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Nick Fury

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Colonel Nicholas Joseph " Nick " Fury Sr. is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics . Created by writer/artist Jack Kirby and writer Stan Lee , he first appeared in Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #1 (May 1963), a World War II combat series that portrayed the cigar-chomping man as leader of an elite U.S. Army Ranger unit.

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207-526: The modern-day character, initially a CIA agent, debuted a few months later in Fantastic Four #21 (December 1963). In Strange Tales #135 (August 1965), the character was transformed into a James Bond -like spy and leading agent of the fictional espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D. The character makes frequent appearances in Marvel books as the former head of S.H.I.E.L.D., and as an intermediary between

414-404: A Green Beret . Fury has access to a wide variety of equipment and weaponry designed by S.H.I.E.L.D. technicians. He wears a S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform made of 9-ply Kevlar (able to withstand ballistic impact up to .45 caliber bullets) and a Beta cloth (type C), a fire-resistant material, which has a kindling temperature of 1,700 °F (930 °C). Fury uses various types of handguns, including

621-667: A Soviet invasion of Afghanistan again raised fears of war. In the 1980s, the US provided support for anti-communist forces in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and the leadership of the USSR changed with the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev , who expanded political freedoms in his country and the Eastern Bloc. This led to the fall of the communist governments of Europe from 1989, which concluded with

828-553: A .15 caliber needle gun, a government issue .45 caliber automatic , a captured German Luger in 9mm Parabellum , a modified semi-automatic Walther PPK in 9 mm Parabellum, and the Ingram MAC-10 machine pistol in .45 ACP . Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA / ˌ s iː . aɪ ˈ eɪ / ), known informally as the Agency , metonymously as Langley and historically as

1035-565: A British nurse, Lady Pamela Hawley, who dies in a bombing raid on London before he can propose to her. At the end of World War II in Europe, Fury is severely injured by a land mine in France, and is found and healed by Berthold Sternberg, who uses him as a test subject for his Infinity Formula. After making a full recovery, Fury begins working for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), precursor of

1242-513: A CIA domestic surveillance program was uncovered that had not been subject to congressional oversight. When the CIA was created, its purpose was to create a clearinghouse for foreign policy intelligence and analysis, collecting, analyzing, evaluating, and disseminating foreign intelligence, and carrying out covert operations. As of 2013, the CIA had five priorities: The CIA has an executive office and five major directorates: The director of

1449-534: A CIA paid mob led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini would spark what a U.S. embassy officer called "an almost spontaneous revolution" but Mosaddegh was protected by his new inner military circle, and the CIA had been unable to gain influence within the Iranian military. Their chosen man, former General Fazlollah Zahedi, had no troops to call on. After the failure of the first coup, Roosevelt paid demonstrators to pose as communists and deface public symbols associated with

1656-756: A German rebuilding effort set forth by western European countries in 1948, the US, Britain and France spearheaded the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany from the three Western zones of occupation in April 1949. The Soviet Union proclaimed its zone of occupation in Germany the German Democratic Republic that October. Media in the Eastern Bloc was an organ of the state , completely reliant on and subservient to

1863-466: A Presidential military order issued by President Roosevelt on June 13, 1942. The idea for a centralized intelligence organization was first proposed by General William J. Donovan, who envisioned an intelligence service that could operate globally to counter communist threats and provide crucial intelligence directly to the President. Donovan proposed the idea to President Roosevelt in 1944, suggesting

2070-642: A Russian translator and Soviet spy. However, the CIA was successful in influencing the 1948 Italian election in favor of the Christian Democrats . The $ 200 million Exchange Stabilization Fund (equivalent to $ 2.5 billion in 2023), earmarked for the reconstruction of Europe, was used to pay wealthy Americans of Italian heritage. Cash was then distributed to Catholic Action , the Vatican's political arm, and directly to Italian politicians. This tactic of using its large fund to purchase elections

2277-624: A Skrull ship after pretending to join them. It is revealed that Fury hired Deadpool to infiltrate Skrull ranks by pretending to defect, with the intention of obtaining biological information of the Skrulls that Fury can use to stop them. When Deadpool attempts to transmit the data, it is intercepted by Norman Osborn . Fury leads the survivors of the Young Avengers and Initiative back to the fight in New York, where they are joined by Thor ,

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2484-646: A brown belt in Jiu Jitsu . He has further honed his unarmed combat skills sparring with Captain America . The character is a combat veteran of three wars, World War II , the Korean War , and the Vietnam War , as well as numerous "military adviser" missions and clandestine operations ("a dozen conflicts you've never even heard of"). He is trained as a paratrooper , Ranger , a demolitions expert, vehicle specialist (including aircraft and seagoing vessels), and

2691-586: A colonel, became a James Bond -esque Cold War spy, with Marvel introducing the covert organization S.H.I.E.L.D. (Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law-enforcement Division) and its nemesis Hydra . The 12-page feature was initially created by Lee and Kirby, with the latter supplying such inventive and enduring gadgets and hardware as the Helicarrier – an airborne aircraft carrier – as well as human-replicant LMDs ( Life Model Decoys ), and even automobile airbags . Lee recalled in 2005: [T]here

2898-462: A cosmetic eye-patch to prevent depth perception distortion. He has explained that when needing to disguise himself, he only needs to remove the eyepatch, slip in a contact lens and darken his hair, as everyone always looks for a one-eyed man. Fury is a seasoned unarmed and armed combat expert, was a heavyweight boxer in the army (during World War II ) and holds a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and

3105-456: A counterattack that results in Fury's removal as S.H.I.E.L.D. commander, forcing him again into hiding with numerous international warrants out for his arrest. His successors as director of S.H.I.E.L.D. are first Maria Hill and then Tony Stark . Both Hill and Stark, keeping Fury's disappearance secret from the S.H.I.E.L.D. rank and file, use Life Model Decoys to impersonate Fury on occasion. Fury

3312-456: A crisis. After years at the helm, Fury discovers that S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra have both fallen under the control of a group of sentient Life Model Decoy androids known as Deltites. Betrayed, Fury goes underground and is hunted by his fellow agents, many of whom are later revealed to have been replaced with Deltites. Although Fury ultimately exposes and overcomes the Deltite threat, the conflict

3519-465: A highly advanced Life Model Decoy, with the space station containing the real, elderly, Nick Fury and several LMDs. Fury relates an account from 1958, when as a member of U.S. Army Intelligence , he encountered an invasion of alien Tribellians in Kansas. He witnessed Woodrow McCord destroying the home planet of the aliens, before himself being fatally injured. When McCord's partner Howard Stark arrived on

3726-592: A long-running, critically acclaimed team. Roy Thomas succeeded Lee as writer, followed by Gary Friedrich , who became a signature series as well. Annuals featured the "Howlers" called back to fight in the Korean War and Vietnam War . The Howling Commandos encountered Office of Strategic Services agent Reed Richards (later Mister Fantastic of the Fantastic Four ) in #3 (September 1963) and fought alongside Captain America and Bucky in #13 (December 1964). In Strange Tales #135 (August 1965), Fury, now

3933-556: A lower-level H.A.M.M.E.R. agent. The conversation (and materials obtained afterwards) reveal there may be an organization much like Hydra, installed in the upper levels of world governments, called " Leviathan ". This organization appears to have been founded by the Soviet government for reasons as yet unclear. Fury later introduces Daisy Johnson to prominent members of the Howling Commandos including Alexander Pierce , leader of

4140-461: A major propaganda effort began in 1949 was Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty , dedicated to bringing about the peaceful demise of the communist system in the Eastern Bloc. Radio Free Europe attempted to achieve these goals by serving as a surrogate home radio station, an alternative to the controlled and party-dominated domestic press in the Soviet Bloc. Radio Free Europe was a product of some of

4347-721: A member of the National Front , was elected Iranian prime-minister. As prime minister, he nationalized the Anglo-Persian Oil Company which his predecessor had supported. The nationalization of the British-funded Iranian oil industry, including the largest oil refinery in the world, was disastrous for Mosaddegh. A British naval embargo closed the British oil facilities, which Iran had no skilled workers to operate. In 1952, Mosaddegh resisted

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4554-642: A neutral Germany to prevent West Germany's incorporation into NATO, but his attempts were cut short after he was executed several months later during a Soviet power struggle. The events led to the establishment of the Bundeswehr , the West German military, in 1955. In 1949, CCP Chairman Mao Zedong 's People's Liberation Army defeated Chiang Kai-shek 's United States-backed Kuomintang (KMT) Nationalist Government in China. The KMT-controlled territory

4761-622: A new war". On 6 September 1946, James F. Byrnes delivered a speech in Germany repudiating the Morgenthau Plan (a proposal to partition and de-industrialize post-war Germany) and warning the Soviets that the US intended to maintain a military presence in Europe indefinitely. As Byrnes stated a month later, "The nub of our program was to win the German people ... it was a battle between us and Russia over minds ..." In December,

4968-461: A number of subversive operations in the country, all of which failed due to the presence of double agents. Millions of dollars were spent in these efforts. These included a team of young CIA officers airdropped into China who were ambushed, and CIA funds being used to set up a global heroin empire in Burma's Golden Triangle following a betrayal by another double agent. In 1951, Mohammad Mosaddegh ,

