Ray S. Cline

Ray Steiner Cline (June 4, 1918 – March 15, 1996) was an official at the United States Central Intelligence Agency and is best known for being the chief CIA analyst during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Background Ray S. Cline was born in Anderson Township, Clark County, Illinois in 1918 and raised in Terre Haute, Indiana, graduating from Wiley High School in 1935. He earned a scholarship to study at Harvard University where he graduated with an A.B. in 1939. He received the Henry Prize Fellowship to Balliol College, Oxford University 1939–40. He returned to Harvard and earned an M.A. He was invited to join the Harvard Society of Fellows in 1941, but with the outbreak of World War II, he left after a year to join the war effort.

Cline married Marjorie Wilson in 1941; the couple had two daughters, Judith and Sibyl. Until Sibyl's divorce, Cline was the father-in-law of Stefan Halper.

Cline died from Alzheimer's disease at his home in Arlington County, Virginia, on March 15, 1996, aged 77. Cline stated that both Paul Helliwell and Robert Anderson created 176 "black gold" banking accounts in 42 countries after moving loot from the Philippines by ship to support future United States operations.

Academic Cline left government service in 1973, becoming an executive director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University. While at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, he became a prolific author on American intelligence and foreign policy. He also became an ardent defender of the CIA in testimony before the United States Congress and in the media.

Publications Books Washington Command Post: the Operations Division. Preface and foreword by Orlando Ward. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, U.S. Department of the Army (1951). World Power Assessment: The Calculus of Strategic Drift. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press (1975). . Published in cooperation with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. Secrets, Spies and Scholars: The CIA from Roosevelt to Reagan. Washington D.C.: Acropolis Books (1976). . Republished as The CIA Under Reagan, Bush, and Casey. Washington, D.C.: Acropolis Books (1981). World Power Assessment 1977: A Calculus of Strategic Drift. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press (1977). . Published in cooperation with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. World Power Trends and U.S. Foreign Policy for the 1980s. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press (1980). . . Published in cooperation with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. The CIA Under Reagan, Bush, and Casey. Washington, D.C.: Acropolis (1981). . Republished as CIA: Reality v Myth. The Intelligence War. Salamander Books (1983). Terrorism: The Soviet Connection, with Yonah Alexander. New York: Crane Russak (1985). . Published in cooperation with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University. Western Europe in Soviet Global Strategy (1987) . Asia in Soviet Global Strategy, with James Arnold Miller and Roger E. Kanet, eds. Boulder: Westview Press (1987). . Metastrategy: National Security Memorandum for the President. New York: Crane Russak (1988). . Central Intelligence Agency: A Photographic History (1989). Foreign Policy Failures in China, Cuba, and Nicaragua: A Paradigm. Washington, D.C.: United States Global Strategy Council (1992). . Chiang Ching-Kuo Remembered: The Man and His Political Legacy. Washington, D.C.: United States Global Strategy Council (1993). The Power of Nations in the 1990s: A Strategic Assessment. Washington: University Press of America (1995). Foreword by Paul H. Nitze. . .

Book contributions to , by Joseph D. Douglass Jr. Second Opinion Pub, Inc. (1990), pp. 7–10. New York: Edward Harle (1999). . .

Articles "Opinion: Policy without Intelligence." Foreign Policy, no. 17 (Winter 1974), pp. 121–135. . . "Toward a Two Chinas Policy." Asian Affairs, vol. 3, no. 5 (May/June 1976), pp. 281–286. . "Politics and Foreign Policy." Wilson Quarterly, vol. 4, no. 3 (Summer 1980), p. 189. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. . "Correction: In Pursuit of Well-Being." Wilson Quarterly, vol. 4, no. 3 (Summer 1980), p. 189. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. . "The Communist Five and the Capitalist Ten Socio-Economic Systems in Asia." Journal of East Asian Affairs, vol. 2, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 1982), pp. 1–14. Institute for National Security Strategy. . "Commentary: The Cuban Missile Crisis." Foreign Affairs, vol. 68, no. 4 (Fall 1989), pp. 190–196. Council on Foreign Relations. . .

Awards Distinguished Intelligence Medal Career Intelligence Medal