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.

The Office of Security or the Chief, CI Operations will not maintain files of American citizens other than those developed as an incidental aspect of foreign intelligence or counterintelligence matters or as employee, applicant, contact, etc. The arrest records formerly received from the Washington, D.C., and certain other areas have been destroyed and will not be reconstituted.