1974: CIA-Cult Intelligence: PUBLISHER'S NOTE Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks : The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

The CIA and the Cult of lntelligmce was first published in 1974. By Federal Court order, the authors were required to submit the manuscript of this book to the CIA for review prior to publication. Under the terms of the court ruling, the CIA ordered the deletion of 339 passages of varying length.

Later, following demands to the CIA by legal counsel for the authors–and the commencement of litigation by the publisher and the authors against the CIA challenging the censorship involved-all but 168 of these deletions were reinstated. For a full account of these events, see the intro­duction by Melvin L. Wulf. Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

In the past year-under the Freedom of Information Act in a suit brought by the Center for National Security Studies-­some twenty-five previously deleted passages have been cleared for publication and appear for the first time in this
edition. A special introduction by Anthony Lewis, noted colur:mist and political commentator, chronicles these most recent developments. As the book goes to press, additional passages are being declassified and may be included in fu­ture editions.

As it presently exists, therefore, the manuscript of The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence demonstrates with remarkable clarity the actual workings of the CIA’s „classification“ system. In this edition, passages the CIA originally ordered excised­ –
and then reluctantly permitted to be reinstated – are printed in boldface type. Those passages included for the first time in the 1980 edition are printed in boldface italic type. Passages included in this edition for the first time are printed in italic
type. Firm deletions are indicated by blank spaces with the word DELETED. The number of lines cut is indicated.