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19
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/DINA.md
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@ -16,29 +16,30 @@ summary: "Pinochet's secret police under Manuel Contreras, 1974 to 1977, which k
start: 1974
location: "Santiago, Chile"
created: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-10-12
---
The Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional was the secret police of the government of General [[Augusto Pinochet]] in [[Chile]]. Colonel [[Manuel Contreras]] directed it from 1974 to 1977, and [[Pedro Espinoza]] was its director of operations. It was the organizing service of [[Operation Condor]].[^1]
### Killings Abroad
General [[Carlos Prats]] and his wife, [[Sofía Cuthbert]], were killed in [[Buenos Aires]] on September 30, 1974, by a bomb built by the American-born agent [[Michael Townley]]. The [[National Security Archive]] describes it as the service's first assassination outside Chile. On October 6, 1975, the [[Christian Democratic Party (Chile)|Christian Democratic]] leader [[Bernardo Leighton]] and his wife were shot and gravely wounded in [[Rome]] by Italian fascists led by [[Stefano delle Chiaie]], whom Townley had recruited. In July 1976 agents of the [[Mulchén Brigade]] beat to death [[Carmelo Soria]], a Spanish official of the [[United Nations]] in [[Santiago]], in the front yard of Townley's house. On September 21, 1976, Townley's bomb, placed with members of the [[Cuban Nationalist Movement]], killed [[Orlando Letelier]] and [[Ronni Moffitt]] in Washington.[^2]
General [[Carlos Prats]] and his wife, [[Sofía Cuthbert]], were killed in [[Buenos Aires]] on September 30, 1974, by a bomb built by the American-born agent [[Michael Townley]]. The [[National Security Archive]] describes it as the service's first assassination outside Chile. On October 6, 1975, the [[Christian Democratic Party (Chile)|Christian Democratic]] leader [[Bernardo Leighton]] and his wife were shot and gravely wounded in [[Rome]] by Italian fascists led by [[Stefano delle Chiaie]], whom Townley had recruited. On July 14, 1976, [[Carmelo Soria]], a Spanish-Chilean official of the Latin American Demographic Center (CELADE), an agency of [[ECLAC]] in [[Santiago]], was kidnapped by DINA security agents as he left work and was murdered. The [[Inter-American Commission on Human Rights]] recorded that his body and car were left in a stream and that the Chilean courts determined that state agents participated in the crime and their identities were established.[^2] The Commission quoted the Chilean court record that he was detained by a group of military personnel assigned to DINA who formed part of its [[Mulchén Brigade]], taken in his own automobile to a building in the Lo Curro district, and there subjected to interrogation, physical duress and subsequent death.[^2] Michael Townley described the killing as a beating by Mulchén Brigade agents in the front yard of his house. On September 21, 1976, Townley's bomb, placed with members of the [[Cuban Nationalist Movement]], killed [[Orlando Letelier]] and [[Ronni Moffitt]] in Washington.[^3]
### Passports
Humberto Álvarez Johannsen, sub-director of the consular directorate of the foreign ministry in 1976 and 1977, testified in March 1978 that for DINA officers "there existed a request, as far as I understand an official one, that the passport registry ledger not record any data concerning the actual holder of the passport issued," omitting photograph and identifying details, so that "the Consular Department kept no record whatsoever of the issuance of the passport to these officials," and the number given "approximated whatever was current on the day." The service kept its own office of tickets and freight, whose clerk Luis Humberto García González and his junior Sergio Molina described the mechanics of issuing false-name passports and buying tickets through the agency Exprinter. The two official passports carried to Washington in August 1976 by [[René Riveros]] and [[Rolando Mosqueira]] were, Riveros said, "handed to us ready by the passport staff at DINA"; the foreign minister, Admiral [[Patricio Carvajal]], denounced them to the Supreme Court on March 7, 1978, as passports 527/76 and 528/76, the civil registry reported on March 10 that no persons of those names existed, and the military prosecutor [[Héctor Orozco]] ordered the international police on May 1 to establish "what system the former DINA followed, in general, to obtain documentation to travel abroad."[^3]
Humberto Álvarez Johannsen, sub-director of the consular directorate of the foreign ministry in 1976 and 1977, testified in March 1978 that for DINA officers "there existed a request, as far as I understand an official one, that the passport registry ledger not record any data concerning the actual holder of the passport issued," omitting photograph and identifying details, so that "the Consular Department kept no record whatsoever of the issuance of the passport to these officials," and the number given "approximated whatever was current on the day." The service kept its own office of tickets and freight, whose clerk Luis Humberto García González and his junior Sergio Molina described the mechanics of issuing false-name passports and buying tickets through the agency Exprinter. The two official passports carried to Washington in August 1976 by [[René Riveros]] and [[Rolando Mosqueira]] were, Riveros said, "handed to us ready by the passport staff at DINA"; the foreign minister, Admiral [[Patricio Carvajal]], denounced them to the Supreme Court on March 7, 1978, as passports 527/76 and 528/76, the civil registry reported on March 10 that no persons of those names existed, and the military prosecutor [[Héctor Orozco]] ordered the international police on May 1 to establish "what system the former DINA followed, in general, to obtain documentation to travel abroad."[^4]
### The CIA
The [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] reported to Congress in 2000 that it had kept up liaison with Contreras from 1974 to 1977. By April 1975 its own reporting called him "the principal obstacle to a reasonable human rights policy" within the junta. An interagency committee directed that the relationship continue. A proposal to put Contreras on the payroll was overruled, and one payment was made to him in 1975 all the same. He met the deputy director, General [[Vernon Walters]], that August. The Archive's summary of the report was that "the head of Chile's feared secret police, DINA, was a paid CIA asset in 1975," and that contact went on after his agents had been to Washington to kill Letelier. It ended in November 1977.[^4]
The [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] reported to Congress in 2000 that it had kept up liaison with Contreras from 1974 to 1977. By April 1975 its own reporting called him "the principal obstacle to a reasonable human rights policy" within the junta. An interagency committee directed that the relationship continue. A proposal to put Contreras on the payroll was overruled, and one payment was made to him in 1975 all the same. He met the deputy director, General [[Vernon Walters]], that August. The Archive's summary of the report was that "the head of Chile's feared secret police, DINA, was a paid CIA asset in 1975," and that contact went on after his agents had been to Washington to kill Letelier. It ended in November 1977.[^5]
Townley pleaded guilty in Washington in August 1978 and testified against Contreras, Espinoza, [[Armando Fernandez Larios|Armando Fernández Larios]], and five Cubans. He served 62 months and entered the [[Witness Protection Program|witness protection program]]. [[Argentina]]'s request for his extradition in the Prats case was not granted. Contreras was convicted in Chile in 1995 and died in a military hospital on August 7, 2015, under sentences that came to more than 500 years.[^2][^5]
Townley pleaded guilty in Washington in August 1978 and testified against Contreras, Espinoza, [[Armando Fernandez Larios|Armando Fernández Larios]], and five Cubans. He served 62 months and entered the [[Witness Protection Program|witness protection program]]. [[Argentina]]'s request for his extradition in the Prats case was not granted. Contreras was convicted in Chile in 1995 and died in a military hospital on August 7, 2015, under sentences that came to more than 500 years.[^3][^6]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Central Intelligence Agency, "CIA Activities in Chile," report to Congress under section 311 of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000, September 18, 2000. https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/chile/index.html
[^2]: National Security Archive, "The Pinochet Regime at 50: The Assassination of General Carlos Prats and Sofia Cuthbert," October 1, 2024. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2024-10-01/pinochet-regime-50-assassination-general-carlos-prats-and-sofia ; Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "The Pinochet Dictatorship Declassified: Confessions of a DINA Hit Man," National Security Archive, November 22, 2023. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2023-11-22/pinochet-dictatorship-declassified-confessions-dina-hit-man
[^3]: Fiscalía Militar Ad-Hoc, Santiago, causa 192-78, as reproduced in *Proceso contra Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda y Pedro Espinoza Bravo,* ministro instructor Adolfo Bañados, tomo 1, scan at https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Causa-Contreras-Espinoza-1991.pdf. Quotations translated from the Spanish, declaraciones of Humberto Álvarez Johannsen (March 20, 1978), Luis Humberto García González (April 12 and June 5, 1978), and Sergio Donato Molina Espinoza (June 1, 1978); denuncia of Patricio Carvajal Prado, March 7, 1978; Fiscalía Militar Ad-Hoc, Santiago, causa 192-78, as reproduced in *Proceso contra Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda y Pedro Espinoza Bravo,* tomo 2, scan at https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Causa-Contreras-Espinoza-1991-2.pdf. Quotations translated from the Spanish, orden amplia de investigar, May 1, 1978.
[^4]: Central Intelligence Agency, "CIA Activities in Chile," report to Congress under section 311 of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000, September 18, 2000. https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/chile/index.html National Security Archive, "CIA Acknowledges Ties to Pinochet's Repression," September 19, 2000. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/news/20000919/index.html
[^5]: "Ex-Chile spy chief dies while serving 500-year sentence," Al Jazeera, August 8, 2015.
[^2]: Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Report No. 133/99, Case 11.725, Carmelo Soria Espinoza (Chile), November 19, 1999, paragraphs 1 and 2 and the quoted Chilean court findings. https://hrlibrary.umn.edu/cases/133-99.html
[^3]: National Security Archive, "The Pinochet Regime at 50: The Assassination of General Carlos Prats and Sofia Cuthbert," October 1, 2024. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2024-10-01/pinochet-regime-50-assassination-general-carlos-prats-and-sofia ; Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "The Pinochet Dictatorship Declassified: Confessions of a DINA Hit Man," National Security Archive, November 22, 2023. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2023-11-22/pinochet-dictatorship-declassified-confessions-dina-hit-man
[^4]: Fiscalía Militar Ad-Hoc, Santiago, causa 192-78, as reproduced in *Proceso contra Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda y Pedro Espinoza Bravo,* ministro instructor Adolfo Bañados, tomo 1, at https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Causa-Contreras-Espinoza-1991.pdf. Quotations translated from the Spanish, declaraciones of Humberto Álvarez Johannsen (March 20, 1978), Luis Humberto García González (April 12 and June 5, 1978), and Sergio Donato Molina Espinoza (June 1, 1978); denuncia of Patricio Carvajal Prado, March 7, 1978; Fiscalía Militar Ad-Hoc, Santiago, causa 192-78, as reproduced in *Proceso contra Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda y Pedro Espinoza Bravo,* tomo 2, at https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Causa-Contreras-Espinoza-1991-2.pdf. Quotations translated from the Spanish, orden amplia de investigar, May 1, 1978.
[^5]: Central Intelligence Agency, "CIA Activities in Chile," report to Congress under section 311 of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000, September 18, 2000. https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/chile/index.html National Security Archive, "CIA Acknowledges Ties to Pinochet's Repression," September 19, 2000. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/news/20000919/index.html
[^6]: "Ex-Chile spy chief dies while serving 500-year sentence," Al Jazeera, August 8, 2015.

