Statecraft

AMERICA’S NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCIES UNDER TRUMP: LESSONS FROM THE NIXON ADMINISTRATION

The president-elect believed he knew enough about the world and did not make time for intelligence briefings. CIA briefers were left hanging around in the lobby of a Manhattan skyscraper, looking for one of the president-elect’s aides to talk to in the hope that something of what they said or wrote would reach the boss upstairs. If the president-elect’s time was on short supply, his confidence in the CIA was non-existent. The president-elect was convinced that those “clowns out there at Langley” were out to get him, robbing him of his election. The CIA braced for a difficult relationship with the incoming administration, but no one foresaw just how difficult it was going to be.

The president-elect in question is not Donald Trump but Richard Nixon, the only president whose relationship with parts of the intelligence community began as inauspiciously as Donald Trump’s has. Even though the first few pages of the story of their relationship with the CIA are eerily similar, the ending need not be. To avoid repeating the fate of Nixon and of the CIA under his control, both Trump’s transition team and the intelligence community should look back at the Nixon era.