CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA)

CIA Releases its ‘Family Jewels’

The American public had known for a long time that the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) kept secrets. But it was not until 2007 that the intricate details of many of the most covert—and sometimes illegal—CIA operations were released to the general public for review. Pursuant to a 15-year-old Freedom of Information act (FOIA) request from Tom Blanton of the National Security Archive (NSA) made in 1992, 700 pages of long-sealed documents were finally declassified and tendered to the NSA on July 26, 2007. Over the years multiple FOIA requests had been filed, but only a few dozen heavily-censored pages had previously been declassified and released.

Out came the “family jewels”—hundreds of decades-old documents that provided insight and detail into CIA activities including assassination plans, illegal wiretapping and attempts to discover “spies” at political conventions. The released documents comprised not a comprehensive or orderly chronicle of CIA activities, but rather a collection of various internal memoranda, communications with Congress, and newspaper clippings, some of which contained deletions, and a number of blank pages.

Many of the documents stem from the 1970s and the troubled time surrounding Watergate, the scandal involving CIA officers E. Howard Hunt and James McCord who allegedly broke into and wiretapped the Democratic National Committee headquarters. The scandal caused then-president Richard M. Nixon to resign from office.

Senior CIA official William E. Colby apparently struggled to determine how much to reveal as he prepared agency testimony for congressional committee hearings investigating Watergate in 1973. According to internal memoranda, he was advised by a senior colleague to lean toward “candor” rather than “minimal factual response.” His then-boss, former CIA Director James R. Schlesinger, issued an internal order drafted by Colby to “report to me immediately on any activities now going on, or that have gone on in the past, which might be construed to be outside the legislative charter of this agency.”

Responses came in from various division heads, lower-level bureaucrats, and some retired operatives, outlining or explaining various incidents of illegal surveillance and other questionable activities. In the end, Colby's loose-leaf collection contained 693 pages of memoranda.

By September 1973, Colby had succeeded Schlesinger as CIA Director. On December 22, 1974, a front-page story leaked in the New York Times (“Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in U.S. Against Antiwar Forces, Other Dissidents During Nixon Years”) reporting on some of the CIA's activities. The article intimated that “a check of the CIA's domestic files ordered last year … produced evidence of dozens of other illegal activities … beginning in the fifties, including break-ins, wiretapping, and the surreptitious inspection of mail.”

Nine days later, on New Year's eve, 1974, Colby and the CIA general counsel John Warner met with the U.S. deputy attorney general and his associate to brief the Justice Department about incidents alluded to in the

Times story that presented “legal questions.” Colby also briefed President Gerald ford about Schlesinger's directive to compile the CIA's “skeletons” in the agency's closet. Weeks later, in February 1975, Colby and Schlesinger met with then Secretary of State/National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, who had previously advised President Ford that leaking of CIA secret activities was “worse than the days of McCarthyism.” Kissinger had already been warned by Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms that “these stories are just the tip of the iceberg,” citing, for example, Robert F. Kennedy's role in assassination plans.

Ultimately, the CIA internally combed its files for what it referred to as “delicate information” with “flap potential.” These became the “family jewels.” Some of the more controversial and intriguing examples of closeted jewels included:

—detention and confinement of Soviet defector Yuri Nosenko “that might be regarded as a violation of kidnapping laws;”

—surveillance and/or wiretapping of journalists, including syndicated columnists Robert Allen and Paul Scott and Washington Post reporter Michael Getler;

—break-ins and/or warrantless entries into the homes or apartments of former CIA employees;

—mail opening from 1953 to 1973 of letters to and from the Soviet Union;

—mail opening from 1969 to 1972 of letters to and from China;

—behavior modification experiments on unknowing U.S. citizens;

—assassination plots against Fidel Castro, Congo leader Patrice Lumumba, and inactive connections to plots against Trujillo;

—surveillance of dissident groups between 1967 and 1971;

—secret files kept on over 9,900 Americans related to the anti-war movement (the Viet Nam War) including Beatles singer John Lennon;

—testing of electronic surveillance equipment on U.S. telephone circuits.

Michael V. Hayden, the CIA director in 2007 (appointed in 2006), decided to release the “family jewels” in response to the 1992 FOIA request as a measure of good faith to show critics that the agency embraces openness when and where possible. In a note to agency employees, he referred to the release as part of a “social contract” with the American public “to give those we serve a window into the complexities of intelligence.” He also noted that the released papers included “reminders of some things the CIA should not have done” and pointed out the internal reforms and increased oversight that has occurred since Watergate.

The contents of released documents may be reviewed by the general public through the National Security Archive, and/or the National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 222, edited by Thomas Blanton.