Central Intelligence Agency; the primary foreign intelligence service of the United States government.
Acronym formed in 1947 from 'Central Intelligence Agency,' with each word from Latin roots: centralis (of the center), intelligentia (understanding), and agentia (things to be done). Created by the National Security Act to coordinate intelligence activities.
The CIA was born from the chaos of World War II intelligence failures, particularly Pearl Harbor, when the US realized that scattered intelligence agencies couldn't connect the dots - ironically, an organization designed to see everything often operates in shadows that obscure public understanding of its work.
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