Tag: CIA

  • Nation & World

    Why Church Committee alums urged new House panel to avoid partisanship

    Fritz Schwarz, former chief counsel of the 1975-76 U.S. Senate panel known as the Church Committee, discusses what it was like to undertake the largest, most consequential investigation of U.S. intelligence in American history.

    6 minutes
    Members of the special Senate Committee created to investigate the CIA, FBI and other U.S. Intelligence gathering agencies in 1975.
  • Nation & World

    No, Jason Bourne is not the real CIA

    Former officials, scholars say nation’s image comes from popular media, offer insights into actual mission, history as the CIA turns 75.

    5 minutes
    Sue Gordon
  • Nation & World

    Russian attack, takeover of Ukraine plant ramps up nuclear threat

    Former U.S. intelligence officer and nuclear counterterrorism expert provides an intelligence view of Russia’s attack and seizure of Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant last Friday.

    8 minutes
    Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant on fire.
  • Nation & World

    Rush to stop ‘Havana syndrome’

    Intelligence analysts and reporters discuss the enduring Havana syndrome.

    7 minutes
    U.S. Embassy in Cuba.
  • Nation & World

    Haiti assassination revives concerns over ‘private armies’

    After authorities say Haiti’s president was assassinated by a hired hit squad, a former senior CIA career official talks about the world of private armies.

    6 minutes
    hired security with guns.
  • Nation & World

    Revelations of cyberattacks on U.S. likely just ‘tip of the iceberg’

    A major cyberattack by what appears to be Russia targeted the U.S. government and top corporations.

    9 minutes
    Red Square in Moscow.
  • Nation & World

    What do Trump’s election denials and flurry of firings add up to?

    What is President Trump up to with his ongoing purge of top Pentagon and cybersecurity officials and his false assertions that Joe Biden was not legitimately elected as the 46th president? Experts say it’s not clear yet, but intelligence and national security risks abound.

    8 minutes
    President Donald Trump.
  • Nation & World

    The rise of Vladimir Putin

    Analysts look back at the unexpected rule of Russian President Vladimir Putin, now 20 years in power.

    15 minutes
    Vladimir Putin.
  • Nation & World

    Intelligence matters

    Former intelligence officers, lawmakers, national security analysts, and top journalists discussed some of the ethical and moral issues in intelligence work and looked at the current challenges facing those in the field during a conference this week hosted by the Intelligence Project, a program of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the…

    5 minutes
    two people speaking on a panel
  • Nation & World

    U.S. and Russia, behind the curtains

    A high-level intelligence group gathered at Harvard Kennedy School to analyze current relations between the U.S. and Russia, and gauge future goals of each.

    4 minutes
    Douglas Lute (from left), Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, Kevin Ryan, and Daniel Hoffman
  • Nation & World

    New questions in Russia probe

    Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, director of the Belfer Center’s Intelligence and Defense Project, assesses revelations that in June 2016 top Trump campaign officials met with Russians who claimed they could deliver damaging information on Hillary Clinton.

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    U.S. intelligence: A ‘truth-devoted’ culture

    Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA officer and now a senior fellow at the Belfer Center, discusses the intelligence community’s investigation into Russian hacking of the 2016 election and the ongoing friction between these agencies and the administration of President Trump.

    13 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Inside the hacked U.S. election

    Kevin Ryan, a Russia-U.S. security analyst and Belfer Center director of defense and intelligence projects, discusses the conclusion by U.S. intelligence that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election and did so in an effort to boost the Republicans.

    15 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Losing the war on jihadism

    Former top intelligence officials from the Central Intelligence Agency and Israel’s Mossad discussed threats from the Islamic State, issues involving Israel, and the future of the Iran nuclear deal.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    A mirror to coercion

    Alberto Mora, a top civilian lawyer for the U.S. Navy in the administration of President George W. Bush and an early critic of the CIA torture program, assesses the findings and conclusions of the newly released Senate Intelligence Committee report.

    10 minutes
  • Nation & World

    A ‘sitdown’ with Snowden

    By videoconference on Monday, Harvard’s Lawrence Lessig interviewed Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who last year leaked more than 200,000 classified documents about U.S. surveillance efforts.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The quantum of cruelty

    A former general counsel for the U.S. Navy, among the earliest Pentagon critics of detainee abuse, offers firsthand insights into the findings of the still-secret Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on CIA torture.

    9 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Weather warning

    A report co-authored by Professor Michael McElroy and D. James Baker, a former administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, connects global climate change, extreme weather, and national security.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Focus on Pakistan

    What did Pakistani officials know about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and when did they know it? Were they complicit — or dumb? Or smart at playing dumb? Those questions were analyzed by a panel of foreign policy experts on Wednesday (May 4) at Harvard Kennedy School.

    5 minutes