CIA Activities in the U.S.

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.

All Deputy Directors will exhibit particular sensitivity to the possible coincidence of CIA training, testing, or support activities and significant domestic, political or other events to which they could be wrongly related by the unwitting observer. This refers particularly to political conventions, the activities of dissident groups, etc., in which cases CIA activities should be deactivated, moved away, or suspended temporarily.