5175-710: A plan envisioning an economically self-sufficient Germany, including a detailed accounting of the industrial plants, goods and infrastructure already taken by the Soviets. In June 1947, in accordance with the Truman Doctrine , the United States enacted the Marshall Plan , a pledge of economic assistance for all European countries willing to participate, including the Soviet Union. Under the plan, which President Harry S. Truman signed on 3 April 1948,

5382-589: A principal member of the United States Intelligence Community (IC), the CIA reports to the director of national intelligence and is primarily focused on providing intelligence for the president and Cabinet . The agency's founding followed the dissolution of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) at the end of World War II by President Harry S. Truman , who created the Central Intelligence Group under

5589-574: A secret 1950 document, the National Security Council proposed reinforcing pro-Western alliance systems and quadrupling spending on defense. Truman, under the influence of advisor Paul Nitze , saw containment as implying complete rollback of Soviet influence in all its forms. United States officials moved to expand this version of containment into Asia , Africa , and Latin America , in order to counter revolutionary nationalist movements, often led by communist parties financed by

5796-686: A series of staged events designed to distract Fury from the resurrection plans of HYDRA head Baron von Strucker . The following year, writer Chaykin and penciller Corky Lehmkuhl produced the four-issue miniseries Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. (April–July 1995). Various publications have additionally focused on Nick Fury's solo adventures, such as the graphic novels and one-shots Wolverine/Nick Fury: The Scorpio Connection (1989), Wolverine/Nick Fury: Scorpio Rising (October 1994), Fury/Black Widow: Death Duty and Captain America and Nick Fury: Blood Truce (both February 1995), and Captain America and Nick Fury: The Otherworld War (October 2001). He starred in

6003-480: A source of intelligence. During the late 1970s and 1980s, the KGB perfected its use of espionage to sway and distort diplomacy. Active measures were "clandestine operations designed to further Soviet foreign policy goals," consisting of disinformation, forgeries, leaks to foreign media, and the channeling of aid to militant groups. Retired KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin , former head of Foreign Counter Intelligence for

6210-542: A unified and neutral Germany was undesirable, with Walter Bedell Smith telling General Eisenhower "in spite of our announced position, we really do not want nor intend to accept German unification on any terms that the Russians might agree to, even though they seem to meet most of our requirements." Shortly thereafter, Stalin instituted the Berlin Blockade (June 1948 – May 1949), one of the first major crises of

6417-523: A variety of activities such as the CIA's drone fleet and anti- Iranian nuclear program activities, accounts for $ 2.6 billion. There were numerous previous attempts to obtain general information about the budget. As a result, reports revealed that CIA's annual budget in Fiscal Year 1963 was $ 550 million (inflation-adjusted US$ 5.5 billion in 2024), and the overall intelligence budget in FY 1997

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6624-480: A wormhole aboard an ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. jet which brings the combined forces of the three teams to Oklahoma . They then intercept Norman Osborn's siege and with the help of Iron Man, who receives a variation of his suit from Speed , they shut down Norman's suit. Their victory is cut short when Sentry, now fully possessed by the Void, begins attacking them. Loki attempts to help Fury and the other heroes by empowering them with

6831-647: Is dying because the Infinity Formula in his body has been depleted. He explains that he chose each of the heroes assembled so that one of them can replace him. His refusal to answer the Black Panther's demand for an explanation of what happened to Uatu leads to a battle between the heroes and the LMDs, during which Fury activates Uatu's eyes. Fury fights off most of the attacking heroes – including revealing an undisclosed secret to Thor that causes him to lose

7038-615: Is followed by his brother Jake Fury (later the supervillain Scorpio who co-founded the Zodiac cartel), and their sister Dawn. All three children grow up in the neighborhood known as Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan , New York. Nick is an amateur boxer through the New York City Police Athletic League , where he also learns marksmanship. As a teenager in 1937, he went overseas for the first time to fight with

7245-489: Is left condemned to watch this world in a loop for the rest of his life as punishment for his interference, but Nick Fury followed the Watchers and managed to release Uatu from the chair. At the same time, Fury was able to reveal to Uatu that the vision he was being shown ended just before it was revealed that Reed's new energy generator would overload and erase the universe, leaving Uatu shaken but assured that his interference

7452-778: Is responsible for all matters pertaining to congressional interaction and oversight of US intelligence activities. It claims that it aims to: The CIA established its first training facility, the Office of Training and Education, in 1950. Following the end of the Cold War , the CIA's training budget was slashed, which had a negative effect on employee retention . In response, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet established CIA University in 2002. CIA University holds between 200 and 300 courses each year, training both new hires and experienced intelligence officers, as well as CIA support staff. The facility works in partnership with

7659-402: Is responsible for collecting foreign intelligence (mainly from clandestine HUMINT sources), and for covert action. The name reflects its role as the coordinator of human intelligence activities between other elements of the wider U.S. intelligence community with their HUMINT operations. This directorate was created in an attempt to end years of rivalry over influence, philosophy, and budget between

7866-492: Is revealed to be a cabal of 12 mysterious men and women who give Fury his orders and operational structure, leaving Fury to manage the actual implementation of these orders and stratagems. The identities of these people have never been revealed; they appear only as shadowy figures on monitors. Initially, his organization's primary nemesis is the international terrorist organization Hydra, created by Fury's worst enemy of World War II, Baron Wolfgang von Strucker (after retconning of

8073-502: Is so destructive to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s personnel and infrastructure, and leaves Fury so disillusioned, that he disbands the agency to prevent it from again being subverted from within. Fury rebuilds S.H.I.E.L.D. from the ground up, initially as a more streamlined agency small enough for him to personally oversee and protect from being corrupted. This new incarnation changed the acronym to stand for "Strategic Hazard Intervention, Espionage and Logistics Directorate". Sometime later, Frank Castle,

8280-406: Is the only "33rd-degree" S.H.I.E.L.D. officer (meaning he is the only member of S.H.I.E.L.D., present or past, to know of the existence of 28 emergency, covert bases scattered across the globe) secretly providing the anti-registration faction in the subsequent superhuman civil war with bases where they can rally their forces without worrying about their Pro-Registration enemies finding them. During

8487-527: Is widely considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into full-scale nuclear war . Another major proxy conflict was the Vietnam War of 1955 to 1975; the Soviets solidified their domination of Eastern Europe with operations such as the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Both powers used economic aid in an attempt to win the loyalty of non-aligned countries , such as India . By

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8694-513: The Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic ". A week later, on 13 March, Stalin responded vigorously to the speech, saying Churchill could be compared to Adolf Hitler insofar as he advocated the racial superiority of English-speaking nations so that they could satisfy their hunger for world domination, and that such a declaration was "a call for war on the USSR." The Soviet leader also dismissed

8901-801: The Berlin Wall to prevent the citizens of East Berlin from fleeing to West Berlin , at the time part of United States-allied West Germany . Major crises of this phase included the Berlin Blockade of 1948–1949, the Chinese Communist Revolution of 1945–1949, the Korean War of 1950–1953, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the Suez Crisis of that same year, the Berlin Crisis of 1961 ,

9108-790: The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, and the Vietnam War of 1964–1975. Both superpowers competed for influence in Latin America and the Middle East , and the decolonising states of Africa , Asia , and Oceania . Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, this phase of the Cold War saw the Sino-Soviet split . Between China and the Soviet Union's complicated relations within the Communist sphere, leading to

9315-475: The Departments of State and War . The division lasted only a few months. The first public mention of the "Central Intelligence Agency" appeared on a command-restructuring proposal presented by Jim Forrestal and Arthur Radford to the U.S. Senate Military Affairs Committee at the end of 1945. Army Intelligence agent Colonel Sidney Mashbir and Commander Ellis Zacharias worked together for four months at

9522-847: The Eastern Bloc . Cominform faced an embarrassing setback the following June, when the Tito–Stalin split obliged its members to expel Yugoslavia, which remained communist but adopted a non-aligned position and began accepting financial aid from the US. Besides Berlin, the status of the city of Trieste was at issue. Until the break between Tito and Stalin, the Western powers and the Eastern bloc faced each other uncompromisingly. In addition to capitalism and communism, Italians and Slovenes, monarchists and republicans as well as war winners and losers often faced each other irreconcilably. The neutral buffer state Free Territory of Trieste , founded in 1947 with

9729-452: The Fantastic Four , whom CIA agent Fury first encounters in Fantastic Four #21 (Dec. 1963). During his time with the CIA, Fury begins wearing his trademark eyepatch. Sgt. Fury #27 (Feb. 1966) revealed that he had taken shrapnel to one eye during World War II, which caused him to slowly lose sight in it over the course of years. Fury becomes the second commander of S.H.I.E.L.D. as its public director. The ultimate authority of S.H.I.E.L.D.

