Central Intelligence Agency



The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), sometimes referred to as Langley (in reference to the neighborhood that the CIA headquarters is stationed at), is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States Government. Its primary function is collecting and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and persons in order to advise public policy makers. It is based in Langley, Virginia. It is also known as The Agency or The Company, and its agents in Central America referred to as "UCLAS" (Unilaterally Controlled Latino Assets). The organization itself in Central America was sometimes referred to as la Cia, due to the primarily Spanish-speaking locals and the name technically being a feminine word.

History
Founded on September 18, 1947 as a successor of World War II's OSS (Office of Strategic Services), the CIA played an important role during the Cold War.

Antagonism with The Boss
In 1959, the CIA was unhappy with President Dwight D. Eisenhower's selection of The Boss for covert sabotage missions in the Soviet Union, and refused to help her. However, when The Boss managed to tap into the Philosophers' spy network and eventually plant a mole into the Soviet bloc to bring back volumes of data, the CIA had her stop so they could reap in on the credit, using their concern of her getting involved in black ops as an excuse. Around the same time, the CIA also sent various soldiers into North Vietnam to train various guerilla groups to fight against the North Vietnamese. Eventually, they cut The Boss's sleeper agent's pay by a large percentage, which resulted in her mole defecting completely to the Soviet Union and feeding them misinformation.

In 1961, when The Boss noticed conflicting details about the doctored blueprints supplied by their mole, the CIA ignored her claims, believing that she was trying to claim back her former glory. After The Boss discovered the truth about Sputnik 5, as well as what the CIA had done, they attempted to ruin her life to avoid taking responsibility. They first began to feed several lies to the newly elected President, John F. Kennedy (the first President to have no previous ties with the Philosophers), such as claiming that it was The Boss's fault that the sleeper agent had defected, and then having her placed into the Mercury Lady project. They eventually tried to erase The Boss from the Mercury team, even going as far as to doctor a photo of them, after its failure and Gagarin's announcement. Around this time, the CIA also orchestrated a mission known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion, where they trained Cuban exiles and thus tried to have them retake control of Cuba from the communists, but it backfired and ended in disaster when Kennedy ended up not sending in the air support he promised them. The CIA also used this event as part of their cover-up of The Boss's Mercury Lady accident.

In 1962, the CIA had Major Zero aid Soviet researcher Nikolai Stepanovich Sokolov, and his family, defect to the United States. However, at the same time, the CIA, via one of its spy planes, also discovered that the Soviets were creating a missile base in Cuba, leading to the Cuban Missile Crisis. After several tense weeks, the Soviets eventually backed down from installing the missile base, although under the condition that Sokolov be returned to them. During this time, Sokolov's family was also kept in CIA custody.

It was speculated by Green Beret Roy Campbell, that the CIA were aware that the Soviets would look to the San Hieronymo Peninsula in Colombia as the site for a new missile base, if they failed to do so in Cuba, even before the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. However, this information was seemingly kept from the rest of the government, which would have allowed the CIA to use it in any future secret negotiations with the Soviets.

In 1962, Zero and The Boss unofficially formed the special forces unit FOX within the CIA. At some point during the 1960s, the CIA recovered the operative Python from Vietnam, whose injuries had resulted in his losing the ability to control his body temperature, which would cause his death without proper treatment. They fitted him with a special cooling suit to alleviate his condition so that he could eventually return to duty performing top-secret black ops. There were also plans to send a CIA agent into Soviet territory, disguise him as a GRU officer, infiltrate a base, and steal classified documents, but the mission eventually ended up cancelled for undisclosed circumstances.

In 1964, the DCI, Hot Coldman and The Boss organized the Virtuous Mission in order to regain control of the Philosophers' Legacy, which was in possession of GRU Colonel Volgin in Tselinoyarsk. After Volgin launched one of the portable nuclear weapons given to him by The Boss, the CIA arranged to have her killed in order to clear America's name, having also come to fear her charisma. Coldman then planned the follow-up mission Operation Snake Eater and had Naked Snake (the last protégé of The Boss and member of FOX) sent into Tselinoyarsk a week later to kill Volgin, The Boss, her Cobra Unit, and also to retrieve the Legacy.

During the week between the Virtuous Mission and Operation Snake Eater, there was also a shakeup at Langley that resulted in several key figures in the CIA being placed under house arrest, due to accusations of following The Boss's example and defecting. After the operation, Coldman lost his position as a Director (presumably for knowing too much about the mission). The mission's success led the DCI to establish FOX as an official CIA unit.

Meanwhile, Python undertook training to become the "Anti-Snake," so that he could eliminate Naked Snake, a.k.a. Big Boss, should he ever betray the CIA.

Post-Snake Eater
During the 1960s, the Pentagon began to feel threatened by the CIA's growing influence in America's military affairs, especially in regards to the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961, the covert ops in Indochina, and the Metal Gear project.

Sometime between 1966 and 1970, the CIA began taking people in for the Perfect Soldier Project, a project designed to create the ultimate soldier. During the stages of the project, they also took a young, recovering child soldier named Frank Jaeger from a relief center in Mozambique and used him as a guinea pig for the project. Jaeger ultimately turned out to be the only survivor and successful byproduct of their project. They also went through another project, this time to produce the ultimate battlefield commander. A FOX operative named Gene volunteered to be a test subject to the project codenamed the Successor Project. In October 1967, the CIA, through the joint efforts of the Bolivian special forces and commandos from their Special Activities Division stationed in Bolivia, captured and executed the Cuban revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

In 1970, the Cold War appeared to be coming to a close as the Soviets were running out of the funds required to carry it on. This would cause the CIA to lose the influence it had gained over this time. They arranged for Gene's FOX unit to steal the Intercontinental Ballistic Metal Gear and transport it to a Soviet base at the San Hieronymo Peninsula, so that they could deliver it to the Soviets and pretend to defect to the USSR. However, at the same time, the Pentagon had ordered FOX (via Lt. Cunningham) to launch the ICBMG into the Soviet Union so as to tarnish the CIA's reputation as an efficient intelligence gathering agency. By doing this they could re-ignite the Cold War.