12
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/GCHQ.md
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@ -7,9 +7,9 @@ tags:
- FiveEyes
- ECHELON
- NSA
summary: "GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) is the UK's signals intelligence agency, based in Cheltenham, whose partnership with the NSA under the UKUSA Agreement forms the core of the Five Eyes intelligence architecture; it is referenced throughout the vault's signals intelligence, Iran-Contra, and Cold War subjects."
summary: "GCHQ is the UK signals intelligence agency in Cheltenham, whose UKUSA Agreement partnership with the NSA anchors the Five Eyes."
created: 2026-05-14
updated: 2026-05-14
updated: 2026-10-12
location: "Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom"
---
@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is the United Kingdom's signals in
GCHQ traces its origins to the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, which broke German [[Enigma machine|Enigma]] codes and other Axis ciphers during [[World War II]] - one of the most consequential intelligence achievements in history. Following the war, GC&CS was reorganized as GCHQ and relocated from Bletchley to Eastcote and then to Cheltenham in 1952.
The [[UKUSA Agreement]] of 1946, between the United States and United Kingdom, established the framework for signals intelligence sharing that grew into the [[Five Eyes]] alliance. GCHQ and the [[NSA]] divided collection responsibilities geographically, shared raw signals intelligence, and exchanged analysis and personnel. The agreement was classified for decades; its existence became publicly acknowledged in 2010 when the British government released the text.[^1]
The [[UKUSA Agreement]] of 1946, between the United States and United Kingdom, established the framework for signals intelligence sharing that grew into the [[Five Eyes]] alliance. GCHQ and the NSA divided collection responsibilities geographically, shared raw signals intelligence, and exchanged analysis and personnel. The agreement was classified for decades; its existence became publicly acknowledged in 2010 when the British government released the text.[^1]
### ECHELON Network
@ -34,9 +34,11 @@ The 2001 European Parliament ECHELON Committee report confirmed GCHQ's role in t
One of the most controversial domestic events in GCHQ's institutional history was Prime Minister [[Margaret Thatcher]]'s January 1984 removal of trade union rights from GCHQ personnel. Thatcher justified the decision on national security grounds, arguing that union membership created loyalty conflicts for personnel handling classified material. The move generated significant political controversy. The ban remained in place until 1997 when the incoming Blair government reversed it.[^1]
The legal basis for the ban was a ministerial certificate. Section 138(4) of the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978 enabled a Minister to issue a certificate "for the purpose of safeguarding national security," which disapplied the Act's protections for specified Crown employment, and such a certificate "has been issued in the case of GCHQ," the Prime Minister told the Commons in February 1984.[^3] On July 17, 1984, after the Council of Civil Service Unions had challenged the instruction, Thatcher told the Commons that Mr Justice Glidewell had found for the government on four of the five grounds, but had concluded that "because of the lack of prior consultation with the unions concerned, the instruction given in this instance was invalid." She said the finding "did not affect the certificates issued" under the Employment Protection Acts.[^4]
### Post-Cold War and Snowden
GCHQ's programs were among those revealed by [[NSA]] contractor [[Edward Snowden]] in 2013. Specifically, the TEMPORA program - GCHQ's interception of undersea fiber optic cables carrying internet traffic in bulk - was disclosed, along with GCHQ's sharing of data with the NSA. GCHQ was also revealed as having accessed NSA's [[PRISM]] program, which collected data from major U.S. internet companies. A parliamentary and legal controversy followed over whether GCHQ's bulk collection was legal under the [[Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act]] 2000.[^2]
GCHQ's programs were among those revealed by NSA contractor [[Edward Snowden]] in 2013. Specifically, the TEMPORA program - GCHQ's interception of undersea fiber optic cables carrying internet traffic in bulk - was disclosed, along with GCHQ's sharing of data with the NSA. GCHQ was also revealed as having accessed NSA's [[PRISM]] program, which collected data from major U.S. internet companies. A parliamentary and legal controversy followed over whether GCHQ's bulk collection was legal under the [[Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act]] 2000.[^2]
The [[Investigatory Powers Act]] 2016 subsequently established a new legal framework for GCHQ's bulk collection activities.
@ -44,3 +46,5 @@ The [[Investigatory Powers Act]] 2016 subsequently established a new legal frame
[^1]: "GCHQ," UK Government. https://www.gchq.gov.uk/
[^2]: European Parliament. *Report on the Existence of a Global System for the Interception of Private and Commercial Communications (ECHELON interception system).* European Parliament, 2001.
[^3]: Thatcher, Margaret, written answer on trade union membership, House of Commons, February 1, 1984, HC Deb vol. 53, cols. 209-10W. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written_answers/1984/feb/01/trade-union-membership
[^4]: Thatcher, Margaret, statement on GCHQ, House of Commons, July 17, 1984, HC Deb vol. 64, cols. 171-86. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1984/jul/17/gchq

13
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/NSA.md
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@ -108,6 +108,14 @@ The Guardian reported that the NSA declined to say whether the Foreign Intellige
The NSA released transcripts of intercepts made after the June 8, 1967, attack on the [[USS Liberty Incident|USS Liberty]] in July 2003, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by [[A. Jay Cristol]] filed April 26, 2001. The letter of July 2, 2003, enclosed three recordings of Israeli communications in Hebrew, three transcripts and two summary reports, and states that "No communications of the attacking aircraft or torpedo boats were available" and that an EC-121 aircraft had collected conversations between two Israeli helicopter pilots and the control tower at Hazor Airfield; it states that portions were withheld under Executive Order 12958 and under statutes including 18 U.S.C. 798 and Section 6 of Public Law 86-36.[^20] In January 2004 the agency's historian, [[David Hatch]], said the new material "doesn't settle much," according to the Financial Times, and that his reading of the air controller's conversations with two helicopter pilots "suggested strongly" that the Israelis did not know at first that the ship was American.[^21] On June 8, 2007, the NSA announced that it had finished its review of all material relating to the attack and had posted additional documents, stating: "It is not NSA's intention to prove or disprove any one set of conclusions, many of which can be drawn from a thorough review of this material."[^22] [[Oliver Kirby]], the NSA deputy director for operations/production in 1967, said in an interview of February 14, 2003 that within weeks of the attack he read transcripts of the Israeli pilots' conversations that made it "absolutely certain" the Israelis knew the ship was American.[^23] The Chicago Tribune reported on October 2, 2007 that the NSA's position was that it never intercepted the communications of the attacking Israeli pilots; quoted Kirby as saying "I'm willing to swear on a stack of Bibles that we knew they knew"; quoted Michael Prostinak, a Hebrew linguist aboard the EC-121, as saying "there were more tapes than just the three on the Internet"; and reported that the posted tape designated A1104/A-02 begins at 2:29 p.m. local time and that a preceding tape designated A1104/A-01 is absent. An NSA media adviser did not respond to the Tribune's question about the difference.[^24]
### United Nations headquarters, Security Council delegations and Ndola
In September 1961, according to a commission of jurists reporting to the [[United Nations]] General Assembly in 2014, Charles Southall was stationed at the NSA naval communications facility near Nicosia, Cyprus, and recalled a recording played back shortly after midnight on the night of the crash that killed [[Dag Hammarskjöld]]. The Commission wrote that "from the broader evidence of the US National Security Agency's worldwide monitoring activities in and about 1961, it is highly likely that the entirety of the local and regional Ndola radio traffic on the night of 17-18 September 1961 was tracked and recorded by the NSA, and possibly also by the CIA."[^25] The Eminent Person reporting in 2019 recorded that two United States personnel confirmed as working for or in support of NSA activities said they overheard a transmission or recording of an attack on the aircraft, that both had died by 2018, and that the United States had not responded substantively to requests for clarification made since 2015.[^26]
A January 31, 2003 email from [[Frank Koza]], chief of staff of the Regional Targets section of the NSA, to [[GCHQ]] asked for a "surge effort to revive/create efforts against UNSC members Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria and Guinea." [[The Observer]] published the memo on March 2, 2003.[^27] [[Katharine Gun]], who worked at GCHQ, was charged under section 1 of the Official Secrets Act 1989; on February 25, 2004 the Crown offered no evidence.[^28]
In August 2013 [[Der Spiegel]] reported, on the basis of documents obtained by Edward Snowden, that NSA experts had cracked the codes of the United Nations video conferencing system in the summer of 2012, and that the number of decoded communications rose from 12 to 458 within three weeks. The same documents reportedly showed collection against the [[International Atomic Energy Agency]] and an NSA bugging program, called Special Collection Service, in more than 80 embassies and consulates.[^29]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Memorandum to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, "Communications Intelligence Activities," October 24, 1952, and NSCID No. 9, December 29, 1952, National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 23, Documents 2a and 2b. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB23/ ; National Security Agency, "Origins of NSA" (Major General Ralph J. Canine first Director, November 4, 1952). https://irp.fas.org/nsa/oldind.html
@ -134,3 +142,8 @@ The NSA released transcripts of intercepts made after the June 8, 1967, attack o
[^22]: National Security Agency, "U.S.S. Liberty," release page (Wayback Machine 2007 capture). http://web.archive.org/web/2007/http://www.nsa.gov/liberty
[^23]: David C. Walsh, "Former NSA Officials Agree," *U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings*, June 2003. https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2003/june/former-nsa-officials-agree
[^24]: "New revelations in attack on American spy ship," *Chicago Tribune*, October 2, 2007. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2007/10/02/new-revelations-in-attack-on-american-spy-ship/
[^25]: Commission of Jurists on the Inquiry into the Death of Dag Hammarskjöld, United Nations General Assembly document A/68/800, 2014, paragraphs 13.23 to 13.28 and 15.7. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F68%2F800&l=en&t=pdf
[^26]: Report of the Eminent Person, United Nations General Assembly document A/73/973, September 12, 2019, paragraph 19. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F73%2F973&l=en&t=pdf
[^27]: Bright, Martin, Ed Vulliamy and Peter Beaumont. "Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war," *The Observer,* March 2, 2003. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/02/usa.iraq ; McGovern, Ray. "When Truth Tried to Stop War," *Consortium News,* January 31, 2013. https://consortiumnews.com/2013/01/31/when-truth-tried-to-stop-war/
[^28]: House of Commons, "Katharine Gun," HC Deb 26 February 2004, vol. 418, cc. 427-40. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/2004/feb/26/katharine-gun
[^29]: Al Jazeera, "Report: US bugged UN headquarters," August 25, 2013, reporting the Der Spiegel account. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2013/8/25/report-us-bugged-un-headquarters ; CBC News, "NSA spied on UN, leaked files show," August 2013. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/nsa-spied-on-un-leaked-files-show-1.1306194

235
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Senate Judiciary Committee.md
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@ -2,12 +2,19 @@
category: "Intelligence & Government"
aliases:
- "Senate Committee on the Judiciary"
- "United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary"
- "Senate Judiciary"
tags:
- Organization
- Government
- Congress
- INSLAW
summary: "Standing Senate committee since 1816, overseeing the Justice Department and FBI and judicial nominations, whose chief investigator relayed a career official's INSLAW allegations to the company in 1988."
