CIA equipment lent to Washington-area local police

Active: 1968 to 1973

Declassified

Editorial summary

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 what the agency described as "indefinite loan." Howard Osborn, the CIA's Director of Security, included the program on his 1973 list of admissions inside the Family Jewels memorandum.

The trigger was the wave of antiwar protests that targeted the agency's headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and its other Washington-area installations. The CIA's own General Services Administration guards were not trained for riot control. Rather than equip its own people, the agency made the decision to outfit the surrounding county police forces, which would respond first if a protest reached the gates.

The equipment was not specifically itemized in Osborn's letter, but the Director of Logistics had a list. The items included tear-gas launchers, batons, and communication gear, all transferred to police departments under no formal agreement.

The 1947 National Security Act prohibits the CIA from law enforcement and internal security functions within the United States. Funneling riot-control equipment to police departments was on the border of that prohibition; arming them under the agency's name to handle protests against the agency was further over the line. Osborn, in the memorandum, wrote: "I do not believe that this is totally illegal under the provisions of the National Security Act of 1947, but I am including it since I am sure that it would be considered as such in light of the recent congressional fuss over our police training activities."

The Church Committee, in its 1975 report, treated the program as another example of the agency exceeding its statutory authority and described it as a domestic operation in everything but name.

Editorial summary by govweird, grounded in the declassified record and the Church Committee public hearings.

Originating agency

Central Intelligence Agency

Activity period

1968 to 1973

Source document

CIA Family Jewels (702 pp.)

Public release

June 25, 2007

Originating directive

Schlesinger memo, May 1973

Source page range

p. 5, p. 237, p. 663

Topics

Government Conspiracies Civil-rights surveillance

Original document, embedded

The full 702-page Family Jewels document is hosted by govweird. The embedded viewer above is anchored to the relevant pages (p. 5, p. 237, p. 663); scroll within the frame to browse adjacent material. Mirror copies are at the National Security Archive and the CIA reading room.

Transcript (OCR)

Show the OCR-extracted text from the source pages

--- PAGE 5 --- MORI DocID: 1451843 SECRET EYES ONLY Attachment A "FAMILY JEWELS" 1. [REDACTED] 2. Johnny Roselli -- The use of a member of the Mafia in an attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro. 3. Project MOCKINGBIRD -- During the period from 12 March 1963 to 15 June 1963, this Office installed telephone taps on two Washington- based newsmen who were suspected of disclosing classified information obtained from a variety of governmental and congressional sources. 4. Yuriy Ivanovich Nosenko -- A KGB defector who from the period 13 August 1965 to 27 October 1967 was confined in a specially constructed "jail" at [REDACTED]. He was literally confined in a cell behind bars with nothing but a cot in it for this period. 5. Various Surveillance and Support Activities -- These are briefly summarized and range from the surveillance of newsmen to the provision of specialized support of local police officials in the Metropolitan area. I believe that each one is self-explanatory and, therefore, no further comment is needed here. 6. Equipment Support to Local Police -- Attached is a list provided me by the Director of Logistics (he will simply report these items in his report) which we have provided local police in the Metropolitan D.C. area over the past four or five years on indefinite loan. During the period when the Agency's installations in this area appeared to be a target of dissident elements SECRET 00005 EYES ONLY [vision-ocr] --- PAGE 237 --- MORI DocID: 1451843 SUBJECT: Contacts with Other U.S. Government Agencies Which Could or Have Resulted in Use of CIA- Related Technology in Addressing Domestic Problems Chief, _____________ Police For security reasons, the Chief was made aware of a study to evaluate attempts [REDACTED] to penetrate [REDACTED] social groups. (1967) [REDACTED] (Police Chief) [REDACTED] 9 SECRET 00237 [vision-ocr] --- PAGE 663 --- MORI DocID: 1451843 CIA INTERNAL USE ONLY 31 May 1973 MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD SUBJECT: Interview with [REDACTED] FMSAC 1. [REDACTED] said he recalled [REDACTED] talking about the Office of Security's liaison with the Police Forces in the Metropolitan Area and that the Ballou case was mentioned. He also recalled that [REDACTED] had mentioned that the Agency had provided assistance to the Secret Service in connection with surveillance work against radical groups at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He said that he could not re- member exactly what [REDACTED] said, but he did recall that there was considerable discussion and debate among the class members about the propriety of the Agency engaging in such activities. 2. Later in January or February 1972, at a time when [REDACTED] was Chairman of the Management Advisory Group (MAG), he said he discussed these matters, and questioned the extent to which the Agency should become involved in domestic intelligence activities, with Colonel White and later with Mr. Colby. The MAG also raised the general problem in a couple of their papers, but without citing specific detailed examples. He said he understood that Colonel White had taken the matter up with the Director of Security and that some changes had been made as a result. [REDACTED] F.T. Bishop Orig - File w/ [REDACTED] nterview CIA INTERNAL USE ONLY 00653 [vision-ocr]

Extracted by haiku-vision. Carbon-copy typewriter text from 1973 is imperfect; words may be misread. Always cross-check against the embedded image above.