Research On The Policy Of The U.S."Covert Action"(1947-1960)

The paper mainly discusses the policy of the U.S."covert action".It refers to the activities that one country takes aiming at influencing some governments, events, organizations and individuals to support its foreign policies including political, economic, propagandistic and paramilitary activities.The paper is divided into four parts.The first part is the background information of the "covert action" policy. The basic pattern after the World War II is the Cold War between the U.S and the the Soviet Union, when the Soviet Union took the countries around Eastern Europe into control which made the American policy makers believe that the capitalist world had been threatened by the internationalized communist movements and the security mechanism of "free world" should be established internationally. Besides, emphasis was also put on the necessity to confront the threat by any rigid means. Overestimating the strength of the United States, exaggerating the threat of communism, adhering to the curb and confrontation policies constitute the American foreign policy guidelines in the early years of the cold war. In1947, the CIA was set up, whose basic task is to carry out the "covert action", through a variety of "covert action" means to realize the purposes difficult to achieve by Foreign Ministry in the United States.The Second part is devoted to the process from the introduction of the "covert action" to the establishment of it. The document NSC4-A was the first important document formulated by American government with regard to the "covert action" against the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, endowing CIA with the mission to take covert psychological actions in the Cold War. In the meantime, the document NSC10/2, which specified the implications of the "covert action", defines the "covert action" as the propagandistic and economic warfare, direct prevention actions, and the subversive actions to the rival countries. Later, the document NSC68proved the reason why American government chose the strategy of containment among various strategies and put forward the specific proposals on the policy. As a supplement to the NSC10/2, the document NSA10/5rules the scope and the process of the action. Accordingly, the document NSC5412extended the scope of the "covert action" and regulated the rules in a new way.The third part is about the application of the "covert action" in detail, including propaganda psychological warfare, and the paramilitary actions. Psychological warfare is an important approach of "covert action" to start off intense psywar to attack Eastern Europe Communist, to deframe soviet government and social system, to preach western life style and values, to incite Soviet people to rebel. The "covert action" in political area are to impact on other countries’regime and policy by secret touch and secret outlay. The CIA’s "covert action" in politics involve many-times assassination or abetting assassination of state leaders or important political leaders. Paramihitary activities refers to the fight against current regime by supporting or inciting local armed insurgents, or employing informal group to invade some country to overturn its regime.The CIA butted into any places where they could and took paramilitary actions for several times.The fourth part is the conclusion. From the history of Cold War, the "covert action" are special approach by which the U.S. tries its best to achieve the purpose of collapsing soviet and other communist countries. The "covert action" have an immense influence on the Cold War. Actually, it plays the role of non-violence overthrow. But lots of its contents flagrantly violate the beliefs and morals Americans believe in. From this point, we can find out that "covert action" serves for the American’s self-interest and strategic purpose.