| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy. By David M. Barrett. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005. x, 542 pp. $39.95, ISBN 0-7006-1400-1.)

David M. Barrett's latest work is a thorough treatment of an important subject in American Cold War history. The challenge of overseeing a secretive intelligence agency in a democracy is the central theme of Barrett's study, which covers the period from the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) creation through the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco. The author spent considerable space tracing the "imperfect solution" adopted by Congress—oversight by legislative committees and subcommittees (p. 5). In practice, that was "an elite model of legislative oversight, since most members of Congress would learn almost nothing of agency activities" (p. 22). In case after case, Barrett showed that cia-congressional relations hinged on frequent informal contacts between agency heads and a small handful of powerful committee chairpersons.

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