Origin of blowback

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I know the term "blowback" originated in the CIA, but does anybody know when and wherher it is arributed to a particular person. Also, what other originally CIA terms have entered our vernacular?

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[nq:1]I know the term "blowback" originated in the CIA, but does anybody know when and wherher it is arributed to a particular person. Also, what other originally CIA terms have entered our vernacular?[/nq]
The term probably originated long before the CIA. It refers to, among other things, an automatic or semi-automatic firearm mechanism operated by recoil, rather than by the gas from the cartridge. Blowback actions have been around for a century or so, though I don't know when that term came along.
"Blowback" can also mean "rearward escape of powder or primer gasses from the chamber around the bolt or breechblock caused by a split or fractured cartridge case or a punctured primer"
(), which may be where the CIA sense came from.

Ray Heindl
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[nq:1]I know the term "blowback" originated in the CIA, but does anybody know when and wherher it is arributed to a particular person. Also, what other originally CIA terms have entered our vernacular?[/nq]
From The Second Barnhart Dictionary of New English (1980) by Clarence L. Barnhart et al.:
blowback, n. ...

2 false or misleading information that is spread in foreign country byintelligence agents but that unexpectedly circulates back to the country of origin.
Everyone was especially concerned that American officials had sometimes fallen victim to blowback, and one witness, who had been on the staff of the C.I.A., described efforts he had made on several occasions to apprise policymakers that they had been taken in by their own government. The New Yorker, Feb. 27, 1978, p 26
(...; 1978, for def. 2)
There are "other originally CIA terms (that) have entered our vernacular" in The Dictionary of Espionage: Spookspeak into English (1986) by Harry S.A. Becket.
BLOWN BACK
False propaganda planted in a forein country that is picked up by news organizations and reprinted as fact or a resemblance thereof by newspapers in the nation of origin. William Colby, one-time director of Central Intelligence, told the Church Committee in 1977 that material the CIA distributed abroad was often "blown back" in to the United States as the truth. Although Colby did not deign to say so, American media could avoid blown back news by doing their own reporting, rather than repeating what is reported abroad.
Regards,
masakim

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[nq:2]I know the term "blowback" originated in the CIA, but ... Also, what other originally CIA terms have entered our vernacular?[/nq]
[nq:1]The term probably originated long before the CIA. It refers to, among other things, an automatic or semi-automatic firearm mechanism ... a split or fractured cartridge case or a punctured primer" (), which may be where the CIA sense came from.[/nq]
The Dictionary of American English (1938) has one entry for the word:

blowback. A backward draught or current of air.
1883: The flames originated from the 'blow back' on the engine, forcing the flames out of the furnace
when the door was opened.

Best Donna Richoux

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[nq:1]I know the term "blowback" originated in the CIA, but does anybody know when and wherher it is arributed to a particular person. Also, what other originally CIA terms have entered our vernacular?[/nq]
Well it ain't a peculiarly CIA term. IIRC it's a term used for a breech loader where the breach is breeched so to speak and the explosive force comes back at the shooter.
Granted, the CIA adapted it for the circumstance of getting an adverse reaction in connection with an action taken but that adaptation is a honored tradition in any organization that generates a lot of writing.

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[nq:2]I know the term "blowback" originated in the CIA, but ... Also, what other originally CIA terms have entered our vernacular?[/nq]
[nq:1]Well it ain't a peculiarly CIA term. IIRC it's a term used for a breech loader where the breach is ... with an action taken but that adaptation is a honored tradition in any organization that generates a lot of writing.[/nq]
Possibly a reference to the use of gas as a weapon?

-)

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[nq:2]Well it ain't a peculiarly CIA term. IIRC it's a ... tradition in any organization that generates a lot of writing.[/nq]
[nq:1]Possibly a reference to the use of gas as a weapon?[/nq]
No, blowback systems and gas systems are different. The .30 M1 was a gas system, while the .45 M1911 was blowback.

-John Lawler http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler U Michigan Linguistics Dept "Because in our brief lives, we catch so little of the vastness of history, we tend too much to think of language as being solid as a dictionary, with granite-like permanence, rather than as the rampant restless sea of metaphor that it is." Julian Jaynes

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[nq:1]No, blowback systems and gas systems are different. The .30 M1 was a gas system, while the .45 M1911 was blowback.[/nq]
Sorry, I was talking gas artillery ordinance, not handguns :-)

Origin of blowback

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