Thread by @DavidCranmerUn1

John Wesley Powell - Wikipedia

Powell served as second director of the U.S. Geological Survey (1881–1894) and proposed, for development of the arid West, policies that were prescient for his accurate evaluation of conditions. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesl…

In 1881, Powell was appointed the second director of the U.S. Geological Survey, a post he held until his resignation in 1894,[3](pp394, 534) being replaced by Charles Walcott. In 1875, Powell published a book based on his explorations of the Colorado, originally titled Report

of the Exploration of the Columbia River of the West and Its Tributaries. It was revised and reissued in 1895 as The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons. In 1889, the intellectual gatherings Powell hosted in his home were formalized as the Cosmos Club.

He attended Wheaton College in Illinois from 1857 to 1861, where he met John Wesley Powell.[4] After graduation, he married Powell's sister, Ellen Louella (Nellie) Powell (1840–1909), on July 8, 1862, in Wheaton, Illinois. Later, Thompson was appointed the chief geographer for

the USGS. As a geographer and cartographer, he authored or co-authored many USGS maps, including maps of the Green River from the Union Pacific Railroad to the mouth of the White River. Thompson was also involved in a number of other projects, including serving as cartographer

on projects in California, Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, Oregon, and Wyoming. Thompson was part of a tight-knit community of explorers, scientists and businessmen in Washington, D.C., interested in forming a geographic society. He was one of several signatories on an invitation to

meet on January 13, 1888.[20] Thompson called the meeting to order and introduced the resolution to form the society. Within two weeks, an organizing committee consisting of Thompson and others created the plan for the National Geographic Society. Although Alexander Graham Bell

is sometimes discussed as a founder, he was actually the second president, elected on January 7, 1898, and serving until 1903. Later, The Walt Disney Company assumed 21CF's share in National Geographic Partners, following the completion of Disney's acquisition of most of 21CF

assets on March 20, 2019. The original News Corporation launched National Geographic Channel in Asia and Europe in the late 1990s, in partnership with the Society. Another major stakeholder has been Al-Waleed bin Talal, of the Saudi Royal Family.

Al-Fasil then attended the

Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, part of class of 1968 (alongside future U.S. President Bill Clinton). Prince Turki began his political career as deputy to his uncle, Kamal Adham

Additionally he was the primary liaison of the CIA for the

Middle East as a whole from the mid-1960s to 1979 when he left the GIP.[16] He fostered and maintained nascent ties with several Arab intelligence services, as many were slowly creating independent institutions to serve their respective governments. Adham closely worked with

George H. W. Bush, who was appointed CIA director in 1976.[22][23]
Adham signed the charter of the Safari Club, an anti-communist foreign policy initiative on behalf of Saudi Arabia that was proposed and realized by French intelligence chief Alexandre de Marenches in 1976.[

The club was operated by Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi—also a friend of Adham's. The United States was not a formal member of the group, but was involved to some degree, particularly through its Central Intelligence Agency. Henry Kissinger is credited with the American

strategy of supporting the Safari Club implicitly — allowing it to fulfill American objectives by proxy without risking direct responsibility.[14] This function became particularly important after the U.S. Congress passed the War Powers Resolution in 1973 and the Clark Amendment

in 1976, reacting against covert military actions orchestrated within the government's Executive branch.

As the Safari Club was beginning operations, former CIA Director Richard Helms and agent Theodore "Ted" Shackley were under scrutiny from Congress and feared that new covert

operations could be quickly exposed.[18] Peter Dale Scott has classified the Safari Club as part of the "second CIA" — an extension of the organization's reach maintained by an autonomous group of key agents. Thus even as Carter's new CIA director Stansfield Turner attempted to

limit the scope of the agency's operations, Shackley, his deputy Thomas Clines, and agent Edwin P. Wilson secretly maintained their connections with the Safari Club and the BCCI In February 2017, the Ukrainian oil and gas corporation Burisma announced the addition of

Cofer Black to the company's board of directors, leading the company's security and strategic development efforts. Black served across the globe in a variety of roles with the Directorate of Operations at the CIA.

