Documents / FOIA release
This is a letter dated 24 December 1974 from CIA Director W. E. Colby to the President, with annexes attached. It responds to a New York Times article about CIA domestic intelligence activity. The letter denies that the Agency ran a "massive" domestic effort. It traces a counterintelligence program on foreign links with American dissidents, which ran from 1967 until it was ended in March 1974, and admits improper actions such as mail opening, break-ins and the surveillance of reporters. The attached memoranda restrict such activities.
“Headquarters”1 page
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As a result, the question of overall strength was reviewed and a decision made in late Spring of 1971 that an additional 18 positions would be authorized for the Special Operations Group for fiscal year 1972. Due to the lack of an effective directed assignment system, the Group has been unable to date to build up to its authorized strength (and still is short of the space needed to accommodate that strength). As of 2 June 1972, the Group has an on-board strength of 42, with two additional officers scheduled to report by early July. Four Group officers, however, are scheduled for transfer out by mid-July. The Group thus needs not only to complete its buildup to authorized strength by filling existing vacancies, but also to obtain replacements for officers still in the Group whose tours with the Group either are already over or are close to their end. The early satisfaction of these personnel requirements is essential to bring a halt to the physical drain on the health of the Group's officers trying to keep up with the enormous continuing volume of work. The Group has been staffed to date primarily by junior officers who are bright and hard-working but who require relatively close supervision because of lack of prior experience. The management span of the senior officers is thus larger than desirable; additional middle grade, experienced officers are required. Replacement of officers at or near the end of their tour of duty is also required to maintain a concept of rotation-tour-staffing which has proven the only effective means of attracting qualified, experienced personnel or bright, ambitious, young personnel. In fulfillment of a requirement set forth when a 54 strength Group was authorized, a formal Table of Organization has been recently approved. The Group is organized around two worldwide operational branches, each of which is concerned with the collection and dissemination of information on foreign involvement in certain specific aspects of the domestic U.S. scene. These branches are supported by a special operational unit and by sections concerned with the control of correspondence and the maintenance of a retrievable data base. In addition, the Office of Computer Services provides five full man years and two partial man years of programming and system design
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 76 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.