- Epstein
- JudicialNominations
- CambridgeAnalytica
- ChildSafety
- InternalSecuritySubcommittee
summary: "Standing Senate committee founded in 1816 that oversees the Justice Department and the FBI and considers judicial and Justice nominations, whose hearings and letters recur across the INSLAW, Epstein and nomination records."
start: 1816-12-10
location: "Washington, D.C."
relations:
@ -15,32 +22,226 @@ relations:
with: "[[Ronald LeGrand]]"
reverse: true
role: "chief investigator"
fn: 3
fn: 12
- type: investigated
with: "[[Leonard Leo]]"
start: 2023
role: "sought records and testimony on his donor network; he declined"
fn: 7
start: 2023-07-11
role: "sought information on his interactions with Supreme Court justices and records on his donor-group network; his counsel declined"
fn: 31
- type: head_of
with: "[[Dick Durbin]]"
reverse: true
start: 2023-01-03
end: 2025-01-03
role: "chairman"
fn: 28
- type: head_of
with: "[[Dick Durbin]]"
reverse: true
start: 2025-01-03
role: "ranking member"
fn: 33
- type: head_of
with: "[[Chuck Grassley]]"
reverse: true
start: 2025-01-03
role: "chairman"
fn: 32
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Griffin Bell]]"
reverse: true
start: 1977-01-11
end: 1977-01-19
role: "nominee for Attorney General, confirmation hearings"
fn: 18
- type: participant_in
with: "[[William Bradford Reynolds]]"
reverse: true
start: 1985-06-27
role: "nominee for associate attorney general; committee vote against his nomination"
fn: 19
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Todd Blanche]]"
reverse: true
start: 2026-07-15
role: "nominee for Attorney General, confirmation hearing"
fn: 23
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Frank Carlucci]]"
reverse: true
start: 1980
role: "witness on S. 2216, Intelligence Identities Protection Act"
fn: 10
- type: subject_of
with: "[[Philip Agee]]"
reverse: true
start: 1980
role: "named in testimony on S. 2216"
fn: 10
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Andreas Lowenfeld]]"
reverse: true
start: 1962-06-12
role: "witness before the Internal Security Subcommittee, State Department security hearings"
fn: 9
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Curt Weldon]]"
reverse: true
start: 2005-09-21
role: "witness, Able Danger hearing"
fn: 25
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Mark Zaid]]"
reverse: true
start: 2005-09-21
role: "witness, Able Danger hearing"
fn: 25
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Christopher Wylie]]"
reverse: true
start: 2018-05-16
role: "witness, Cambridge Analytica hearing"
fn: 27
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Jason Citron]]"
reverse: true
start: 2024-01-31
role: "witness, online child sexual exploitation hearing"
fn: 29
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Neil M. Barofsky]]"
reverse: true
start: 2026-02-03
role: "witness, Nazi-linked accounts hearing"
fn: 32
- type: head_of
with: "[[James Eastland]]"
reverse: true
start: 1955
end: 1977
role: "chairman of the Internal Security Subcommittee"
fn: 4
- type: investigated
with: "[[Institute of Pacific Relations]]"
start: 1951-07-25
end: 1952-06-20
role: "Internal Security Subcommittee hearings under Chairman Eastland; report of July 2, 1952"
fn: 3
created: 2026-09-22
updated: 2026-09-22
updated: 2026-10-12
---
The Senate established its Committee on the Judiciary on December 10, 1816, among its original standing committees. It oversees the [[Department of Justice]], including the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]], and the Department of Homeland Security, and considers judicial and Justice Department nominations.[^1]
The Senate Committee on the Judiciary is a standing committee of the United States Senate. The Senate created it on December 10, 1816, in the resolution that established its original standing committees.[^1][^2] It oversees the [[Department of Justice]], including the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]], and the [[Department of Homeland Security]], and it considers judicial and Justice Department nominations.[^1]
### Internal Security Subcommittee
Senate Resolution 366 of the Eighty-first Congress, adopted on December 21, 1950, empowered a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee to make a continuing study of the administration of the Internal Security Act of 1950 and other laws on espionage and sabotage, and of the "extent, nature and effects of subversive activities in the United States."[^3] The body, formally the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, was known as the [[Senate Internal Security Subcommittee]] (SISS).[^4] [[Pat McCarran]] chaired it in the Eighty-second Congress, with [[James Eastland]], [[Herbert O'Conor]], [[Willis Smith]], [[Homer Ferguson]], [[William Jenner]] and [[Arthur Watkins]] as members; [[Robert Morris]] was special counsel, [[Benjamin Mandel]] director of research, and J. G. Sourwine counsel to the full committee.[^3] Jenner was chairman in 1953, when Morris was chief counsel and the subcommittee held hearings on "Interlocking Subversion in Government Departments" beginning April 10, 1953.[^5] Eastland, a member since 1951, became chairman in 1955 and remained chairman until the Senate abolished the subcommittee in 1977.[^4] A letter of May 9, 1955, from the subcommittee's chief investigator to [[Walter Pforzheimer]] of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]], is printed on letterhead that lists Sourwine as chief counsel.[^6]
From July 25, 1951, to June 20, 1952, a three-member subcommittee under Eastland (with McCarran and Ferguson) held hearings on the [[Institute of Pacific Relations]]. The subcommittee took possession of the institute's back files, found on the Lee, Massachusetts, farm of trustee E. C. Carter, and studied them for five months before the first witness testified. It took public testimony from 66 witnesses, among them a former Vice President of the United States, a former ambassador to the Soviet Union, [[Owen Lattimore]], and the former Director of Central Intelligence, Admiral [[Roscoe Hillenkoetter]]; its staff examined about 20,000 documents, of which about 2,000 became exhibits.[^3][^7] The report, submitted by McCarran on July 2, 1952 as Senate Report 2050, concluded that the institute "has not maintained the character of an objective, scholarly, and research organization" and that it "has been considered by the American Communist Party and by Soviet officials as an instrument of Communist policy, propaganda and military intelligence."[^3]
On January 21, 1972, Sourwine, by then chief counsel, telephoned the CIA's Office of Legislative Counsel and said that Chairman Eastland had instructed him to poll the subcommittee's members on releasing testimony given before it roughly twenty years earlier by agency witnesses including General [[Walter Bedell Smith]], [[Frank Wisner]] and Pforzheimer; the agency's memorandum of the call records that Sourwine offered to supply a copy of the transcript.[^8]
On June 12, 1962, the subcommittee, with Eastland as chairman, [[Thomas J. Dodd]] as vice chairman and Sourwine as counsel, took the testimony of [[Andreas Lowenfeld]] in its hearings on the State Department's new passport regulations (Part 3 of the hearings, 87th Congress). Lowenfeld, special assistant to the State Department's Legal Adviser since June 1961, told the subcommittee that he had been connected with the [[Center for International Studies]] at [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]] in 1951 and 1952. Asked by Sourwine whether he had ever been connected in any way with the CIA, he answered: "Not in any direct way." He said the center "had some kind of contract with the CIA" and that he had never formally worked for the agency. Asked whether he knew that the center was a CIA operation, he said: "I was never formally told, but it became apparent." He told the subcommittee that Mr. [[Walter Rostow|Rostow]] was acting in charge of the center and that Mr. [[Max Millikan|Millikan]] came afterward, and that he had worked for Rostow as a staff member.[^9]
### Intelligence Identities Protection Act
In 1980 the committee held a hearing on S. 2216, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Deputy [[Director of Central Intelligence]] [[Frank Carlucci]] testified that the problem "had its inception with faithless Government employees who went public with the names of CIA personnel, the most prominent of whom, of course, is [[Philip Agee|Phillip Agee]]." He added that the activity had since been "picked up by a number of people who are not former Government employees."[^10]
### INSLAW
In mid-1979, when the FBI sought approval to buy a new front-end processor, the committee commissioned technical analyses from the [[OTA|Office of Technology Assessment]] and from [[INSLAW]].[^2] In May 1988 its chief investigator, [[Ronald LeGrand]], passed to [[Bill Hamilton]] of INSLAW what a senior career official of the department's Criminal Division had told him: "What you think happened, did happen," and that the division had been the center of the effort to drive the company out of business. According to Hamilton's 1989 affidavit, the source also believed "that documents relating to [[Project Eagle]] were shredded inside DOJ." The special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] later interviewed the source, who said he had no first-hand knowledge of misconduct concerning INSLAW or [[PROMIS]] and had heard no credible rumors of it; LeGrand told House investigators and Bua that, as far as he knew, none of the information was first-hand.[^3][^4]
In mid-1979, when the FBI sought approval to buy a new front-end processor, the committee commissioned technical analyses from the [[OTA|Office of Technology Assessment]] and from [[INSLAW]].[^11] The Office of Technology Assessment report on a national criminal history system, issued in October 1982, was prepared at the request of the House and Senate Committees on the Judiciary. It records that in 1979 and 1980 Congress conditioned approval of the [[National Crime Information Center]] technology upgrade, including its front-end processor and mainframe computer, on a strict prohibition of message switching.[^11]
### Nominations and Later Inquiries
In late April 1988 [[Ronald LeGrand]], then the committee's chief investigator, telephoned [[Bill Hamilton]], president of INSLAW, and asked for a full briefing on the company's disputes with the department. Hamilton and his wife, [[Nancy Hamilton]], briefed him at the company's offices on the morning of May 11. Two days later LeGrand telephoned Hamilton with information that he said a trusted source had asked him to convey. LeGrand described the source as a senior career official in the department "with a title" whom he had known for 15 years.[^12]
On June 27, 1985, the committee voted 10 to 8 to reject President [[Ronald Reagan]]'s nomination of [[William Bradford Reynolds]] as associate attorney general.[^5] On May 16, 2018, [[Christopher Wylie]] testified to it that [[Steve Bannon]] had engaged [[SCL Group|SCL]], "a foreign military contractor," to build "an arsenal of informational weapons."[^6] Under Chairman [[Dick Durbin]] it sought the records and testimony of [[Leonard Leo]] on his network of conservative donor groups; on July 25, 2023, Leo's counsel declined to provide them.[^7]
According to Hamilton's December 1989 affidavit, as quoted in the [[Nicholas J. Bua|Bua report]], the source said that "the INSLAW case was a lot dirtier for the Department of Justice than Watergate was, both in its breadth and in its depth," and that the "Justice Department has been compromised on the INSLAW case at every level." Hamilton's account of the message, as set out by [[Cheri Seymour]], begins with the words "What you think happened, did happen," and has the source describe the Criminal Division as the center of the effort to drive the company out of business.[^13]
The affidavit, as quoted in the Bua report, names [[Lowell Jensen]], the Deputy Attorney General, as the official who engineered INSLAW's problems and who relied principally on [[Miles Matthews]], [[James Knapp]] and [[James Johnston]]. Matthews was quoted as saying, in the source's presence, that "Lowell [Jensen] wants to get INSLAW out of the way and give the business to friends." The source said that [[John Keeney]], [[Mark M. Richard|Mark Richard]] and [[Philip White]] knew "all about" Jensen's conduct and were "pretty upset," but would disclose what they knew only under subpoena and oath. The source believed that documents relating to [[Project Eagle]] were shredded inside the department.[^12]
LeGrand, a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent, was asked by House Judiciary Committee investigators to identify the trusted source so that they could contact that person, and he declined. He said he would consider giving a sworn statement if the committee made a request to Chairwoman [[Cardiss Collins]] of the House Government Operations Subcommittee on Government Activities and Transportation, to which he had moved from the Senate committee; the committee's chairman wrote to Collins on July 20, 1990. Investigators then made numerous attempts to schedule the statement, LeGrand left the Washington area without informing the committee, and the committee wrote to him again on November 20, 1990. On February 14, 1991, he gave a sworn statement in which, in the House report's words, he provided "little corroboration" of the Hamiltons' allegations. He attributed the discrepancy to "the unintentional merging of comments from different persons" that the Hamiltons had credited to the trusted source, and said that he had gathered information from several individuals during his inquiry.[^14] Asked whether the source had said that the INSLAW case was "a lot dirtier" than Watergate "both in its breadth and in its depth," he answered that the source had said there was more to the matter than people were aware of and had made a comparison to Watergate, but that he did not recall those words. He again declined to name the source.[^14]
