CIA Headquaters buildings

McLean Virginia. 1991 Ariel view of the C.I.A. buildings in McLean Va. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is one of the principal intelligence-gathering agencies of the United States federal government. The CIA's headquarters is in Langley, Virginia, a few miles west of Washington, D.C. Its employees operate from U.S. embassies and many other locations around the world. The only independent U.S. intelligence agency, it reports to the Director of National Intelligence. The CIA has three tradit (Photo by Mark Reinstein/Corbis via Getty Images)