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.
“Cooper”8 pages
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c. Individuals were recruited or inserted into dissident groups in the US to establish their credentials to collect foreign intelligence overseas. By-product information reflecting planned violence or similar activity was passed to the FBI. The items listed above are those questionable activities relating to matters covered in The New York Times article. Obviously, I am prepared to brief you fully on such matters, as I did the Chairman of the Congressional Armed Services Committees. Following our identification of all these matters in 1973, I issued detailed and specific instructions dealing with each activity. Some were terminated; others were continued but only as fully authorized by our statute and in accordance with law (Annex I). The New York Times article also statues that I am considering the possibility of asking the Attorney General to institute legal action against some of those who had been involved in these activities. I have conferred with the Acting Attorney General, Mr. Silberman, as to my responsibilities with respect to evidence relating to possible illegal activities by Agency personnel. On December 21st I agreed with him that I would review the questionable activities noted in this letter and others to determine whether these should be brought to his attention for legal review. I will certainly keep you advised of any such action. As I stated to you on the telephone, Mr. President, you have my full assurance that the Agency is not conducting activities comparable to those alleged in The New York Times article. Even in the past, I believe the Agency essentially conformed to its mission of foreign intelligence. There were occasions over the years in which improper actions were taken as noted above, but I believe these were few, were quite exceptional to the thrust of the Agency's activities, and have been fully terminated. Agency personnel are instructed each year to advise me of any activity they consider questionable, and I am resolved to follow your directive that no improper activity be conducted by this Agency. Respectfully, W. E. Colby Director.
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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.