The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy

Winner: D.B. Hardeman Prize

From its inception more than half a century ago and for decades afterward, the Central Intelligence Agency was deeply shrouded in secrecy, with little or no real oversight by Congress—or so many Americans believe. David M. Barrett reveals, however, that during the agency’s first fifteen years, Congress often monitored the CIA’s actions and plans, sometimes aggressively.

Drawing on a wealth of newly declassified documents, research at some two dozen archives, and in...