On October 11, 1988, [[Elliot Richardson]], counsel to INSLAW, had sent a memorandum summarizing LeGrand's statements to [[Robin Ross]], an assistant to Attorney General [[Richard Thornburgh]].[^15] Hamilton's December 22, 1989 affidavit states that LeGrand had confirmed what he told Hamilton on several occasions after May 1988.[^16] LeGrand told House investigators and Special Counsel Bua that, as far as he knew, none of the information from his source was obtained first-hand, and he confirmed to both that he believed the source had given him some of the information reflected in Hamilton's affidavit.[^16] When Bua's team contacted LeGrand, who no longer worked for the Senate, he said he would describe the source's information but would not disclose the source's identity.[^12]
LeGrand later gave a different account. At the Department of Justice's request, he submitted an affidavit, filed as a declaration in INSLAW's bankruptcy case (Case No. 85-0070), refuting INSLAW's claim that he had conveyed "highly specific" allegations to the Hamiltons. He stated that he had told them of "general allegations, rumors," and of information heard from different sources about various persons in the department. The House report describes the affidavit's assertion that the source had no personal knowledge of the department's handling of the matter as "striking," coming after several years of LeGrand's statements to William Hamilton, to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and to the House committee. His sworn statement of February 14, 1991 to House investigators, his acknowledgment to House investigators and to Bua that the source had given him some of the information in Hamilton's affidavit, and the October 11, 1988 memorandum remain in the record beside the affidavit. The House report adds that Hamilton later alleged to the committee that Roger Pauley, a Justice Department official, was LeGrand's contact within the department.[^14]
The source gave a further account on February 7, 1994, to the Justice Department review team that Attorney General [[Janet Reno]] ordered to examine Bua's report. The source had refused to be interviewed by Bua and by the House investigators; the review's report states that he agreed to be interviewed by the review team because of his respect for and confidence in Reno. The interview took place in a private dining room at a local club, with LeGrand and Morgan Frankel, Assistant Legal Counsel of the United States Senate, present. The source identified himself to the team, which stated that it verified that he is a long-time career employee of the department, and said that he had known LeGrand for about 20 years (Hamilton's affidavit gives 15). He told the team that he had no first-hand knowledge of any misconduct by anyone in relation to PROMIS or INSLAW and had heard no rumors he would consider credible; that the subject of INSLAW came up in a friendly conversation with LeGrand in 1987 or 1988; that he suggested LeGrand contact Miles Matthews because he did not particularly like or trust Matthews; and that he never mentioned Lowell Jensen, Mark Richard, Philip White, James Johnston or James Knapp to LeGrand. When the review team read him the passage from Hamilton's affidavit, he said that none of the statements or beliefs attributed to him were accurate, and that he had no reason to believe that documents relating to Project Eagle were improperly shredded.[^16] The review team wrote that it had concluded there was no credible evidence of a conspiracy involving Jensen or other senior department officials. In its own account Bua's report had recorded that Matthews, Knapp, Johnston, White, Keeney and Richard each denied knowledge of the wrongdoing described in Hamilton's affidavit.[^16] INSLAW's rebuttal to the Bua report had criticized the special counsel for not investigating the allegations attributed to the source.[^16]
The Justice Department's 1994 review, which affirmed the special counsel's findings, concluded that there was "no credible evidence" that department officials conspired to steal the software developed by INSLAW, and recommended that the affair be closed. The same release reaffirmed police findings that the death of [[Danny Casolaro]], a free-lance journalist investigating the INSLAW matter, was a suicide.[^17]
### Nominations
On January 11, 1977, the committee began hearings on the nomination of [[Griffin Bell]] as Attorney General. The hearings continued on January 12, 13, 14, 17, 18 and 19 under Chairman James Eastland. Eastland told Bell on the first day: "Judge, you have been an outstanding lawyer and an outstanding member of the judiciary. You are honest and honorable. I will vote to confirm you."[^18]
On June 27, 1985, the committee voted 10 to 8 to reject President [[Ronald Reagan]]'s nomination of [[William Bradford Reynolds]] as associate attorney general and declined to send it to the Senate floor.[^19][^20][^21] The committee then had ten Republicans and eight Democrats.[^20] Before the vote, Senator [[Dennis DeConcini]] had told Reynolds, "It is an issue of whether you told the truth here."[^20] Reagan's statement that day said that some members of the committee had used the confirmation process "to conduct an ideological assault on so superbly qualified a candidate."[^19]
On September 27, 2018, under Chairman [[Chuck Grassley]], the committee continued its confirmation hearing on the nomination of [[Brett Kavanaugh]] to the Supreme Court with two witnesses, Kavanaugh and a woman who had alleged in a letter to the ranking member, Senator [[Dianne Feinstein]], that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party when both were in high school. Grassley said in his opening statement that none of six FBI background investigations of Kavanaugh since 1993 contained an issue of inappropriate sexual behavior. Kavanaugh testified: "I categorically and unequivocally deny the allegation against me."[^22]
On July 15, 2026, the committee questioned [[Todd Blanche]], then acting Attorney General and the president's nominee for the permanent post, at his confirmation hearing.[^23]
### Joint Narcotics Hearings
The committee and the [[Caucus on International Narcotics Control]] held joint hearings on [[Jamaica]]'s proposed comprehensive international anti-narcotics plan and on drug policy in the Andean nations on November 6, 1989, and on January 18 and March 27, 1990. The record was published in 1991.[^24]
### Able Danger
On September 21, 2005, the committee, under Chairman [[Arlen Specter]], held a hearing titled "Able Danger and Intelligence Information Sharing" on a Defense Department counterterrorism data-analysis program.[^25] Representative [[Curt Weldon]] testified that Captain Philpott had "identified absolutely Mohammed Atta as a part of the Brooklyn cell" in January and February 2000. He said that [[Erik Kleinsmith]], a former Army major and chief of intelligence, would testify that he had been ordered to destroy all Able Danger material, 2.5 terabytes of it.[^25] The FBI, the Defense Department and Kleinsmith, then of [[Lockheed Martin]], also presented testimony. Attorney [[Mark Zaid]] told the committee that Able Danger never identified Atta in the United States, and that a chart listed Atta under "Brooklyn, New York," which prompted apprehension among Army lawyers and policy staff about compiling data on United States persons. He also said that most of his testimony was hearsay, because it rested on what he had been told by people associated with the program.[^25]
### Cambridge Analytica
On May 16, 2018, the committee held a hearing titled "Cambridge Analytica and the Future of Data Privacy."[^26] [[Christopher Wylie]], a former employee of [[Cambridge Analytica]], testified. His written statement said that the firm was created by [[SCL Group|SCL]] with funding from [[Robert Mercer]], and that [[Steve Bannon]] was installed as its vice president. It said Bannon "engaged SCL, a foreign military contractor, to build an arsenal of informational weapons he could deploy on the American population."[^27] The statement also said that after a request for information from executives of [[Lukoil]] in the spring of 2014, Cambridge Analytica discussed with Lukoil its experience with "foreign disinformation, rumour campaigns, microtargeting and its American data assets."[^27]
### Child Safety
On November 20, 2023, Chairman [[Dick Durbin]] and Ranking Member [[Lindsey Graham]] announced subpoenas to the chief executives of [[Discord]], [[Snap Inc.]] and [[X Corp.]] to testify at a December 6 full committee hearing on online child sexual exploitation.[^28] The hearing was held on January 31, 2024, under the title "Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis." [[Jason Citron]], chief executive and co-founder of Discord, testified.[^29]
### Leonard Leo
Under Chairman Durbin the committee sought the records and testimony of [[Leonard Leo]] on his network of conservative donor groups.[^30] On July 11, 2023, Durbin and [[Sheldon Whitehouse]], chair of the Federal Courts subcommittee, wrote to Leo requesting information about his interactions with Supreme Court justices.[^31] Leo's counsel, [[David B. Rivkin Jr.]] of [[Baker & Hostetler]], replied on July 25, 2023, that the inquiry exceeded the constitutional limits on the committee's investigative authority and infringed Leo's First Amendment rights. The letter argued that the inquiry was motivated by hostility to Leo's views and quoted Whitehouse's description of Leo as "the little spider that you find at the center of the dark money web." It also said that the committee's ethics bill, S. 359, which the committee ordered reported on July 20, 2023, raised separation-of-powers objections. The letter declined to provide the requested information and closed: "We will not be part of that journey."[^31]
### Credit Suisse
On February 3, 2026, the committee held a hearing titled "The Truth Revealed: Hidden Facts Regarding Nazis and Swiss Banks." The hearing's chairman was Grassley and its ranking member was Durbin. [[Neil M. Barofsky]], the independent ombudsperson overseeing [[Credit Suisse]], testified that the bank had maintained previously unreported, and in one instance underreported, wartime account relationships with several instrumentalities of the Nazi government. These included the [[German Foreign Office]], which held at least four accounts at Credit Suisse under a pseudonym. He said that to date the investigation had determined that 628 individuals and 262 legal entities within its scope had account relationships with the bank, and he described a wartime account held by [[Leo Volk]], a senior SS officer and convicted war criminal, who used it to hold hundreds of thousands of Swiss francs. Barofsky described the bank as providing banking services, and premises, to an Argentine ratline, a smuggling operation organized by the Argentine government from an office in Bern called the "Argentine Immigration Office." He told the committee that [[UBS]] had begun a privilege review that withheld materials from his team, and that he expected the investigation to be completed within six months, with a final report to follow a few months after that.[^32]
### Epstein Files Oversight
On July 7, 2025, the Justice Department and the FBI released an unsigned memorandum on what it called an "exhaustive review of investigative holdings relating to Jeffrey Epstein." Its findings included that the review "revealed no incriminating 'client list.'" On July 18, Durbin, the committee's ranking member, wrote to [[Pam Bondi]] that the finding contradicted public statements she had made in February 2025. He wrote that, according to information his office had received, she had pressured the FBI to assign about 1,000 personnel in its Information Management Division to review roughly 100,000 Epstein-related records on 24-hour shifts. He wrote that his office had been told that personnel were instructed to "flag" any records in which President Trump was mentioned.[^33] The same day he wrote to [[Kash Patel]], the FBI director, with the same question about the flagging and about why the memorandum was unsigned.[^34]
The [[Epstein Files Transparency Act]], enacted on November 19, 2025 as Public Law 119-38, required the attorney general, within fifteen days of completing the release of Epstein-related records, to report to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees the categories of records released and withheld, a summary of redactions and their legal basis, and a list of government officials and politically exposed persons named in the released material, with no redactions permitted on that list.[^35] On February 14, 2026, Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche sent the Section 3 report on Department of Justice letterhead to Chairman Grassley, Ranking Member Durbin and the chairman and ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee ([[Jim Jordan]] and [[Jamie Raskin]]). The letter stated that the department had released all records relating to nine categories, among them flight logs, communications about decisions to charge or not charge Epstein and his associates, communications concerning the destruction or concealment of records, and documentation of Epstein's detention and death. It stated that information covered by deliberative-process, work-product and attorney-client privileges was redacted in a limited amount, and that no material was redacted or withheld on the basis that it was properly classified in the interest of national defense or foreign policy. It stated that "politically exposed persons" was not defined in the Act and that reviewers were told to note all government officials and politically exposed persons named or referenced in any document, video or image. The list that follows, in alphabetical order, runs to several hundred names of persons whose names appear in the released files "at least once," among them Steve Bannon, [[Ehud Barak]], [[Julian Assange]], [[William Barr]] and [[Donald Trump]]. The letter states that some of those listed had extensive direct email contact with Epstein or [[Ghislaine Maxwell]], while others are mentioned only in a portion of a document, including press reporting, that on its face is unrelated to the Epstein and Maxwell matters.[^36]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Senate Committee on the Judiciary, "About the Committee." https://www.judiciary.senate.gov
[^2]: U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment. *An Assessment of Alternatives for a National Computerized Criminal History System.* OTA-CIS-161, October 1982, as cited on the INSLAW page.
