CIA Releases Papers That Set Off Scandal
The CIA released hundreds of pages of internal reports Tuesday on
assassination plots, secret drug testing and spying on Americans that triggered
a scandal in the mid-1970s.
The documents detail assassination plots against foreign leaders like Fidel
Castro, the testing of mind- and behavior-altering drugs like LSD on unwitting
citizens, wiretapping of U.S. journalists, spying on civil rights and
anti-Vietnam war protesters, opening mail between the United States and the
Soviet Union and China, break-ins at the homes of ex-CIA employees and others.
The 693 pages, mostly drawn from the memories of active CIA officers in 1973,
were turned over at that time to three different investigative panels
President Ford's Rockefeller Commission, the Senate's Church committee and the
House's Pike committee.
The panels spent years investigating and amplifying on these documents. And
their public reports in the mid-1970s filled tens of thousands of pages. The
scandal sullied the reputation of the intelligence community and led to new
rules for the CIA, FBI and other spy agencies and new permanent committees in
Congress to oversee them.
Among the more famous misdeeds were these:
_Castro plot: In August, 1960, the CIA recruited ex-FBI agent Robert Maheu,
who was a top aide to Howard Hughes in Las Vegas, to approach mobster Johnny
Roselli and pass himself off as the representative of international
corporations who wanted Castro killed. Roselli introduced Maheu to "Sam Gold"
and "Joe", who were actually 10-most wanted mobsters Momo Giancana, Al Capone's
successor in Chicago, and Santos Trafficant. The CIA gave them six poison
pills, and they tried unsuccessfully for several months to have several people
put them in the Cuban leader's food. This particular plot was dropped after the
failed CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, but other plots continued
against Castro. Details of this plot first appeared in Jack Anderson's
newspaper column in 1971.
These documents also were one of the products of the Watergate scandal.
Then-CIA Director James Schlesinger was angered to read in the newspapers that
the CIA had provided support to ex-CIA agents E. Howard Hunt and James McCord,
who were convicted in the Watergate break-in. Hunt had worked for a secret
"plumbers unit" in Richard Nixon's White House. The unit originally was tasked
to investigate and end leaks of classified information but ultimately engaged
in a wide range of misconduct.
In May 1973, Schlesinger ordered "all senior operating officials of this
agency to report to me immediately on any activities now going on, or that have
gone on the past, which might be construed to be outside the legislative
charter of this agency." The law establishing the CIA barred it from conducting
spying inside the United States.
The result was 693 pages of memos that arrived after Schlesinger had moved to
the Pentagon and been replaced as CIA chief by William Colby. Colby ultimately
reported the contents to the Justice Department.
"These are the top CIA officers all going into the confessional and saying,
`Forgive me father, for I have sinned,' " said Thomas Blanton, director of the
private National Security Archive, which had requested release of the documents
under the Freedom of Information Act.
Inside the CIA, Colby referred to the documents as the "skeletons." But
another name quickly caught on and stuck: "family jewels."
They first spilled into public view on Dec. 22, 1974, with a story by Seymour
Hersh in The New York Times on the CIA's spying against antiwar and other
dissidents inside this country. The agency assembled files on some 10,000
people.
For the complete CIA documents, go to: http://www.foia.cia.gov
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