The field of intelligence research has seen more controversies than perhaps any other area of social science. Here we present a scientometric analysis of controversies involving intelligence researchers working in the democratic Western world since 1950. By consulting books and articles, conducting web searches, and contacting some of the individuals involved, we assembled a large database of controversies. Each entry in our database represents a controversy involving a particular individual in a particular year. We computed a measure of controversy by combining the number and severity of incidents, separately for each individual and each year. The individual-level distribution is highly skewed, with just a few individuals accounting for a disproportionate share of the controversy. When tracking the level of controversy over time, we find four relatively distinct ‘eras’, of which the most recent era—the ‘LCI era’—may be the most significant to date.