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.
“Condon”2 pages
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
122DR4500 FOR: Deputy Director for Science and Technology Deputy Director for Intelligence Deputy Director for Management and Services Deputy Director for Operations INFO Inspector General SUBJECT : Questionable Activities 1. As an aspect of the allegations of improper CIA activity in connection with the Watergate and associated matters, the Inspector General was directed to assemble all information available in the Agency on any such activities. Certain specific matters were provided to him, and the Director by memorandum of 9 May 1973 directed all employees to report any activities, current or past, "which might be construed to be outside the legislative charter of this Agency." This information was assembled and consolidated by the Inspector General in a memorandum of 21 May 1973 and certain individual memoranda thereafter supplementing it. This material was used in a detailed, page-by-page review of all such information with Senator Symington and Congressman Nedzi, as Chairman of the Senate and the House Armed Services Intelligence Subcommittees, respectively. In addition, I undertook very specific commitments in my confirmation hearings to ensure that the Agency will remain within its legislative charter. I am arranging for the published transcripts of those hearings to be circulated throughout the Agency for compliance, and at that time will reaffirm the specific direction made by Dr. Schlesinger in his memorandum of 9 May 1973. This will also be incorporated into appropriate regulations. 2. With respect to the specific questionable activities which were reported as a result of the search made throughout the Agency, however, I believe it essential to take specific action in order that these not seen to be condoned or overlooked. I have therefore developed specific instructions on each reported activity. These are included in the attachments to this memorandum, and have the force of specific direction to you to pass on to appropriate subordinates the instructions outlined. Separate packages of such instructions are being developed for each Directorate in order to respect the sensitivity of some of the activities discussed, including those which are deemed quite appropriate within CIFA's charter.
Not linked to a story yet.
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.