File 016 · 1975–1976 · Intelligence oversight

The Church Committee and the 'Family Jewels'

A Senate committee found that US intelligence agencies had run assassination plots, domestic spying and secret drug tests. The CIA's own internal list of its worst secrets, the 'Family Jewels', was released in 2007.

Background

In December 1974 The New York Times reported that the CIA had spied on Americans in violation of its charter. In 1973 CIA director James Schlesinger had ordered employees to report activities that might be outside the agency's legal authority. The result, a roughly 700-page compilation nicknamed the 'Family Jewels', gave the new director, William Colby, a map of what could come out.

Congress responded with a presidential commission led by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and a Senate Select Committee chaired by Frank Church of Idaho. For roughly 16 months the Church Committee collected testimony and documents about the CIA, FBI, NSA and other agencies, and published a series of reports in 1975 and 1976.

What the record shows

• The committee documented CIA plots against foreign leaders, including repeated attempts against Fidel Castro and involvement in plans against Patrice Lumumba and others.
• It documented domestic programs: CIA mail opening and surveillance of US citizens, NSA monitoring of telegrams, and the FBI's COINTELPRO harassment of political groups.
• The Family Jewels, released in 2007, confirmed the existence of items such as the surveillance of journalists and the drug-testing programs later associated with MKUltra.
• Reforms followed: permanent intelligence committees in Congress, FISA in 1978 and a presidential order banning assassination by US government employees.

Timeline

• Dec 1974 The New York Times reports on CIA domestic activities.
• Jan 1975 The Rockefeller Commission and the Church Committee are set up.
• Nov 1975 Interim report on alleged assassination plots against foreign leaders.
• Apr 1976 Final reports describe domestic spying, covert action and FBI harassment programs.
• May 1976 The Senate creates a permanent intelligence oversight committee.
• 1978 The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) creates court oversight of foreign-intelligence surveillance.
• Jun 2007 The CIA releases the 'Family Jewels' documents.

Checking the claims

The claim: the CIA was a rogue organization acting without any political control. What the committee found was more complicated. In several cases presidents or senior officials had pressed for covert action, but orders were often vague and passed through 'plausible deniability', so the record on who exactly approved what is uneven. Some plots were authorized in some form, others were never carried out, and others were the work of individuals.

The committee's findings also have limits. Agencies controlled what documents they handed over, and some records, including most MKUltra files, had already been destroyed. The reports are the best public account, not a complete one.

Claimed, but not shown

The idea that the committee exposed every intelligence secret is not accurate. It worked with the documents agencies provided, and parts of its work remained classified for decades.

Verdict

Sources

• Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (Church Committee), 1975–76
• Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders (Senate interim report, 1975)
• Report to the President by the Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States (Rockefeller Commission), 1975
• CIA 'Family Jewels' documents, released June 2007

Connected files (red threads)

• Watergate — Watergate helped trigger the 1975 intelligence investigations
• The Iran-Contra Affair — Covert action under congressional scrutiny, again
• MKUltra — MKUltra's surviving records and testimony surfaced in these investigations
• COINTELPRO — The FBI's program was exposed and condemned in the committee's reports
• Project SHAMROCK and Operation MINARET — NSA telegram interception was exposed in the hearings
• Operation Northwoods — A reminder of how far Cold War planning went
• Operation Ajax: the 1953 Iran coup — The 1975 investigations examined US covert action abroad
• Operation Sea-Spray — Revealed in the same 1970s investigations
• Operation Gladio — Parallel disclosures about secret Cold War activities
• The CIA and the media ('Operation Mockingbird') — The committee's reports are the main public source
• The death of Frank Olson — The case became public in the 1975 investigations
• The Epstein files — Intelligence-blackmail claims are tested against records, as with past oversight inquiries

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