[^3]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc.,* March 1993, and *Report on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report,* September 27, 1994, quoting Hamilton's affidavit of 1989.
[^4]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010.
[^5]: *The Washington Post,* June 28, 1985, as cited on the William Bradford Reynolds page.
[^6]: "Christopher Wylie: Bannon wanted 'weapons' to fight a 'culture war' at Cambridge Analytica," testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, May 16, 2018. *CBS News.* https://www.cbsnews.com/live-news/senate-cambridge-analytica-whistleblower-christopher-wylie-live-stream-updates-today-2018-05-16
[^7]: Leo counsel's letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, July 25, 2023. https://levin-center.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/2023-7-25-Leo-counsels-ltr-to-Senate-Judiciary-declining-to-produce-requested-information.pdf ; "Inside the 'Private and Confidential' Conservative Group That Promises to 'Crush Liberal Dominance.'" *ProPublica,* March 15, 2023.
[^1]: Senate Committee on the Judiciary, "About the Committee." https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/about/committee
[^2]: Senate Committee on the Judiciary, *History of the Committee on the Judiciary, 1816-1981*, S. Doc. 97-18, 97th Congress (1981), as listed in the Senate's committee histories. https://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/committeehistories.pdf
[^3]: U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, *Institute of Pacific Relations: Report of the Committee on the Judiciary, Eighty-second Congress, Second Session, pursuant to S. Res. 366 (81st Congress)*, S. Rept. 82-2050, July 2, 1952, committee and subcommittee rosters, Introduction (pp. 1-2) and Conclusions (p. 223 and following). https://archive.org/details/instituteofpacif1952unit
[^4]: Senator James O. Eastland Collection, University of Mississippi, Modern Political Archives, File Series 4, Legislative, Subseries 10: Internal Security Subcommittee (finding aid), stating that Eastland joined the subcommittee at its inception in 1951, became chair in 1955 and remained chair until the Senate abolished it in 1977. https://olemiss.edu/depts/general_library/archives/finding_docs/eastland/Eastland_File4_SS10.pdf
[^5]: U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, *Interlocking Subversion in Government Departments*, hearing before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, 83d Congress, 1st session, Part 1, April 10, 1953 (William E. Jenner, chairman; Robert Morris, chief counsel). https://archive.org/details/interlockingsubv0104unit
[^6]: J. G. Sourwine, chief counsel, Senate Internal Security Subcommittee letterhead; letter from the subcommittee's chief investigator to Walter Pforzheimer, May 9, 1955, CIA reading room document CIA-RDP58-00597A000100240018-8. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp58-00597a000100240018-8
[^7]: U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, *Institute of Pacific Relations: Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws*, 82d Congress, 1st session, Part 1, July 25, 26, 31, August 2 and 7, 1951 (roster of the subcommittee investigating the Institute of Pacific Relations: Eastland, chairman, McCarran, Ferguson). https://archive.org/details/instituteofpacif01unit
[^8]: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Legislative Counsel, memorandum for the record, "Telephone Call From Mr. J. Sourwine, Chief Counsel, Senate Internal Security Subcommittee," January 21, 1972, CIA reading room document CIA-RDP74B00415R000200140126-2. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp74b00415r000200140126-2
[^9]: U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, *State Department Security: The New Passport Regulations*, hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, 87th Congress, Part 3, May 16, June 7, 12 and 19, 1962 (GPO, 1962), testimony of Andreas F. Lowenfeld, June 12, 1962 (index p. 329; the passage quoted is at p. 331 as excerpted in CIA reading room document CIA-RDP75-00149R000400560007-3). CIA reading room copy of the volume: https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp66b00403r000500120001-1 ; extract: https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp75-00149r000400560007-3
[^10]: U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, *Intelligence Identities Protection Act, S. 2216*, hearing, Serial No. 96-86 (1980), testimony of Frank C. Carlucci. CIA reading room document CIA-RDP85-00003R000200080003-5. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp85-00003r000200080003-5
[^11]: Office of Technology Assessment, *An Assessment of Alternatives for a National Computerized Criminal History System* (Washington, October 1982), prepared at the request of the House and Senate Committees on the Judiciary; on congressional conditions on the NCIC technology upgrade in 1979 and 1980, see the report's discussion of message switching. https://ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/86624NCJRS.pdf
[^12]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc.*, March 1993, section 10, "Ronald LeGrand," pp. 113-114, quoting William Hamilton's affidavit of December 1989. Copy: https://archive.org/stream/InslawPROMISBuaReport/Inslaw%3APROMIS%20Bua%20Report_djvu.txt
[^13]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010.
[^14]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, *The INSLAW Affair: Investigative Report*, H. Rept. 102-857 (1992), section 7, "Ronald LeGrand Denies INSLAW's Assertions," pp. 62-64 (including the footnote on Hamilton's allegation concerning Roger Pauley and the citation of LeGrand's declaration in Bankruptcy Case No. 85-0070). https://archive.org/stream/InslawAffairInvestigativeReport/TheInslawAffair_djvu.txt
[^15]: Bua report, section 10, p. 113, quoting Hamilton's December 1989 affidavit on the October 11, 1988 memorandum from Elliot Richardson to Robin Ross.
[^16]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report on the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc.*, September 27, 1994, section IV.B.1, "Ronald LeGrand's Confidential Source," pp. 22-28, quoting Hamilton's affidavit of December 22, 1989 and citing Bua Report 113-120 and INSLAW Rebuttal 44-46; bound with the Bua report at https://archive.org/stream/InslawPROMISBuaReport/Inslaw%3APROMIS%20Bua%20Report_djvu.txt
[^17]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, "New Report Finds No Credible Basis for INSLAW Case, Recommends Matter Be Closed," September 27, 1994. https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/Pre_96/September94/555.txt.html
[^18]: U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, *Griffin B. Bell: Hearings on the prospective nomination of Griffin B. Bell, of Georgia, to be Attorney General*, 95th Congress, 1st session, January 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18 and 19, 1977 (GPO, 1977), opening day statement of Chairman Eastland. https://archive.org/details/griffinbbellhear00unit
[^19]: Ronald Reagan, "Statement on Senate Action on the Nomination of William Bradford Reynolds To Be Associate Attorney General," June 27, 1985. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/259520
[^20]: "Senate confirmation for senior Justice Department official is in jeopardy," *Christian Science Monitor*, June 20, 1985. https://www.csmonitor.com/1985/0620/arey.html
[^21]: "Assistant Attorney General William Bradford Reynolds says a Senate...," *United Press International*, August 28, 1985 ("The Senate Judiciary Committee, on a 10-8 vote, rejected Reynold's nomination"). https://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/08/28/Assistant-Attorney-General-William-Bradford-Reynolds-says-a-Senate/8603494049600/ ; see also the Reagan statement of June 27, 1985.
[^22]: U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, *Confirmation Hearing on the Nomination of Hon. Brett M. Kavanaugh to Be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States*, S. Hrg. 115-545, Parts 1-2 (hearings of September 4-7 and September 27, 2018), continuation of the hearing, Thursday, September 27, 2018: opening statement of Chairman Grassley and testimony of Judge Kavanaugh. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-115shrg32765/html/CHRG-115shrg32765.htm
[^23]: National Public Radio, "Todd Blanche's high-stakes confirmation hearing for attorney general is underway," July 15, 2026. https://www.npr.org/2026/07/15/nx-s1-5894750/todd-blanches-high-stakes-confirmation-hearing-for-attorney-general-is-underway
[^24]: U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary and Caucus on International Narcotics Control, joint hearings on Jamaica's proposed comprehensive international anti-narcotics plan and on drug policy in the Andean nations, November 6, 1989, and January 18 and March 27, 1990, S. Hrg. 101-1228 (Government Printing Office, 1991). Catalog record: https://search.law.villanova.edu/Record/88328
[^25]: U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, *Able Danger and Intelligence Information Sharing*, hearing, September 21, 2005, S. Hrg. 109-311, Serial No. J-109-39, testimony of Representative Curt Weldon (p. 5 and following), Gary M. Bald, William Dugan, Erik Kleinsmith, and Mark S. Zaid (pp. 21-22). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-109shrg25409/pdf/CHRG-109shrg25409.pdf
[^26]: U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, hearing "Cambridge Analytica and the Future of Data Privacy," May 16, 2018. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/committee-activity/hearings/cambridge-analytica-and-the-future-of-data-privacy
[^27]: Christopher Wylie, written statement, "In the Matter of Cambridge Analytica and Other Related Issues," Senate Committee on the Judiciary, May 16, 2018, paragraphs 8, 9 and 32. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/download/06/03/2026/05-16-18-wylie-testimony
[^28]: Senate Committee on the Judiciary, press release, "Durbin, Graham Announce Subpoenas to Big Tech CEOs to Testify About Their Failure to Protect Children Online," November 20, 2023. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/releases/durbin-graham-announce-subpoenas-to-big-tech-ceos-to-testify-about-their-failure-to-protect-children-online
[^29]: Jason Citron, testimony, "Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis," hearing before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, January 31, 2024. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/download/2024-01-31-testimony-citron
[^30]: "Inside the 'Private and Confidential' Conservative Group That Promises to 'Crush Liberal Dominance,'" *ProPublica*, March 15, 2023.
[^31]: David B. Rivkin Jr., Baker & Hostetler, letter to Senators Richard J. Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse, July 25, 2023, responding to the committee's letter of July 11, 2023. https://levin-center.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/2023-7-25-Leo-counsels-ltr-to-Senate-Judiciary-declining-to-produce-requested-information.pdf
[^32]: Testimony of Neil M. Barofsky, Independent Ombudsperson for Credit Suisse AG, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, "The Truth Revealed: Hidden Facts Regarding Nazis and Swiss Banks," February 3, 2026. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/95317009-9c96-3e8f-f63d-04b7f29ef02f/2026-02-03_Testimony_Barofsky.pdf
[^33]: Senator Richard J. Durbin, Ranking Member, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, July 18, 2025. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/download/2025-07-18-rjd-letter-to-ag-bondi-re-epstein?download=1
[^34]: Senator Richard J. Durbin, Ranking Member, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, letter to FBI Director Kash Patel, July 18, 2025. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/download/2025-07-18-rjd-letter-to-fbi-director-patel-re-epstein?download=1
[^35]: Epstein Files Transparency Act, Public Law 119-38, 139 Stat. 656, sections 2 and 3, approved November 19, 2025. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-119publ38/pdf/PLAW-119publ38.pdf
[^36]: Pamela J. Bondi, Attorney General, and Todd Blanche, Deputy Attorney General, letter to the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate and House Committees on the Judiciary, "Epstein Files Transparency Act: Section 3 Report to Congress," February 14, 2026, pp. 1-6. https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1434856/dl ; coverage: "Justice Department lists hundreds of prominent people named in Epstein files in letter to Congress," *CNN*, February 15, 2026. https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/15/politics/doj-epstein-files-prominent-people

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---
aliases:
- United States Attorney General
- Attorney General
- Attorney General of the United States
- Office of the Attorney General
- U.S. Attorney General
category: "U.S. Government"
tags:
- organization
- u.s.-government
- contra-war
summary: The U.S. Attorney General is the nation's chief law enforcement officer, a position held during the Contra war by William French Smith and later Edwin Meese.
