Has the CIA Done More Harm Than Good?
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
> And President Kennedy, as the enormity of the Bay of Pigs disaster came home to him, said to one of the highest officials of his Administration that he “wanted to splinter the C.I.A. in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.”
They had the ability to do it and probably get away with it, and they had motive: self preservation.
Dulles, as would make sense given that he was just fired by the man, was then put in charge of the investigation of who killed Kennedy.
There's an airport named after Dulles in DC. Which is funny: he never came up when I was taught history in school.
He was even intimately connected to JFKs wife and family: https://youtu.be/2KR0oU6TNuQ
Look at the Bay of Pigs failure. The CIA is not some omnipotent power that topples stable countries via a few quite words while enjoying cigars and brandy.
The CIA doesn’t topple regimens itself, it backs locals who do.
Not that different than what the US is doing in Ukraine right now. Not “toppling” this time, rather “backing” and last I checked lots of Americans seem to approve of our meddling.
My take is you either shit or get off the pot. The US decides to either “meddle” in other countries or not.
If you decide to “meddle”, well, you also need to accept that things can go sideways and the locals and the US end up in a worse situation than if they avoided getting involved in the first place.
Unless you have a crystal ball, nobody can tell what the outcome of meddling will be.
No. I know that we Americans are bone-weary of war. I know that there is a sector of industry and enabling politicians who will always be keen for more war. I know that Russia has been a scapegoat for American political failures.
No. This war is different. It is a genocidal, expansionist invasion from the last old-school, colonialist empire in Europe, and it has the potential to end our current era of unprecedented peace and prosperity.
Russia must be defeated not appeased, and Russian mafia leaders must be brought to trial for breaking international law. Anything other than that outcome will lead to instability for generations.
I have no doubt that very similar arguments were made for every single involvement of the US in other countries politics.
"If we don't stop [insert country] from doing [insert action] then we're not only risking the security of the US, but also regional and global stability."
Rinse and repeat.
And hey, it might be a worthy cause for the US to get involved. Or we may fuck it up entirely and make the situation far worse than if we had just stayed out.
Inaction can mean things go sideway for us just as much as action does.
You're absolutely 100% correct. Our track record is dismal. Out of the dozen of military or covert adventures the US undertook in the 20th century, maybe 2 or 3 turned out well. I'd guess the failure rate is >90%.
I prefer LBJ's approach (too bad he didn't follow his own advice): "But we are not about to send American boys 9,000 or 10,000 miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.”"
Europe can handle it, let them. I'm ok if we sit this one out.
Oh that changes everything! “Sorry Ukrainian folks and freedom fighters, even though it applies now, we can’t use this argument again, since we used it as a straw man before! So long.:D”
> And hey, it might be a worthy cause for the US to get involved. Or we may fuck it up entirely and make the situation far worse than if we had just stayed out.
Right, because Russia is just [insert country], and not a terrorist state that threatens the world with Nuclear annihilation.
So the mistake the US might have made is to buy the self-confidence of the higher brass instead of looking at the reality at the ground. (Bad training, no combined arms, bad equipment, low morale etc.)
They've been trying to do this for over a decade. The reason the war started now is because this was the peak moment for Russian advantage - the Ukraine Maidan coup had been frozen for years in the east and the US was paying attention to other things, but the actor that the Ukrainian population had desperately and cynically elected for relief from the tug-of-war between the US and Russia (parallels with Trump) was a lightweight owned by an oligarch who would give the US whatever they wanted. That meant that assaults on the East would escalate, Ukraine would join NATO, and Russia would have anti-Russian troops stationed on its borders.
Russia's military and economy are horrible though (although not as bad as the poorest and most corrupt country in Europe, Ukraine.) If they were going to win they would have to win quickly before the US was able to ramp up again. They failed this, so now they're going to have to use nukes on Ukraine.
They don't have to use nukes on Ukraine. In fact, if they do, the resultant shit-storm will make the current sanctions seem like halcyon days of leisure and abundance. If they use nukes, it will be because they want to
What happened in your life that has led you to be vociferously defending this genocidal, terrorist state?
I’ve spent considerable time in the Donbas, especially in Donetsk and Luhansk. I don’t condone anything the Russians have done but many of my former colleagues and friends there identify as Russian and speak Russian. They view their Ukrainian identity as an accident of modern geopolitics than an accurate reflection of their true lineage or historical allegiance(s).
