After JFK Was Killed, Harry Truman Called for Abolition of the CIA

The cause and effect of an ex-president's pronouncement about November 22

Former president Harry Truman in Key West, Florida (Credit: National Archives)

“For some time I have been disturbed  by the way the CIA has been diverted  from its original assignment,” wrote  former president Harry Truman in the Washington Post on December 22, 1963. Truman spoke exactly one month after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

“It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive areas,” Truman wrote.

The former president never explicitly attributed JFK’s death to the clandestine service, but the timing and venue of his piece was suggestive.