The CIA's Family Jewels

The CIA's Family Jewels (702 pages, download, 24 MB)

Agency Violated Charter for 25 Years,
Wiretapped Journalists and Dissidents

Full Report Now Available and Key Word Searchable

CIA Announces Declassification of 1970s "Skeletons" File,
Archive Posts Justice Department Summary from 1975,
With White House Memcons on Damage Control

Update - June 26, 2007, 1 p.m. - The full "family jewels" report, released today by the Central Intelligence Agency and detailing 25 years of Agency misdeeds, is now available on the Archive's Web site. The 702-page collection was delivered by CIA officers to the Archive at approximately 11:30 this morning -- 15 years after the Archive filed a Freedom of Information request for the documents.

The report is available for download in its entirety and is also split into five smaller files for easier download.

CIA's "Family Jewels" - full report (24 MB) NOW KEY WORD SEARCHABLE!

CIA's "Family Jewels" - Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Top Ten Most Interesting "Family Jewels"
Released by the CIA to the National Security Archive, June 26, 2007

1) Journalist surveillance - operation CELOTEX I-II (pp. 26-30)

2) Covert mail opening, codenamed SRPOINTER / HTLINGUAL at JFK airport (pp. 28, 644-45)

3) Watergate burglar and former CIA operative E. Howard Hunt requests a lock picker (p. 107)

4) CIA Science and Technology Directorate Chief Carl Duckett "thinks the Director would be ill-advised to say he is acquainted with this program" (Sidney Gottlieb's drug experiments) (p. 213)

5) MHCHAOS documents (investigating foreign support for domestic U.S. dissent) reflecting Agency employee resentment against participation (p. 326)

6) Plan to poison Congo leader Patrice Lumumba (p. 464)

7) Report of detention of Soviet defector Yuriy Nosenko (p. 522)

8) Document describing John Lennon funding anti-war activists (p. 552)

9) MHCHAOS documents (investigating foreign support for domestic U.S. dissent) (pp. 591-93)

10) CIA counter-intelligence official James J. Angleton and issue of training foreign police in bomb-making, sabotage, etc. (pp. 599-603)

Hanging out its dirty laundry from the 1970s

Last Updated June 27, 2007

CBC News

After a generation of delays and denials, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has confirmed what had long been suspected or leaked — that it repeatedly broke its own rules a generation ago.

The CIA has now published 703 pages of internal memos, first written in 1973 when it looked like the agency might be dragged into the Watergate mess. The media were reporting leaks and hounding anyone who might have been involved with the break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters in Washington in 1972.

The ripples from the expanding scandal that would eventually drag down Richard Nixon had Washington politicians and bureaucrats excavating old memos to see if they had any skeletons in the closet — particularly illegal activities — that could tarnish the participants if revealed.

Against that backdrop, then CIA director James Schlesinger ordered the agency to report anything that could be construed as illegal, including operations within the United States, which are beyond its mandate. The resulting memos, covering incidents between the late 1950s and 1973, came to be known within the CIA as the "family jewels." They range from the mundane — disposing of top-secret garbage for other government agencies — to the explosive: confirming that the CIA plotted to assassinate at least three world leaders.

Some of the incidents covered in the file were reported on in the 1970s; in fact, much of the file relates to efforts to find out where reporters like syndicated columnist Jack Anderson were getting their information. But the CIA fought for years to keep it secret. And no wonder: William Colby, who succeeded Schlesinger as CIA boss, called the file "the skeletons in the closet."

In June 2007, the National Security Archive (NSA), an independent university-based organization, published a summary of 18 files, calling it "25 years of agency misdeeds." A week later, the 703 pages were made public by the CIA, although with many blank sheets, and many names and paragraphs deleted.

The NSA outlined 18 items that it dubbed misdeeds. They can be categorized by type, including assassination plans; drug and other tests on unwitting subjects; spying on U.S. dissidents; spying on reporters and even its own agents; spying on mail in the U.S. destined for Russia and China; and spying technology.

Assassination plans

Fidel Castro at the UN in Sept 1960 as a CIA plot to "remove" him was in full swing (Associated Press)

After years of denying, at least explicitly, that it had made any attempt to assassinate foreign leaders, the CIA now acknowledges that it had hatched plots to eliminate Cuban President Fidel Castro, Congo leader Patrice Lumumba and Rafael Trujillo, a cruel dictator in the neighbouring Dominican Republic — and someone the CIA had helped to power.

