American intelligence has long claimed to be the best in the world. However, this very "best intelligence" was not very successful in operations against the Soviet Union: the main failures of the CIA happened here.
Fall of Powers
During the Cold War, American U-2 spy planes remained out of the reach of Soviet air defenses for a long time. The pilots became impudent and on May 1, 1960, the Soviet border guards took and shot down one of the planes. The pilot, CIA agent Francis Powers, was taken prisoner where he tried to talk about his "peaceful meteorological mission", but quickly fell apart when the KGB special officers discovered his plane. This failure of American intelligence thundered all over the world.
Recruiting Ames
This story is still considered the main failure of the entire American intelligence system. Aldrich Hazen Ames headed the CIA's counterintelligence division and was in charge of the Soviet foreign counterintelligence department. And in his spare time he worked for the USSR for nine whole years: Aldrich was lured away with multimillion-dollar royalties in 1985. The head of the CIA was arrested only in 1994, followed by the entire top of American foreign intelligence.
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Angleton's Betrayal
James Angleton was responsible for covert operations to spread American agents of influence across Eastern Europe in the 1950s. He worked closely with MI6 and coordinated with Kim Philby, who at that time had worked with the KGB for several years. Together, these two cunning comrades handed over dozens of saboteurs to the Soviets, but the CIA for a long time only shrugged.
The Weisband case
William Weisband worked in the CIA as a translator, and moonlighting as a valuable spy for the GRU. For Weissband, the Korean War became the main moment in his career as a double agent: he single-handedly cut off all channels for the CIA through which information about military operations in that region could come. Such a brutal failure forced the United States to form an alternative intelligence agency to the CIA - the National Security Agency, which exists to this day.
Stealthy atomic bomb
On August 29, 1949, the first Soviet atomic bomb was successfully tested at the Semipalatinsk test site. A whole month later, an analytical report was laid on the table of the CIA director, according to which the USSR would create nuclear weapons no earlier than 1953. The Americans simply missed this "inconspicuous event" and remained in the dark for almost a whole year. Officially, the USSR announced the presence of an atomic bomb only on March 8, 1950.