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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.
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.
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."