Date of Award

Spring 1999

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

History

Committee Director

Carl Boyd

Committee Member

Maura Hametz

Committee Member

Annette Finley-Croswhite

Call Number for Print

Special Collections LD4331.H47 G513

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate several types of American intelligence collectors. These collectors include human, airborne, shipborne, satellite, and signals. The time frame for this study will begin with the American involvement in the Second World War, commencing with Operation Torch in 1942, and end with the conclusion of the Cold War, marked by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The case-study format of the paper allows the author to focus on several important areas of intelligence collection, rather than dividing analysis over a great array of topics. The significance of the thesis to contemporary scholarship of intelligence history is the comparative nature of the analysis. While several authors have written on one or several intelligence collectors, an analysis of the success and failure, based on costs and benefits, of a large variety of collectors to determine the most efficient and effective is a new topic. The comparison of intelligence collectors has ramifications for the current situation facing the Department of Defense, as it heads into the twenty-first century. The question facing the Department of Defense is how much of a limited intelligence budget should be allocated to the various collectors. This paper attempts to help answer that question.

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In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

10.25777/hxdk-3r46

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