NationStates Jolt Archive

I couldn't resist the title.

CIA to reveal decades of misdeeds

Agency is to declassify hundreds of documents detailing some of the agency's worst illegal abuses from the 1950s to 1970s.

The papers, to be released next week, will detail assassination plots, domestic spying and wiretapping, kidnapping and human experiments.

Many of the incidents are already known, but the documents are expected to give more comprehensive accounts.

It is "unflattering" but part of agency history, CIA chief Michael Hayden said.

"This is about telling the American people what we have done in their name," Gen Hayden told a conference of foreign policy historians.

The documents, dubbed the "Family Jewels", offer a "glimpse of a very different time and a very different agency".

The full 693-page file detailing CIA illegal activities was compiled on the orders of the then CIA director James Schlesinger in 1973.

He had been alarmed by accounts of CIA involvement in the Watergate scandal under his predecessor and asked CIA officials to inform him of all activities that fell outside the agency's legal charter.

'Skeletons'

Ahead of the documents' release by the CIA, the National Security Archive, an independent research body, on Thursday published related papers it had obtained.

These detail government discussions in 1975 of the CIA abuses and briefings by Mr Schlesinger's successor at the CIA, William Colby, who said the CIA had "done some things it shouldn't have".

Among the incidents that were said to "present legal questions" were:

* the confinement of a Soviet defector in the mid-1960s
* assassination plots of foreign leaders, including Cuba's Fidel Castro
* wiretapping and surveillance of journalists
* behaviour modification experiments on "unwitting" US citizens
* surveillance of dissident groups between 1967 and 1971
* opening from 1953 to 1973 of letters to and from the Soviet Union; from 1969 to 1972 of mail to and from China

The papers also convey mounting concern in President Gerald Ford's administration that what were dubbed the CIA's "skeletons" were surfacing in the media.

Henry Kissinger, then both secretary of state and national security adviser, was against Mr Colby's moves to investigate the CIA's past abuses and the fact that agency secrets were being divulged.

Accusations appearing in the media about the CIA were "worse than in the days of McCarthy", Mr Kissinger said.

Apparently Kissinger has something to hide.

Anyway, so what do you think's gonna come out of this?

EDIT: Linky: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6229750.stm

i didn't mean to vote for option 2. i misinterpretted it.

...

i think.

A bunch of good spy movies.

Link?

Probably the same old shit that everybody knows about anyway.

i didn't mean to vote for option 2. i misinterpretted it.

...

i think.

I did mean to vote for option 2...as inflammatory as it was worded, it best fits my view.

I'd likely be horrified at what I saw...

...If any of it was real.

Think about it. The CIA's job, on top of gathering intel, is misinformation. Do you really think they'd let all of this crap out? It would ruin them. It is more likely that this "declassification" is just a ploy to keep the public placated.

In reality...Think about the worst thing that the government has done. Now multiply it by 10. THAT'S probably what's going on.

I'd likely be horrified at what I saw...

...If any of it was real.

Think about it. The CIA's job, on top of gathering intel, is misinformation. Do you really think they'd let all of this crap out? It would ruin them. It is more likely that this "declassification" is just a ploy to keep the public placated.

In reality...Think about the worst thing that the government has done. Now multiply it by 10. THAT'S probably what's going on.

if it is a ploy its more likely that they would reveal their past actions to make us think that the current actions arent all that bad or to distract us from thinking about what they are doing now.

i expect to be shocked and appalled.

Most current CIA officers are actually fairly embarrassed by their agency's naughty history. Poor understanding of the developing global situation, poor and immoral executive leadership, paranoia and general fear were what drove these actions.

Will we finally know who shot JFK?! :eek:

Will we finally know who shot JFK?! :eek:

It was a commando chipmunk that JFK stiffed out of his pre-arranged agreement of 10 acorns.

:p

This is a good thing. Hopefully the same mistakes will not be made in the future once this is aired but I highly doubt it.

Will we finally learn their secret recipe for "Death By Chocolate"?

I'm more interested in 1965 actually,... especially in my region.

Will we finally know who shot JFK?! :eek:

only if the cia did it.

or maybe castro.

Unless someone swings for this, I shall remain cynical.

Right now the makers of The Good Shepard are stomping their feet yelling "Dammit dammit dammit!"

Given the way things are going people will use this report of misdeeds to make excuses for current misdeeds. You know how it goes-

"Why are you so upset about domestic wire tapping. The CIA was doing domestic wire tapping since the 60s. It's nothing new you whiner!"

Never mind that it was illegal then, too. The New Logic is that all you have to do is find someone, and anyone, in history who has done the same thing or worse and it justifies whatever nonsense you're trying to pull. It's like we're being ruled by a group or generation or whatever whose moms never asked, "If the other boys were jumping off a bridge, would you do it too?"