The summary of the documents say the agency had "no active part" but only a "faint connection" to the wealthy families who organized the shooting of Trujillo as he was driving in his car on dusty back road in May 1961. However, as you read into the documentation, senior directors of the agency report that the CIA had "quite extensive involvement" with the Trujillo plotters.

That corresponds to news reports that came out in the mid-1970, which said CIA operatives had supplied the guns to the plotters and other strategic advice.

The Castro plots, on the other hand, were all well documented before the Senate investigative panel known as the Church committee in 1975. The CIA, it was reported, had explored the possibility of "removing" Castro with poisoned cigars and even a specially rigged diving suit.

These documents go into greater detail over the attempt to use the Mafia, which had its own reasons for wanting back into the lucrative Cuban casino business, to take out Castro. The contacts began during the last of the Eisenhower years and the plan became directly approved by then CIA director Allen Dulles, one of the deans of American foreign policy.

According to the documents, a CIA operative met with Mafia contact Johnny Roselli in Las Vegas in 1960 and told Roselli the agency would be willing to pay up to $150,000 to have Castro dealt with. Roselli, initially, didn't want any part of the idea but he helped make the connection to top mobsters Sam Giancana and Santo Trafficante, both then on the FBI's wanted list.

Patrice Lumumba, leader of the Congo National Movement, formed the Congo's first national government in June 1960, but was overthrown a few months later by a CIA-backed coup in 1960. He was killed under mysterious circumstances while in jail. (Keystone/Getty Images)

Giancana, according to these documents (and according to news stories earlier), didn't want the money for carrying out the deed. Instead, he wanted the agency's help, which was forthcoming, in spying on his girlfriend, Phyllis McGuire, a singer who Giancana feared was having an affair with comedian Dan Rowan of Rowan and Martin fame.

Many of these details have been the stuff of TV documentaries over the years but successive CIA directors, from John McCone to William Colby, routinely denied any direct involvement by the agency.

The same with the death of Congo's anti-colonial leader Patrice Lumumba in January 1961. These documents now say the CIA was involved in his ouster and had authorized a senior operative to develop plans for his elimination. But they claim the CIA wasn't party to the actual killing of Lumumba, which took place in a prison cell after what has generally been referred to as a CIA-sponsored coup.

Tests on unwitting subjects

In 1963, the CIA conducted experiments on influencing behaviour "through the administration of mind or personality altering drugs to unwitting subjects." The memos claim the experiments were part of a "defensive" program to test drugs on armed forces volunteers so the agency could identify the symptoms if the drugs were ever used against the U.S.

According to the documents, it turns out the drugs used were ones rejected by commercial manufacturers because of bad side effects.

The documents don't take responsibility for the controversial psychiatric experiments funded by the Canadian government and the CIA in Montreal in the 1950s and 60s. These are currently the subject of a long-standing lawsuit against the agency.

Spying on American protesters

In the late 1960s, as America was wracked with demonstrations by students, peace activists and blacks, the CIA was asked by the FBI to look into possible international links to American radicals. The CIA went on to amass files on almost 10,000 Americans in the peace movement, a massive domestic spying operation on people who opposed — mostly peacefully — the U.S. Vietnam policy.

It went so far as to infiltrate the peace movement, claiming it needed to do that so its agents could get credentials to travel overseas, and then presumably meet foreign radicals. One of the documents suggests that undercover CIA agents had set up an operation in Ottawa to monitor U.S. draft dodgers in Canada, which would have been no surprise to most Canadians at the time.

Rafael Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961.
(Archive Photos/Getty Images)

There was nothing about how successful the offshore effort was, but the CIA did observe that the Soviets were not interested in using American radicals for sensitive operations; they felt them too "unruly."

However, one of the CIA U.S. agents was so useful that the FBI took her over. The CIA claimed it never used wiretaps on peace activists, and that it monitored groups in Washington because they may have posed a threat to CIA installations.

One of those caught up in the monitoring was the late Beatle John Lennon. According to the CIA, Lennon had given financial support to certain peace groups and individuals, some of whom were planning to attend the Republican convention in 1972 to protest against the Vietnam War.

