The CIA's own 700-page catalog of its worst abuses, in its own words
On May 9, 1973, in the middle of the Watergate scandal, CIA Director James Schlesinger ordered every senior officer in the agency to report, in writing, any activity, past or present, that fell outside the CIA's legal charter. What came back was roughly 700 pages, later nicknamed the Family Jewels, cataloging the agency's own worst domestic abuses in its own words. Assassination plots against foreign leaders. Illegal opening of Americans' mail. Human experimentation with LSD on unwitting subjects. Wiretapping of journalists. Surveillance of civil rights and antiwar activists. The document stayed classified for 34 years, finally released in full in 2007 under pressure from a National Security Archive lawsuit.
// Mission Dossier
Get The Covert Operations Files: $5
Primary source records covering Operation Northwoods, the COINTELPRO letter sent to Martin Luther King, and the 2025 JFK declassification, the direct institutional neighbors of this document.
Get the dossier: $5 instant download →Schlesinger's directive was not an act of conscience. It was defensive. With Watergate escalating and congressional scrutiny of intelligence agencies intensifying, the CIA wanted advance warning of anything with flap potential, meaning anything that could embarrass the agency or draw it into controversy if it surfaced during an investigation. His successor, William Colby, inherited the completed compilation and was reportedly outraged by much of what it contained, later formally reporting portions of it to President Gerald Ford in 1975.
The real, declassified document details assassination plots against foreign leaders including Cuba's Fidel Castro, the CIA's testing of mind- and behavior-altering drugs on unwitting American citizens, opening of mail between the United States and the Soviet Union and China, break-ins at the homes of former CIA employees and critics, and extensive illegal domestic surveillance, despite the agency's charter explicitly prohibiting domestic operations. One of the specific programs it details, Operation CHAOS, is covered in full on this site separately.
This establishes that the CIA, at its own director's order, formally compiled a written record of its own illegal and improper conduct, that this record was known to and used by congressional investigators including the Church and Pike Committees in the 1970s, and that the full document remained classified from ordinary public view for 34 years. This is confirmed by the CIA's own 2007 release and the extensive congressional investigation record that followed the document's existence becoming known in 1974.
What this does not establish is that every question raised by the document has been resolved. The 2007 release contains real redactions, some pages withheld in their entirety, and a portion of the Operation CHAOS material specifically remained blacked out even in the declassified version.
Document: CIA internal compilation ordered by Director James Schlesinger, May 9, 1973. Approximately 700 pages. Declassified June 25, 2007.
You just read one document. Pro shows you every document that contradicts it.
The Contradiction Engine cross-references any two records in the archive and shows you where the government’s own story changed. The Evidence Chain View maps how one program became the next, sourced at every step. Citations generated correctly, every time. Your own notes, saved against the document.
Start your free month →This site costs real money to run. If it’s useful to you, you can help keep it going →