Following the passage of The National Security Act, signed into law by President Harry S. Truman earlier that year, September 18, 1947 became the day The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officially launched its operations.
The aftermath of World War II left The U.S. deeply impressed by the British's ability to collect intelligence on their adversaries. This admiration sparked an effort to bring together and streamline their counterintelligence and covert action capabilities into a unified structure.
Established primarily as a mechanism to gather intelligence and counteract the activities of the U.S.S.R. and its affiliated states, the CIA — sometimes referred to as The Company or The Agency — quickly grew beyond its original scope. As the organization expanded, it launched operations across the globe, with its central international objective being the use of political maneuvers designed to produce outcomes favorable to the United States and its allies.
Throughout the period stretching from the late 1940s to the collapse of the Soviet Union, The Agency's chief mission revolved around containing the spread of communist governments worldwide. The CIA carried out numerous operations toward this end, with varying degrees of success, but there was no question that countering the threat of Communism served as its primary function during these decades.
Perhaps most infamously, during the presidency of President Richard Nixon, the CIA was discovered to have been engaged in domestic intelligence gathering as well. Operatives disguised under the cover of working for a plumbing firm were apprehended while breaking into the Democratic National Convention's offices at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C.
Today, the CIA maintains a global presence, with its headquarters located in Langley, Virginia.