Spying on reporters

From the early 1960s, the CIA has been trying to close leaks on sensitive government information to journalists. Between March 1963 and June 1963, Project Mockingbird wiretapped two syndicated columnists, Robert Allen and Paul Scott, after they disclosed national security information in a column.

The CIA failed to nab the source, but it did record senators, members of Congress, and many other bureaucrats and political operatives talking to the columnists.

The taps were approved by then CIA director John McCone, who claimed to have discussed them with then attorney general Robert Kennedy and secretary of defence Robert McNamara. According to some historians, both Robert and John Kennedy had no qualms about bugging journalists but their family members today deny that was the case.

Muckraker Jack Anderson and three associates were watched for three months in 1972, after Anderson wrote columns about Pakistan.

Washington Post reporter Michael Getler was subjected to "physical surveillance" in late 1971 and early 1972 as the CIA tried to find his secret sources. Ditto for former CIA officer Victor Marchetti, who in 1974 published a critical book about the agency, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence.

Jail sentence for ex-Cheney aide

Lewis "Scooter" Libby was a key White House insider

A US judge has sentenced former key White House official Lewis "Scooter" Libby to 30 months in prison. He remains free pending an appeal hearing.

Libby was found guilty of obstruction of justice and perjury in March over the investigation into the unmasking of CIA officer Valerie Plame.

Libby was the former chief of staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney.

Nobody has ever been charged with the offence of leaking the name of Ms Plame whose husband criticised the Iraq war.

President George W Bush feels "terrible for the family, especially for his wife and kids," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

'The truth matters'

Vice-President Cheney said his former aide's prison sentence was a tragedy.

"Scooter is also a friend, and on a personal level [my wife] Lynne and I remain deeply saddened by this tragedy," he said in statement.

US District Judge Reggie B Walton said the evidence overwhelmingly proved Libby's guilt.

"People who occupy these types of positions, where they have the welfare and security of [the] nation in their hands, have a special obligation to not do anything that might create a problem," Judge Walton said in delivering the sentence.

We need to make the statement that the truth matters ever so much Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald Q&A: CIA leak case

Judge Walton also fined Libby $250,000 (£125,000) and placed him on probation for two years following his release from prison.

Mr Libby remains free pending a hearing scheduled for next week on his appeal.

There has been speculation that President Bush might pardon Libby but the White House said it would not intervene in the case given that the appeals process was still underway.

Mr Libby is the highest-ranking White House official convicted in a government scandal since the Iran-Contra affair in the mid-1980s, when Ronald Reagan was president.

Mr Libby has always maintained his innocence.

WHAT IS CIA LEAK CASE ABOUT? Libby was found guilty of lying to the FBI and a grand jury over revelations about CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity Critics said the White House leaked Ms Plame's identity to undermine her husband, ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson He had publicly cast doubt on the Bush administration's case for war in Iraq The alleged cover-up, rather than the leak itself, was the subject of the Libby trial

"It is respectfully my hope that the court will consider, along with the jury verdict, my whole life," Mr Libby said in a brief final appeal to the judge.

Although Mr Libby had faced a maximum of 25 years in prison, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had asked for a three year sentence.

"We need to make the statement that the truth matters ever so much," said Mr Fitzgerald.

Ms Plame's identity as a CIA agent in was revealed in 2003 after her husband - a former ambassador - openly criticised the Bush administration's case for war with Iraq.

Libby was convicted of lying to FBI investigators and the grand jury about how and when he learned that Valerie Plame was a CIA officer, and lying about disclosing classified information to reporters.

GOP Candidates Criticize ABC News Report on CIA-Iran Plan

Two Republican presidential candidates today criticized the ABC News report Tuesday about the CIA’s covert plan to destabilize the Iranian regime.

“I was shocked to see the ABC News report regarding covert action in Iran,” Mitt Romney said as he opened a session with reporters in Tulsa, Okla.

Congressman Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., called for an investigation into who leaked the information and “condemned” ABC News for “running the story which could jeopardize American lives.”

The ABC News story reported that President Bush had given the CIA authorization to conduct a nonlethal covert action against Iran involving propaganda, disinformation and the manipulation of Iran’s international banking transactions.

