Encyclopedia of the Central Intelligence Agency
Encyclopedia of the Central Intelligence Agency
Encyclopedia of the Central Intelligence Agency is a 2003 book by W. Thomas Smith Jr. It is an encyclopedic work on the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the only independent agency of the United States federal government that is tasked with intelligence-gathering. The work chronicles the history of the agency from its founding in 1947 through the war on terror, which began after the September 11 attacks. The encyclopedia's chronology ends in 2003. It provides approximately 550 entries across 282 pages on topics including notable contributors, intelligence operations, historical events, and depictions of the CIA in fictional media.
The encyclopedia was praised by the School Library Journal for its reference value and comprehensiveness. Booklist recommended the encyclopedia be placed in academic, public, and high school libraries as a helpful resource. Publishers Weekly was critical of the author's objectivity, suggesting that the encyclopedia was biased in favor of the agency's intelligence operations, but concluded that the book was still a useful reference tool.
Background
Encyclopedia of the Central Intelligence Agency is written by W. Thomas Smith Jr. Prior to authoring the work, he served in the United States Marine Corps as a paratrooper and leader within the infantry.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15896607. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2003 and 1947.
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This entry incorporates text from “Encyclopedia of the Central Intelligence Agency” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.