Furthermore, I’ve had to watch as friends in Kyiv have had their means of speaking out publicly and engaging in politics completely shut down via the dictatorial edicts of the current administration, who is conveniently using this war to consolidate power. And let’s not get into the massive cognitive dissonance it requires for Occupy Democrats types to post “Slava Ukraina” on Twitter while condemning Republicans as Neo-Nazis; meanwhile the Ukrainian states have not only supported an openly Neo-Nazi militia (Azov battalion, who have a decade long affiliation with Atomwaffen and others in the esoteric/Eurasian Nazi/Fascism scene) but have nationalized and integrated it into their army as an example of an exemplary task force.
(EDIT: The response here is hilarious. I’m devoting my own funds and time, having moved to Chișinău full time, to working on the ground in Moldova to provide remote jobs and housing for people displaced by this very war. The lack of substantive replies (instead choosing to drive-by downvote), on the other hand, is not helping but is rather furthering an inaccurate and harmful Western narrative of the conflict.)
The enmity runs deep (on both side) and it goes back well over a century. To simplify it as "Russia invaded Ukraine" is foolish. There is way more to it.
That isn't for Russia to decide. Quoting from the Basic Laws of Human Stupidity by Carlos M. Cipolla:
"Let me resort once again to a banal example. Tom hits Dick on Dick's head and he derives satisfaction from his action. He may pretend that Dick was delighted to be hit on the head. Dick, however, may not share Tom's view. In fact he may regard the blow to his head as an unpleasant event. Whether the blow to Dick's head was a gain or a loss to Dick is up to Dick to decide and not to Tom."
(This was included in the recent printed version, but isn't in the version online at http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidit... )
It's also worth pointing out that while the regions Russia has had defacto control of for years have high concentrations of Russian-speaking people, many of whom might prefer to be part of Russia rather than Ukraine, Russia did not try to conquer just those regions, they started their invasion with a direct assault on Kyiv. They would have taken the whole country if they could.
*yawn*
What happened on March 17, 1995?
If Russia had actually kept to the naturally Russian ethnic area this would be a much muddier and ideologically partisan discussion. But as they tried to take the whole country, and had sights on Moldova too, it’s pretty clear cut who the bad guys are now
But judging by downvotes someone here knows what happened at that date.
They lost that veil of plausibility when they decided to go for the rest of Ukraine in their attempted blitz of Kyiv
Okay, okay, just because russkiez bad anything Ukraine did or does is okay, I got it.
I can see taking the word “slyly” in umbrage, but the rest are accurate accounting unless you have some extra information you’d like to share
(referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Crimea_(1992%E2%80... )
Lol wat? It is that simple. Claiming that land other people live in, has its own language, and it’s own nation with internationally recognized borders, doesn’t make it not an invasion when you send troops over those borders.
Is China incapable of invading anyone because their past empires held the view that they were the Middle Kingdom and all land was Chinese but just didn’t know it yet? Does only Russia get this ability to invade but not have it be an invasion?
Or was that “different”? Somehow when people are clamoring for war, it's always "different" this time. That's how we ended up in Vietnam.
"It's clear that China and the USSR are looking to take over SE Asia. Today it's Laos and Vietnam, tomorrow Malaysia, then Australia. We have to back South Vietnam as the security of the free world is at stake!"
Of course you know how silly that sounds because you have 20/20 hindsight. But that's how it was explained the public at the time.
Sound familiar at all?
Your rule that territorial integrity must be defended no matter what doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. It's not a "red line" that we have to start a war over.
There are plenty of arguments to defend Vietnam in that instance. There are zero to argue that it wasn’t an invasion.
> Sound familiar at all?
Nah it doesn’t because that was America getting involved in a revolutionary/civil war for our own interests entirely. We were the invaders then, like Russia is now. And guess what, the US wasn’t the good guy in Vietnam just like Russia isn’t in Ukraine.
Sending war material to a people defending their homeland against invasion is a war I am completely comfortable getting behind ethically. Come back to me if we start putting boots on the ground in the region or Ukraine start taking Russian regions and it’ll be a lot more gray for me
Thank you for that nuanced point of view.