- Organization
- USGovernment
- JusticeDepartment
- ContraWar
- CrimesReporting
- Watergate
- INSLAW
- JeffreyEpstein
- EpsteinFilesTransparencyAct
summary: "The U.S. Attorney General is the nation's chief law enforcement officer; the office had crimes-reporting arrangements with the CIA beginning in a 1954 agreement letting the agency decide which of its personnel's crimes reached prosecutors."
created: 2026-10-12
updated: 2026-10-12
relations:
- type: head_of
with: "[[William French Smith]]"
reverse: true
role: "Attorney General"
start: 1981
end: 1985
fn: 6
- type: head_of
with: "[[Edwin Meese]]"
reverse: true
role: "Attorney General"
start: 1985
end: 1988
fn: 31
- type: head_of
with: "[[Richard Thornburgh]]"
reverse: true
role: "Attorney General"
start: 1988
end: 1991
fn: 31
- type: head_of
with: "[[William Barr]]"
reverse: true
role: "Attorney General"
start: 1991-11
end: 1993-01
fn: 31
- type: head_of
with: "[[Janet Reno]]"
reverse: true
role: "Attorney General"
start: 1993
end: 2001
fn: 39
- type: head_of
with: "[[Robert Kennedy]]"
reverse: true
role: "Attorney General"
start: 1961
end: 1964-09
fn: 16
- type: head_of
with: "[[John N. Mitchell]]"
reverse: true
role: "Attorney General"
start: 1969-01-21
end: 1972-03-01
fn: 18
- type: head_of
with: "[[Griffin Bell]]"
reverse: true
role: "Attorney General"
start: 1977-01
end: 1979-08
fn: 28
- type: head_of
with: "[[Pam Bondi]]"
reverse: true
role: "Attorney General"
start: 2025-02
end: 2026-04-02
fn: 40
- type: head_of
with: "[[Todd Blanche]]"
reverse: true
role: "acting Attorney General from April 2, 2026; confirmed August 8, 2026"
start: 2026-04-02
fn: 43
---
The U.S. Attorney General is the nation's chief law enforcement officer, a position held during the Contra war by William French Smith and later [[Ed Meese|Edwin Meese]]. The Attorney General's office was responsible for overseeing federal drug enforcement while simultaneously protecting [[Contras|Contra]]-connected drug traffickers.[^1]
The U.S. Attorney General is the nation's chief law enforcement officer, a position held during the Contra war by [[William French Smith]] and later by [[Edwin Meese]]. [[Gary Webb]] wrote that the office oversaw federal drug enforcement while protecting [[Contras|Contra]]-connected drug traffickers.[^1]
### The Secret 1982 Agreement
### The Office in Statute
In early 1982, Attorney General William French Smith and [[Central Intelligence Agency]] director [[William J. Casey]] signed a formal Memorandum of Understanding that exempted CIA assets from drug crimes reporting. Drug offenses were specifically removed from the list of crimes the CIA was required to report, creating what Inspector General [[Fred Hitz]] later called "a gentleman's agreement to look the other way" that lasted thirteen years. The Attorney General's office also intervened to reduce sentences for Contra-connected drug traffickers like José Bueso Rosa and declined to prosecute [[Norwin Meneses]] despite extensive evidence of his trafficking activities.[^2]
For purposes of the [[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act]], "Attorney General" means the Attorney General, the Acting Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General. Section 102 of the 1978 act lets the President, "through the Attorney General," authorize electronic surveillance without a court order for up to one year if the Attorney General certifies in writing under oath the conditions the act sets out.[^2]
### The 1954 Crimes-Reporting Arrangement
On February 18, 1954, [[Lawrence Houston]], general counsel of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]], discussed the reporting of federal crimes with Deputy Attorney General [[William P. Rogers]]. According to Houston's memorandum to the Director of Central Intelligence, the two agreed that the CIA would decide whether a potential violation by persons associated with the agency was referred to the Justice Department for prosecution, because the agency was best placed to judge whether classified information might be revealed at trial. The memorandum records an obligation to refer matters that could be prosecuted without revealing classified information, with doubts resolved in favor of referral. The two agreed that no formal written agreement was needed.[^3]
In the mid-1970s the arrangement became known and drew criticism in Congress.[^4] On July 24, 1975, [[Richard Thornburgh]], then assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division, wrote to CIA general counsel [[John Warner]] to remind the agency of its duty under 28 U.S.C. 535 to report possible violations of Title 18 by government officers and employees. Warner replied on July 29 that "any other informal referral agreement that may have been in effect in the past was abrogated," while noting that the director was charged under the National Security Act of 1947 with protecting intelligence sources and methods, and that the CIA would seek the Justice Department's advice on cases that would be reported.[^4] The CIA headquarters regulation in force on November 28, 1975 required that crimes by agency officers be reported to the inspector general, who would inform the general counsel, and that crimes by government officers be reported to the Attorney General. It added that "CIA will not exercise a prosecutorial function."[^5]
### The 1982 Memorandum of Understanding
Attorney General William French Smith signed a crimes-reporting memorandum of understanding with the CIA on February 11, 1982, and [[William J. Casey]], the Director of Central Intelligence, signed it on March 2, 1982. The memorandum governed crimes reporting from March 2, 1982 to August 3, 1995.[^6] It defined "employee" for reporting purposes to cover staff and contract employees and former officers for offenses committed during their employment. Assets, agents and independent contractors fell into the non-employee category, whose list of reportable federal offenses did not include narcotics violations. The memorandum still required reporting of "any" federal law violation by employees, so narcotics violations by staff remained reportable.[^6]
Smith's letter of February 11, 1982 stated that the memorandum contained no formal requirement to report narcotics violations by non-employees, and urged continued cooperation with the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration. A Justice Department memorandum of February 8, 1985 stated explicitly that no such requirement existed and suggested that the memorandum would have to be renegotiated to add one.[^6] The memorandum also allowed the CIA general counsel to report any other possible offense when he believed it should be reported. The CIA used that discretion in 1984, when information linking a Southern Front Contra member to the trafficker Jorge Morales was reported to the Justice Department, and in a 1988 referral concerning another Contra official.[^7] The agency's inspector general found no information indicating that the non-inclusion of narcotics violations by assets was intended to protect Contra activities, and also found that the CIA acted inconsistently in handling allegations that Contra-related organizations and individuals were involved in drug trafficking.[^7]
The text of Smith's letter was placed in the Congressional Record by Representative [[Maxine Waters]] in May 1998. [[Robert Parry]] reported that the letter described the matter as "the need to add narcotics violations to the list of reportable non-employee crimes," and that Smith wrote: "in view of the fine cooperation the Drug Enforcement Administration has received from CIA, no formal requirement regarding the reporting of narcotics violations has been included in these procedures." Parry reported that Casey wrote to Smith on March 2, 1982 that he was "pleased that these procedures, which I believe strike the proper balance between enforcement of the law and protection of intelligence sources and methods, will now be forwarded to other agencies covered by them for signing by the heads of the agencies."[^8] On the House floor on July 17, 1998 Waters said that the CIA and the Attorney General "had a secret Memorandum of Understanding that allowed drug trafficking by CIA assets to go unreported to law enforcement."[^9]
Webb's epilogue states that the memorandum exempted CIA assets from drug crimes reporting, that drug offenses were specifically removed from the list of crimes the CIA was required to report, and, after quoting Inspector General [[Fred Hitz]]'s March 1998 House testimony that the arrangement had been "hammered out" in 1982, that for thirteen years "the CIA and Justice had a gentleman's agreement to look the other way."[^1] The text of the memorandum, summarized above, shows narcotics violations by non-employees absent from the reporting list.[^6]
Hitz, the CIA inspector general who wrote the report, said in an interview for the PBS series Frontline that his staff "weren't ever able to find a memorandum of conversation or any evidence that indicated why it was done," and that if agents or assets had been defined as employees, credible allegations of drug activity would have had to be reported to the Justice Department. He said: "We didn't find any evidence of an understanding that official Washington was going to look the other way with respect to allegations of drug trafficking." He added that the staff did find awareness that proven allegations "would destroy the whole purpose of the Contra endeavor," which did not translate into practical guidance for officers in the field.[^10]
The memorandum was revised in August 1995. Under the revision, assets and independent contractors again counted as employees for reporting purposes, and narcotics violations were added to the list of non-employee offenses that had to be reported.[^11] For the thirteen years the 1982 memorandum governed, narcotics violations by non-employees were not on the list of reportable offenses.
### Contra Cases Before the Department
Webb wrote that the Attorney General's office intervened to reduce sentences for Contra-connected drug traffickers such as Bueso Rosa and declined to prosecute Norwin Meneses despite evidence of his trafficking.[^1] The records of the two cases show the following actors.
