The Family Jewels

1967 to 1974

Operation CHAOS

For seven years, the Central Intelligence Agency ran a domestic spying program against American citizens. Project CHAOS opened in August 1967 at the request of President Lyndon Johnson, who suspected the anti-Vietnam War movement was secret

1953 to 1965

Operation MIDNIGHT CLIMAX

In the early 1950s, the CIA's Technical Services Staff began searching for a drug that could break a captured spy or guide a friendly one. Lysergic acid diethylamide, then a poorly understood new compound, became the leading candidate. To t

1971

CIA technical aid to the Plumbers (Ellsberg-Fielding break-in)

On the night of September 3, 1971, two former CIA officers working for the White House broke into the Beverly Hills office of Dr. Lewis Fielding, a psychiatrist. They were looking for the patient file of Daniel Ellsberg, a former Defense De

1964 to 1969

Detention of Soviet defector Yuri Nosenko

On February 4, 1964, a Soviet intelligence officer named Yuri Nosenko walked into the American embassy in Geneva and asked to defect. He had information, he said, about the recently assassinated President Kennedy: the KGB had taken a hard l

1960 to 1961

Plot to assassinate Patrice Lumumba (Congo)

Patrice Lumumba was thirty-five years old when he became the first prime minister of the newly independent Democratic Republic of the Congo on June 30, 1960. Eleven weeks later, the CIA station chief in the capital, Larry Devlin, received a

1963

Project MOCKINGBIRD (1963 journalist wiretaps)

For three months in the spring of 1963, the CIA's Office of Security tapped the home telephones of two Washington journalists. Project MOCKINGBIRD ran from March 12 to June 15, 1963. The agency suspected the reporters of receiving classifie

1960 to 1961

Plot to assassinate Rafael Trujillo (Dominican Republic)

For more than thirty years, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina ruled the Dominican Republic. By 1960, the State Department considered him an embarrassment, and President Eisenhower had authorized the CIA to support Dominican exiles seeking his

1960 to 1965

The Castro assassination plots

From 1960 to 1965, the Central Intelligence Agency tried at least eight times to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro. The methods came from a small division called Technical Services, run by chemist Sidney Gottlieb, and from outside operators re

1970

Plot to kidnap General Rene Schneider (Chile)

On September 4, 1970, Salvador Allende, a Marxist physician, won a plurality in Chile's three-way presidential election. The result was final but the inauguration was not. In Chile, the Congress had to confirm the winner. Allende was expect

1972

Surveillance equipment tested at the 1972 Miami political convention

In August 1972, both major American political parties held their nominating conventions in Miami Beach. The Republican National Convention met from August 21 to August 23 and renominated Richard Nixon. Anti-war protesters gathered outside t

1960 to 1973

Audio countermeasures support to the Secret Service

CIA Technical Services Staff had spent two decades building expertise in covert audio devices: bugs, taps, and the equipment to plant and remove them. Through the 1960s and into the early 1970s, the agency loaned that expertise to the Secre

1968 to 1973

CIA equipment lent to Washington-area local police

Through the second half of the 1960s, the CIA's Office of Logistics quietly lent equipment to local police departments around Washington, D.C. The recipients, principally the Fairfax County and Arlington County police, kept the items on wha

1953

The death of Frank Olson

Frank Olson was a chemist at the Army's biological warfare research center at Fort Detrick, Maryland. He had a wife, three children, and a security clearance that gave him access to the Army's work on anthrax, brucella, and other agents int

1953 to 1973

Project HTLINGUAL: the mail-opening operation

For twenty years, the CIA opened, read, and photographed mail being sent by American citizens. The operation was called HTLINGUAL. It ran from 1953 to 1973 out of LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports in New York and out of San Francisco,