The history of that region is indeed very long and very complex, and the black and white picture painted by both western and Russian media is downright frustrating.
To give examples, Crimea was historically neither Russian nor Ukrainian, it was Tatar, and Ukraine is itself a weird cultural patchwork of Poles, Lithuanians, Prussians, Russians and a long list of other minor ethnic groups.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine broke international law, and it will be punished by the international community for its war crimes, including the tactical use of rape, genocide, terror and destruction of civilian infrastructure. To put it simply.
You personally can choose to spread the propaganda of the enemy, or get on the right side of history and oppose the enemy. That may not be a simple choice for you. If you're Russian, you can oppose your government. You could be free someday. Not simple, though.
The wrong side here does all of this: invades a sovereign nation; kills, rapes and tortures its inhabitants; uses terror against civilians and civilian infrastructure as a tactic of war; moves orphans into their own territory to be raised there rather than finding relatives; forces residents to fight against their own countrymen; threatens nuclear war. That side is not Ukraine. That side, the wrong side, is Russia.
Russia could leave Ukraine any time, but by it's own free choice, remains in Ukraine fighting for lebensraum.
Is this supposed to be sarcastic? Or are we just ignoring iraq, yemen, libya, afghanistan because they're far enough away and aren't white?
>Russia must be defeated not appeased
So I'm genuinely interested, how do you see that going? The Ukrainian army marching in red square? What do you think is more likely to lead to nuclear conflict, absolutism or a negotiated peace?
>Russian mafia leaders must be brought to trial for breaking international law
What it feels like you're doing is calling any form of negotiated settlement "appeasement", which seems to be the latest argument used by people with a poor understanding of history. The UK went to war in 1939 to defend Polish independence, but by 1945 Poland and eastern Europe were under Soviet control. Was it "appeasement" that the US and the UK allowed that? Or should we have continued the war after 1945 and invaded the Soviet Union to prevent it?
It should go without saying but with the current state of discourse on this matter I feel it necessary to state that I find this whole invasion to be abhorrent.
And, of course, in US criminal court.
This is not "what about". This is "prosecute all war crimes".
>Is this supposed to be sarcastic? Or are we just ignoring iraq, yemen, libya, afghanistan because they're far enough away and aren't white?
Not at all. Even considering Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Syria, Tigray, Chad, Myanmar, Sudan, Rwanda, Nigeria, and all of the other conflicts combined, we are globally in an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity. Fewer people per capita are dying in wars than ever in the history of humanity. Fewer people live in poverty, by far, in the history of the world. Fewer children dying before 5 years old. I can speak more about this if anything is unclear.
> because they're far enough away and aren't white?
I'm not saying it's you, but those who are quick to fling accusations like that are often struggling internally with their own racism. Just a thought.
> So I'm genuinely interested, how do you see that going? The Ukrainian army marching in red square?
Russia entirely out of Ukraine. Despite what you have been told, the war is going quite well for Ukraine and quite badly for Russia. Ukraine has a very good chance to win, and by win that means Russia even out of Crimea.
> What do you think is more likely to lead to nuclear conflict, absolutism or a negotiated peace?
What is "likely" to lead to nuclear conflict is Russia deciding to use nuclear weapons. There is no other path to nuclear conflict. That is Russia's choice. Assuming the threat is real (arguable), being cowed in the face of such threats will lead to more threats and more escalation, not less. I can speak more about this if something is unclear.
> which seems to be the latest argument used by people with a poor understanding of history
Again, your own discourse here is pretty inflammatory. You can be more persuasive without hostility.
The relevant history here is - and it sucks to say this because Godwin has made a joke of it, but here we are - the relevant history here is Nazi Germany. The world should never have given into Hitler's demands, because doing so led to more instability, not less. That is a clear lesson we would ignore at our peril.
As an aside, the USSR and Nazi Germany were allies at the beginning of WW2. USSR didn't turn out to be better than the Nazis in any respect. While Germany has come to terms with its past, Russia never truly owned it. Russia is continuing the same policies, and the same genocides, as it did then.
>>Russian mafia leaders must be brought to trial for breaking international law
A condition of normalizing trade and diplomatic relationships will be Russia extraditing its war criminals. When Russia loses this war and Putin loses his leadership, the subsequent leadership may be willing to negotiate.
