And once again we revisit the past in the present!
One thing about the Human Animal, we never learn from our mistakes, we just invent new meanings to words and actions to justify our frailties using what we call think{?} tanks, people actually getting paid to come up with 'double speak'.
The CIA's Family Jewels
You can bet there will be alot of black ink used on these jewels.
Many, who aren't the apathedic, have followed and voiced their opposition to the practises, in our names, carried out by those we hire. And we will be replaced with others, are you now or will you be one of them?
How many remember these 'Good Ole Days'?
Seymour Hersh broke the story of CIA's illegal domestic operations with a front page story in the New York Times on December 22, 1974.
Agency Violated Charter for 25 Years,
Wiretapped Journalists and Dissidents
CIA Announces Declassification of 1970s "Skeletons" File,
Archive Posts Justice Department Summary from 1975,
With White House Memcons on Damage Control
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 222
Edited by Thomas Blanton
Posted - June 21, 2007
Washington D.C., June 21, 2007 - The Central Intelligence Agency violated its charter for 25 years until revelations of illegal wiretapping, domestic surveillance, assassination plots, and human experimentation led to official investigations and reforms in the 1970s, according to declassified documents posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
Then-CIA director Schlesinger commissioned the "family jewels" compilation with a May 9, 1973 directive after finding out that Watergate burglars E. Howard Hunt and James McCord (both veteran CIA officers) had cooperation from the Agency as they carried out "dirty tricks" for President Nixon. The Schlesinger directive, drafted by deputy director for operations William Colby, commanded senior CIA officials to report immediately on any current or past Agency matters that might fall outside CIA authority. By the end of May, Colby had been named to succeed Schlesinger as DCI, and his loose-leaf notebook of memos totaled 693 pages {see John Prados, Lost Crusader: The Secret Wars of CIA Director William Colby Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 259-260.}
Colby's list included 18 specifics:
1. Confinement of a Russian defector that "might be regarded as a violation of the kidnapping laws."
2. Wiretapping of two syndicated columnists, Robert Allen and Paul Scott.
3. Physical surveillance of muckraker Jack Anderson and his associates, including current Fox News anchor Britt Hume.
4. Physical surveillance of then Washington Post reporter Michael Getler.
5. Break-in at the home of a former CIA employee.
6. Break-in at the office of a former defector.
7. Warrantless entry into the apartment of a former CIA employee.
8. Mail opening from 1953 to 1973 of letters to and from the Soviet Union.
9. Mail opening from 1969 to 1972 of letters to and from China.
10. Behavior modification experiments on "unwitting" U.S. citizens.
11. Assassination plots against Castro, Lumumba, and Trujillo (on the latter, "no active part" but a "faint connection" to the killers).
12. Surveillance of dissident groups between 1967 and 1971.
13. Surveillance of a particular Latin American female and U.S. citizens in Detroit.
14. Surveillance of a CIA critic and former officer, Victor Marchetti.
15. Amassing of files on 9,900-plus Americans related to the antiwar movement.
16. Polygraph experiments with the San Mateo, California, sheriff.
17. Fake CIA identification documents that might violate state laws.
18. Testing of electronic equipment on US telephone circuits.
Read the Documents
Note: The following documents are in PDF format.
You will need to download and install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.
Document 1: Colby Briefs President Ford on the Family Jewels
Memorandum of Conversation, 3 January 1975
Source: Gerald R. Ford President Library
Ten days after the appearance of Hersh's New York Times story, DCI William Colby tells President Ford how his predecessor James Schlesinger (then serving as Secretary of Defense) ordered CIA staffers to compile the "skeletons" in the Agency's closet, such as surveillance of student radicals, illegal wiretaps, assassination plots, and the three year confinement of a Soviet defector, Yuri Nosenko.
Document 2: Summary of the Family Jewels
Memorandum for the File, "CIA Matters," by James A. Wilderotter, Associate Deputy Attorney General, 3 January 1975
Source: Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
On New Years' eve, 1974, DCI Colby met with Justice Department officials, including Deputy Attorney General Lawrence H. Silberman, to give them a full briefing of the "skeletons."
