CIA's dirty tricks to be aired in public
Friday, 22 Jun 2007 16:12
The CIA will open its files next week
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is to publish secret documents detailing its illegal activities from the first three decades of its existence, according to a newspaper report.
The Washington Post quotes current CIA director Michael Hayden as saying the CIA's "family jewels", a collection of reports about its unlawful operations, will be declassified next week.
Set up in 1947 to aid the fight against communism, the CIA in its early years has been described by critics as an arrogant and zealous organisation which deliberately blurred the line between its legally mandated and illegal activities.
Historians and conspiracy theorists' decades of speculation about planned assassination attempts against overseas heads of state looks set to be confirmed when the documents are declassified.
Also expected to be confirmed are the CIA's illegal domestic spying activities on opponents of the Vietnam war and American communist networks.
Commentators have said the declassification of the documents will raise further debate about the US government's controversial 'wiretapping' policy, which it argues is an essential part of the so-called 'War on Terror'.
But Mr Hayden is believed to have authorised the release in an attempt to distance the current CIA from its past.
"Most of it is unflattering, but it is CIA's history," the Washington Post quoted him as saying.