I think Russia is slowly losing the Ukraine war, but I don't see a scenario where Russian leaders are put on trial without Russia being itself invaded and conquered (not likely to happen as long as they have nuclear weapons) or the Russian government collapsing (more likely, but I wouldn't count on it).
I would like Russian leaders to be held accountable, I just don't think we should pin our hopes on that happening.
I agree with you though that Russia's war on Ukraine is barbaric, and they need to be stopped.
Russia to continue to be isolated and sanctioned until the war criminals are prosecuted. Will it work? Who knows. I suspect it will. Putin is probably out if the war is lost. He will have lost the illusion of invincible strength.
Ukraine was already unstable and divided before Putin's war. That was very well known [1].
CIA's "stability" plan was to depose Yanukovych in favour of the pro-west (but equally corrupt as it turned out) Tymoshenko, while keeping Ukraine a unitary state. A truly stability-oriented meddling/intervention would also push Tymoshenko to start the process for making Ukraine a federation.
Just as CIA's involvement does not absolve Putin of his war crimes, we just can't oversee how their meddling lead us where we are.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/01/24...
Clearly, Russian spies have infiltrated Washington Post and changed the elections map in the article to match the russian propaganda narrative. /s
>> Ukraine was already unstable and divided before Putin's war.
I'm not talking about just Ukraine. I'm talking about Europe in particular and the global community in general. China will be emboldened to take Taiwan and throw its weight around the Pacific. Russia will be emboldened to continue into Moldova (because who cares about Moldova), and then on to the Baltics, the Balkans, Poland and possibly Finland. Then even more nations can experience the joys of being Russia's neighbor.
This will happen unless Russia is kneecapped from ever doing anything like this again. Any "negotiated peace" will be used by Russia to revamp and upgrade its military. This must be prevented.
BS. All Baltics and Poland are already NATO members. And even USSR didn't manage to annex any of Poland, Finland, or any of the Balkans. No way today's Russia can do that. They have neither the political or military clout of the USSR.
And Moldova, while a feasible target, you said it yourself: who cares (strategically)? It's a poor, landlocked country.
... Finland not for lack of trying and yes Poland and all of the Balkans were absolutely in the USSR.
As for NATO it would just be safer if Russia couldn't even try it.
As the saying goes, "whenever a war starts, the first victim is the truth".
Your position is extremely naive and you need to educate yourself better before making such bold claims.
Specifically, you need to get out of the western media bubble and get exposed to the opposite point of view if you ever want to get an at most vague idea of what is really going on.
Google translate is your friend as it can convert entire web pages to your local dialect.
Once you've done that, start asking yourself what the US would do if some remote foreign power (think Russia or China) was busy slowly converting Mexico or Canada to their side, gaining local political, military and economic influence by replacing local leaders with foreign-funded officials hostile to the US?
Nothing you think?
The truth is that the US has had a very heavy hand in creating the current situation in Ukraine.
If you need to get an idea of the over-arching plans the US has for Russia, take a gander at the CIA-funded plan for the dismantlement of Russia, labeled the "Free Nations of Russia Forum" whose latest instance was held in Prague in July 2022:
This is their goal: https://www.kyivpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/image-2-...
Here's more info on that conference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Nations_of_Russia_Forum
https://rusconfederation.org/#enversion
https://www.kyivpost.com/article/opinion/op-ed/the-world-wil...
What do you think the US would do if a foreign power financed a conference held in a close-by nation with an openly voiced goal of breaking apart and fragmenting the US in its component states?
You need to open your eyes. However evil Putin may seem to a US citizen subjected to the propaganda of its own state, the reality is nevertheless that the US is a warmongering state ready to fight Putin down to the last Ukrainian and without ever risking a single US life.
There are people in Texas that argue for secession from the US. I don’t assume that they are secretly funded by an adversarial nation.
Whenever you have a large population, there’s going to be some number of them that hold unorthodox views.
That can't be Russia, in any way, in any part of history. You must be talking about the US, but then "old-school" is a wild exaggeration.
I'm just gonna leave this here. Browse at your leisure.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=russian+genocide&atb=v310-1&ia=web
Russia was attacking west for past 10+years on the cyber-front they even blew up few ammo depos in Central Europe (European Union and NATO countries), assassinate people living in UK without consequences, they were corrupting German politicians with Gasprom money, they were killing opposition inside and outside their country for past 10+ years.