Document 3: Kissinger's Reaction
Memorandum of Conversation between President Ford and Secretary of State/National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, 4 January 1975
Source: Gerald R. Ford President Library
An apoplectic Kissinger argues that the unspilling of CIA secrets is "worse than the days of McCarthyism" when the Wisconsin Senator went after the State Department. Kissinger had met with former DCI Richard Helms who told him that "these stories are just the tip of the iceberg," citing as one example Robert F. Kennedy's role in assassination planning. Ford wondered whether to fire Colby, but Kissinger advised him to wait until after the investigations were complete when he could "put in someone of towering integrity." The "Blue Ribbon" announcement refers to the creation of a commission chaired by then-vice president Nelson A. Rockefeller.
Document 4: Investigations Continue
Memorandum of Conversation between Kissinger, Schlesinger, Colby et al., "Investigations of Allegations of CIA Domestic Activities," 20 February 1975
Source: Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
Cabinet and sub-cabinet level officials led by Kissinger discuss ways and means to protect information sought by ongoing Senate (Church Committee) and House (Pike Committee) investigations of intelligence community abuses during the first decades of the Cold War. Worried about the foreign governments that have cooperated with U.S. intelligence agencies, Kissinger wants to "demonstrate to foreign countries that we aren't too dangerous to cooperate with because of leaks."
Related Postings from the National Security Archive site
CIA's Promises on Declassification
What Others Say about CIA's Promises
"C.I.A., Breaking Promises, Puts Off Release of Cold War Files"
By Tim Weiner
New York Times (Select)
July 15, 1998
CIA Proposed Rule on FOIA Fees Would Burden Requesters and the Agency
February 7, 2007
CIA Had Single Officer in Hungary 1956
October 31, 2006
CIA Claims the Right to Decide What is News
June 14, 2006
Secret Understanding Between National Archives and CIA Exposes Framework for Surreptitious Reclassification Program
April 19, 2006
CIA Wins 2006 "Rosemary Award" for Worst Freedom of Information Performance by a Federal Agency
March 13, 2006
Declassification in Reverse
February 21, 2006
PDB News - The President's Daily Brief
January 27, 2006
Judge Refuses In Camera Review of CIA Estimate on Iraq
October 21, 2005
Public Interest in Hidden CIA Operational Records Is High
January 21, 2005
Professor Sues CIA for President's Daily Briefs
December 23, 2004
Archive Calls on CIA and Congress to Address Loophole Shielding CIA Records From the Freedom of Information Act
October 15, 2004
CIA Whites Out Controversial Estimate on Iraq Weapons
July 9, 2004
Dubious Secrets
May 21, 2003
The Secret CIA History of the Iran Coup
November 29, 2000
Lawsuit calls CIA secrecy claims "facially incredible"
August 2, 2000
Archive Sues CIA
May 13, 1999
As long as we're taking a walk down memory lane lets visit a few items that have caused the extreme blowbacks from our failed policies of the past repeating in the near past and the present.
IRAN CIA - STATE DEPARTMENT FILES
4,600 pages of CIA and State Department files covering Iran, archived on CD-ROM.
300 pages of CIA files dating from 1953 to 1993. Subjects include: The political situation in Iran after 1953 coup against the Mossadeq government and the re-establishment of the power of the Shah, 1987 Mecca riots, Iran's relationship with the Soviet Union, and various aspects of the Iran-Iraq War.
4,300 pages of State Department files. Subjects include: The United States shootdown of the Iranian Airlines Flight 655, developments in the Iran-Iraq War, and terrorism.
Some reading materials on Iran
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
The 1950s
Iran (1953)
Operation TPAJAX
Just one from list:
New York Times Special Report on the Iranian Coup of 1953, 16 Apr. 2000.
For period photos, excerpts of the CIA history in PDF format, and timelines with links to contemporaneous New York Times stories
Risen, James. "Secrets of History: The CIA in Iran." New York Times, 16 Apr. 2000.
This is author's brief lead-in to his main story.
Risen, James. "How a Plot Convulsed Iran in '53 (and in '79)." New York Times, 16 Apr. 2000.
