Talk:Central Intelligence Agency/Archive 7

message: Named "some". When a reporter or analyst makes a claim and publishes it, use their names, not "some". Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 05:23, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too many references to one dubious source... 

message: That claim is made in the main article, but is unsourced. I'd have no trouble believing that number for the intelligence community as a whole, since, AFAIK, the greatest number of intelligence personnel are in the military cryptologic/COMSEC organizations that both support military operations and collect national-level information. 
For the CIA itself, that's an awfully high estimate, implying a lot more people in the field than I think they actually have. Does anyone know the source of that number? Could it have been based on the CIA when it still headed the intelligence community?
Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 16:09, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  100,000 employees? 

message: Suggestions are welcome in where to put the details of assassination attempts, which, due to sheer length, probably should be referenced but not detailed in the main article. Where should the basic material about the Church Committee, which looked at multiple assassination attempts, go?
I started looking at this with respect to the coup in Iraq in 1963. On actually following the source citations, Feldman did not mention the CIA at all other than as "apparently", with a fourth-hand link to a Roger Gates article. The Roger Gates article about Robert Gates (sorry about all the swinging gates). Another article, by Morris, was of a page that did refer to former DCI Robert Gates, but not to Iraq. Unfortunately for citation purposes, a number of Morris citations link to specific pages of individual Asia Times articles. It could well be that appropriate material is on another page of the same article, but the forward-back links don't work on the page.
In general, I'm going to go more to the Church Committee than the journalistic accounts, as there is much more in very specific evidence citation. Where possible, I'm going to search for other references to documents the Committee considered strongly evidentiary. In this specific case, for example, there is an account of a poisoning attempt against an unnamed Near East "colonel", presumably General Qassim , but the action officer said it was no longer needed after a coup in Baghdad. The detail in the committee report, frankly, is much more detailed and plausible than Gates.
I'd very much appreciate comments about sourcing when it turns out that multiple listed sources are either personal accounts without detail and with much rhetoric, accounts of the accounts, or accounts of accounts of accounts. I'll put the specifics under Iraq in the talk page for CIA Activities by Region: Near East, North Africa, South and Southwest Asia, but there are books cited to which I have no access. If anyone does have them, I'd appreciate verification. In addition to the material I'll put into the talk page for this article, (look at text in edit mode to see questionable citations commented out but not deleted) (signed the next day) Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 20:39, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Assassination detail; general structure of questionable citations (and getting better ones)

message: Hi,
Due to the fact that almost all of the edits coming in from IP-only-identified users have been vandalism, I threw an sprotected2 tag on the page.  I don't know if this will stick or work (I am not an administrator).  If an administrator reads this and agrees and knows how to make it stick, please do so.  
At the least, if people want to make crank edits, they should go to the trouble of making up an idea and putting in edits to the Frogurt page for 3 or 4 days before having a go at the CIA page.
Thanks, Erxnmedia (talk) 22:15, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Semi-Protected 2

message: USA has "Ministers" ????????  Ministries are only present in Monarchies and/or President/Parliamentary systems.  Please fix this.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.34.98.154 (talk) 02:45, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course the US does not have ministers, although the template, which is a standard template and is currently under dispute, only has the option of ministers or agency executives, of which the Director of National Intelligence is neither. Even if we change the template unilaterally, not really sure what to change it to. DNI is not a Secretary-level position, right? Maybe "Cabinet Member Responsible"? Anybody have any thoughts? (Morethan3words (talk) 08:48, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Also, I dropped a line on the template's talk page to see if anyone there has a thought. I also took the liberty of looking at the FBI's page, but that uses its own infobox which, while having some interesting additions, overall I don't think should be used as a precedent for this page. (Morethan3words (talk) 09:20, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Minister Responsible" @ summary template. 

message: I deleted a section that was repeated exactly later on in the article.  The deleted section was called Wikipedia, and the exact copy is called "Wikipedia and CIA".  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.100.218.210 (talk) 15:01, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. It looks like that's when the citation to Steven Aftergood's article was deleted, and I just put back the reference. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 20:26, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia and CIA 

message: The description of the Heraldic image used by the CIA (perhaps it's referred to as a seal) is strange. It explains the meaning of each element without citation but it's doubtful that each element has a meaning, let alone the meaning attributed to it. Many people are mystified by heraldry and imagine that everything must mean something, but that's rarely the case. One of the most doubtful parts of the description is that the field (viz., the "sheild") has a meaning. The elements on the image were obviously a, somewhat, inept immitation of the heraldic tradtion. In that tradition the sheild, itself, is standard. To say it has a meaning is an odd claim. It's like saying that, not only the symbol on a football player's helmet has a meaning, but the helmet too is meaningful... it's not really. It just protects the dude's head. In heraldry, the only meaning of the sheild is to provide a place to put the charges.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.87.57.63 (talk) 07:22, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Referenced. VigilancePrime (talk) 07:30, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Heraldic Image 

message: *maybe more pictures to make things clear  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.131.38.5 (talk) 02:33, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Pictures of what? Organization charts? Document and action approval, at least before and after DNI? Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 02:36, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Editing 