They are barbarian nation and should be stopped and that was common knowledge for everyone living in Central/Eastern Europe and post USSR central asian countries for decades.
It's good that US and West wake up and I'm hoping Russia can get proper XX/XXI century leap in mentality sooner then later cause they definitely stopped growing as society about 1960. (or they can go all in and get destroyed in conventional war vs NATO both options seems good for everyone that isn't Russian oligarch)
Its not "trust us" it is facts not even speaking about troll farms destroying social media for past 7/8+ years (and possibly 2016 US election)
A little bit different, in that the Ukraine is a country that is being invaded by a much larger neighbour.
What's your stance on France being invaded by Germany in World War 2?
Are we going to "come to the rescue" of every country that has its territory threatened? No, we obviously pick out battles, not well, but we pick them.
My point is that an invasion happening 10,000 miles away from the US isn't automatically our business. It's gotten us mired in horrible wars and actually made a lot of situations worse not better.
And the hilarious part is that most commenters here are commenting on an article talking about how terrible the CIA is and somehow throwing all that out the window when it comes to Ukraine.
Vietnam - America picked a fight and to get Britain and Australia in to save them, again.
Kuwait - America picked a fight and had to get Britain and then pretty much the whole rest of NATO in to save them, yet again.
Afghanistan, Iraq both times, same old same old.
We keep saving your bacon, and you find an even bigger mess to make within a few years.
Those British Abrams tanks, French paveway laser guided bombs, German Apache attack helicopters, and NATO ground troops. Without them, Desert Storm would have been more of a mild Desert Breeze.
This you?
>>> Not that different than what the US is doing in Ukraine right now.
Ukraine has nothing to do with the CIA, but you brought it up, so here we are. We're not throwing anything out.
And regardless, does it matter? The broader issue is getting involved. Whether it's the CIA or the DOD, it's meddling.
What is with you? Honestly, what is going on in your life that you defend this genocidal army?
Few other institutions could survive even 1 such farce. One has to wonder, if the CIA continues because no one has noticed such incompetence. Or if there is some more sinister reason...
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency
The fact of the matter is that the Cold War was won, and the CIA was a major part of it. You could analyze every coup that was started in Latin America as a mistake, but you can’t really say what was the alternative
True, but nobody knows how a unified communist Korea would have turned out. Without a direct threat at their border and an easy bad gut to point the finger at, they might have progressively opened up à la Vietnam (the closest comparison we have).
Anyway this is all alternate history, just as the discussions in GP. How could we say something is a failure when we have no real way of understanding its effects
(And of course the division of Korea was a US idea to begin with...)
"One of the most dangerous in the world".
But yes, it's also true that the US has backed Pakistan, sold them F-16s etc. This is the problem: the US can back countries that it itself regards as dangerous!
Pakistan was definitely a problem in the War on Afghanistan. The northwestern area of Pakistan, the "federally administered tribal areas", are basically lawless and Taliban could operate from there and strike over the border. There were also attacks on US convoys.
Invading Afghanistan without having either a coastline or a neighbouring solid ally was a big part of the disaster. Every air conditioner running on a US base was powered by diesel that had to be trucked two thousand miles across semi-hostile territory.
On one hand, as you say, they're an "ally" with US bases etc. On the other they actively assisted the Taliban. They've been useful in some situations, but have undermined the US in others. It's not clear whether they'd side with the US or China. And they leak nuclear secrets like a sieve. Plus they're basically turning into an Islamic theocracy so the long term does not bode well for the US.
I don't credit CIA with any major influence on Soviet Union collapse for example, although I grok very well why they would like to promote that emotion and feel the same. It was just a forceful amalgam of nations, not unlike Yugoslavia but much worse, without any real merging happening over decades, and once distinct parts realized the grip is not anymore so strong they went their own ways (given what people like Stalin did to many ethnicities in USSR they are hardly to blame... I mean who wants to be willingly with Russians in one state)
And regarding south american democracies.. well, they almost all inherited a racist, pyramid scheme of society from there colonial times. Which almost always even when democracy prevailed failed to reform, just exchange figure heads and the gravy train runs ever onward, with a different conductor. A different group of families takes over and rules the distrought masses.
