The 4 biggest failures of the CIA in the fight against Soviet Union

The fight against the "Soviet threat" was the main target of the US Central Intelligence Agency, better known as the CIA, established in September 1947. The CIA, however, made many mistakes in its activities in connection with the Soviet Union.

Political observer Vladimir Ardaev, Sputnik columnist, listed the failures of US intelligence in the struggle against the Soviet Union.
Wrong forecast on nuclear weapons

The first and most frustrating failure for American spies was their attempt to predict when the Soviet Union would be able to develop its nuclear weapons. The CIA made a huge report based on the data of its spies.

"Possibly the Soviet Union's ability to develop weapons based on atomic energy will be limited by its ability to create the nuclear bomb up to the stage of production between 1950 and 1953. In this way, serial production and storage of such bombs may beginning in 1956, "reads the report.

"The report with these findings was released on August 24, 1949, five days before the first nuclear test of the Soviet Union," the official CIA website said.
Afghan Failure

The sending of Soviet troops to Afghanistan took the administration of US President Jimmy Carter by surprise. According to CIA data, the Soviet authorities would not have the courage to do so. However, the US was wrong. The first Soviet forces entered Afghanistan on December 24, 1979 and stayed there for nine years.

According to former CIA official Douglas MacEachin, at that time in the agency was popular the sad joke that the CIA's predictions were right, the Soviets made a mistake.

Double agent, but from which country?

In CIA history there are many examples of mistakes in choosing your agents. The most famous example is the spy Aldrich Ames. Being head of the counter-espionage division and after the Soviet division, he was recruited by the KGB (State Security Committee of the Soviet Union). This was part of the CIA plan, which planned to use it as a double agent. However, the American intelligence did not take into account some of its agent's vices - alcohol and women - and so the agent was always compromised.

The KGB benefited from these addictions. The Soviet secret services offered him $ 50,000 and then they paid him more and more. He began to supply the CIA with not very important information, while Soviet intelligence received real secrets and intelligence. In 1994 Ames was sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States.

Collapse of the Soviet Union: another prediction that failed

Although the main target of the CIA was the Soviet Union, the CIA could not predict its collapse. The rapid growth of the Soviet economy in the 1950s and 1960s challenged Washington politicians. The successes of the Soviet Union in science and technology outweighed US inventions.

In the 1970s the situation changed significantly, but the CIA in its reports continued to overstate Soviet potential. Until 1989, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the CIA continued to insist on the stability of the Soviet Union.

In May 1992, former CIA director Robert Michael Gates in his address to members of the Foreign Policy Association in New York said that in relation to the collapse of the Soviet Union, analysts at the agency "had underestimated that possibility ". It was such a serious failure that Congress raised the issue of "total reorganization of the agency."