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CIA Declassifies the "Family Jewels"
An anonymous reader informs us that the CIA has recently declassified for your reading pleasure some records relating to illegal spying, assassination attempts, and other goodies. These are available from the CIA's FOIA portal. From the BBC article: " Last week, CIA chief Michael Hayden announced the decision to declassify the records, saying the documents were 'unflattering but part of CIA history.' The documents detail assassination plots, domestic spying, wiretapping, and kidnapping... Among the documents is a request in 1972 for someone 'who was accomplished at picking locks' who might be retiring or resigning from the agency."
Just a wild guess but I'd say that relates to Watergate.
I also got interested by that comment, so I searched for 1972 in Wikipedia and here is what I found: # May 28 - Watergate first break-in. # May 30 - The Angry Brigade goes on trial in the United Kingdom. From the Wikipedia article on the Watergate burglaries, it appears (without me having completely read trough them) that those who broke in was from the CIA.
It is somewhat surprising but in general the government takes the whole FOIA and declassification thing rather seriously. It can take a long time (things can't be declassified until they don't hurt national security) and there can be parts redacted, but they really do provide a rather surprising amount of transparency on older things. As far as I can tell this latest round of declassification is nothing special. It's been done before, and hopefully will continue to be done.
>After Fidel Castro led a revolution that toppled a friendly government in 1959, the CIA was desperate to eliminate him.
Nonsense. "The CIA" wasn't desperate to eliminate Castro, the U.S. government was, starting at the top. The CIA doesn't decide to assassinate foreign leaders without direct orders from the President of the United States.
The "Family Jewels" are also available from National Security Archive website. Also included is a short history and some additional documents.
The National Security Archive (a private organization based at George Washington University) has lots of other dirt from the CIA and other organizations all obtained by the Freedom of Information Act. The site is definitely worth a visit.
I agree, military action is ineffective against terrorism. But having a nuclear deterrent is still important as a last resort, in case the world moves into more turbulent times again. The costs for replacing your nuclear forces are estimated to be ~£20 billion with running costs of roughly £1.5 billion per year. In comparison, the military budget was ~£39 billion in 2002.
You could probably cut military spending by £10 billion, put £2b on new nuclear weapons, £3b on new schools in Palestine and other goodwill efforts, pocket the £5b savings, and still have improved security. But if you completely dismantle the nuclear deterrent, then your conventional military would have to make up for the shortfall, which might even require increases in military spending. Even though nuclear weapons are pointless right now, it will be too late to start building them again if the situation suddenly changes.
This is assuming that we're talking about strategic nuclear weapons. Bunker busters and other tactical nuclear weapons are not so good. They have no use as a deterrent, and are only meant as force multipliers for the conventional army.
These are quoted from this mornings NYT article. I think they tell us a lot:
"Some anecdotes reveal just how far outside the law some C.I.A. agents strayed. One technician was arrested in 1960 after trying to bug a Las Vegas hotel room. The operation had been requested by Sam Giancana, the Chicago mobster, who was then helping the C.I.A. in a plot to assassinate Mr. Castro.
Mr. Giancana had been concerned that his girlfriend, the singer Phyllis McGuire, was having an affair with the comedian Dan Rowan, and surveillance was ordered to "determine the extent of his intimacy" with her.
Some of the activities detailed, while lawful, would have been embarrassing had they emerged at the time. One document revealed that John McCone, director of central intelligence during Kennedy's presidency, authorized an Air Force plane to fly the Greek tycoon Aristotle Onassis and the soprano Maria Callas from Rome to Athens, a favor that led to media inquiries."
In August 1957, Diefenbaker signed the NORAD (North American Air Defence) agreement with the United States, which required the subordination of the RCAF Air Defence Command to American command and control. The USAF was in the process of completely automating their air defence system with the SAGE project, and insisted that the RCAF had to use it as well. One aspect of the SAGE system was the BOMARC nuclear-tipped anti-aircraft missile, which when intercepting bombers over Ontario and Quebec would be exploding over major Canadian cities.
And lets not forget Gerald Bull, who's funding was cut due to pressure from the US.
His plan was to give Canada autonomy in satellite lauches, but the Canadian officials, being the easily bought and paid for lackeys of their southern overlords that they are, decided that reliance on NASA was a far superior approach.
You can't take the sky from me...
If there were something going on that a group didn't want you to think about, they'd generate what seemed to be a more important story with much the same characteristics. This story is about dirty secrets in high government. Yet it's not a news story as the major facts have already been known. What else is going on that's similar, that the government doesn't want thought about too hard? Within 24 hours we're given notice that the White House, and specifically Dick Cheney's office, were subpeonaed for information on the recent (already determined illegal be federal courts) wiretapping increase. It's probably not just this we're being defelected from, but from the almost inevitable refusal to comply, something far more illegal than the wiretapping as it flies in the face of the Constitution, as does much of the present administration's actions.
Shiny hat material? Read "Psychological Warfare" by Paul (E.E. "Doc" Smith to S.F. fans) Linebarger. It's 60 years old, but is still a required text at the War College. You can be sure the primary movers of the present administration have read it and taken it to heart. The barely concealed course of the present administration, based on machinery put in place by previous administrations, is an obvious application of the techniques described and prescribed by Linebarger. But as I said, read it. Don't just believe me. That's the point of it.
You'll have trouble finding it. Although still in print for the limited distribution noted, it's barely available to the public. Last I looked I could only find German translations, going for over US$300. I only got to keep mine due to a clerical error that made it appear that I'd returned mine already, as required. Generating clerical errors like this are now called "social engineering". It's not a new idea.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Also, you would find one of the founding members of Delta Force (US Army Special Forces Detachment Delta), Eric Haney, strongly disagreeing with you....