President Harry Truman created the job of director of central intelligence (DCI) in 1946 so that he and other senior administration officials could turn to one person for foreign intelligence briefings. The DCI was the head of the Central Intelligence Group until 1947, when he became the director of the newly created Central Intelligence Agency. This book profiles each DCI and explains how they performed in their community role, that of enhancing
cooperation among the many parts of the nation s intelligence community and reporting foreign intelligence to the president. The book also...

In the wake of 11 September 2001, the issue of homeland security spawned a vibrant public discussion about the need to coordinate a wide range of federal governmental activities to achieve greater security for the United States. Congress enacted laws that established a new executive department, the Department of Homeland Security, and a new federal intelligence chief, the director of national intelligence. In both cases, the objective was to integrate activities of disparate organizations better in order to improve critical government functions. In fact, for more than half a century, there...