CIA
Retired Air Force pilot becomes first civilian to solo in U-2 spy plane
Airman Luis Ruiz-Vazquez 9th Reconnaissance Wing Public Affairs History was made July 31, 2020, when U.S. Air Force retired Lt. Col. Jonathan Huggins, 1st Reconnaissance Squadron U-2 instructor, became the first civilian instructor in the U-2 program to fly solo. Huggins retired on Sep. 26, 2014 and has served... Read more
Operation Splinter Factor Combined Espionage and Personal Revenge
This story originally appeared on Feb. 27, 2017. While Joseph McCarthy, the House Un-American Activities Committee and J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI terrorized suspected communists and their alleged sympathizers in the United States during the 1940s and ’50s, the CIA was simultaneously helping to orchestrate a campaign of witch hunts... Read more
The CIA’s Operation ‘Midnight Climax’ Was Exactly What It Sounded Like
This story originally appeared on Sept. 17, 2016. On April 13, 1953, CIA director Allen Dulles authorized Project MKULTRA, the controversial series of experiments aimed at developing mind control techniques and discovering a “truth drug.” Agents dosed subjects with LSD and other psychotropic narcotics, hypnotized them, and exposed them to... Read more
To Understand Soviet Satellite Imagery, the CIA Once ‘Spied’ on America
In 1963, director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency John McCone wrote a memo to Secretary of State Dean Rusk stating that the CIA had obtained “good reproductions” of Soviet satellite imagery. The memo, recently disclosed, is the subject of a brief article by Steven Aftergood at Secrecy News.... Read more
The CIA Battled the Kremlin With Books and Movies
Originally published on May 2, 2015. During the Cold War, Moscow’s Ministry of Culture was a master of censorship. The Kremlin’s cultural bulwark screened non-Russian films, suppressed literature and shaped the lives of Soviet artists. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency also dabbled in the dark arts of cultural influence.... Read more
Inside JFK Docs — Plots to Kill Castro and Infiltrate a Texas Militia
It will take days for researchers to sort through the trove of FBI and CIA documents regarding the Kennedy assassination released in October 2017. But we’ve found memos and reports with interesting details about the activities of anti-Castro paramilitary groups and their attempts to overthrow Cuba’s socialist government —... Read more
The CIA and KGB Both Tried to Blackmail This World Leader With Sex Tapes
This story originally appeared on Oct. 30, 2016. In 1945, a man known simply by the name Sukarno became Indonesia’s first president after leading an independence movement against Dutch colonial rule. He entered office with overwhelming popular support and was widely regarded as a national hero. He brought with him... Read more
How the CIA Stole a Soviet Satellite
This story originally appeared on July 22, 2014. In a scheme worthy of Mission Impossible, CIA agents hijacked a Soviet spacecraft and probed its secrets. When did this happen? That’s classified, as is the country where the caper occurred. In the declassified article on the subject in Studies in... Read more
The CIA’s Counterinsurgency in Vietnam Was Brutal … And Effective
As U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War escalated after the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964, U.S. Army general William Westmoreland knew he would be simultaneously fighting two different types of enemies on the ground — the main battle force of the North Vietnamese Army and... Read more
Sí, la CIA voló aviones espía U-2 desde portaaviones
El 1 de mayo de 1960, la Unión Soviética derribó un avión espía U-2 de la CIA y capturó al piloto, Francis Gary Powers. El incidente supuso una crisis internacional para la agencia de inteligencia estadounidense. La cumbre que estaba previsto que mantuvieran el presidente Dwight Eisenhower y el... Read more