9936-621: The International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War . He was on leave in Guernica when the fascists bombed it . After he returns to America, Fury and his friend Red Hargrove leave the neighborhood to pursue their dreams of adventure, eventually settling on a daring wing walking and parachuting act. In the early 1940s, their death-defying stunts catch the attention of Lieutenant Samuel "Happy Sam" Sawyer , who

10143-511: The KGB and involved in its intelligence operations, adhered to Moscow's line, although dissent began to appear after 1956. Other critiques of the consensus policy came from anti-Vietnam War activists , the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament , and the anti-nuclear movement . In early 1947, France, Britain and the United States unsuccessfully attempted to reach an agreement with the Soviet Union for

10350-518: The Kingdom of Greece in its civil war against Communist-led insurgents. In the same month, Stalin conducted the rigged 1947 Polish legislative election which constituted an open breach of the Yalta Agreement . The US government responded to this announcement by adopting a policy of containment , with the goal of stopping the spread of communism . Truman delivered a speech calling for

10557-584: The NATO military alliance in 1949 (which was matched by the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact in 1955). Germany's split occupation zones solidified into East and West Germany in 1949. The first major proxy war of the period was the Korean War from 1950 to 1953, which ended in stalemate. In 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis began after deployments of U.S. missiles in Europe and Soviet missiles in Cuba; it

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10764-416: The National Intelligence University , and includes the Sherman Kent School for Intelligence Analysis , the Directorate of Analysis' component of the university. For later stage training of student operations officers, there is at least one classified training area at Camp Peary , near Williamsburg, Virginia . Students are selected, and their progress evaluated, in ways derived from the OSS, published as

10971-402: The National Security Council issued Directive 10/2 calling for covert action against the Soviet Union , and granting the authority to carry out covert operations against "hostile foreign states or groups" that could, if needed, be denied by the U.S. government. To this end, the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) was created inside the new CIA. The OPC was unique; Frank Wisner , the head of

11178-457: The Norn Stones , but Void kills him before long. Iron Man then uses the ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier as a bullet on the Void. Robert Reynolds regains control of his body and begs the Avengers to kill him. Thor refuses but ends up killing him anyway when Void begins to take over again. The Avengers are reunited, and the press declares that a new " Heroic Age " has begun. While Fury remains underground, allowing Steve Rogers to take official command of

11385-435: The Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) in India , the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in Pakistan , the General Intelligence Service in Egypt , Mossad in Israel , and the National Intelligence Service (NIS) in South Korea . The CIA was instrumental in the establishment of intelligence services in several U.S. allied countries, including Germany's BND and Greece's EYP (then known as KYP). The closest links of

11592-411: The Second World and was also tied to a network of authoritarian states. The Soviet Union had a command economy and installed similarly communist regimes its in satellites. United States involvement in regime change during the Cold War included support for anti-communist and right-wing dictatorships , governments, and uprisings across the world, while Soviet involvement in regime change included

11799-447: The Sino-Soviet border conflict , while France, a Western Bloc state, began to demand greater autonomy of action. The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia occurred to suppress the Prague Spring of 1968, while the United States experienced internal turmoil from the civil rights movement and opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War . In the 1960s–1970s, an international peace movement took root among citizens around

12006-491: The Soviet boycott of the Allied Control Council and its incapacitation, an event marking the beginning of the full-blown Cold War and the end of its prelude, as well as ending any hopes at the time for a single German government and leading to formation in 1949 of the Federal Republic of Germany and German Democratic Republic . The twin policies of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan led to billions in economic and military aid for Western Europe, Greece, and Turkey. With

12213-434: The Soviet atomic bomb project . In particular, the agency failed to predict the Chinese entry into the Korean War with 300,000 troops. The famous double agent Kim Philby was the British liaison to American Central Intelligence. Through him, the CIA coordinated hundreds of airdrops inside the iron curtain, all compromised by Philby. Arlington Hall , the nerve center of CIA cryptanalysis, was compromised by Bill Weisband ,

12420-438: The Turkish Straits crisis and Black Sea border disputes were also a major factor in increasing tensions. In September, the Soviet side produced the Novikov telegram, sent by the Soviet ambassador to the US but commissioned and "co-authored" by Vyacheslav Molotov ; it portrayed the US as being in the grip of monopoly capitalists who were building up military capability "to prepare the conditions for winning world supremacy in

12627-431: The U.S. military , including the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command , by providing it with information it gathers, receiving information from military intelligence organizations, and cooperating with field activities. The associate deputy director of the CIA is in charge of the day-to-day operations of the agency. Each branch of the agency has its own director. The Office of Military Affairs (OMA), subordinate to

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12834-422: The United Kingdom 's Royal Flying Corps during World War I. Jack enlists in 1916 and is stationed in France . He shoots down Manfred von Richthofen early in his flying career and is a highly decorated combat aviator by the end of the war in 1918. Discharged after the war, Jack returns home, marries an unnamed woman, and becomes the father of three children. Nick, probably born in the late 1910s or early 1920s,

13041-415: The United Nations Security Council Resolution 82 and 83 backed the defense of South Korea, although the Soviets were then boycotting meetings in protest of the fact that Taiwan (Republic of China), not the People's Republic of China , held a permanent seat on the council. A UN force of sixteen countries faced North Korea, although 40 percent of troops were South Korean, and about 50 percent were from

13248-440: The United States and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc , that started in 1947, two years after the end of World War II , and lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term cold war is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers , though each supported opposing sides in major regional conflicts known as proxy wars . Aside from

13455-561: The United States Department of Defense (DOD) and the CIA. In spite of this, the Department of Defense announced in 2012 its intention to organize its own global clandestine intelligence service, the Defense Clandestine Service (DCS), under the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Contrary to some public and media misunderstanding, DCS is not a "new" intelligence agency but rather a consolidation, expansion and realignment of existing Defense HUMINT activities, which have been carried out by DIA for decades under various names, most recently as

13662-402: The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Western Bloc included the US and a number of First World nations that were generally capitalist and liberal democratic but tied to a network of often authoritarian Third World states, most of which were the European powers' former colonies . The Eastern Bloc was led by the Soviet Union and its communist party , which had an influence across

13869-568: The fiscal year 2010, the CIA had the largest budget of all intelligence community agencies, exceeding prior estimates. The CIA's role has expanded since its creation, now including covert paramilitary operations. One of its largest divisions, the Information Operations Center (IOC), has shifted from counterterrorism to offensive cyber operations . The agency has been the subject of several controversies , including its use of torture , domestic wiretapping , propaganda , and alleged human rights violations and drug trafficking . In 2022,

14076-461: The nuclear arms race starting in 1949 and conventional military deployment , the struggle for dominance was expressed indirectly via psychological warfare , propaganda campaigns , espionage , far-reaching embargoes , sports diplomacy , and technological competitions such as the Space Race . The US and USSR were both part of the Allies of World War II , the military coalition which had defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945. After

14283-427: The vigilante known as the Punisher , is captured and sent to a maximum-security facility with a S.H.I.E.L.D. escort. During a hypnosis session with Doc Samson , a character named Spook interferes with the session and has the Punisher conditioned to believe Fury is responsible for the murder of the Punisher's family. An escaped Punisher eventually kills Fury, who is buried at Arlington National Cemetery . The Fury that

14490-421: The 1940s Golden Age of Comic Books ). The matter of Fury apparently not aging significantly since his term of service in World War II was justified in "Assignment: The Infinity Formula" by the writer Jim Starlin and artist Howard Chaykin in Marvel Spotlight #31 (December 1976), revealing Fury's age-retarding medication treatment. A six-issue miniseries , Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. (June–November 1988)

14697-424: The 1970s, Japan and Western Europe rebuilt their economies, allowing them more diplomatic independence. After the Sino-Soviet split between the USSR and China in 1961, the U.S. initiated contacts with China in 1972 . In the same year, the US and USSR signed a series of treaties limiting their nuclear arsenals, which eased tensions for a time. In 1979, the toppling of pro-US governments in Iran and Nicaragua and

14904-473: The 2004–2005 Secret War miniseries. In the 2018 Exiles series "The Unseen" will recruit characters to combat an unknown galactic threat. In May 2023 Marvel published a double sized one-shot Fury made to commemorate the character's 60th anniversary. Nicholas Joseph Fury is the eldest of three children born to Jack Fury in New York City . His father is a United States citizen who enlists in

15111-524: The Agency's mission activities. It is the Agency's newest directorate. The Langley, Virginia -based office's mission is to streamline and integrate digital and cybersecurity capabilities into the CIA's espionage, counterintelligence, all-source analysis, open-source intelligence collection, and covert action operations. It provides operations personnel with tools and techniques to use in cyber operations. It works with information technology infrastructure and practices cyber tradecraft . This means retrofitting

15318-823: The Air Force. A DS&T organization analyzed imagery intelligence collected by the U-2 and reconnaissance satellites called the National Photointerpretation Center (NPIC), which had analysts from both the CIA and the military services. Subsequently, NPIC was transferred to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). The Directorate of Support has organizational and administrative functions to significant units including: The Directorate of Digital Innovation (DDI) focuses on accelerating innovation across

15525-446: The British newspaper Tribune . Contemplating a world living in the shadow of the threat of nuclear warfare , Orwell looked at James Burnham 's predictions of a polarized world, writing: Looking at the world as a whole, the drift for many decades has been not towards anarchy but towards the reimposition of slavery... James Burnham's theory has been much discussed, but few people have yet considered its ideological implications—that is,

15732-432: The CIA for cyberwarfare . DDI officers help accelerate the integration of innovative methods and tools to enhance the CIA's cyber and digital capabilities on a global scale and ultimately help safeguard the United States. They also apply technical expertise to exploit clandestine and publicly available information (also known as open-source data ) using specialized methodologies and digital tools to plan, initiate and support

