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The Central Intelligence Agency Excerpts from Janette Rainwater's book-in-progress, Since the New Deal: An Annotated Chronology of the Events that Have Changed the United States May 9, 1973 The Director of Central Intelligence James Schlesinger, infuriated by the recent press disclosures of CIA misconduct of which he had been unaware, orders his covert chief, William Colby, to compile a list of any "questionable activities" by the CIA, past and present. [The resulting 693-page report described Operation Chaos (the domestic spying program), drug experiments, assassination plots, illegal mail-openings, the surveillance and wiretapping of selected American journalists, contacts with Watergate figures, etc., a list that Agency operatives called "the Skeletons" and the press later dubbed "the family jewels".]12 December 22, 1974 Headline in the New York Times: "Huge CIA Operation Reported in U.S. Against Anti-War Forces, Other Dissidents in Nixon Years". [Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist who had revealed the My Lai massacres and the bombing of Cambodia, reported: "The Central Intelligence Agency , directly violating its charter, conducted a massive illegal domestic intelligence operation during the Nixon Administration against the antiwar movement and other dissident groups in the United States, according to well-placed government sources." The CIA, forbidden to operate within the United States, had opened files on 10,000 American citizens and conducted illegal wiretaps, break-ins and mail openings under its "Operation Chaos". This was the beginning of a flood of information to the public about the darker doings of the CIA and would result in the establishment of three investigative groups: the Rockefeller Commission, the "Pike Committee" in the House of Representatives and the "Church Committee" in the Senate.]13 October 13, 1976 CIA Director George Bush, disobeying the orders of the Attorney General, notifies former directors Richard Helms and John McCone that the federal grand jury investigating CIA activities in Chile and the Caribbean might call them as witnesses and offers CIA help in preparing their testimony. [Bush saved the necks of seventy current and former CIA agents by his refusal to turn their CIA records over to the Justice Department. This loyalty was rewarded in his campaign for the Republican nomination in 1980 and in the subsequent Reagan-Bush election campaign. Some of their "dirty tricks" included the theft of President Carter's briefing book for the television debate, disinformation about Carter's brother Billy and Libya, and the insertion of spies into Carter's National Security Council.]14 February 11, 1982 Attorney General William French Smith exempts the CIA from its legal requirement to report on drug smuggling by any of its assets or clients. ["Reportable offenses" which the agency was still required to reveal included assault, homicide, kidnapping, illegal immigration, perjury, visa violations, possession of firearms, bribery, obstruction of justice, etc. Two months earlier President Reagan had authorized covert CIA assisstance to the Nicaraguan contras. Canny CIA Director William Casey, remembering the heroin tie-in with the Vietnam War, undoubtedly anticipated that these new guerrilla allies would be using the cocaine trade to finance their operations and finagled a secret agreement to have the CIA relieved of its obligation to "add narcotics violations to the list of reportable non-employee crimes" according to documents released in 1998. Tons of cocaine were brought into the United States in the 1980s by contras and their drug lord allies with the CIA denying both knowledge and complicity.]15 |
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© Janette Rainwater 1997-2004 All rights reserved.
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