begun to surface even before Bush went to China.
