CIA Announces Declassification of 1970s 'Skeletons' File...(Drudge Title)

GWU via Drudge Report ^ | June 21, 2007 | Thomas Blanton

[RDTF]

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.

CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden announced today that the Agency is declassifying the full 693-page file amassed on CIA's illegal activities by order of then-CIA director James Schlesinger in 1973--the so-called "family jewels." Only a few dozen heavily-censored pages of this file have previously been declassified, although multiple Freedom of Information Act requests have been filed over the years for the documents. Gen. Hayden called today's release "a glimpse of a very different time and a very different Agency."

"This is the first voluntary CIA declassification of controversial material since George Tenet in 1998 reneged on the 1990s promises of greater openness at the Agency," commented Thomas Blanton, the Archive's director.

Hayden also announced the declassification of some 11,000 pages of the so-called CAESAR, POLO and ESAU papers--hard-target analyses of Soviet and Chinese leadership internal politics and Sino-Soviet relations from 1953-1973, a collection of intelligence on Warsaw Pact military programs, and hundreds of pages on the A-12 spy plane.

The National Security Archive separately obtained (and posted today) a six-page summary of the illegal CIA activities, prepared by Justice Department lawyers after a CIA briefing in December 1974, the memorandum of conversation when the CIA first briefed President Gerald Ford on the scandal on January 3, 1975.

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

[jedward]

Ping...that would be “hell”, and it’s being orchastrated to come down on GWB’s head and has been for nearly a year IMHO. Just thought I’d give you a heads up, as some warning is always better than none.

[jedward]

FYI Ping

[HiTech RedNeck]

The First Amendment is a two edged sword. Has to be, by nature.

[jedward]

I support the troops. I’ve always said if you play with fire long enough, you’re going to get burned. Merely spectating myself, people usually do a good job of digging their own holes. Funny thing with Bush right now is...who does he turn to? I’m not sure if I remember where the rope is (lol), this Amnesty thing just keeps popping up on the radar.

[Erik Latranyi]

CIA to Air Decades of Its Dirty Laundry

I bet the MSM portrays these "abuses" as all occurring under Nixon and ignores anything that took place under Kennedy and Johnson.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Ah so they were not really abuses.

[piasa]

This is not the official national security archives from which Sandy Berger stole so many stacks of documents , it's a different bird...

The National Security Archive is also linked to Peter Kornbluh, Kerry's associate from the Institute for Policy Studies. They've edited a number of declassified documents related to US Latin American policy re: Cuban Missile Crisis, Pinochet, Sandinistas, etc. See for instance:
Chile Documentation Project: Peter Kornbluh, Director It was also Kornbluh who arranged Kerry's trip to meet Ortega in 1984........52 posted on 08/10/2004 12:00:26 AM PDT by Fedora

Also

* Peter Kornbluh : ...Kornbluh was an IPS associate quite close to the Sandinistas. Page 79 of the same source (Powell) mentions that in 1983, 1984, and 1985, Kornbluh travelled to visit the Sandinista leadership with the following individuals: Robert Borosage, Saul Landau, Richard Barnet, and Cora Weiss. Page 134 mentions he was also a consultant for NPR while working at IPS.-------4 posted on 02/11/2004 6:27:45 PM PST by Fedora

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. ......"This is the first voluntary CIA declassification of controversial material since George Tenet in 1998 reneged on the 1990s promises of greater openness at the Agency," commented Thomas Blanton, the Archive's director.

Tom Blanton is a John Kerry associate.

[piasa]

AUGUST 7, 2002 : (FBI ASKS 17 SENATORS OF THE SSCI TO TURN OVER RECORDS FROM JUNE 18 & 19, 2002 - See LEAKS : NSA 9/11 INTERCEPTS LEAK -- See ECKENRODE [see FBI], LT. GENERAL M V HAYDEN [see CIA]) The FBI has intensified its probe of a classified intelligence leak, asking 17 senators to turn over phone records, appointment calendars and schedules that would reveal their possible contact with reporters.
In an Aug. 7 [2002] memo passed to the senators through the Senate general counsel's office, the FBI asked all members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to collect and turn over records from June 18 and 19, 2002. Those dates are the day of and the day after a classified hearing in which the director of the National Security Agency, Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, spoke to lawmakers about two highly sensitive messages that hinted at an impending action that the agency intercepted on the eve of Sept. 11 but did not translate until Sept. 12.
The request suggests that the FBI is now focusing on the handful of senior senators who are members of a Senate-House panel investigating Sept. 11 and attend most classified meetings and read all the most sensitive intelligence agency communications. A similar request did not go to House intelligence committee members. ....... "Ashcroft Demands Records of 17 Senators ," Probing Sept 11th. Attacks , August 24, 2002