message: I'm without my library at present. For many years (and possibly now), the early and less sensitive parts of CIA Junior Officer Training (JOT), before new employees had full security clearance, was given away from Headquarters. Any Arlington, Virginia cab driver could take you to the CIA "blue building" at the corner of Glebe Road and what is now Route 66. The Office of Training subsequently moved to another Arlington location, but the 1000 Glebe Road facility deserves a historic note.
This facility was identified in at least one book, IIRC Frank Snepp, although it could have been Marchetti & Marks.  Does anyone have access to the reference?
I did edit a section on "operative training", which dealt only with advanced operations training at Camp Peary and elsewhere. The term "operative", in any case, is not used. That training may or may not be under the NCS rather than the Office of Training. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 18:48, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Junior Officer Training (JOT), not "operative training" 

message: First, I think it's more accurate, less sensational, and more in keeping with related material to refer to "human experimentation" rather than "mind control". One can point, for example, to the Declaration of Helsinki and the Nuremberg Code being in effect long before the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention. Not all of the experiments were to increase suggestibility or willingness to talk; some dealt with incapacitation. In taking a broader term, yet another problem is that the general program of chemical research under Gottlieb included toxins for assassinations, which, AFAIK, were never tested on humans, although there is reasonable information that they were given to operational staff at least in an assassination attempt against Castro.
Second, while these did take place in the Americas, I think the main discussion belongs in Human Rights rather than the geographical piece. Torture and inappropriate interrogation took place on several continents, and I think the human experimentation really should be under a common header. 
Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 14:34, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Challenges in Naming and Moving Human Experimentation

message: Will anyone have any serious problem if the fictional references move to their own article, possibly a more general one that includes other fictional US intelligence agencies from the Man from UNCLE to Maxwell Smart?
I'd appreciate it if people would look through the "See also" section, and decide if the links there need to be in the article as a list of links, as inline cites in the main article, or in subarticles.
I say this with more hesitation, but I wonder if there might be a reasonable article that deals with US intelligence failures, not limited to the CIA. With respect to the Battle of Pearl Harbor, the problems of intelligence being misinterpreted or not gotten to operational personnel have probably been analyzed in greater detail than in any other case. There was no involvement, however, by the CIA or OSS, neither one of which had yet been formed.
As has been suggested, it might be appropriate to have a separate article dealing with US intelligence and war criminals. A substantial number of Nazi and Japanese war criminals, for example, made deals with pre-CIA organizations. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 20:07, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Other ways to reduce main article length

message: I have restored deletions made by an editor yesterday, on the grounds that the material was copyrighted. The text, however, came from US government documents not subject to US copyright.
Foreign Relations of the United States is published by the Department of State, as a permanent record of foreign relations-related actions of multiple government agencies, including the CIA, its supervisory organizations, State, etc. The documents directly published by CIA are also not subject to copyright. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 17:00, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: When you put these in just blockquote them and reference the source page and link properly.  No need to paraphrase, just make it clear where you're pulling from.  It's fair use. Erxnmedia (talk) 19:25, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  You are right. I have been fairly consistent, I think, doing that in the subordinate articles, but may not have done so in the main article. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 19:31, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Text from US Government documents 

message: There's been a growing consensus, since perhaps November or December [2007], that the main CIA article is far too long. As a result, there are a set of sub-articles, and even some of those are getting unwieldy. 
To see the list of subarticles, scroll to the bottom of the main CIA page and click on "Central Intelligence Agency". In many cases, the text (e.g., on drug trafficking) has been copied to the subordinate article (e.g., Transnational Crime & Drugs). I had thought it appropriate to wait a week or two more before replacing some of the main article text with Wikilinks to the subordinate pages, but I'd like to hear any concerns soon.  A number of editors are adding material to the main article, in areas covered by sub-pages, and it's getting hard to keep the sub-pages synchronized. 
Sub-pages often have additional information that is not in the main article; the only reason any content from the existing main page would be lost would be duplication or citations missing for several months.
If there are no objections, I'd like to start the major moves (e.g., human rights violations, drugs, etc.) within a day or two.
Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 20:11, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You have my full support in moving text to appropriate subarticles at your excellent editorial discretion.  Sorry for being a recent offender in terms of perhaps adding excessive material to this main article. It takes forever to render on the browser of a handheld device at its current length, and thumbwheel scrolling is next-to-impossible. Plausible to deny (talk) 20:46, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  OK. While I recognize the human rights article can use additional work, I propose to start moving the relevant material (interrogation techniques, rendition, assassination) to it on March 4th. Please note that "targeted killing" is in the anti-terrorism article, which needs a bit more flow editing before it is ready to take the appropriate sections from the main article. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 02:57, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lots of recent additions 

message: I think that the 2003 invasion of Iraq belongs under the regional section that contains Iraq, but some might suggest that it was rationalized as part of the war on terror. I believe the sections in the current CIA article talking about such things as the Bin Laden Station and the Worldwide Attack Matrix belong in the transnational article about CIA and terrorism.
An argument can be made in either direction, but I'd like to hear any objections, which may be very good ones, to my proposal. 
Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 00:57, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moving 2003 War in Iraq--move to Iraq regional, or War on Terror? 

message: It has been my impression that a reasonable number of editors have concluded that the main CIA article is too long to be practical to edit, and sometimes even to render. The solution, without losing valuable information, is to move text to the set of sub-articles identified in the navigation box at the bottom.
In moving, it is sometimes necessary to add a small amount of text to the main article in order to explain what has moved, and occasionally to add definitions. In general, however, am I correct that there is a consensus not to add any significant new information to the main article?  A possible exception could be with truly general material, such as agency-wide history or organization. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 15:19, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reality check on reducing the size of the main CIA article