However, Gene had other plans and changed the target from the USSR to Virginia, USA, which would obliterate the main headquarters of both the Pentagon and CIA. This forced the DCI to head to an underground bunker with records of the Philosophers' Legacy. Knowing this, Ocelot was able to intercept him, kill him, make it seem as though he committed suicide, and take the remaining part of the Legacy. Because of this, the CIA headquarters also experienced a major shakeup on its seventh floor (where the CIA's top brass is located).

Post-San Hieronymo
The Philosophers' Legacy was later used by Zero to establish the Patriots, a successor organization of the Philosophers controlling the United States from the shadows. Around this time, the CIA was also influencing Costa Rican president José Figueres Ferrer into enacting pro-American policies as well as allowing gold mines to be used by foreign companies.

In 1974, the CIA apparently hired a mysterious militaristic force to invade Costa Rica, the nation without a military. In actuality, the CIA was already stationed in Costa Rica with the intent of driving out the Soviet influence in the neighboring country, Nicaragua. However, the Peace Sentinel (a rogue unit of the CIA), led by CIA Station Chief for Central America Hot Coldman, was conducting the Peace Walker project, which entailed creating the perfect deterrent which he planned to use in creating a new order where machines ruled over everyone. In addition, the CIA also attempted to hunt down the Militaires Sans Frontières, necessitating the latter party to relocate whenever they come near, to which Kazuhira Miller, MSF's subcommander, had to assure Big Boss that the guests that have arrived to MSF's camp were not members of the CIA. After the chaotic events where Coldman leaked Peace Walker's false data to NORAD and nearly caused a nuclear war, the CIA, along with the KGB, attempted to cover up the events in question, which also served as a golden opportunity for the MSF to arm Metal Gear ZEKE with the nuclear warhead that was originally installed on Peace Walker after they fished it out of Lake Nicaragua. Eventually, their involvement in José Ferrer’s policies was admitted by Ferrer on March 1975. In addition, Miller and Big Boss worried after Chico managed to successfully leak a photograph of Chrysalis to a tabloid piece, resulting in Grenada's Prime Minister, Sir Eric Gairy, requesting that the UN allow the establishment of a facility studying UFOs and extraterrestrial life, namely due to the fact that Gairy might end up digging too deep and stumbling on various CIA projects that resembled the Alien Abductions/Cattle Mutilations reported throughout Central America, causing the situation to go red, although they still would have problems actually getting to him due to Grenada being next door to Cuba. In addition, Paz Ortega Andrade also a member of the CIA, acting as a triple agent between them, the KGB, and Cipher, also known as the Patriots.

Post-Peace Walker
On December 21, 1974, just a few weeks after the Peace Walker Incident, the mysterious XOF group claimed to be under the employment of the CIA. However, an undercover agent uncovered that the group didn't even answer to Langley, and informed Big Boss as much during a mission to retrieve classified intel relating to Cipher for the MSF.

During the late 1980s, George Sears, later known as Solidus Snake, worked with the CIA's paramilitary. He was eventually dispatched to Liberia during its civil war, where he managed to orphan a Liberian boy and use him and other kids as child soldiers.

Following the Outer Heaven Uprising, Solid Snake briefly joined the CIA as an undercover agent, but left after six months in the organization due to feeling dissatisfied with the system.

In 1999, during the Zanzibar Land Disturbance, the Agency managed to infiltrate agent Holly White into the hostile country, posing as a journalist. She went on to help Snake complete Operation Intrude F014. The CIA also looked into Dr. Drago Pettrovich Madnar's background under White's request due to the latter becoming suspicious of him.

In 2002, the CIA would claim that the "evidence" that Iraq had WMDs amounted to a "slam dunk case." The search following the 2003 invasion of Iraq by U.S., British and international forces yielded no WMDs.

Former members

 * CIA Director (1964-1970)
 * Hot Coldman
 * CIA strategist
 * The Boss
 * Pacifica Ocean (triple agent)
 * Ocelot (triple agent)
 * Solidus Snake
 * Solid Snake
 * Holly White
 * Members of the FOX unit
 * Zero
 * Naked Snake
 * Para-Medic
 * Sigint
 * Gene
 * Cunningham
 * Python
 * Elisa and Ursula
 * Null
 * The Boss

Unconfirmed history
Decoy Octopus was scouted and recruited by the CIA for recovering VIPs and posing as decoys for them. Also, any subsequent tests for Metal Gear REX would have been overseen by the CIA, due to the Department of Defense's term of overseeing the tests being expired by the third test.

Behind the scenes
In the non-canon Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, Outer Heaven was formed by the CIA Deputy Director of Central Intelligence Steve Gardner to enlist mercenaries as "clients," as a means of keeping tabs on anti-American forces. Big Boss was assigned to oversee the project, until he broke away from the program, resulting in the Outer Heaven Uprising.

Both the "FOXDIE" entry on the Metal Gear Solid 4 Database and Naomi Hunter's character profile on the Metal Gear Solid 4 website erroneously claim that FOXDIE was a CIA project. The "Outer Heaven Uprising" entry in the Database also mistakenly describes FOXHOUND as a CIA unit.

In the TGS Daytime demo for Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, a character named Brian inferred that a major character was not actually a CIA agent when "interrogated" by Big Boss, although it wasn't made clear whether the character alluded to was Skull Face or not.

Notes and references
CIA