The Library
The last assignment : David Atlee Phillips and the birth of CIA public relations
Tools
Tools
Tools
Moran, Christopher R. (2013) The last assignment : David Atlee Phillips and the birth of CIA public relations. The International History Review, Volume 35 (Number 2). pp. 337-355. doi:10.1080/07075332.2012.761149 ISSN 0707-5332.
Research output not available from this repository.
Request-a-Copy directly from author or use local Library Get it For Me service.
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2012.761149
Abstract
In recent years, scholars of international history and intelligence have argued that, since the 1990s, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been engaged in public-relations campaigns to promote its image. As evidence of this, they point to the CIA's willingness to provide more briefings to the media, its greater engagement with Hollywood, and the appearance of CIA staff historians at academic conferences. Drawing on recently declassified documents and unpublished correspondence from the private papers of CIA officers, this article will argue that efforts by the CIA in the realm of opinion-forming began much earlier than the existing historiography dictates. In the 1970s, embarrassing revelations about CIA domestic operations prompted a host of loyal veterans, most notably David Atlee Phillips, to speak out in favour of the intelligence community as an indispensible, effective, and honourable arm of government. They did this by speaking at universities and by writing memoirs. It will be suggested that the Agency itself was initially reluctant to support the veterans, mindful of the need for secrecy, meaning that the frustrated veterans were required to operate in a strictly private capacity. By the end of the decade, however, attitudes at Langley had changed and perception management was finally put on a formal institutional footing. In charting the birth of CIA public relations, this article provides a fresh vista on the Agency's broader attitudes and policies towards secrecy and openness during the cold war and into the twenty-first century.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies | ||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | The International History Review | ||||||||
| Publisher: | Routledge | ||||||||
| ISSN: | 0707-5332 | ||||||||
| Official Date: | 28 January 2013 | ||||||||
| Dates: |
|
||||||||
| Volume: | Volume 35 | ||||||||
| Number: | Number 2 | ||||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 337-355 | ||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1080/07075332.2012.761149 | ||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access |
Request changes or add full text files to a record
Repository staff actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