15939-453: The CIA would corroborate Hart's findings. The CIA's station in Seoul had 200 officers, but not a single speaker of Korean . Hart reported to Washington that Seoul station was hopeless, and could not be salvaged. Loftus Becker, deputy director of intelligence, was sent personally to tell Hart that the CIA had to keep the station open to save face. Becker returned to Washington, D.C., pronouncing

16146-575: The CIA's computer network operations budget for fiscal year 2013 was $ 685.4 million. The NSA's budget was roughly $ 1 billion at the time. Rep. Adam Schiff , the California Democrat who served as the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee , endorsed the reorganization. "The director has challenged his workforce, the rest of the intelligence community, and the nation to consider how we conduct

16353-1113: The CIA. The role and functions of the CIA are roughly equivalent to those of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) in Germany , MI6 in the United Kingdom , the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) in Australia , the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE) in France , the Foreign Intelligence Service in Russia , the Ministry of State Security (MSS) in China ,

16560-601: The Central Intelligence Agency (D/CIA) is appointed by the president with Senate confirmation and reports directly to the director of national intelligence (DNI); in practice, the CIA director interfaces with the director of national intelligence (DNI), Congress , and the White House , while the deputy director (DD/CIA) is the internal executive of the CIA and the chief operating officer (COO/CIA), known as executive director until 2017, leads

16767-502: The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Six months into his service, he learns the extent of Sternberg's life-saving operation: the Infinity Formula has stopped his aging, but if he does not receive annual doses, he will age rapidly and die. The doctor begins a 30-year period of extorting large sums of money from Fury in exchange for the injections. Fury segues into the CIA as an espionage agent, gathering information in Korea . During this time

16974-414: The Cold War was in its essence a war of ideas. The United States, acting through the CIA, funded a long list of projects to counter the communist appeal among intellectuals in Europe and the developing world. The CIA also covertly sponsored a domestic propaganda campaign called Crusade for Freedom . The rearmament of West Germany was achieved in the early 1950s. Its main promoter was Konrad Adenauer ,

17181-465: The Cold War, preventing Western food, materials and supplies from arriving in the West Germany's exclave of West Berlin . The United States (primarily), Britain, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and several other countries began the massive "Berlin airlift", supplying West Berlin with food and other provisions despite Soviet threats. The Soviets mounted a public relations campaign against

17388-777: The Communist governments militarily. The fall of the Iron Curtain after the Pan-European Picnic and the Revolutions of 1989 , which represented a peaceful revolutionary wave with the exception of the Romanian revolution and the Afghan Civil War (1989–1992) , overthrew almost all of the Marxist–Leninist regimes of the Eastern Bloc. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself lost control in

17595-622: The Company , is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of human intelligence (HUMINT) and conducting covert action through its Directorate of Operations . The agency is headquartered in the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia . As

17802-496: The Cotati. While he cannot commute Nick Fury's sentence, he does release him from his punishment by removing the chains on him since he needs an operative to get the job done and makes Nick Fury his herald. The first war is coming and Uatu states that everything and everyone is in peril as Nick Fury accepts his offer to aid him. During the " Reckoning War " storyline, Nick Fury and Uatu meet up with Mister Fantastic to inform them about

18009-484: The Cyclopedia Universum. It revealed that three of Uatu's brothers and sisters broke their non-interference vow by judging Nick Fury and fusing what's left of Uatu with Nick Fury making him a human/watcher hybrid that they chained to a rock. After viewing some of the good things that Unseen did and the weapons used by the Cotati which caused Uatu to be revived, he states that the technology did not belong to

18216-508: The Defense Human Intelligence Service. This Directorate is known to be organized by geographic regions and issues, but its precise organization is classified. The Directorate of Science & Technology was established to research, create, and manage technical collection disciplines and equipment. Many of its innovations were transferred to other intelligence organizations, or, as they became more overt, to

18423-732: The German Bundesnachrichtendienst is keeping contact to the CIA office in Wiesbaden . The success of the British Commandos during World War II prompted U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to authorize the creation of an intelligence service modeled after the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), and Special Operations Executive . This led to the creation of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) by

18630-553: The H.A.M.M.E.R. agents at the dock to follow him. Natasha brings Songbird to Fury, but she is followed and the three are captured by the Thunderbolts. Osborn then shoots Fury in the head. It was not the real Fury who was shot, but a Life Model Decoy in his image, which the Fixer reveals to Songbird and Black Widow later after they escape the Thunderbolts. On a solo mission soon after, Fury teams with Norman Osborn to interrogate

18837-703: The Helicarrier in the final page. During the Original Sin storyline, Nick Fury is called upon to help investigate the murder of Uatu the Watcher. Fury is attacked and beheaded by the Winter Soldier. When the investigating teams – including Black Panther , Emma Frost , Doctor Strange and the Punisher – attempt to pursue Bucky, they find a space station of unknown origin. "Fury" is revealed to be

19044-426: The Howling Commandos are reformed, and Fury receives a battlefield commission to lieutenant. He later reaches the rank of colonel . During this time, he recommends the recruitment of married agents Richard and Mary Parker , who will go on to become the parents of Fury's occasional superhero ally Spider-Man . Much later, the CIA uses him as a liaison to various super-powered groups that have begun appearing, including

19251-400: The Infinity Formula stopped working for him and Fury has only pretended to stop aging by using LMDs . Fury's injured left eye, though initially minimally affected by a grenade blast during World War II, has over the decades resulted in a 95% loss of vision in this eye. Despite some comments to the contrary, Fury has not had the eye removed, nor bionically enhanced, and he merely covers it with

19458-787: The Japanese and the Nazis. Sawyer, now a captain , assigns Fury command of the First Attack Squad, a unit of U.S. Army Rangers , who are awarded the honorary title of commandos by Winston Churchill after their first missions. They are nicknamed the " Howling Commandos " and stationed at a military base in the United Kingdom to fight specialized missions, primarily but not exclusively in the European Theatre of World War II . During this period, Fury falls in love with

19665-400: The KGB (1973–1979), described active measures as "the heart and soul of Soviet intelligence ." During the Sino-Soviet split , "spy wars" also occurred between the USSR and PRC. In September 1947, the Soviets created Cominform to impose orthodoxy within the international communist movement and tighten political control over Soviet satellites through coordination of communist parties in

19872-491: The Marshall Plan, seeing it as an effort by the US to impose its influence on Europe. In response, the Soviet Union established Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) to foster economic cooperation among communist states. The United States and its Western European allies sought to strengthen their bonds and used the policy of containment against Soviet influence; they accomplished this most notably through

20079-677: The OPC, answered not to the CIA Director , but to the secretaries of defense, state, and the NSC. The OPC's actions were a secret even from the head of the CIA. Most CIA stations had two station chiefs, one working for the OSO, and one working for the OPC. With the agency unable to provide sufficient intelligence about the Soviet takeovers of Romania and Czechoslovakia , the Soviet blockade of Berlin , and

20286-470: The OSO was tasked with spying and subversion overseas with a budget of $ 15 million (equivalent to $ 190 million in 2023), the largesse of a small number of patrons in Congress. Vandenberg's goals were much like the ones set out by his predecessor: finding out "everything about the Soviet forces in Eastern and Central Europe – their movements, their capabilities, and their intentions." On June 18, 1948,

20493-483: The Office of Reports and Estimates, which drew its reports from a daily take of State Department telegrams, military dispatches, and other public documents. The CIA still lacked its intelligence-gathering abilities. On August 21, 1950, shortly after, Truman announced Walter Bedell Smith as the new Director of the CIA. The change in leadership took place shortly after the start of the Korean War in South Korea , as

20700-548: The Punisher has "killed" is later revealed to have been a highly advanced Life Model Decoy android. Returned to his post as S.H.I.E.L.D. director, Fury independently enlists the superheroes Captain America , Spider-Man , Luke Cage , Wolverine , Daredevil , and the Black Widow to launch a covert assault on the leadership of Latveria , which is plotting a massive attack on the U.S. One year afterward, Latveria launches

20907-517: The Reckoning. When Uatu tries to appeal to the other Watchers for help, he is condemned to watch the "What If" scenario he never looked at himself in the form of a world where he never interfered by alerting the FF to the coming of Galactus, which ended with the team suffering serious injuries but driving Galactus back and reverse-engineering Galactus's technology to create a new power source for Earth. Uatu

21114-514: The Russian Civil War further complicated relations, and although the Soviet Union later allied with Western powers to defeat Nazi Germany , this cooperation was strained by mutual suspicions. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, disagreements about the future of Europe, particularly Eastern Europe , became central. The Soviet Union's establishment of communist regimes in the countries it had liberated from Nazi control—enforced by

21321-531: The Shah to exercise his constitutional right to dismiss Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh launched a military coup , and the Shah fled the country. Under CIA Director Allen Dulles , Operation Ajax was put into motion. Its goal was to overthrow Mossadegh with military support from General Fazlollah Zahedi and install a pro-western regime headed by the Shah of Iran. Kermit Roosevelt Jr. oversaw the operation in Iran. On August 16,

