Footnotes

1. "Comments on the Change in Soviet Leadership," 2 March 1955, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp80-00810a006000360009-0.

2. The "Intelligence Cycle", and the obtainment of raw, human intelligence ("HUMINT") is discussed in the following: Mariusz Antoni Kamiński, "Intelligence Sources in the Process of Collection of Information by the U.S. Intelligence Community," Security Dimensions, no. 32 (2019): 82--105 (esp. 82--90); John Hollister Hedley, "The Challenges of Intelligence Analysis," in Strategic Intelligence, ed. Loch K. Johnson, vol. 1 (Westport: Praeger Security International, 2007), 123--38.

3. "The Soviet Party Leadership," 3 April 1972, page 1, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP85T00875R001100130045-3.pdf.

4. This can be confirmed by looking at CIA documents which discuss their internal procedures and document types, such as: "Dissemination of CIA Reports," https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP78-04718A000400090035-2.pdf; "Dissemination of CIA Unevaluated Information Reports," https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP78-04718A002700080033-0.pdf; "Dissemination of Intelligence," 1 January 1954, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP78-03362A000700030001-8.pdf; for background on the types of intelligence collected by the CIA and its processing into "finished intelligence", see: John Hollister Hedley, "Challenges of Intelligence Analysis," 125--127.

5. Fischer clarifies that HUMINT may include reporting from clandestine agents, as well as "overt reporting from foreign intelligence officers, diplomats, and attachés based on personal observations and professional contacts... allied foreign (''liaison'') services...émigrés and defectors from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, as well as open sources such as newspapers, radio and television broadcasts, and official government statements." Benjamin B. Fischer, "'We May Not Always Be Right, but We're Never Wong': US Intelligence Assessments of the Soviet Union, 1972--91," in The Image of the Enemy: Intelligence Analysis of Adversaries Since 1945, ed. Paul Maddrell (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2015), 96.

6. This will be explored in more detail in a dedicated video, but an introduction to this argument can be found in: Sheila Fitzpatrick, On Stalin's Team: The Years of Living Dangerously in Soviet Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015); E. A. Rees, ed., The Nature of Stalin's Dictatorship: The Politburo, 1924--1953 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), esp. chapters 1--3. 7.

7. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80S01540R003100120009-1.pdf

8. "Inner Antagonisms in the Leadership of the All-Russian Communist Party and Stalin's New Government," 18 August 1947, page 1, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00809A000500830068-3.pdf.

9. More specifically, a meeting of specialists (including members of the Board of National Estimates, its staff, and other Soviet consultants) was held after Stalin's death to discuss the Soviet power structure, and to determine if Stalin's death was likely to destabilize the Eastern Bloc or not, and the results of this meeting were then summarized in a memorandum produced for CIA leadership. Whether or not the Soviet Union or Eastern Bloc would be destabilized by changes in Soviet leadership or its decisions is a reoccuring theme throughout all the documents, which makes sense considering the CIA was primarily tasked with analyzing Soviet policy for the purposes of informing American response.
   "Meeting of Consultants," 25 April 1953, pages 1--7, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80B01676R004000050088-9.pdf.

10. "Titoism and Soviet Communism: An Analysis and Comparison of Theory and Practice, October 1957, page 17, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80T00246A073800530001-4.pdf.

11. "Materials for Exploitation of Soviet Sensitivities Revealed by the 30 June CPSU Resolution and Other Soviet Statements," July 1956, page 17, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP78-02771R000200300001-3.pdf.

12. "The Soviet Leadership: Toward a New Configuration?" 7 November 1972, page 2, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP85T00875R002000120025-5.pdf.

13. As the rest of the memorandum concludes, Rosefielde wasn't entirely correct in his criticism and lacked full understanding of the CIA's internal processes, but this is still an interesting example of the CIA being quite off-base:
    "Comments on 'Why the CIA's Estimate of Soviet Defense Procurement Was Off by 200%: The Economic Consequences of Quality Change' by Steven Rosefielde," 1 January 1977, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80M00165A002400080004-7.pdf.
    This memorandum also accords with the conclusion made by Moskoff in 1981, based on the unclassified information up to that point, which was that the CIA was generally competent and skilled in analyzing hard facts, such as economic statistics, but was perhaps too pessimistic in its new predictions. Although this article is interesting given what was just around the corner: William Moskoff, "CIA Publications on the Soviet Economy," Slavic Review 40, no. 2 (1981): 269--72; Fischer notes that American intelligence agencies were successful in monitoring Soviet weapons systems, and pioneered estimative intelligence, but had a frequent problem of poor quality intelligence especially in regards to Soviet decisionmaking; Benjamin B. Fischer, "'US Intelligence Assessments," 94--95.

14. Huw Dylan, David V. Gioe, and Michael S. Goodman, The CIA and the Pursuit of Security: History, Documents and Contexts (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020), 64.

Video/Film Sources

• De Sampigny, Serge, Yvan Demelandre, and Mathieu Schwartz, dirs. Stalin in Color. C. Productions, 2014. https://archive.org/details/docu.-war.-stalin.-in.-colour.-hdtv.x-264.720p.-ac-3.-mvgroup.org.

• Klotz, Georges, dir. Science Of Spying. NBC, 1965.
  https://archive.org/details/science-of-spying-secrets-of-the-cia.

• Our History, "12 December 1937, Elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR," https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x95rpb4.

• SRAS, "Russian Archives and SRAS Archive Services," 26 December 2020,
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_mSoPl5R2M.