PIKE COMMITTEE. See SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE TO INVESTIGATE ALLEGATIONS OF ILLEGAL OR IMPROPER ACTIVITIES OF FEDERAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES.
PINKERTON, ALLAN (1810-1884). Allan Pinkerton was an American detective and a pioneer of U. S. intelligence during the Civil War. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Pinkerton immigrated to the United States in 1842, settled in Chicago, and opened a detective agency in 1850 that evolved into his famous National Detective Agency in 1852. He provided security for many of the railroad companies that were laying track to the American West in the 1840s and 1850s. At the beginning of the Civil War, Pinkerton claimed to have unearthed an assassination plot against President Abraham Lincoln.
During the war, Pinkerton offered to set up an intelligence service for the Union side, but nothing came of his proposal. Union general George McClellan subsequently asked Pinkerton to set up a private intelligence service to spy on the Confederacy, and Pinkerton did so. Although he considered himself a master-spy and was fond of extolling his own intelligence virtues, Pinkerton’s intelligence often was inaccurate and many of his agents proved to be failures. However, he had some successes in unearthing Confederate espionage. For example, he is credited with catching Confederate spy Rose O’Neal Greenhow.
When General McClellan was relieved of command in 1862, Pinkerton returned to his detective business, providing security for the railroads. Some experts believe that Pinkerton developed the Secret Service out of his own organization, under the assumed name of Major E. J. Alien, but there is contradictory evidence on this score.
After a stroke in 1869, Pinkerton left the management of his detective agency to his sons and focused on writing several books, which extolled his achievements as an intelligence master sleuth.
PINOCHET, AUGUSTO (1915- ). General Augusto Jose Ramon Pinochet Ugarte was the head of the military government that ruled Chile from 1973 until 1990. Pinochet came to power with the ouster of President Salvador Allende on 11 September 1973 and quickly consolidated power by organizing a military junta, which proclaimed Pinochet president on 27 June 1974. Pinochet’s government instituted market-oriented economic policies and set out systematically to repress its political opponents though mass arrests and murders. No one really knows how many people “disappeared” for opposing the Pinochet government, but estimates run into several thousand. Despite repression, opposition to the Pinochet government during the 1980s grew to such an extent that Pinochet was compelled to schedule a plebiscite on 5 October 1988, which went against his government. The general left the presidency on 11 March 1990 but continued as the commander in chief of the army. In 1998, while traveling abroad, Pinochet was arrested on a Spanish warrant of torturing Spanish citizens, but the British court refused to extradite him on humanitarian grounds. Pinochet returned to Chile, and on 20 July 2004, a Chilean court began an investigation into the origins of Pinochet’s funds for fraud, misappropriation of official money, and bribery.
PLAUSIBLE DENIAL. Plausible denial refers to a cover story employed to deflect attribution from the United States government, especially the president, for covert intelligence activities. Prior to the imposition of the finding requirement, most covert actions contained elements of plausible deniability. However, the finding process, which requires the president to certify over his signature that the covert action is in the national interest of the United States, has made plausible denial redundant. Covert action programs must still maintain secrecy, but findings now attribute covert operations directly to the president.
PLOUGHSHARES (PROGRAM). The Ploughshares program was intended to explore the nonmilitary uses of explosive nuclear devices.
Approved by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) on 27 June 1957, the program sought to explore Canada’s Athabasca oil sands (Oil Sands Project) by using nuclear detonations below ground, but disagreements between the United States and Canada eventually killed the project. The nuclear testing moratorium from 1958 until 1961 also slowed the program down, but the U. S. detonated 35 nuclear devices between December 1961 and May 1973. One such detonation, on 10 December 1967, was targeted at the stimulation of low productivity, low permeability gas fields (Project Gasbuggy). Other projects, such as the exploitation of oil shale, never got off the ground. The U. S. government discontinued the program in 1975. Overall, the Ploughshares program did not yield any significant results in terms of developing alternative sources of petroleum and other fossil fuels.
POLICY COORDINATING COMMITTEES. Policy coordinating committees were the National Security Council’s (NSC’s) interagency working groups (IWGs) during the presidency of George H. W. Bush. Policy Coordinating Committees assumed regional and functional responsibilities in place of the multiple interagency groups of the Ronald Reagan era. NSC policy papers were named national security review papers (NSRs) and national security directives (NSDs) to distinguish them from the Reagan era documentation. Presidents William J. Clinton and George W. Bush have continued the use of policy coordinating committees in their NSCs. The committees coordinate the implementation of policy decided at the NSC’s higher levels. See also DEPUTIES COMMITTEE; NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL; PRINCIPALS COMMITTEE.
POLLARD, JONATHAN (1954- ). A navy intelligence analyst, Pollard was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment on 4 March 1987 for spying for Israel. Pollard reportedly began his espionage activities in 1982 out of the belief that the U. S. government was not doing enough to support the government of Israel. He leaked thousands of pages of classified information to the Israelis, later claiming that he provided only information he believed was vital to Israeli security and was being withheld by the United States — data on Soviet arms shipments to Syria, Iraqi and Syrian chemical weapons, the Pakistani nuclear bomb project, and Libyan air defense systems.