21528-413: The Shah. This August 19 incident helped foster public support of the Shah and led gangs of citizens on a spree of violence intent on destroying Mossadegh. An attack on his house would force Mossadegh to flee. He surrendered the next day, and his coup came to an end. Cold War The Cold War was a period of global geopolitical tension and struggle for ideological and economic influence between

21735-579: The Skrull attack in Times Square , Manhattan. They manage to repel and kill the invaders in the area significantly, whilst saving the downed Initiative cadets and the Young Avengers . He, along with his team and the rescued heroes, are next seen working and planning their next move in one of the scattered 28 covert S.H.I.E.L.D. bases. He has been seen talking to Deadpool , while Deadpool was on

21942-457: The Skrull invasion; these include Phobos , the 10-year-old son of Ares and himself the young god of fear; Yo-Yo, a misunderstood mutant speedster; Hellfire , a relative of Phantom Rider with supernatural powers; Druid, a magician and son of Doctor Druid ; and Stonewall, a young man who can grow bigger at will and has super strength. Fury dubs them his "Commandos". Soon after the attack on Earth, Fury and his new team are seen counter-attacking

22149-467: The Soviet Union was used to monitor dissent from official Soviet politics and morals. Although to an extent disinformation had always existed, the term itself was invented, and the strategy formalized by a black propaganda department of the Soviet KGB. Based on the amount of top-secret Cold War archival information that has been released, historian Raymond L. Garthoff concludes there probably

22356-572: The Soviet Union, which at the time was undergoing the Era of Stagnation . This phase saw the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introducing the liberalizing reforms of glasnost ("openness") and perestroika ("reorganization") and ending Soviet involvement in Afghanistan in 1989. Pressures for national sovereignty grew stronger in Eastern Europe, and Gorbachev refused to further support

22563-558: The Soviet Union. A number of self-proclaimed Marxist–Leninist governments were formed in the second half of the 1970s in developing countries , including Angola , Mozambique , Ethiopia , Cambodia , Afghanistan , and Nicaragua . Détente collapsed at the end of the decade with the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979. Beginning in the 1980s, this phase was another period of elevated tension. The Reagan Doctrine led to increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on

22770-643: The Soviets accumulated after broken promises by Stalin and Molotov concerning Europe and Iran. Following the World War II Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran , the country was occupied by the Red Army in the far north and the British in the south. Iran was used by the United States and British to supply the Soviet Union, and the Allies agreed to withdraw from Iran within six months after the cessation of hostilities. However, when this deadline came,

22977-484: The Soviets agreed to withdraw from Iran after persistent US pressure, an early success of containment policy. By 1947, US president Harry S. Truman was outraged by the perceived resistance of the Soviet Union to American demands in Iran, Turkey, and Greece, as well as Soviet rejection of the Baruch Plan on nuclear weapons. In February 1947, the British government announced that it could no longer afford to finance

23184-559: The Soviets had permitted to retain democratic structures. The public brutality of the coup shocked Western powers more than any event up to that point, set in motion a brief scare that war would occur, and swept away the last vestiges of opposition to the Marshall Plan in the United States Congress. In an immediate aftermath of the crisis, the London Six-Power Conference was held, resulting in

23391-545: The Soviets remained in Iran under the guise of the Azerbaijan People's Government and Kurdish Republic of Mahabad . Shortly thereafter, on 5 March, former British prime minister Winston Churchill delivered his famous " Iron Curtain " speech in Fulton, Missouri . The speech called for an Anglo-American alliance against the Soviets, whom he accused of establishing an "iron curtain" dividing Europe from " Stettin in

23598-520: The Truman Doctrine marked the beginning of a US bipartisan defense and foreign policy consensus between Republicans and Democrats focused on containment and deterrence that weakened during and after the Vietnam War , but ultimately persisted thereafter. Moderate and conservative parties in Europe, as well as social democrats, gave virtually unconditional support to the Western alliance, while European and American Communists , financed by

23805-572: The U.S. government or the United Nations and various superheroes . It is eventually revealed that he takes a special medication called the Infinity Formula that halted his aging and allows him to be active despite being nearly a century old, later leading to him becoming The Unseen , herald of Uatu the Watcher , and forming a new team of Exiles . Nick Fury appears in several Marvel series set in alternate universes , as well as multiple animated films, television shows, and video games based on

24012-447: The U.S. intelligence community to other foreign intelligence agencies are to Anglophone countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Special communications signals that intelligence-related messages can be shared with these four countries. An indication of the United States' close operational cooperation is the creation of a new message distribution label within the main U.S. military communications network. Previously,

24219-567: The US assistance, the Greek military won its civil war . Under the leadership of Alcide De Gasperi the Italian Christian Democrats defeated the powerful Communist – Socialist alliance in the elections of 1948 . All major powers engaged in espionage, using a great variety of spies, double agents , moles , and new technologies such as the tapping of telephone cables. The Soviet KGB ("Committee for State Security"),

24426-581: The US government gave to Western European countries over $ 13 billion (equivalent to $ 189 billion in 2016) to rebuild the economy of Europe . Later, the program led to the creation of the OECD . The plan's aim was to rebuild the democratic and economic systems of Europe and to counter perceived threats to the European balance of power , such as communist parties seizing control through revolutions or elections. The plan also stated that European prosperity

24633-588: The US was trying to buy a pro-US re-alignment of Europe. Stalin therefore prevented Eastern Bloc nations from receiving Marshall Plan aid. The Soviet Union's alternative to the Marshall Plan, which was purported to involve Soviet subsidies and trade with central and eastern Europe, became known as the Molotov Plan (later institutionalized in January 1949 as the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance ). Stalin

24840-522: The US. Thus the two areas of responsibility for the CIA were covert action and covert intelligence. One of the main targets for intelligence gathering was the Soviet Union , which had also been a priority of the CIA's predecessors. U.S. Air Force General Hoyt Vandenberg , the CIG's second director, created the Office of Special Operations (OSO) and the Office of Reports and Estimates (ORE). Initially,

25047-483: The USSR. In this way, this US would exercise " preponderant power ," oppose neutrality, and establish global hegemony . In the early 1950s (a period sometimes known as the " Pactomania "), the US formalized a series of alliances with Japan (a former WWII enemy), South Korea , Taiwan , Australia , New Zealand , Thailand and the Philippines (notably ANZUS in 1951 and SEATO in 1954), thereby guaranteeing

25254-527: The United Nations, was split up and dissolved in 1954 and 1975, also because of the détente between the West and Tito. The US and Britain merged their western German occupation zones into " Bizone " (1 January 1947, later "Trizone" with the addition of France's zone, April 1949). As part of the economic rebuilding of Germany, in early 1948, representatives of a number of Western European governments and

25461-518: The United States a number of long-term military bases. One of the more significant examples of the implementation of containment was the United Nations US-led intervention in the Korean War . In June 1950, after years of mutual hostilities, Kim Il Sung 's North Korean People's Army invaded South Korea at the 38th parallel . Stalin had been reluctant to support the invasion but ultimately sent advisers. To Stalin's surprise,

25668-401: The United States announced an agreement for a merger of western German areas into a federal governmental system. In addition, in accordance with the Marshall Plan , they began to re-industrialize and rebuild the West German economy, including the introduction of a new Deutsche Mark currency to replace the old Reichsmark currency that the Soviets had debased. The US had secretly decided that

25875-510: The Warsaw Pact's primary function was to safeguard Soviet hegemony over its Eastern European satellites, with the pact's only direct military actions having been the invasions of its own member states to keep them from breaking away; in the 1960s, the pact evolved into a multilateral alliance, in which the non-Soviet Warsaw Pact members gained significant scope to pursue their own interests. In 1961, Soviet-allied East Germany constructed

26082-423: The Western agencies paid special attention to debriefing Eastern Bloc defectors . Edward Jay Epstein describes that the CIA understood that the KGB used "provocations", or fake defections, as a trick to embarrass Western intelligence and establish Soviet double agents. As a result, from 1959 to 1973, the CIA required that East Bloc defectors went through a counterintelligence investigation before being recruited as

26289-505: The Winter Soldier takes his place as Earth's "Man on the Wall". Following the continuity-changing events of the 2015 miniseries Secret Wars , Fury returned as "the Unseen", advising Odinson of the existence of another hammer. He muses later that, while he is essentially another person from Nick Fury now, he still retains Fury's regret at destroying Thor with a whisper, hoping that the news of

26496-482: The ability to wield his hammer. Fury confesses that he killed Uatu in potential self-defense after Doctor Midas and the Orb had first attacked him. Fury took one of Uatu's eyes, needing to know who mounted the assault and Uatu's oath preventing him from revealing that information directly. After killing Midas, Fury is shown wandering the Moon in chains and wearing long robes that hide his face from view and unable to interfere as "The Unseen", becoming Uatu's replacement while

26703-402: The accusation that the USSR was exerting increasing control over the countries lying in its sphere. He argued that there was nothing surprising in "the fact that the Soviet Union, anxious for its future safety, [was] trying to see to it that governments loyal in their attitude to the Soviet Union should exist in these countries." Soviet territorial demands to Turkey regarding the Dardanelles in

26910-432: The allocation of $ 400 million to intervene in the war and unveiled the Truman Doctrine , which framed the conflict as a contest between free peoples and totalitarian regimes. American policymakers accused the Soviet Union of conspiring against the Greek royalists in an effort to expand Soviet influence even though Stalin had told the Communist Party to cooperate with the British-backed government. Enunciation of

