Front cover image for Secret and sanctioned : covert operations and the American presidency

Secret and sanctioned : covert operations and the American presidency

Today, the term "covert operations" makes us think of American-backed mercenaries in guerrilla camps, or CIA agents plotting coups. In the public imagination, these kinds of operations--often seeming to go over the line, and always hidden from Congress and the American people--are a rogue offspring of the Cold War, and perhaps even a violation of our democratic ideals. But in this fascinating volume, Stephen F. Knott demonstrates that such covert operations have a long history, dating back to the Founding Fathers themselves. Indeed, Knott reveals that many figures in the American Revolution were active in carrying out covert operations. George Washington, for instance, was not only his own spymaster--corresponding with agents through letters written with invisible ink, and misleading the British by planting false information--but he even went so far as to plan to kidnap King George III's son. Likewise, Thomas Jefferson, as president, wielded clandestine agents freely, whether against North American Indians or North African Barbary states. Knott goes on to survey the continuing tradition of clandestine activities in later administrations, from Polk to Lincoln and beyond, showing that the clandestine activities of the Cold War era did not mark a break in the American political tradition, but followed in a direct line from the understanding of executive power held by presidents since Washington.--From publisher description
Print Book, English, 1996
Oxford University Press, New York, 1996
History
x, 258 pages ; 25 cm
9780195100983, 0195100980
32546619
George Washington and the founding of American clandestine activity
Hamilton and Jay : the Constitution, the Federalist, and "the business of intelligence"
The contingency fund
Options short of war : Thomas Jefferson's clandestine foreign policy
The era of covert expansion : part 1, 1809-1829
The era of covert expansion : part 2, 1829-1849
Civil War and aftermath : the birth of the modern intelligence bureaucracy
The distorted legacy : the rise of Congressional control of clandestine operations
Appendix: Presidents and Secretaries of State cited in this work