[jedward]

When wondering into these territories, the truth is meaningless. Perceptions are everything. It’s a viscous propaganda war, and the MSM does indeed have the liberal left angle locked up. It’ll be interesting to watch, I’ll say that much.

[SE Mom]

My first thoughts..Why, and why NOW?

[piasa]

IPS Receives funding from the “FIELD FOUNDATION” and “THE FUND FOR PEACE” and the “SAMUEL RUBIN FOUNDATION” [See red financier Cora Weiss - wife of Peter Weiss]

IPS’s Board of Directors has included : Harry Belefonte, Time Mag journalist Barbara Ehrenreich, The Nation mag editor Katrina vanden Huevel, Peter Weiss [husband of Cora Weiss]

IPS Trustee is Former Senator James Abourezk [see Alexander Cockburn of The Nation with whom he is associated]

IPS Members include Cofounder Richard J Barnett, also Morton Halperin [Clinton appointee for Asst Sec of Def for blah blah blah...friend of Phillip Agee the CIA employee who fled to Cuba and who got some CIA operatives killed], Leslie Gelb, Anthony Lake, John D. Marks, Phyllis Benning

See also IPS’s TRANSNATIONAL INSTITUTE

See also 1971 PENTAGON PAPERS SCANDAL [Ellsberg] and Phillip Agee [whom several IPS leaders work with and who is a member of the DGI, the Cuban Secret Service]

IPS activists run the Riverside Church Disarmament Program

IPS is associated, through its friendship with Cuban DGI operative Phillip Agee [a renegade CIA employee], with the assassinations of Richard Welch and Richard Kinsman

[piasa]

* IPS & James Abourezk : And former US Senator James Abourezk, founder of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and an outspoken supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), is an IPS trustee.6[ 6 Broken Seals, Op cit., passim; Findley, P., They Dare to Speak Out, Lawrence HIll Books, Chicago, 1989. p. 98] via The Plot to Hijack the CIA Anti-CommunistAnalyst.com ^

[piasa]

IPS , Walter Pincus & Washington Post : During the Clinton years Walter Pincus was consider to a mouthpiece for NSA adviser Sandy Berger who was also a former China lobbyist. Pincus' was wife also a Clinton Administration official. On two occasions Pincus was given time off by the Washington Post to work for J. W. Fulbright. These facts certainly help explain why Pincus savaged the Cox Committee intelligence report on Chinese espionage, whose conclusions he called "unwarranted" and whose language he falsely described as "inflammatory".
This is the same Pincus who maliciously described as a "Killer Warhead" missiles designed to protect Americans against nuclear attack. . .
What is particularly interesting is that Pincus is tied in with the America-hating Marxist Institute for Policy Studies which from its inception in 1963 acted as a front for the KGB, even hosting KGB officers, until the collapse of the Soviet empire. In September 1974 Pincus attended an IPS sponsored conference during which he and others present savaged the CIA, basically accusing it of being a criminal organisation. I have no idea at the stage whether any of the IPS' KGB friends were present. (Incidentally, Anthony Lake was also attended the conference.
Readers might recall that Clinton nominated Lake for director of the CIA. The nomination faced a barrage of outraged criticism and was withdrawn. Americans have no idea what a narrow escape they had).
The America-hating Richard Barnet, one of the founders of the IPS and conference sponsor, called for the destruction of the CIA, and even demanded that it cease monitoring international terrorist groups because it violated their civil liberties. . .
So what does Pincus do at the Washington Post? He writes on national security matters. This is a man who associates with America-haters, attacks national defence, maligned an intelligence committee when it produced unfavourable findings about Chinese espionage, and who now lies about Richard Clarke's statements. Now what does that tell us about the Washington Post? ----------- "Pincus and Milbank: the low-down on two Washington Post Bush-hating reporters", Gerard Jackson BrookesNews.Com Monday 5 April 2004

[HiTech RedNeck]

If the declassification depends on a demand and not on a schedule, the timing could be gamed. But the uproar about the more recent spying has pretty well had its 15 minutes of fame, the public has already yawned, so the Nat’l Security Archive folks would seem a bit slow on the draw.