“The reporting has the potential of jeopardizing our national security. To put it quite plainly, it has the potential of affecting human life, we may never know,” Romney said.

Romney said he had called ABC News president David Westin to register his concerns.

In a statement ABC News said, “In the six days since we first contacted the CIA and the White House, at no time did they indicate that broadcasting this report would jeopardize lives or operations on the ground. ABC News management gave them the repeated opportunity to make whatever objection they wanted to regarding our report. They chose not to.”

ABC News said, “This piece was very carefully reported, and it puts solid facts on the table concerning a crucial foreign policy challenge facing the United States and the world.”

Former spy boss turns on Bush team

Michael Gawenda, Washington
April 28, 2007

GEORGE Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has lashed out against the Bush Administration in a new book, accusing it of pushing the country to war in Iraq without conducting a serious debate about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat.

The former CIA director labelled the Bush Administration's use of his now notorious "slam dunk" description of the evidence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction as despicable and dishonourable.

With his book At the Center of the Storm on his years as CIA director from July 1997 until July 2004 to be released on Monday, Mr Tenet, in excerpts released by CBS of an interview to screened on Sunday night, does not deny that he used the term.

But he says Administration officials, particularly Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have used it to pin responsibility for President George Bush's decision to invade Iraq on him. In the process, he says they have distorted what really happened.

Mr Tenet says that the CIA did believe that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but that when he used the "slam dunk" phrase in a meeting with Mr Bush and senior officials, he was referring to the CIA's ability to make a case for the existence of WMD in Iraq.

The book is the first detailed account by a member of the President's inner circle of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the decision to invade Iraq and the failure to find the weapons that were a key justification for the war.

The "slam dunk" comment, which Mr Tenet used in the December 21, 2002, meeting, was leaked to Washington Post investigative reporter Bob Woodward after the invasion when the Administration was under pressure as it became increasingly clear that Iraq's WMD, the key reason for the war, were non-existent.

"It's the most despicable thing that happened to me," he says. "You don't do this. You don't throw somebody overboard just because it's a deflection. Is that honourable?"

Mr Tenet says it is nonsense to suggest that his comment was decisive in the decision to go to war.

He says he is particularly furious with Mr Cheney and Dr Rice who continue to misuse the "slam dunk" comment to shift blame for the war onto the CIA and onto him in particular.

"And the hardest part of all this has been just listening to this for almost three years, listening to the Vice-President … say, 'Well, George Tenet said slam dunk', as if he needed me to say slam dunk to go to war with Iraq," he says.

"I was a talking point. 'Look at the idiot who told us and we decided to go to war,' they were saying. Well, let's not be so disingenuous."

There have been no leaks of other revelations that might be in Mr Tenet's book, but it is believed he is scathing of Mr Cheney and his staff and their intelligence-gathering operations in the lead-up to the war, and of Dr Rice, whom he says he warned of the possibility of an al-Qaeda attack in the US months before September 11.

In the 60 Minutes interview, Mr Tenet defends the CIA's use of "enhanced" interrogation techniques in the "high value detainee program" against what he describes as senior al-Qaeda operatives. But he insists that these techniques did not amount to torture.

"I know that this program has saved lives," he says. "I know we've disrupted plots. I know that this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the CIA and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us."

According to Mr Tenet, the alleged 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, initially told CIA interrogators, "I will talk to you guys when you take me to New York and I can see my lawyer."

Instead, he was was transferred to an undisclosed location where he faced "enhanced" interrogation techniques, including water boarding.

According to Mr Tenant, he gave up vital information about terrorist threats. Mohammed, now held at Guantanamo, has claimed he was tortured by CIA interrogators.

Mr Tenet said the interrogation techniques were necessary because "these are people who will never, ever tell you a thing" but they are people who "know who's responsible for the next terrorist attack and who wouldn't blink an eyelash about killing you, your family, me and my family and everybody in town".

The book is sure to cause the Administration heartburn, though it is almost certain that there will be no official response to any allegations he makes against officials.

Instead, White House officials are likely to point to the fact that Mr Tenet, in December 2004, accepted the Medal of Honor from Mr Bush, a move that was widely criticised and that was widely regarded as a reward for him copping the blame for the faulty intelligence on Iraq's weapons threat.

With NEW YORK TIMES