WASHINGTON — After fighting to keep them secret for more than three decades, the CIA released hundreds of documents Tuesday that catalog some of the most egregious intelligence abuses of the Cold War, including assassination plots against foreign leaders and illegal efforts to spy on Americans.
The records are part of a trove of jealously guarded documents long known within the agency as "the family jewels." Assembled in the early 1970s as part of an internal inquiry of potentially embarrassing or illegal activities, the records were subsequently turned over to Congress, prompting investigations and sweeping intelligence reforms.
The records were ordered released by CIA Director Michael V. Hayden as part of what he characterized as an effort to close an embarrassing chapter in the agency's history.
The documents serve as "reminders of some things the CIA should not have done," Hayden said Tuesday in remarks to the agency's workforce. "The documents truly do provide a glimpse of a very different era and a very different agency."
Indeed, many of the episodes detailed in the 693 pages of newly declassified text read like relics from another time, including elaborate attempts to enlist Mafia operatives to poison Cuban President Fidel Castro.
But other documents seem remarkably relevant today, as the nation grapples anew with questions of how much latitude U.S. intelligence agencies should be given, in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The documents describe secret CIA holding cells and the possibly illegal detention of a suspected Soviet spy who was held without trial for years at a CIA lockup facility in Maryland before it was determined he was a legitimate defector. They also detail plans to eavesdrop on international phone calls of U.S. residents, and aggressive efforts to root out leaks of classified information to reporters.
Watchdog groups praised the release of the records, and said it was a remarkable step for a secretive organization under no legal obligation to declassify the documents.
"It allows the agency to simultaneously distance itself from its questionable past and portray itself as open and forthcoming," said Steven Aftergood, director of the project on government secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists.