27117-480: The associate deputy director, manages the relationship between the CIA and the Unified Combatant Commands , who produce and deliver regional and operational intelligence and consume national intelligence produced by the CIA. The Directorate of Analysis , through much of its history known as the Directorate of Intelligence (DI), is tasked with helping "the President and other policymakers make informed decisions about our country's national security" by looking "at all

27324-420: The available information on an issue and organiz[ing] it for policymakers". The directorate has four regional analytic groups, six groups for transnational issues, and three that focus on policy, collection, and staff support. There are regional analytical offices covering the Near East and South Asia , Russia , and Europe; and the Asia–Pacific , Latin America , and Africa . The Directorate of Operations

27531-405: The book Assessment of Men, Selection of Personnel for the Office of Strategic Services . Additional mission training is conducted at Harvey Point , North Carolina . The primary training facility for the Office of Communications is Warrenton Training Center , located near Warrenton, Virginia . The facility was established in 1951 and has been used by the CIA since at least 1955. Details of

27738-426: The bureau responsible for foreign espionage and internal surveillance, was famous for its effectiveness. The most famous Soviet operation involved its atomic spies that delivered crucial information from the United States' Manhattan Project , leading the USSR to detonate its first nuclear weapon in 1949, four years after the American detonation and much sooner than expected. A massive network of informants throughout

27945-457: The business of intelligence in a world that is profoundly different from 1947 when the CIA was founded," Schiff said. The Office of Congressional Affairs ( OCA ) serves as the liaison between the CIA and the US Congress . The OCA states that it aims to ensures that Congress is fully and currently informed of intelligence activities. The office is the CIA's primary interface with Congressional oversight committees, leadership, and members. It

28152-483: The chancellor of West Germany, with France the main opponent. Washington had the decisive voice. It was strongly supported by the Pentagon (the US military leadership), and weakly opposed by President Truman; the State Department was ambivalent. The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 changed the calculations and Washington now gave full support. That also involved naming Dwight D. Eisenhower in charge of NATO forces and sending more American troops to West Germany. There

28359-457: The character appearing in Marvel's 2001 Ultimate Marvel imprint was based on Samuel L. Jackson 's appearance and screen persona. When the character was introduced in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2008's Iron Man , Jackson was cast in the role, which he has played in eleven films, the first season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013–14), and the Disney+ series What If...? (2021) and Secret Invasion (2023). The recognizability of

28566-689: The character portrayed by Jackson in the films later led Marvel in 2012 to retire the original character from his role with S.H.I.E.L.D., replacing him with his son Nick Fury Jr. , who is also patterned on Jackson. Fury first appeared in the World War II combat series Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos , as the cigar-chomping NCO who led a racially and ethnically integrated elite unit. The series ran 167 issues (May 1963 – December 1981), though only in reprints after issue #120 (July 1974). Following several issues by creators Lee and Kirby, penciller Dick Ayers began his long stint on what would be his signature series; John Severin later joined as inker, forming

28773-461: The comics. The character was first portrayed in live-action by David Hasselhoff in the television film Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (1998), with Andre Braugher portraying General Hager, a character based on Fury, in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007). Jeff Ward also portrayed Deke Shaw , a character based on the original Fury, from the fifth to the seventh season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2017–20). A version of

28980-416: The communist party. Radio and television organizations were state-owned, while print media was usually owned by political organizations, mostly by the local communist party. Soviet radio broadcasts used Marxist rhetoric to attack capitalism, emphasizing themes of labor exploitation, imperialism and war-mongering. Along with the broadcasts of the BBC and the Voice of America to Central and Eastern Europe,

29187-441: The country and was banned following the 1991 Soviet coup attempt that August. This in turn led to the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 and the collapse of Communist governments across much of Africa and Asia. The Russian Federation became the Soviet Union's successor state, while many of the other republics emerged from the Soviet Union's collapse as fully independent post-Soviet states . The United States

29394-423: The covers of #1–7. Fury continued to make appearances in the other Marvel books, from Fantastic Four to The Avengers . In 1972, Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos celebrated its 100th issue with a present-day reunion of the squad, sponsored by Stan Lee and the creative team behind the title. (Lee, like other comic books professionals, has made occasional cameos in his own books, in a tradition going back to

29601-420: The creation of a "Central Intelligence Service" that would continue peacetime operations similar to those of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which he led during World War II. Upon President Roosevelt's death, the new president Harry Truman inherited a presidency largely uninformed about key wartime projects and global intelligence activities. Truman's initial view of the proposed central intelligence agency

29808-421: The day-to-day work as the third-highest post of the CIA. The deputy director is formally appointed by the director without Senate confirmation, but as the president's opinion plays a great role in the decision, the deputy director is generally considered a political position, making the chief operating officer the most senior non-political position for CIA career officers. The Executive Office also supports

30015-410: The direction of Fleet Admiral Joseph Ernest King , and prepared the first draft and implementing directives for the creation of what would become the Central Intelligence Agency. Despite opposition from the military establishment, the State Department , and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Truman established the National Intelligence Authority in January 1946. Its operational extension

30222-441: The direction of a director of central intelligence by presidential directive on January 22, 1946. The agency's creation was authorized by the National Security Act of 1947 . Unlike the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which is a domestic security service, the CIA has no law enforcement function and is mainly focused on intelligence gathering overseas, with only limited domestic intelligence collection . The CIA serves as

30429-431: The end of the multiverse. He has also continued Uatu's tradition of observing parallel universes, including observing a reality where Flash Thompson became Spider-Man only to turn himself in after accidentally killing Peter Parker. It is also revealed that the Maker is aware of the Unseen's existence. After the " Empyre " event, the Unseen observes as the Avengers, Fantastic Four, Kree/Skrull Alliance, and Cotati end

30636-444: The events he is observing, he is able to summon Blink to him and tells her of things going on in the greater multiverse, terrible creatures that are destroying time, space and dimension, and tells her that she is chosen by the device to act as protector of the very fabric of the multiverse. However, due to this interference in the timestream, a faction of Watchers assaulted him with the objective of ending his involvement, even if it means

30843-417: The feature as one of comic books' most groundbreaking and innovative. He popularized in comic books such art movements of the day as psychedelia and op art ; built on Kirby's longstanding work in photomontage ; and created comic books' first four-page spread. All the while, he spun plots of intense intrigue, barely hidden sensuality, and hi-fi hipness—and supplied his own version of Bond girls , pushing what

31050-438: The fiscal 2013 figure is $ 52.6 billion. According to the 2013 mass surveillance disclosures , the CIA's fiscal 2013 budget is $ 14.7 billion, 28% of the total and almost 50% more than the budget of the National Security Agency. CIA's HUMINT budget is $ 2.3 billion, the SIGINT budget is $ 1.7 billion, and spending for security and logistics of CIA missions is $ 2.5 billion. "Covert action programs," including

31257-401: The formation of NATO , which was essentially a defensive agreement in 1949. The Soviet Union countered with the Warsaw Pact in 1955, which had similar results with the Eastern Bloc. As by that time the Soviet Union already had an armed presence and political domination all over its eastern satellite states, the pact has been long considered superfluous. Although nominally a defensive alliance,

31464-415: The formula annually or the effects would be reversed, allowing his body to reach its actual chronological age. Nick Fury is depicted as an active athletic man despite his advanced chronological age, though writers have sometimes portrayed Fury as being past his prime despite the Infinity Formula as in the Fury and Wolverine graphic novel. As of the " Original Sin " story arc, it is revealed that at some point

31671-533: The formula in his body. In 2012, the six-part series Battle Scars introduces Nick Fury's secret son, Sgt. Marcus Johnson who is an African American and ends up losing one eye in the series. The character has been described as looking like Samuel L. Jackson , just as the Nick Fury of the Ultimate Universe does. Nick Fury retires at the end of the series, and his son joins S.H.I.E.L.D. Upon joining S.H.I.E.L.D., Johnson changes his name to his original birth name of Nick Fury Jr., as he and Agent Coulson appear on

31878-432: The funding of left-wing parties , wars of independence , revolutions and dictatorships. As nearly all the colonial states underwent decolonization and achieved independence in the period from 1945 to 1960, many became Third World battlefields in the Cold War. At the end of World War II, English writer George Orwell used cold war , as a general term, in his essay "You and the Atomic Bomb", published 19 October 1945 in

32085-416: The information they sent. In September 1952 Haney was replaced by John Limond Hart, a Europe veteran with a vivid memory for bitter experiences of misinformation. Hart was suspicious of the parade of successes reported by Tofte and Haney and launched an investigation which determined that the entirety of the information supplied by the Korean sources was false or misleading. After the war, internal reviews by

32292-412: The kind of world-view, the kind of beliefs, and the social structure that would probably prevail in a state which was at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of "cold war" with its neighbours. In The Observer of 10 March 1946, Orwell wrote, "...after the Moscow conference last December, Russia began to make a 'cold war' on Britain and the British Empire." The first use of the term to describe