The New York Times has "obtained" a copy of the CIA's secret history of the 1953 Iranian coup. The history was written in March 1954 by Dr. Donald N. Wilber, "the C.I.A.'s chief coup planner," and "was provided ... by a former official who kept a copy." The still-classified document "discloses the pivotal role British intelligence officials played in initiating and planning the coup, and it shows that Washington and London shared an interest in maintaining the West's control over Iranian oil....
"The history says agency officers orchestrating the Iran coup worked directly with royalist Iranian military officers, handpicked the prime minister's replacement, sent a stream of envoys to bolster the shah's courage, directed a campaign of bombings by Iranians posing as members of the Communist Party, and planted articles and editorial cartoons in newspapers."
How about a visit to Iraq in the past
IRAQ CIA - STATE DEPARTMENT FILES
Subjects include: Bath party politics; consolidation of Saddam Hussein's power; the Kurdish issue; Iran/Iraq border clashes; relations with other Gulf states; Iran-Iraq war; Iraqi use of chemical weapons; technology transfers; repression of the Kurds; trade policy; farm export credits; U.S. diplomatic relations with Iraq; human rights violations and nuclear proliferation.
Iraq
According to certain authors the CIA supported the 1963 military coup d'état in Iraq against the Qassim government and supported the subsequently installed government of Saddam Hussein, until the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. U.S. support for the invasion was predicated upon the notion that Iraq was a key buffer state in geopolitical relations with the Soviet Union. There are U.S. court records indicating the CIA militarily and monetarily assisted Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War.
The CIA also supported the Ba'ath Party's 1968 coup d'état against the Government of Rahman Arif, with Saddam Husein eventually assuming power.
Shortly after the supposed capture of Saddam, Eric over at BushFlash, put together this video presentation Thanks For The Memories... on some of the already known facts of the U.S. relationship with our buddy Saddam over the years.
Now what about bin Laden.
Profile: Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden begins providing financial, organizational, and engineering aid for the mujaheddin in Afghanistan, with the advice and support of the Saudi royal family. New Yorker, 11/5/2001
Journalist Simon Reeve will claim in the 1999 book The New Jackals that US officials directly met with bin Laden in Afghanistan in the 1980s. He will write, “American emissaries are understood to have traveled to Pakistan for meetings with mujaheddin leaders… {A former CIA official} even suggests the US emissaries met directly with bin Laden, and that it was bin Laden, acting on advice from his friends in Saudi intelligence, who first suggested the mujaheddin should be given Stingers.” Reeve, 1999, pp. 167, 176 The CIA begins supplying Stinger missiles to the mujaheddin in 1986 {see September 1986}. After 9/11, the CIA will state, “Numerous comments in the media recently have reiterated a widely circulated but incorrect notion that the CIA once had a relationship with Osama bin Laden. For the record, you should know that the CIA never employed, paid, or maintained any relationship whatsoever with bin Laden.” US State Department, 1/14/2005
Lets see another 'Blast From The Past'
Should US return skulls of Vietnamese?
The Bones We Carried
THE White House visit today by President Nguyen Minh Triet of Vietnam will take place just a few miles from the resting place of some of his countrymen. When American G.I.’s returned from the Vietnam War, some tried to smuggle home the skulls of Vietcong and North Vietnamese soldiers. The graffiti-covered skulls served as ashtrays, candle holders and trophies. Six skulls were seized by the Customs Service. They remain in limbo, relegated to a drawer on the campus of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.
At a time when President Bush plans to chastise the Vietnamese leader about human rights abuses, a question confronts his own administration: Should we return the Vietnamese trophy skulls?
And back a few days ago I posted up This Diary on Defoliants used in Vietnam, and we condemn on 'Human Rights'!
I have the Vietnamesse Song and plan on putting it to a video presentation, maybe this weekend as I'm taking today off.
And there is so much more. But ponder this little report for the future, near and far.
Iraq conflict 'will create a violent generation'
As we continue repeating that which we've started long ago, senseless death and destruction.
For what purpose or justification?
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