Initially, the Israeli government denied knowing of or employing Jonathan Pollard. Subsequently, the Israelis apologized for the affair and asserted that the operation was unauthorized. Repeated appeals to the president of the United States by some Jewish groups for a pardon or clemency have consistently been turned down.
POLYGRAPH. Commonly known as the lie detector, polygraph testing is widely used in the intelligence community (IC) to screen employees, to establish eligibility for access to classified intelligence information, and for general counterintelligence purposes. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in particular uses the polygraph to test any candidate for employment and retest personnel as a condition for continued employment. The polygraph is also used as a tool in the investigation of unauthorized disclosures of classified information and other offenses as well as in law enforcement for specific purposes.
The polygraph machine is designed to record physiological changes resulting from telling a lie. However, because physical changes caused by emotional factors, such as feelings of guilt, are similar to those caused by lies, American courts have ruled that the results of a polygraph are unacceptable in legal cases. In addition, the National Research Council has found that lie detectors are too unreliable to be used in screening for national security purposes. For instance, some Americans who have spied for foreign nations — such as the CIA’s Aldrich Ames and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) Robert Hanssen—did so with relative impunity after passing repeated polygraph examinations focusing on counterintelligence issues designed to ferret them out. However, the polygraph machine continues to be useful as a deterrent and a method of intimidation.
The Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988 prohibits much, but not all, preemployment private sector polygraph testing. Testing of employees is permitted to solve an employer’s “economic loss.” There are exceptions for guards, armored car personnel, and those who handle drugs and narcotics. The EPPA does not affect testing for attorneys or local, state, or federal agencies.
POPOV, DUSKO (1912-1981). Dusko Popov was a World War II
German spy who also worked for British intelligence. See also TRICYCLE AFFAIR.
POPOV, PIOTR. Not much is known about Lieutenant Colonel Piotr Popov, except that he was a Soviet GRU officer who in 1953 offered to spy for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He told the CIA everything he knew about the GRU and its operations, especially in running illegal agents. Soviet authorities arrested and executed Popov in 1958.
POSITIVE INTELLIGENCE. Positive intelligence is espionage intended to acquire intelligence information and may include human intelligence (HUMINT) collection, maps, photographs, ciphers, codes, and translations.
POSSE COMITATUS ACT. The Posse Comitatus Act, passed in 1878 after the end of Reconstruction, was intended to prohibit federal troops from supervising elections in former Confederate states. It generally prohibits federal military personnel and units from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the country, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. The original act only referred to the army, but the air force was added in 1956, and the navy and marines have been included by regulation of the Department of Defense (DOD).
There are a number of exceptions to the act. These include national guard units while under the authority of the governor when used pursuant to the federal authority to quell domestic violence. In December 1981, Congress passed additional laws clarifying permissible military assistance to civilian law enforcement agencies — including the Coast Guard—especially in combating drug smuggling into the United States. Posse Comitatus clarifications emphasize supportive and technical assistance (e. g., use of facilities, vessels, aircraft, intelligence, tech aid, surveillance, etc.) while generally prohibiting direct participation of Defense Department personnel in law enforcement (e. g., search, seizure, and arrests). For example, Coast Guard law enforcement detachments (LEDETS) serve aboard naval vessels and perform the actual boarding of interdicted suspect drug smuggling vessels and, if need be, arrest their crews.
The George W. Bush administration sought changes to the law after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 to give the federal government authority to use the national guard in emergencies, currently a power reserved to governors, or to use the military for civilian defense, including enforcing quarantines in case of a biological weapons attack.
POWERS, FRANCIS GARY (1929-1977). Francis Gary Powers was the air force pilot who flew the U-2 aircraft that was shot down over the Soviet Union on 1 May 1960. The incident soured Soviet-American relations, prompting the cancellation of a presidential summit meeting. Soviet authorities put Powers on trial for espionage, convicted him, and sentenced him to 10 years confinement, three in prison and seven at hard labor. Powers was exchanged for Soviet spymaster Rudolph Abel on 10 February 1962. Following his return to the United States, Francis Gary Powers wrote his memoirs and worked as a pilot for a Los Angeles television station. He died in 1977 in a helicopter crash.
PREDATOR (PROGRAM). A medium altitude unmanned aerial ve-hide (UAV) that uses a variety of sensors to gather tactical intelligence, such as the number of tanks, vehicles, and troops. The drone’s electro-optical sensors provide high-resolution images. It also carries infrared sensors that can track heat sources; high-tech synthetic aperture radar (SAR) that can penetrate bad weather or nighttime; and live video that can be transmitted to ground stations in real time.
PRESIDENTIAL DECISION DIRECTIVE (PDD). In the administration of President William J. Clinton, the presidential decision directives were equivalent to the national security decision directives (NSDDs) of the Ronald Reagan administration and the national security directives (NSDs) of the George H. W. Bush administration. While the number of PDDs issued by President Clinton remains a secret, his administration probably issued more than 70 such directives. PDDs were instructions and guidance to federal agencies on implementing administration policy. See also NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE.
PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE (PD). Presidential orders during the administration of President Jimmy Carter. President Carter issued at least 54 PDs during his tenure.
World History