The Directorate was the CIA branch that conducted covert operations and recruited foreign agents. DDP consisted of, among other subdivisions, a unit for political and economic covert action (the Covert Action Staff), for paramilitary covert action (the Special Operations unit),

for counterintelligence, and for several geographic desks responsible for the collection of foreign intelligence. On March 1, 1973, DDP became the Directorate of Operations[6] and the director became known as the Deputy Director for Operations (DDO).
The Directorate also housed

special groups for conducting counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism, for tracking nuclear proliferation, and other tasks. Guerrilla warfare was outside this statement of scope, but such operations came under partial CIA control with NSC 10/5 of October 1951. See "Psychological

Strategy Board" below. To implement covert actions under NSC 10/2, the OPC was created on September 1, 1948. Its initial structure had it taking guidance from the State Department in peacetime and from the military in wartime, initially had direct access to the State Department

and to the military without having to proceed through the CIA's administrative hierarchy, provided the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) was informed of all important projects and decisions. Concerned about this situation, DCI Walter Bedell Smith in early 1951 asked the NSC

for enhanced policy guidance and a ruling on the proper "scope and magnitude" of CIA operations. The White House responded with two initiatives. In April 1951 President Truman created the Psychological Strategy Board (PSB) under the NSC to coordinate government-wide psychological

warfare strategy.
Putting special operations under a "psychological" organization paralleled the military's development of U.S. Army Special Forces, which was created by a Pentagon unit called the Psychological Warfare Division. "NSC 10/5, issued in October 1951, reaffirmed the

covert action mandate given in NSC 10/2 and expanded CIA's authority over guerrilla warfare"[9] The incoming Eisenhower administration soon abolished the PSB, but the expansion of the CIA's covert action writ in NSC 10/5 helped ensure that covert action would remain a major

function of the Agency. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in 2001, a report by the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, conducted by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House

Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, The United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), also known as the House Intelligence Committee, is a committee of the United States House of Representatives, currently chaired by Adam Schiff. Prior to

establishing the permanent select committee in 1977, the House of Representatives established the "Select Committee on Intelligence", commonly referred to as the "Pike Committee", so named after its last chairman, Otis G. Pike of New York. The select committee had originally

been established in February 1975 under the chairmanship of Congressman Lucien Nedzi of Michigan. Following Nedzi's resignation in June, the committee was reconstituted with Pike as chair, in July 1975, with its mandate expiring January 31, 1976. Under Pike's chairmanship, the

committee investigated illegal activities by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

The Select Committee on Intelligence was preceded by the Church Committee (1975). Senator Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) became the first chairman

of the committee when it was established until 1979.[5]
Former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet was staff director of the committee when David Boren of Oklahoma was its chairman. One of the wealthiest figures on Wall Street,[2] in 1956 he was appointed chairman of

Benguet Consolidated Mining Co. which had chrome and gold mining operations in the Philippines. Among his other investments, the Allen brothers' company held an eighty percent share position in Ogden Corporation as well as a substantial holding in pharmaceutical manufacturer,

Syntex Corporation. His preparation was first administered as an oral contraceptive to animals by Gregory Goodwin Pincus and Min Chueh Chang and to women by John Rock.

In 1952, Sanger told her friend Katharine McCormick about Pincus and Chang's research. She planned to attend

medical school, but instead married Stanley Robert McCormick, the youngest son of Cyrus McCormick and heir to the International Harvester fortune, on September 15, 1904. Following years of financial and economic decline, International began selling its separate equipment

divisions, starting with the sale of the construction division to Dresser Industries in 1982. In November 1984 IH finalized a deal with Tenneco to sell the farm equipment division to Tenneco's subsidiary Case Corporation, and the brand continues as Case IH which is owned by

Fiat. The European division exists today as McCormick Tractors and is owned by ARGO SpA of Italy. International became solely a truck and engine manufacturer and reorganized as Navistar International in 1986.