True democracies are in the hearts and minds of the people and are really tough to extuinguish, which putin just currently finds out the hard way. Its more then voting, the state becomes the property of every citizen, in there mind and stays that way even when temporary toppled.
Ever wondered, why some countries are such a rodeo ride for dictators and others aint? Its this. The "we ought to be in control of our destiny, we were once and we will be again, cause the big men will die one day". Everything before that is democracy waiting to become real, some of them were the democracy was glued on from above even reverted with "broad public support" back to dictatorships (Turkey).
Stalin was a Georgian. His next successors were Ukrainians.
I don't quite remember the latest ones, but it doesn't seem too far from the truth to say that the only Russians (as in ethnic, not "Russian" == "Soviet") among the highest leadership of the SU were just Lenin, Gorbachev and maybe someone else super obscure.
So yeah, "Russians".
Employee: "Have you considered that I'm actually quite competent in all the areas you can't observe?"
Also, just looking at CIA actions we know about (removing democratic leaders for autocrats) it seems very unlikely the CIA has a super secret program doing the exact opposite. Do the two departments take turns or flip a coin to decide whether to give a job to the successful or counterproductive department?!
I’m not saying I know a lot about this - I don’t - but JP is a master of speaking confidently and authoritatively about subjects he knows nothing about.
Wow, Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones' hot takes sound insane. Rice was a warmonger because her ancestors were slaves?
The failures become public, the successes would just kind of quietly dissolve into the background and maybe nobody would even know the CIA was involved. Success could also be something that didn’t happen that nobody even knew was something that might have happened.
The vast majority of whatever the CIA does, is done in secret (duh) and regular people won't know about it. (Or at least not until decades later if its declassified)
We would have to know all the things they do to be able to evaluate the sum total.
From what little I know I would say
"No they do more harm than good"
But that is based on my biased scale expecting that "do good" means making the world a better place for people.
A probably better measure would be if it helps the state maintain power, influence and intelligence services prudent to maintain the US as the sole superpower.
From that perspective they may do better.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/06/harvard...
So if you squint a bit it describes the noise the word makes accurately but it's not how you'd write it in English.
Who does the CIA serve?
Surely toppling foreign governments that aren't US-friendly or even just making them unstable means opportunity for American companies. For that matter, what they've done for arms sales could be enough to justify their existence. And then there's all the profit to be made cleaning things up and rebuilding.
No. The CIA has not done more harm to its masters than good.
In the world stage it’s obvious to me that the US is the Least Evil Empire, so they have my backing. But damn what a close call it’s been huh? The list of ruthless dictators the CIA has helped gain power is so long I can’t even keep track. Anything the keep the commies out, and it simply wasn’t worth it.
If the US had taken their role as steward of the “Pax America” a bit more seriously, the global south would’ve today been as angry about Putin’s war as the West is. It makes perfect sense for a free speech free market democracy to be the leader of the free world but the US did a shit job at it.
> -Attributed to Winston Churchill (but probably not authentic)
I think this is probably true, but maybe not obvious, and especially not obious if you live in South or Central America, the middle east or some parts of Asia. It's probably very obvious if you live in parts of Africa or other parts of Asia though.
China does some horrific shit, but they never nuked anyone just for fun. And the list of countries they have organized genocides in, installed brutal dictators to, or simply carpet bombed into oblivion for no reason is a lot shorter.
To be fair the nuking wasn't for fun, it was to save hundreds of thousands of lives of their own soldiers (and the local civilians as an afterthought). China is currently at the late 19th early 20th century US stage, with infrastructure investments to further their business interests. Then they start taking over stuff because loans can't be paid off, start asking for preferential treatment, etc. We'll see how it goes, but yes, China today is a much less evil choice for a foreign benefactor, with some massive caveats though.
“I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face.’”
The urgency of the program was to get the bombs out the door before their target surrendered either to the USSR or unconditionally. The only thing needed to arrange a surrender much sooner was to give the government some way to rationalize it as not an 'unconditional' surrender even if the terms were the same.
McArthur et al weren't as evil as the Japanese command, but they weren't that far off.
It is basically about 18 US intelligence agencies
While maybe 3 of them, the CIA being one, get any attention