This article deals with the influence of Gen. George C. Marshall on the foundation of the US intelligence community after the Second World War. It argues that his uneven achievements demonstrate how the ceaseless wrangling within the Truman administration undermined the crafting of a coherent intelligence policy. Despite his bureaucratic skills and prominent positions, Marshall struggled to achieve his ends on matters like signals intelligence, covert action, or relations between the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. Yet he crafted an enduring vision of how intelligence should supplement US national security policy that remained potent throughout the Cold War and beyond.

本文讨论乔治 C 马歇尔将军对二战后美国情报界基础的影响。它认为，他参差不齐的成就表明，杜鲁门政府内部的不断争论如何破坏了连贯的情报政策的制定。尽管拥有官僚技能和显赫职位，马歇尔仍难以在信号情报、秘密行动或国务院与中央情报局之间的关系等问题上实现自己的目标。然而，他制定了一个持久的愿景，即情报应如何补充在整个冷战及以后仍然有效的美国国家安全政策。