50 free CIA trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
CIA trivia for spy-thriller readers, Cold War history buffs and anyone who has wondered what actually goes on at Langley. The quiz opens with the agency's origins: 'Wild Bill' Donovan's wartime OSS, Truman's Central Intelligence Group, and the National Security Act of 1947 that created the CIA. It then follows the early Cold War under Allen Dulles: Operation Ajax in Iran, the coup in Guatemala, the U-2 and Gary Powers, and the disaster at the Bay of Pigs that cost Dulles his job. The middle rounds cover the darker files: MKUltra and LSD, the Phoenix Program, the Family Jewels, and the 1975 Church Committee that dragged it all into the open. Later questions take in the Stingers sent to Afghanistan, the raising of a Soviet submarine with a Howard Hughes cover story, Aldrich Ames and his Jaguar, the fake sci-fi film behind Argo, Kryptos and its unsolved fourth message, the naming of headquarters after George H. W. Bush, and the Abbottabad raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Questions run from easy to expert and every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its source. See also our spy agencies and Cold War quizzes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The CIA's headquarters is in which Virginia community, whose name is shorthand for the agency itself?
Langley
Fort Meade is the NSA's home and Quantico the FBI's academy; the CIA compound sits in unincorporated Fairfax County.
Q 02The CIA was established by which 1947 law?
the National Security Act
The separate CIA Act of 1949 then exempted the agency from most congressional oversight.
Q 03Which wartime organisation, abolished by Truman in 1945, was the CIA's predecessor?
the Office of Strategic Services
Truman replaced it with the short-lived Central Intelligence Group in 1946 before creating the CIA a year later.
Q 04Which 'Wild Bill' headed the OSS and drafted the plan for a US intelligence service modelled on MI6?
William Donovan
Roosevelt first appointed him 'Coordinator of Information' in July 1941; the British officer Dick Ellis has been credited with writing the blueprint.
Q 05Since 2004 the head of the CIA has reported to which official?
the Director of National Intelligence
Before that reform the Director of Central Intelligence ran both the agency and the whole intelligence community.
Q 06Unlike the FBI, the CIA has no power to do what?
enforce the law
The agency focuses on foreign intelligence and has only limited authority to collect intelligence at home.
Q 07The CIA coordinates all US activities in the discipline abbreviated HUMINT. What does the H stand for?
human
The Directorate of Operations runs clandestine human sources and covert action.
Q 08The CIA headquarters was named in 1999 after which former director who became president?
George H. W. Bush
He ran the agency for just 357 days in 1976-77.
Q 09The Old Headquarters Building's marble wall bears a Biblical quotation about what setting you free?
the truth
The verse from John's Gospel was engraved at the request of Allen Dulles.
Q 10Kryptos, the encrypted sculpture in the headquarters courtyard, was created by which artist in 1990?
Jim Sanborn
Three of its four messages have been solved; the fourth remains one of the world's most famous unbroken codes.
Q 11How many of Kryptos's four encrypted messages remain unsolved?
One
The artist has hinted that a fifth message will reveal itself once all four are cracked.
Q 12Who was the CIA's first civilian director and its longest-serving?
Allen Dulles
His brother John Foster Dulles was Eisenhower's Secretary of State and the namesake of Dulles airport.
Q 13The CIA codename for the 1953 coup that overthrew Iran's prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was what?
Operation Ajax
The British MI6 side was Operation Boot; Mosaddegh had nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, now part of BP.
Q 21The U-2's nickname is what?
Dragon Lady
The others are the SR-71, A-10 and F-111 respectively.
Q 22Project MKUltra, the CIA's mind-control programme, was headed by which chemist?
Sidney Gottlieb
It began on Allen Dulles's order in April 1953 and dosed unwitting subjects with LSD, mescaline and morphine.
Q 23Which drug was MKUltra especially notorious for administering covertly to unwitting subjects?
LSD
The Navy's Project CHATTER had first tested it on humans back in 1947.
Q 24Which CIA director ordered all MKUltra files destroyed in 1973, badly hampering later investigations?
Q 14The 1954 CIA-backed coup codenamed PBSuccess overthrew which Central American president?
Jacobo Árbenz
A radio station called 'The Voice of Liberation' convinced Guatemalans the rebel victory was already a done deal; the plan had leaked after an agent left papers in a hotel room.
Q 15The Bay of Pigs invasion was launched from which country, where the CIA had trained Brigade 2506?
Guatemala
Castro's forces defeated the exile brigade within three days after Kennedy withheld further air support.
Q 16In Cuba, the Bay of Pigs invasion is known by the name of which beach where the fighting took place?
Playa Girón
The main force landed there on the night of 17 April 1961.
Q 17Which president forced the CIA director to resign after the Bay of Pigs?
Kennedy
Dulles was later appointed to the Warren Commission investigating that same president's assassination.
Q 18What was the codename of the post-Bay of Pigs sabotage campaign against Castro led by Lansdale and Harvey?
Operation Mongoose
In 1963 the CIA official Desmond Fitzgerald tasked the Cuban agent Rolando Cubela with killing Castro even as Kennedy explored peace overtures.
Q 19The U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, developed with the Air Force, was designed to fly above what altitude?
70,000 feet
The idea was to stay beyond the reach of Soviet fighters, missiles and radar; a missile eventually proved otherwise.
Q 20Which CIA pilot was shot down in a U-2 over the Soviet Union in 1960?
Gary Powers
He was swapped for the Soviet spy Rudolf Abel on Berlin's Glienicke Bridge in February 1962.
Richard Helms
He also destroyed the secret tapes of meetings in his own office before leaving; only a few documents survived.
Q 25MKUltra's 'Subproject 68', involving 'psychic driving', took place at the Allan Memorial Institute in which city?
Montreal
The psychiatrist Donald Ewen Cameron played recorded messages to drugged patients for days on end.
Q 26In which country did the CIA's Phoenix Program of 1968-72 operate?
South Vietnam
The targets were what the agency called the 'Infrastructure', the political and administrative arm of the insurgency.
Q 27The internal 1973 compilation of the CIA's illegal activities is known by what nickname?
the Family Jewels
Director Schlesinger ordered it after Watergate; his successor Colby leaked it, triggering eight congressional investigations.
Q 28The 1975 Senate committee that exposed MKUltra was chaired by a senator from which state?
Idaho
Frank Church's committee, the House's Pike Committee and the Rockefeller Commission made 1975 the 'Year of Intelligence'.
Q 29Operation CHAOS, exposed by the Church Committee, involved CIA officers infiltrating what?
the American antiwar movement
Eleven officers grew their hair long and learned New Left jargon to test Johnson's hunch that Moscow was funding the protests.
Q 30During James Schlesinger's 17-week tenure as director in 1973, roughly how many employees did he fire?
More than 1,500
Nixon wanted him to cut 'the prominence of CIA operations' around the world.