Carter, John J.

John J. Carter is Professor of History and Political Science at Central Methodist University. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Missouri.

American Aerial Covert Operations During the Early Cold War: Espionage, Paramilitary, and Early Warning Systems During the Truman and Eisenhower Administrations

2012 0-7734-4067-4
National security poses a dilemma to our democratic desire for political transparency. If the government gives away information about its covert operations then it will jeopardize national security. The paradox is that without national security agencies in a free society democracy will be threatened externally, and with them democracy is threatened internally. While this book does not resolve this dilemma it provides readers with more knowledge of this dilemma, and thereby gives them a fighting chance to work for at least its partial resolution by showing how Truman and Eisenhower utilized covert military operations to swing the tides of the early Cold War.

American Intelligence’s Employment of Former Nazis During the Early Cold War: A Revisionist History

2009 0-7734-3878-5
This work examines the history and ramifications of the employment of former Nazi intelligence officers by the American intelligence community during that critical period of the Cold War, from the fall of Berlin through the end of the Eisenhower administration.

COVERT ACTION AS A TOOL OF PRESIDENTIAL FOREIGN POLICY:
From the Bay of Pigs to Iran-Contra

2006 0-7734-5835-2
This work is a study of presidential employments of covert action as a foreign policy tool during six presidential administrations from Kennedy through Reagan. It offers the reader brief accounts of covert operations undertaken by the American intelligence community during the critical period from 1961 to 1989. The accounts examine and illustrate the evolving nature of the relationship between the American presidency and the burgeoning intelligence community during the middle to late Cold War era. Much of the analysis focuses on the recurring tension between presidential efforts to subordinate and control the intelligence community and the centrifugal forces of bureaucratic politics which led the key agencies of the community to seek larger roles and more important positions within the executive policy making process. Between 1961 and 1989, both the presidency and the intelligence community faced significant challenges from within both their political and policy environments. This work analyzes how these challenges combined with the Cold War international environment to motivate some of the most controversial and dangerous employments of covert action in the history of America’s secret foreign policy.

Covert Operations and the Emergence of the Modern American Presidency, 1920-1960

2003 0-7734-6937-0
This study offers a series of vignettes of covert operations undertaken by presidents from Harding to Eisenhower. It explores how the interaction of presidential personalities, their political environments and the evolving American intelligence community combined to shape America’s covert foreign policy agenda. It examines the struggle of American political leaders to reconcile the democratic imperative of government by the people with the political need to pursue certain foreign policy objectives by covert means during the critical period from the end of WWI to the Bay of Pigs.

Covert Operations as a Tool of Presidential Foreign Policy in American History From 1800 to 1920

2000 0-7734-7754-3
This volume employs a series of historical case studies of early American covert actions to support an analysis of the evolution of this instrument of presidential foreign policy over the first 120 years of American under the Constitution. It offers a series of Vignettes of selected covert actions undertaken by presidents from Jefferson to Wilson. It explores how presidential personalities and the changing political environment shaped the evolution of covert action as a tool, and provides insight into how American leaders came to reconcile the inconsistencies between government by the people and secret undertakings by the executive branch. “Dr. Carter has provided an important contribution to the historical study of intelligence. Works like his on intelligence are important references because they draw light on operations and events that were, by necessity, originally shrouded in secrecy. I highly recommend this book for the student of American history as well as those involved in the study of intelligence-related statecraft. . . . The bibliography and references are excellent and are valuable information sources I themselves.” – Wayne Madsen, author of Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa

Development of the American Surveillance State, 1900-1960

2016 1-4955-00501-4
The rise of the surveillance state is examined within the context of the developing American national intelligence community and the modern presidency during the period 1900-1960. Institutional, historical, and leadership models illustrate the ways in which the changing presidency, the domestic political environment, the perceived international threat environment, all contributed to the rise of the American surveillance state.