32499-456: The lack of a clear warning to the President and NSC about the imminent North Korean invasion was seen as a grave failure of intelligence. The CIA had different demands placed on it by the various bodies overseeing it. Truman wanted a centralized group to organize the information that reached him. The Department of Defense wanted military intelligence and covert action, and the State Department wanted to create global political change favorable to

32706-435: The marking of NOFORN (i.e., No Foreign Nationals) required the originator to specify which, if any, non-U.S. countries could receive the information. A new handling caveat, USA/AUS/CAN/GBR/NZL Five Eyes , used primarily on intelligence messages, gives an easier way to indicate that the material can be shared with Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, and New Zealand. The task of the division called " Verbindungsstelle 61 " of

32913-417: The military services. The development of the U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, for instance, was done in cooperation with the United States Air Force . The U-2's original mission was clandestine imagery intelligence over denied areas such as the Soviet Union . It was subsequently provided with signals intelligence and measurement and signature intelligence capabilities and is now operated by

33120-414: The most prominent architects of America's early Cold War strategy, especially those who believed that the Cold War would eventually be fought by political rather than military means, such as George F. Kennan. Soviet and Eastern Bloc authorities used various methods to suppress Western broadcasts, including radio jamming . American policymakers, including Kennan and John Foster Dulles , acknowledged that

33327-575: The national manager for HUMINT, coordinating activities across the IC. It also carries out covert action at the behest of the president . The CIA exerts foreign political influence through its paramilitary operations units, including its Special Activities Center . The CIA was instrumental in establishing intelligence services in many countries, such as Germany 's Federal Intelligence Service . It has also provided support to several foreign political groups and governments, including planning, coordinating, training in torture , and technical support. It

33534-482: The new Captain America , the New Avengers and the Mighty Avengers , the Hood 's gang, and the Thunderbolts , to take on Veranke 's army of Super Skrulls. During an infiltration and elimination of a covert S.H.I.E.L.D. base in Chicago, Fury discovers that S.H.I.E.L.D. is, and always has been, secretly controlled by Hydra. A distraught Fury now plans to use his Secret Warriors to combat the renewed Hydra threat, spearheaded by his old nemesis, Baron Strucker . He hires

33741-441: The new Howling Commandos , a private military company formed by 1200 former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who refused to join Norman Osborn 's H.A.M.M.E.R. , to employ them in his fight against Hydra and Osborn. He has a number of inside men to assist in his raids, including Natasha Romanova posing as Yelena Belova who is in command of the Thunderbolts. Eventually, he and his men commandeer decommissioned Helicarriers, as well as forcing

33948-426: The new hammer will help Odinson recover what he once was. Odinson also admits that the secret that made him unworthy was "Gorr was right", referencing how Gorr the God-Butcher believed that no gods were worthy of worship, although Odinson's ally Beta Ray Bill assures him that his willingness to continue fighting for others proves that this does not apply to Odinson. Later while the Unseen still cannot interfere with

34155-410: The non-military National Intelligence Program, including $ 4.8 billion for the CIA. After the Marshall Plan was approved, appropriating $ 13.7 billion over five years, 5% of those funds or $ 685 million were secretly made available to the CIA. A portion of the enormous M-fund, established by the U.S. government during the post-war period for reconstruction of Japan, was secretly steered to

34362-562: The oldest war in the universe. As Quoi is held captive, Wolverine detects a presence nearby, and Thor notes that they are being watched. Later, the Unseen retrieves ancient weapons from the First Race, predating the Elders of the Universe, Asgardians, and Celestials. Examining them, the Unseen discovers their origin and is overwhelmed with energy as the one-eyed Uatu is resurrected. Uatu only says, "There shall be...a reckoning" when asked how he came back to life. While reconstructing his home, Uatu learns of how Nick Fury became Unseen by tapping into

34569-417: The original continuity). Under Fury, S.H.I.E.L.D. grows into one of the world's most powerful organizations, reaching covertly into national governments and forming strategic alliances with the Avengers and other superhero groups, while always maintaining independence and deniability. Fury soon becomes the superhero community's main contact when government-related information is required in order to deal with

34776-424: The overall United States intelligence budget are classified. Under the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949, the Director of Central Intelligence is the only federal government employee who can spend "un-vouchered" government money . The government showed its 1997 budget was $ 26.6 billion for the fiscal year. The government has disclosed a total figure for all non-military intelligence spending since 2007;

34983-559: The policy change. Once again, the East Berlin communists attempted to disrupt the Berlin municipal elections , which were held on 5 December 1948 and produced a turnout of 86% and an overwhelming victory for the non-communist parties. The results effectively divided the city into East and West, the latter comprising US, British and French sectors. 300,000 Berliners demonstrated and urged the international airlift to continue, and US Air Force pilot Gail Halvorsen created " Operation Vittles ", which supplied candy to German children. The Airlift

35190-441: The political decision-making level on either side. Similarly, there is no evidence, on either side, of any major political or military decision that was prematurely discovered through espionage and thwarted by the other side. There also is no evidence of any major political or military decision that was crucially influenced (much less generated) by an agent of the other side. According to historian Robert L. Benson, "Washington's forte

35397-424: The presence of the Red Army —alarmed the US and UK. Western leaders saw this as a clear instance of Soviet expansionism, clashing with their vision of a democratic Europe. Economically, the divide was sharpened with the introduction of the Marshall Plan in 1947, a US initiative to provide financial aid to rebuild Europe and prevent the spread of communism by stabilizing capitalist economies. The Soviet Union rejected

35604-657: The royal refusal to approve his Minister of War and resigned in protest. The National Front took to the streets in protest. Fearing a loss of control, the military pulled its troops back five days later, and Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi gave in to Mosaddegh's demands. Mosaddegh quickly replaced military leaders loyal to the Shah with those loyal to him, giving him personal control over the military. Given six months of emergency powers, Mosaddegh unilaterally passed legislation. When that six months expired, his powers were extended for another year. In 1953, Mossadegh dismissed parliament and assumed dictatorial powers. This power grab triggered

35811-501: The scene, he decided to recruit Fury to continue his work as defender of the planet. Nick Fury accepted and explains that over the decades he defended the Earth against threats through virtually any means whatsoever, including systematic torture against aliens, genocide against planetary civilizations, and warmongering spanning entire galaxies. The corpses discovered recently by the superhero investigators were threats that Fury had neutralized. Fury reveals that he has rapidly grown elderly and

36018-586: The second caterpillar team, and Mikel , Fury's son and leader of the "gray" team. Fury and the Secret Warriors are later summoned by Captain America to his hideout along with the New and Young Avengers, when Rogers, seeking to aid his long-time comrade Thor in his plight during the Siege of Asgard launched by Norman Osborn , gathered all his allies to strike back against Osborn and rescue Thor whilst simultaneously ending Osborn's Dark Reign . Fury insists on Phobos remaining behind due to an unwillingness for him to battle his father Ares and his youth, and later opens

36225-409: The situation to be "hopeless," and that, after touring the CIA's Far East operations, the CIA's ability to gather intelligence in the far east was "almost negligible". He then resigned. Air Force Colonel James Kallis stated that CIA director Allen Dulles continued to praise the CIA's Korean force, despite knowing that they were under enemy control. When China entered the war in 1950, the CIA attempted

36432-405: The source of the term, Lippmann traced it to a French term from the 1930s, la guerre froide . The roots of the Cold War can be traced back to diplomatic and military tensions preceding World War II. The 1917 Russian Revolution and the subsequent Treaty of Brest-Litovsk , where Soviet Russia ceded vast territories to Germany, deepened distrust among the Western Allies. Allied intervention in

36639-463: The specific post-war geopolitical confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States came in a speech by Bernard Baruch , an influential advisor to Democratic presidents, on 16 April 1947. The speech, written by journalist Herbert Bayard Swope , proclaimed, "Let us not be deceived: we are today in the midst of a cold war." Newspaper columnist Walter Lippmann gave the term wide currency with his book The Cold War . When asked in 1947 about

36846-438: The super-spy side of things, he remains in contact with Earth's heroes and monitors their activities. He provides the New Avengers with a special serum, created as a combination of the Super-Soldier serum and the Infinity Formula, to help Mockingbird when she was shot during a raid on a H.A.M.M.E.R. base. Fury later expends the last sample of the Infinity Formula to save Bucky 's life. He remains immortal due to trace amounts of

37053-476: The technical and human-based operations of the CIA. Before the establishment of the new digital directorate, offensive cyber operations were undertaken by the CIA's Information Operations Center. Little is known about how the office specifically functions or if it deploys offensive cyber capabilities. The directorate had been covertly operating since approximately March 2015 but formally began operations on October 1, 2015. According to classified budget documents,

37260-670: The time Fury spends in hiding, he learns that Valentina Allegra de Fontaine has been plotting to extract S.H.I.E.L.D. passcodes from him and kill him. Fury kills her first, after which she reverts to the form of an extraterrestrial shapeshifter from the hostile Skrull race, which has mounted an invasion of Earth . He recruits Spider-Woman to be his mole inside both Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D., and to watch for further Skrull impostors. Unbeknownst to him, she's replaced shortly after by Skrull Queen Veranke herself. He later instructs former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Daisy Johnson to recruit superpowered children of various heroes and villains to help combat