The [[Kerry Committee]] reported in December 1988 that senior United States officials had intervened with a federal judge to reduce the sentence of the Honduran general [[Jose Bueso Rosa|José Bueso Rosa]] to five years. He had been convicted in 1985 of conspiring to assassinate President Suazo Córdova of Honduras, a plot to be financed from the sale in the United States of $40 million in cocaine seized in connection with it, and the other defendants received sentences of as long as forty years. Officials of the United States government also arranged for Bueso Rosa to serve his sentence in a minimum-security facility at a United States military base in Florida.[^12]
According to [[Mark M. Richard]], deputy assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division, who described the matter in a deposition before the Iran-Contra committee, the Pentagon took the initiative in supporting the interventions, and at a meeting [[Oliver North]], General [[Paul Gorman]], [[Elliott Abrams]] and [[Dewey Clarridge]] agreed that Bueso Rosa should be accommodated. Richard said the State Department's position had changed, and he opposed the interventions. The subcommittee noted that the Justice Department had publicized the conspiracy as the most significant narco-terrorism case yet discovered, and that [[William Webster]], the FBI director, had said at the time of the arrests: "We don't want international terrorists to establish beachheads or bases for operations in the United States." [[Francis McNeil]] testified to the subcommittee that the successful intervention, over the objections of the Justice Department, undermined President Reagan's policies on terrorism, narcotics and democracy.[^12]
The subcommittee also reported that the government's factual admissions in the trial of Oliver North, released on April 6, 1989, stated that in mid-September 1986 North advised Admiral [[John Poindexter]] that Ambassador [[John Negroponte]], General Gorman of the Southern Command, the senior CIA officer Clarridge and North had worked out arrangements with Bueso Rosa for support of the Contra resistance, and that North suggested efforts be made on Bueso Rosa's behalf to deter him from disclosing details of those covert activities.[^12]
The Justice Department's own inspector general recorded a series of declinations in the case of [[Norwin Meneses]], a San Francisco cocaine trafficker. An assistant United States attorney in San Francisco had declined to prosecute him for car thefts, as the San Francisco FBI reported in 1979. In 1981 an assistant United States attorney, [[Eric Swenson]], declined to prosecute his nephew Jairo Meneses after an arrest in which no narcotics were found, and in 1983 the San Francisco United States Attorney's Office declined a tax case against Norwin Meneses for weak or insufficient evidence.[^13]
### Kennedy and the Mafia Overlaps, 1961 to 1964
[[Robert Kennedy]] served as attorney general under his brother from 1961 until 1964. A Justice Department deportation sent [[Carlos Marcello]] to Guatemala on April 4, 1961. An FBI memorandum of May 24, 1961 records the account of [[Paul Loeb]], chief of the CIA station in Guatemala City, who said that he understood Kennedy had conferred with [[Allen Dulles]] and asked for the CIA director's help in making Guatemala accept Marcello as a citizen.[^14]
The [[Church Committee]] wrote that Kennedy "played an active role in the MONGOOSE Operation, a role unrelated to his position as Attorney General."[^15] On May 7, 1962, CIA officers briefed the Attorney General on the operation that had used [[Johnny Roselli]], [[Sam Giancana]] and [[Robert Maheu]] against Fidel Castro, and on a wiretap the CIA had helped Maheu install. The Church Committee quoted the inspector general's conclusion that the Attorney General "was not told that the gambling syndicate operation had already been reactivated." On April 24, 1962, [[Herbert J. Miller]], assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division, had advised that the national interest would preclude prosecution based on the tap, and after the CIA briefing a decision was made not to prosecute.[^16] On October 7, 1963 [[J. Edgar Hoover]] asked the Attorney General's permission for a wiretap on [[Martin Luther King Jr.]]'s residence. According to a memorandum by [[Courtney Evans]], Kennedy noted on October 10 that "the last thing we could afford to have would be a discovery of a wiretap on King's residence."[^17]
### Mitchell, Chile and the Vesco Case
[[John N. Mitchell]] served as attorney general from January 21, 1969 until March 1, 1972.[^18] A Senate intelligence committee staff report on Chile records that on September 15, 1970, after Allende finished first in the Chilean presidential vote, [[Donald Kendall]] of PepsiCo introduced [[Agustin Edwards]], owner of [[El Mercurio]], to Attorney General Mitchell and to [[Henry A. Kissinger|Henry Kissinger]].[^19]
Mitchell and [[Maurice Stans]], the former commerce secretary, were indicted in Manhattan in May 1973 on charges connected with a contribution from the financier [[Robert Vesco]]. A jury acquitted both of all nine counts on April 28, 1974. Vesco had fled the country. Mitchell still faced conspiracy, obstruction and perjury charges in Washington in connection with the Watergate cover-up.[^20]
Two accounts of how Epstein came to [[Steven Hoffenberg]] survive. Hoffenberg told the journalist [[Vicky Ward]] that the two men were introduced by [[Douglas Leese]], a British defense contractor, and Epstein said they were introduced by Mitchell.[^21]
### Ramsey Clark and the Shaw Investigation
On April 14, 1967, an FBI Domestic Intelligence Division note recorded that [[Ramsey Clark]], then attorney general, had told reporters that the bureau had investigated [[Clay Shaw]] and cleared him.[^22]
### Hubbard's 1951 Letter
In 1951 [[L. Ron Hubbard]] wrote to the Attorney General in Washington, claiming that Communist Party members had wiped out a half-million-dollar operation for him and that his life was in danger. The letter is preserved in the FBI's headquarters file on Hubbard.[^23] In the letter Hubbard also wrote that [[Sara Northrup]] "had attached herself to a Jack Parsons, the rocket expert, during the war and when she left him he was a wreck," and that she was "strangely intimate with many scientists of Los Alamos." The copy of the letter in the FBI headquarters file has the name after "attached herself to" redacted under exemptions b6 and b7C, and the copy in the FBI's separate Scientology file prints the name as [[Jack Parsons]].[^23][^24]
### Levi and the Letelier Investigation, 1976
At an October 21, 1976 meeting, Attorney General [[Edward Levi]] and other Justice Department officials discussed the investigation of the murder of [[Orlando Letelier]] with several of Letelier's colleagues and his widow, [[Isabel Letelier]]. The Washington Post reported that, according to several sources, the colleagues expressed misgivings about the CIA's role in the investigation and urged Levi to use formal subpoenas to obtain information from the agency, and that Levi rejected the proposal, saying that the CIA was cooperating and that such a move was not timely. The same account reported a belief at the CIA that Chilean operatives had not carried out the bombing, which [[George H. W. Bush]], the Director of Central Intelligence, was said to have expressed to Secretary of State Kissinger the week before.[^25]
### Griffin Bell and the ITT Perjury Cases
[[Griffin Bell]] was attorney general from January 1977 to August 1979. The Justice Department charged two [[ITT Corporation]] executives in March 1978 with lying to the Senate about the company's 1973 testimony. A wire report of March 21, 1978 stated that CIA Director [[Stansfield Turner]] had met Bell on the preceding Thursday to express his concern.[^26] Three charges against one of them were dropped in August 1978, and the department dropped the perjury case against an ITT official in March 1979.[^27] The August 1979 guidelines that Bell issued under Executive Order 12036 were the ones the 1982 memorandum later replaced.[^28]
### Meese, Wedtech and INSLAW
Before becoming attorney general, Meese was counselor to the President. A Senate subcommittee report transmitted in May 1988 on [[Wedtech]] recorded that the company contacted a San Francisco attorney, Mr. Wallach, a close friend of Meese, who contacted Meese and his deputy, [[James Jenkins]], on numerous occasions on Wedtech's behalf. Meese asked his staff to ensure that Wedtech received a "fair hearing" on an Army engine contract, and Jenkins convened a May 19, 1982 meeting of agency officials on the subject. In 1985, at Wallach's invitation, Meese entered a limited partnership with [[W. Franklyn Chinn]], a Wedtech consultant who later became a director of the company. Chinn and his associate, Rusty London, were paid more than $1.4 million in cash and stock in 1985 and 1986 for their services to Wedtech. Meese testified at the 1988 trial of [[Lyn Nofziger]] and Mark Bragg that he knew Wallach was a Welbilt consultant but did not know whether he was paid, and that he scanned what Wallach sent him but may have read as little as 10 percent of it carefully.[^29]
Independent counsel [[James C. McKay]] filed an 814-page report on Meese that a three-judge panel made public on July 18, 1988, about two weeks after Meese announced his resignation. It reported seven areas of ethical concern, including a 1985 tax return that omitted capital gains. The Christian Science Monitor reported that McKay believed Meese violated the law by "willfully filing a materially false tax return," and that, in McKay's words, "the trier of fact would probably conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Meese violated" the conflict-of-interest law in telecommunications matters in 1986 and 1987. He declined to prosecute in both areas, stating that the evidence showed Meese intended to file an amended return and pay the tax, and that there was "no evidence that Mr. Meese acted from motivation for personal gain." The report gave its greatest attention to Meese's involvement in a proposed Iraqi oil pipeline and found insufficient evidence to charge a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and found insufficient evidence of criminal wrongdoing in his intervention for Wedtech.[^30]
In the INSLAW dispute, the company's court pleadings described "a conspiracy among friends of Attorney General Meese" to obtain a lucrative automation contract from the Justice Department. The special counsel's report records that Hadron, a software company controlled by a long-time friend of Meese, offered to buy INSLAW, and that when [[Bill Hamilton|William Hamilton]] refused, the chairman of Hadron said, "We have ways of making you sell." A September 1989 staff study of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found no proof that Meese, [[Lowell Jensen]], the deputy attorney general, or other Justice Department officials were involved in a conspiracy to ruin INSLAW or to steal its PROMIS software.[^31]
### Thornburgh and the INSLAW Claims
On October 11, 1988, [[Elliot Richardson]], then counsel to INSLAW, sent a memorandum to Robin Ross, an assistant to Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, summarizing statements from a source that had been relayed by a man named LeGrand.[^31]
The House Committee on the Judiciary, chaired by [[Jack Brooks]], reported on September 10, 1992 (H. Rept. 102-857) that its investigation "largely supports the findings of two Federal courts that the Department 'took, converted, stole' INSLAW's Enhanced PROMIS by 'trickery, fraud and deceit,' and that this misappropriation involved officials at the highest levels of the Department of Justice." It reported that it could not reach a definitive conclusion on the allegation of a high-level conspiracy, in part because of the Department's lack of cooperation: Attorney General Thornburgh "repeatedly reneged on agreements" to provide access to information and witnesses, and the committee was compelled to subpoena him for documents, some of which the Department said had been misplaced or accidentally destroyed. The report recorded Richardson's contention to the committee that the circumstances constituted a possible criminal conspiracy involving Meese, Jensen, [[Earl Brian]] and Justice Department officials, quoted Deputy Attorney General Jensen's sworn statement that he regularly informed the Attorney General of all aspects of the contract, and recorded Meese's denial of any knowledge of bias against INSLAW. It noted sworn statements from witnesses including [[Ari Ben-Menashe]] and [[Michael Riconosciuto]] that the software was distributed internationally, and wrote that "corroborating evidence for a number of their claims made under oath has been found." The Justice Department's firing of [[Anthony Pasciuto]] after he gave the Hamiltons information, and the recantation of the sworn statement of Judge Cornelius Blackshear after a conversation with a Justice Department lawyer, were set out as evidence of possible cover-up.[^32]
### Barr, the INSLAW Special Counsel and the BNL Inquiry
On November 7, 1991, Attorney General [[William Barr]] appointed Judge [[Nicholas J. Bua]] as special counsel to investigate all allegations of wrongdoing in connection with INSLAW.[^31]
Barr told the Miller Center's oral history project that he regarded an independent counsel as unnecessary in the INSLAW and BNL matters because they did not meet the statutory test, and that on INSLAW he "could never quite understand what the allegation was." He said he announced the Bua appointment at his confirmation hearing in response to a question from Senator [[Paul Simon]], and had promised Bua "carte blanche."[^33]
On the [[BNL Scandal|Banca Nazionale del Lavoro]] loans to Iraq, Barr told the same project that, in the face of congressional demands for an independent counsel, he used his "inherent authority to appoint outsiders to come in and conduct investigations." He said he first called former attorney general [[Benjamin Civiletti]], who wanted to do it but concluded he could not because of an upcoming trial, and then picked the retired judge [[Frederick Lacey]].[^33] Lacey's report states that Barr appointed him on October 16, 1992 as independent counsel under 28 C.F.R. Part 600; that on October 27 Barr accepted his recommendation to begin a preliminary investigation under the Independent Counsel statute and asked for a report by December 8, 1992; and that his appointment followed letters from Senator [[David Boren]] and the House and Senate Judiciary Committees about the Justice Department's conduct in the BNL prosecution of [[Christopher Drogoul]].[^34] The report, dated December 8, 1992, concluded that with the exception of the conduct of a Justice Department official named Kloske, the evidence was "clear and convincing" that intent to obstruct or cover up any aspect of the Drogoul prosecution was lacking, and that he had "found no credible evidence" that anyone in the Department or the Atlanta United States Attorney's Office acted to obstruct justice or make false statements. It added that his investigation "does suggest that a possible exception may exist with respect to the conduct of Mr. Kloske, and the Attorney General may wish to consider further investigation," and recommended that Barr notify the Special Division of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that there were no reasonable grounds to believe further investigation was warranted.[^34] Barr said in the interview that Lacey "came out with a report after the election saying that Iraqgate was all nonsense."[^33]
