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CIA can boot its errors almost as far as its successes. There was the Bay of Pigs. CIA failed to interpret properly the consistent East German warnings that preceded the Berlin Wall. The agency made a foolish attempt to bribe security police in Singapore.
Naturally enough, CIA's gaffes inspire derisive headlines throughout the world. Just as properly, its successes are little known and seldom disclosed. In an open society like the U.S., there will always be a degree of conflict between the public nature of policymaking and the secret, empirical processes by which decisions must be made and implemented. What is usually overlooked, when CIA is the subject of controversy, is that it is only an arm—and a well-regulated one—of the U.S. Government. It does not, and cannot, manipulate American policies. It can only serve them.
* Accomplished by digging and wiring a tunnel from West to East Berlin, which caved in only because East German street laborers inadvertently hit a weak spot while working on a routine job in 1956. * National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, Atomic Energy Commission, State Department Intelligence and Research, Air Force Intelligence, Army Intelligence, Naval Intelligence and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.