37467-472: The use of federal funds. The act also exempted the CIA from having to disclose its "organization, functions, officials, titles, salaries, or numbers of personnel employed," and created the program "PL-110" to handle defectors and other "essential aliens" who fell outside normal immigration procedures. At the outset of the Korean War , the CIA still only had a few thousand employees, around one thousand of whom worked in analysis. Intelligence primarily came from

37674-413: The war, the USSR installed satellite governments in the territories of Eastern and Central Europe it had occupied, and promoted the spread of communism to North Korea in 1948 and created an alliance with the People's Republic of China in 1949. The US declared the Truman Doctrine of " containment " in 1947, launched the Marshall Plan in 1948 to assist Western Europe's economic recovery, and founded

37881-400: The world. Movements against nuclear weapons testing and for nuclear disarmament took place, with large anti-war protests . By the 1970s, both sides had started making allowances for peace and security, ushering in a period of détente that saw the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and the 1972 visit by Richard Nixon to China that opened relations with China as a strategic counterweight to

38088-400: Was 'signals' intelligence - the procurement and analysis of coded foreign messages." leading to the Venona project or Venona intercepts, which monitored the communications of Soviet intelligence agents. Moynihan wrote that the Venona project contained "overwhelming proof of the activities of Soviet spy networks in America, complete with names, dates, places, and deeds." The Venona project

38295-421: Was Jack's idea, and it was a wonderful idea – they were headquartered in a floating helicarrier, which was like a super- dirigible . Writer-penciller- colorist Jim Steranko began on the feature in Strange Tales #151 (December 1966), initially over Kirby layouts. He quickly became one of comic books' most acclaimed and influential artists. In some of the creative zeniths of the Silver Age , Steranko established

38502-410: Was US$ 26.6 billion (inflation-adjusted US$ 50.5 billion in 2024). There have been accidental disclosures; for instance, Mary Margaret Graham , a former CIA official and deputy director of national intelligence for collection in 2005, said that the annual intelligence budget was $ 44 billion, and in 1994 Congress accidentally published a budget of $ 43.4 billion (in 2012 dollars) in 1994 for

38709-412: Was a strong promise that West Germany would not develop nuclear weapons. Widespread fears of another rise of German militarism necessitated the new military to operate within an alliance framework under NATO command. In 1955, Washington secured full German membership of NATO. In May 1953, Lavrentiy Beria , by then in a government post, had made an unsuccessful proposal to allow the reunification of

38916-446: Was a very popular television show called The Man from U.N.C.L.E. , sort of a James Bond type of thing. And I thought, just for fun, I'm going to bring Sgt. Fury back again. But it's now years later and I'm going to make him a colonel, and I'm going to make him the head of an outfit like U.N.C.L.E., a secret military outfit. So I had to think of a name, and I love names, so I came up with the name S.H.I.E.L.D. ... [A]nd I think this

39123-469: Was allowable under the Comics Code at the time. The 12-page feature ran through Strange Tales #168 (sharing that "split book" with the occult feature " Doctor Strange " each issue), after which it was spun off into its own series, titled Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D . This ran 15 issues (June 1968 – November 1969), followed by three all-reprint issues beginning a year later (November 1970 – March 1971). Steranko wrote and drew issues #1–3 and #5 and drew

39330-418: Was also fearful of a reconstituted Germany; his vision of a post-war Germany did not include the ability to rearm or pose any kind of threat to the Soviet Union. In early 1948, following reports of strengthening "reactionary elements", Czech Communists executed a coup d'état in Czechoslovakia (resulting in the formation of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (9 May 1948)), the only Eastern Bloc state that

39537-433: Was as much a logistical as a political and psychological success for the West; it firmly linked West Berlin to the United States. In May 1949, Stalin backed down and lifted the blockade. In 1952, Stalin repeatedly proposed a plan to unify East and West Germany under a single government chosen in elections supervised by the United Nations, if the new Germany were to stay out of Western military alliances, but this proposal

39744-449: Was contingent upon German economic recovery. One month later, Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 , creating a unified Department of Defense , the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the National Security Council (NSC). These would become the main bureaucracies for US defense policy in the Cold War. Stalin believed economic integration with the West would allow Eastern Bloc countries to escape Soviet control, and that

39951-451: Was followed by Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. vol. 2. The latter series lasted 47 issues (September 1989 – May 1993); its pivotal story arc was "the Deltite Affair", in which many S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were replaced with Life Model Decoys in a takeover attempt. A year after that series ended, the one-shot Fury (May 1994), using retroactive continuity , altered the events of those previous two series. The Fury one-shot had cast them as

40158-412: Was frequently repeated in the subsequent years. At the beginning of the Korean War , CIA officer Hans Tofte claimed to have turned a thousand North Korean expatriates into a guerrilla force tasked with infiltration, guerrilla warfare, and pilot rescue. In 1952 the CIA sent 1,500 more expatriate agents north. Seoul station chief Albert Haney would openly celebrate the capabilities of those agents and

40365-402: Was involved in many regime changes and carrying out terrorist attacks and planned assassinations of foreign leaders. Since 2004, the CIA is organized under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Despite having had some of its powers transferred to the DNI, the CIA has grown in size following the September 11 attacks . In 2013, The Washington Post reported that in

40572-402: Was kept highly secret even from policymakers until the Moynihan Commission in 1995. Despite this, the decryption project had already been betrayed and dispatched to the USSR by Kim Philby and Bill Weisband in 1946, as was discovered by the US by 1950. Nonetheless, the Soviets had to keep their discovery of the program secret, too, and continued leaking their own information, some of which

40779-416: Was known as the Central Intelligence Group (CIG), which was the direct predecessor of the CIA. The Central Intelligence Agency was created on July 26, 1947, when President Truman signed the National Security Act into law. A major impetus for the creation of the agency was growing tensions with the USSR following the end of World War II . Lawrence Houston, head counsel of the SSU , CIG, and, later CIA,

40986-454: Was left as the world's sole superpower. In February 1946, George F. Kennan 's " Long Telegram " from Moscow to Washington helped to articulate the US government's increasingly hard line against the Soviets, which would become the basis for US strategy toward the Soviet Union for the duration of the Cold War. The telegram galvanized a policy debate that would eventually shape the Truman administration 's Soviet policy. Washington's opposition to

41193-488: Was now restricted to the island of Taiwan , the nationalist government of which exists to this day. The Kremlin promptly created an alliance with the newly formed People's Republic of China. According to Norwegian historian Odd Arne Westad , the communists won the Civil War because they made fewer military mistakes than Chiang Kai-Shek made, and because in his search for a powerful centralized government, Chiang antagonized too many interest groups in China. Moreover, his party

41400-403: Was parity in the quantity and quality of secret information obtained by each side. However, the Soviets probably had an advantage in terms of HUMINT (human intelligence or interpersonal espionage) and "sometimes in its reach into high policy circles." In terms of decisive impact, however, he concludes: We also can now have high confidence in the judgment that there were no successful "moles" at

41607-424: Was principal draftsman of the National Security Act of 1947 , which dissolved the NIA and the CIG, and established both the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency. In 1949, Houston helped to draft the Central Intelligence Agency Act ( Pub. L.   81–110 ), which authorized the agency to use confidential fiscal and administrative procedures, and exempted it from most limitations on

41814-436: Was right after all. In the conclusion, Uatu builds a new Watchtower for Fury and entrusts him to secure the Ultimate Nullifier as the Unseen and humanity's shield. According to the comic books, Nick Fury's aging has been slowed greatly by the Infinity Formula, a serum created by Dr. Berthold Sternberg. Fury was first inoculated with the serum in the 1940s. Fury took the serum annually for many years. Originally Fury had to take

42021-427: Was still useful to the American program. According to Moynihan, even President Truman may not have been fully informed of Venona, which may have left him unaware of the extent of Soviet espionage. Clandestine atomic spies from the Soviet Union, who infiltrated the Manhattan Project at various points during WWII, played a major role in increasing tensions that led to the Cold War. In addition to usual espionage,

42228-427: Was that of a simple information gathering entity that would function more as a global news service rather than a spy network. His vision starkly contrasted with Donovan's, which focused on avoiding the creation of an American version of the Gestapo . On September 20, 1945, shortly after the end of World War II, Truman signed an executive order dissolving the OSS. By October 1945 its functions had been divided between

42435-449: Was then training with the British Commandos , who enlists them for a special mission in the Netherlands . Nick and Red later join the U.S. Army , with Fury undergoing basic training under Sergeant Bass. Nick and Red are stationed together at Schofield Barracks , Hawaii when the Imperial Japanese Navy ambushes the base on December 7, 1941. Red is among the many killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor, with Fury swearing vengeance against both

42642-431: Was turned down by the Western powers. Some sources dispute the sincerity of the proposal. Britain, France, the United States, Canada and eight other western European countries signed the North Atlantic Treaty of April 1949, establishing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). That August, the first Soviet atomic device was detonated in Semipalatinsk , Kazakh SSR . Following Soviet refusals to participate in

42849-434: Was weakened during the war against Japan . Meanwhile, the communists told different groups, such as the peasants, exactly what they wanted to hear, and they cloaked themselves under the cover of Chinese nationalism . Confronted with the communist revolution in China and the end of the American atomic monopoly in 1949, the Truman administration quickly moved to escalate and expand its containment doctrine. In NSC 68 ,

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