[piasa]

1950 : (ANTI-INTLLIGENCE LOBBY ORGANIZES - See CPR, IPS, ACLU, ADA, CNSS, FAS, NLG, NOW, CPJ, SCLC) As suggested by President Truman’s veto of the Internal Security Act of 1950, which Congress overrode, people on the Left side of the political spectrum generally opposed legislation which sought to expand intelligence and counterintelligence operations, particularly those with a domestic focus. In the 1950s an anti-intelligence lobby, supported by diverse groups and individuals, undertook efforts to curtail or eliminate certain types of intelligence functions, and questioned their overall legitimacy. . .According to Francis J. McNamara, a former Executive Secretary of the Subversive Activities Control Board, the Campaign for Political Rights (CPR), previously known as the Campaign to Stop Government Spying, became the coordinating group for a nationwide campaign against the FBI, CIA, and other elements of the U.S. intelligence community. It described itself as “a national coalition of over 80 religious, educational, environmental, civic, women’s, black, Latino, and labor organizations” which “serves as a national information clearing-house providing materials, organizing-assistance, press and publicity advice and speaker-scheduling to organizers across the country.” This umbrella-type organization was said to have two basic aims: (1) to end all covert actions abroad, and (2) to terminate what it termed “political spying and harassment in the U.S.7
Among the CPR’s 51 member and 30 cooperating organizations were the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), the Center for National Security Studies (CNSS), the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), the National Organization of Women (NOW), the Committee for Public Justice (CPJ), and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). -——— W. Raymond Wannall, “Undermining Counterintelligence Capability”

[piasa]

DECEMBER 1966 : (IPS & THE MEDIA) Exhibit C: Helping the Vietcong
In December 1966 [NY] Times reporter Harrison Salisbury became the first American journalist allowed in North Vietnam. Salisbury has previously been the Times’ Soviet correspondent. His entry to North Vietnam was arranged by Wilfred Burchett, an Australian journalist who worked for the KGB and for the pro-Vietcong news outlet Dispatch News Service.
Dispatch News Service had been founded by the Marxist think tank the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), linked to Soviet and Cuban intelligence. IPS financier Philip Stern also funded the Fund for Investigative Journalism, which paid for upcoming reporter Seymour Hersh to research allegations of atrocities committed by US soldiers at My Lai. Hersh’s My Lai story was provided by Dispatch News to the New York Times.
The Times’ coverage of My Lai inspired the European-based Soviet front group the International War Crimes Tribunal, whose conferences Burchett had attended, to launch an American arm of its investigation. The Tribunal’s call for an American investigation led to what became the Vietnam Veterans Against the War’s Winter Soldier investigation, which prompted the Senate hearings that propelled John Kerry to fame. (Later as Senator Kerry would hire former Dispatch News Service bureau chief Gareth Porter to be his legislative aide.)
After running Hersh’s My Lai story and covering Kerry’s war crimes allegations, the Times and IPS helped Pentagon consultant Daniel Ellsberg leak The Pentagon Papers, a selectively-edited account of US policy in Vietnam calculated to discredit the US war effort. In addition to damaging the US war effort, The Pentagon Papers also had a double effect, for in an effort to counter Ellsberg’s propaganda efforts, the White House staff authorized a series of illegal surveillance actions that ultimately led to the Watergate scandal and President Nixon’s resignation.
---------- "Traitors of Record: The Record of the New York Times," By FR's Fedora, Original FReeper Research, 12/19/2005

[gr8eman]

LOLOLOL...Thanks for that...was getting depressed reading posts here on FR and that got me laughing!

[jveritas]

Why do yo think that this will hurt the President? They are old stuff from the 1970’s.

[jedward]

If it didn’t jump out at you, it would truely take me too long to explain. Chalk it up to an educated hunch ;)

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!