Fidel Castro and Nikita Kruschev at the UN, the twin banes of Washington in the Cold War heyday.
(Marty Lederhandler/Associated Press)

After a generation of delays and denials, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has confirmed what had long been suspected or leaked — that it repeatedly broke its own rules a generation ago.

The CIA has now published 703 pages of internal memos, first written in 1973 when it looked like the agency might be dragged into the Watergate mess. The media were reporting leaks and hounding anyone who might have been involved with the break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters in Washington in 1972.

The ripples from the expanding scandal that would eventually drag down Richard Nixon had Washington politicians and bureaucrats excavating old memos to see if they had any skeletons in the closet — particularly illegal activities — that could tarnish the participants if revealed.

Against that backdrop, then CIA director James Schlesinger ordered the agency to report anything that could be construed as illegal, including operations within the United States, which are beyond its mandate. The resulting memos, covering incidents between the late 1950s and 1973, came to be known within the CIA as the "family jewels." They range from the mundane — disposing of top-secret garbage for other government agencies — to the explosive: confirming that the CIA plotted to assassinate at least three world leaders.

Some of the incidents covered in the file were reported on in the 1970s; in fact, much of the file relates to efforts to find out where reporters like syndicated columnist Jack Anderson were getting their information. But the CIA fought for years to keep it secret. And no wonder: William Colby, who succeeded Schlesinger as CIA boss, called the file "the skeletons in the closet."

In June 2007, the National Security Archive (NSA), an independent university-based organization, published a summary of 18 files, calling it "25 years of agency misdeeds." A week later, the 703 pages were made public by the CIA, although with many blank sheets, and many names and paragraphs deleted.

The NSA outlined 18 items that it dubbed misdeeds. They can be categorized by type, including assassination plans; drug and other tests on unwitting subjects; spying on U.S. dissidents; spying on reporters and even its own agents; spying on mail in the U.S. destined for Russia and China; and spying technology.

Assassination plans

Fidel Castro at the UN in Sept 1960 as a CIA plot to "remove" him was in full swing (Associated Press)

After years of denying, at least explicitly, that it had made any attempt to assassinate foreign leaders, the CIA now acknowledges that it had hatched plots to eliminate Cuban President Fidel Castro, Congo leader Patrice Lumumba and Rafael Trujillo, a cruel dictator in the neighbouring Dominican Republic — and someone the CIA had helped to power.

The summary of the documents say the agency had "no active part" but only a "faint connection" to the wealthy families who organized the shooting of Trujillo as he was driving in his car on dusty back road in May 1961. However, as you read into the documentation, senior directors of the agency report that the CIA had "quite extensive involvement" with the Trujillo plotters.

That corresponds to news reports that came out in the mid-1970, which said CIA operatives had supplied the guns to the plotters and other strategic advice.

The Castro plots, on the other hand, were all well documented before the Senate investigative panel known as the Church committee in 1975. The CIA, it was reported, had explored the possibility of "removing" Castro with poisoned cigars and even a specially rigged diving suit.

These documents go into greater detail over the attempt to use the Mafia, which had its own reasons for wanting back into the lucrative Cuban casino business, to take out Castro. The contacts began during the last of the Eisenhower years and the plan became directly approved by then CIA director Allen Dulles, one of the deans of American foreign policy.

According to the documents, a CIA operative met with Mafia contact Johnny Roselli in Las Vegas in 1960 and told Roselli the agency would be willing to pay up to $150,000 to have Castro dealt with. Roselli, initially, didn't want any part of the idea but he helped make the connection to top mobsters Sam Giancana and Santo Trafficante, both then on the FBI's wanted list.

Patrice Lumumba, leader of the Congo National Movement, formed the Congo's first national government in June 1960, but was overthrown a few months later by a CIA-backed coup in 1960. He was killed under mysterious circumstances while in jail. (Keystone/Getty Images)

Giancana, according to these documents (and according to news stories earlier), didn't want the money for carrying out the deed. Instead, he wanted the agency's help, which was forthcoming, in spying on his girlfriend, Phyllis McGuire, a singer who Giancana feared was having an affair with comedian Dan Rowan of Rowan and Martin fame.

Many of these details have been the stuff of TV documentaries over the years but successive CIA directors, from John McCone to William Colby, routinely denied any direct involvement by the agency.

The same with the death of Congo's anti-colonial leader Patrice Lumumba in January 1961. These documents now say the CIA was involved in his ouster and had authorized a senior operative to develop plans for his elimination. But they claim the CIA wasn't party to the actual killing of Lumumba, which took place in a prison cell after what has generally been referred to as a CIA-sponsored coup.

Tests on unwitting subjects

In 1963, the CIA conducted experiments on influencing behaviour "through the administration of mind or personality altering drugs to unwitting subjects." The memos claim the experiments were part of a "defensive" program to test drugs on armed forces volunteers so the agency could identify the symptoms if the drugs were ever used against the U.S.

According to the documents, it turns out the drugs used were ones rejected by commercial manufacturers because of bad side effects.

The documents don't take responsibility for the controversial psychiatric experiments funded by the Canadian government and the CIA in Montreal in the 1950s and 60s. These are currently the subject of a long-standing lawsuit against the agency.

Spying on American protesters

In the late 1960s, as America was wracked with demonstrations by students, peace activists and blacks, the CIA was asked by the FBI to look into possible international links to American radicals. The CIA went on to amass files on almost 10,000 Americans in the peace movement, a massive domestic spying operation on people who opposed — mostly peacefully — the U.S. Vietnam policy.

It went so far as to infiltrate the peace movement, claiming it needed to do that so its agents could get credentials to travel overseas, and then presumably meet foreign radicals. One of the documents suggests that undercover CIA agents had set up an operation in Ottawa to monitor U.S. draft dodgers in Canada, which would have been no surprise to most Canadians at the time.

Rafael Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961.
(Archive Photos/Getty Images)

There was nothing about how successful the offshore effort was, but the CIA did observe that the Soviets were not interested in using American radicals for sensitive operations; they felt them too "unruly."

However, one of the CIA U.S. agents was so useful that the FBI took her over. The CIA claimed it never used wiretaps on peace activists, and that it monitored groups in Washington because they may have posed a threat to CIA installations.

One of those caught up in the monitoring was the late Beatle John Lennon. According to the CIA, Lennon had given financial support to certain peace groups and individuals, some of whom were planning to attend the Republican convention in 1972 to protest against the Vietnam War.

Spying on reporters

From the early 1960s, the CIA has been trying to close leaks on sensitive government information to journalists. Between March 1963 and June 1963, Project Mockingbird wiretapped two syndicated columnists, Robert Allen and Paul Scott, after they disclosed national security information in a column.

The CIA failed to nab the source, but it did record senators, members of Congress, and many other bureaucrats and political operatives talking to the columnists.

The taps were approved by then CIA director John McCone, who claimed to have discussed them with then attorney general Robert Kennedy and secretary of defence Robert McNamara. According to some historians, both Robert and John Kennedy had no qualms about bugging journalists but their family members today deny that was the case.

Muckraker Jack Anderson and three associates were watched for three months in 1972, after Anderson wrote columns about Pakistan.

Washington Post reporter Michael Getler was subjected to "physical surveillance" in late 1971 and early 1972 as the CIA tried to find his secret sources. Ditto for former CIA officer Victor Marchetti, who in 1974 published a critical book about the agency, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence.

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