In the same interview Barr said that at the end of the administration he advised [[George H.W. Bush]] to pardon [[Caspar Weinberger]] and "about five others," and of the [[Iran-Contra Affair|Iran-Contra]] pardons: "I certainly did not oppose any of them."[^33]
### Barr and the Epstein Prosecution
Barr was attorney general when the Southern District of New York prosecuted [[Jeffrey Epstein]] in 2019. In a deposition before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on August 18, 2025, Barr was asked whether he had recused himself from the Justice Department's review of the Florida prosecution and plea agreement. He answered, "No, I didn't recuse myself." He said the New York investigation was "the only thing that I was aware of going on when I was there," and, asked about the review, answered, "I don't recall playing a role in the review of that." He said he had considered whether to recuse from the New York matter, that the decision not to recuse was based on input from the department's ethics office by his recollection, and that "I wasn't hovering over that or involved in that" as to the department's 2019 inquiry into the Florida plea deal.[^35]
Asked about his father's role as headmaster of the [[Dalton School]], Barr said "It's not pertinent at all." Asked whether he would investigate the non-prosecution agreement, in light of [[Kirkland & Ellis]]'s representation of Epstein in that matter and Barr's former employment with the firm, he said: "I actually don't think I would've had to recuse myself from that. But I just was never involved in that."[^36]
### The 2007 Non-Prosecution Agreement
[[Alexander Acosta]] was the United States attorney for the Southern District of Florida when the federal investigation of Epstein was resolved. The non-prosecution agreement was signed on September 24, 2007. Epstein's defense sought review by the Criminal Division and then by the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, primarily on whether federal jurisdiction existed over what the defense called "a quintessentially state matter." On June 23, 2008 the Office of the Deputy Attorney General informed defense counsel that the deputy attorney general would not intervene, and Epstein pleaded guilty in state court on June 30, 2008.[^37]
The [[Office of Professional Responsibility]] found in November 2020 that Acosta "made the pivotal decision to resolve the federal investigation of Epstein" through a state-based plea, and that he "participated in its drafting and approved it, with knowledge of its terms." The office stated that Acosta had "plenary authority" as United States attorney to resolve the case as he deemed appropriate. It found no clear and unambiguous standard that required Acosta to indict Epstein on federal charges or that prohibited his decision to defer prosecution to the state, and no evidence that the decision was based on corruption or on impermissible considerations such as Epstein's wealth, status or associations. It found no evidence that a breakfast meeting between Acosta and one of Epstein's defense counsel in October 2007 led to the agreement, which had been signed weeks earlier. OPR concluded that Acosta did not commit professional misconduct, but that the decision to resolve the federal investigation through the agreement "constitutes poor judgment" because the agreement was "a flawed mechanism for satisfying the federal interest," and that he also exercised poor judgment when he failed to make certain that the state would notify victims identified in the federal investigation of the state plea hearing.[^38]
### Reno and the Wilcher Letter
Seymour wrote that [[Paul Wilcher]] hand-delivered a 100-page letter to Attorney General [[Janet Reno]] on May 21, 1993, claiming that holdover Justice Department employees from the Reagan and Bush administrations were responsible for a number of cover-ups unknown to the Attorney General. Wilcher was then investigating the October Surprise incident and the INSLAW case.[^39]
### The Epstein Files, 2025 and 2026
The Justice Department under [[Pam Bondi]] released a first phase of declassified Epstein files on February 27, 2025.[^40] On November 19, 2025 Congress enacted the [[Epstein Files Transparency Act]], Public Law 119-38. It required the attorney general to make publicly available within 30 days all unclassified Justice Department, FBI and United States Attorneys' office records relating to Epstein, permitted the attorney general to withhold or redact information identifying victims and certain other material, and required a report to the Judiciary committees within 15 days after the release was completed. Section 2(b) provides that "No record shall be withheld, delayed, or redacted on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary."[^41]
An unsigned Justice Department and FBI memorandum dated July 7, 2025 stated that the review of Epstein holdings, which included more than 300 gigabytes of data and physical evidence, "revealed no incriminating 'client list,'" that there was "no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals," and that "no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted." It stated that FBI investigators concluded that Epstein committed suicide in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center on August 10, 2019, and that the FBI's review of video footage confirmed that from about 10:40 p.m. on August 9 until about 6:30 a.m. the next morning nobody entered any of the tiers in the special housing unit.[^42] Senator [[Richard Durbin]] wrote to Bondi about the memorandum on July 18, 2025.[^42]
On April 2, 2026 [[Donald Trump]] announced that Bondi would leave office and that Deputy Attorney General [[Todd Blanche]] would serve as acting attorney general.[^43] The Senate confirmed Blanche as attorney general on August 8, 2026 by a vote of 50 to 49.[^44]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Epilogue.
[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Epilogue.
[^2]: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, Pub. L. 95-511, 92 Stat. 1783, § 101(g) and § 102(a)(1). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-92/pdf/STATUTE-92-Pg1783.pdf
[^3]: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Inspector General, *Report of Investigation: Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States* (96-0143-IG), Volume II, *The Contra Story*, Findings ¶ 42 (memorandum of Lawrence Houston, 1954). https://archive.org/details/nps56-111612-04
[^4]: Same report, Findings ¶ 43 (Thornburgh letter of July 24, 1975; Warner reply of July 29, 1975).
[^5]: Same report, Findings ¶ 44 (Headquarters Regulation 7-1 a(7), in force as of November 28, 1975).
[^6]: Same report, Findings ¶¶ 24-25 (memorandum signed February 11 and March 2, 1982; governing dates March 2, 1982 to August 3, 1995; Smith letter of February 11, 1982; Justice Department memorandum of February 8, 1985).
[^7]: Same report, Findings ¶ 34 (no information found of intent to protect Contra activities), ¶ 35 (inconsistent CIA handling of allegations), and ¶ 39 (general counsel's discretion; 1984 report on Jorge Morales; 1988 referral).
[^8]: Robert Parry, "Contra-Cocaine: Evidence of Premeditation," Consortium News, June 1, 1998 (quoting the Smith letter of February 11, 1982 and the Casey letter of March 2, 1982, as placed in the Congressional Record by Representative Waters on May 7, 1998). https://consortiumnews.com/archive/crack12.html
[^9]: Congressional Record, House, July 17, 1998, p. H5847-H5848 (remarks of Representative Waters). https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/congress/1998_cr/h980717-cia.htm
[^10]: PBS Frontline, *Drug Wars,* interview with Frederick P. Hitz, CIA Inspector General 1990 to 1998. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/special/hitz.html
[^11]: Same report, Findings ¶ 26 (August 1995 revision).
[^12]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy* (December 1988), pp. 121-122 (Bueso-Rosa section, including the deposition of Mark M. Richard before the Iran-Contra committee). https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
[^13]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, *The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy* (December 1997), Chapter III (Norwin Meneses), https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/9712/ch03p1.htm
[^14]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, memorandum, R. O. Lallier to A. H. Belmont, May 24, 1961, file 92-2713-175,176, NARA record 124-10210-10327 (reporting the account of Paul Loeb).
[^15]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders* (S. Rept. 94-465, 1975), p. 140. https://archive.org/details/allegedassassina00unit
[^16]: Same report, pp. 131-134 (May 7, 1962 briefing; quotation of the Inspector General's report; Herbert J. Miller's advice of April 24, 1962).
[^17]: Church Committee, *Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans*, Book III (1976), Section IV.B, pp. 115-116 (Evans memoranda of October 10 and 21, 1963; Hoover memorandum of October 7, 1963).
[^18]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Attorney General, "John Newton Mitchell," Attorneys General biography. https://www.justice.gov/ag/bio/mitchell-john-newton
[^19]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Covert Action in Chile 1963-1973* (staff report, December 18, 1975), p. 11. https://archive.org/details/CovertActionInChile196373
[^20]: Associated Press, "Jury acquits Mitchell, Stans," *State News* (Michigan State University), April 29, 1974, p. 1. https://archive.lib.msu.edu/DMC/state_news/1974/state_news_19740429.pdf
[^21]: Vicky Ward, "The Talented Mr. Epstein," *Vanity Fair,* March 2003, https://vickyward.com/article/the-talented-mr-epstein/ ; Vicky Ward, "Jeffrey Epstein's Sick Story Played Out for Years in Plain Sight," *The Daily Beast,* July 9, 2019, https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epsteins-sick-story-played-out-for-years-in-plain-sight/
[^22]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Domestic Intelligence Division, informative note, April 14, 1967, JFK Assassination Records Collection, record 124-10369-10048.
[^23]: L. Ron Hubbard, letter to the Attorney General, 1951, in FBI headquarters file "Hubbard, L. Ron HQ-1." https://archive.org/details/HubbardL.RonHQ1
[^24]: L. Ron Hubbard, letter to the Attorney General, 1951, in FBI file "Church of Scientology / L. Ron Hubbard," Part 5. https://archive.org/details/churchofscientologyl.ronhubbard
[^25]: "No New Leads Uncovered by Letelier Probe," *The Washington Post,* November 1, 1976, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP99-00498R000100020097-6. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp99-00498r000100020097-6
[^26]: "2 ITT Men Charged with Senate Lies," wire report, March 21, 1978, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP09T00207R001000030069-7. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp09t00207r001000030069-7
[^27]: "2 ITT Men Charged with Senate Lies," wire report, March 21, 1978, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP09T00207R001000030069-7; "3 Charges Dropped Against ITT Executive," *The Washington Star,* August 9, 1978, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP09T00207R001000030079-6; "U.S. Drops ITT Official's Perjury Case," *The Washington Post,* March 8, 1979.
[^28]: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Inspector General, *Report of Investigation* (96-0143-IG), Volume II, *The Contra Story*, discussion of the 1982 memorandum and the August 1979 guidelines promulgated by Attorney General Bell under Executive Order 12036. https://archive.org/details/nps56-111612-04
[^29]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, *Wedtech: A Review of Federal Procurement Decisions* (letter of transmittal May 4, 1988), pp. 12-13. https://archive.org/details/WedtechReport
[^30]: Barbara Bradley, "Meese probe ends; scrutiny of attorney generalship continues," *The Christian Science Monitor,* July 19, 1988, quoting the report of Independent Counsel James C. McKay. https://www.csmonitor.com/1988/0719/aed.html
[^31]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* (March 1993), Introduction, and the sections on the Hadron offer, the INSLAW pleadings, the September 1989 Senate staff study, and the October 11, 1988 Richardson memorandum. https://archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport
[^32]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, *The INSLAW Affair: Investigative Report,* H. Rept. 102-857 (September 10, 1992), Summary, pp. 1-12. https://archive.org/details/InslawAffairInvestigativeReport
[^33]: Miller Center, University of Virginia, "William P. Barr Oral History," interview of April 5, 2001, George H. W. Bush Oral History Project (remarks on Bua, Lacey, Civiletti, inherent authority, and the pardons). https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-oral-histories/william-p-barr-oral-history
[^34]: Lacey, Frederick B., "The Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Investigation: Report of the Independent Counsel," Part I, December 8, 1992, reproduced in House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, *Testimony of Former Employees of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro,* Serial No. 103-95 (1994), pp. 343-345 (appointment, letter of October 27, 1992) and pp. 523, 531-532 (conclusions and recommendation). https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit
[^35]: Deposition of William P. Barr, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, August 18, 2025, pp. 47-48 and 51. https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Barr-Transcript.pdf
[^36]: Same transcript, pp. 51 and 92-93.
[^37]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility, *Investigation into the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida's Resolution of Its 2006-2008 Federal Criminal Investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and Its Interactions with Victims during the Investigation,* Executive Summary, November 2020, pp. 2-3. https://www.justice.gov/opr/page/file/1336471/dl
[^38]: Same, pp. 10-12.
[^39]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010.
[^40]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, press release, "Attorney General Pamela Bondi Releases First Phase of Declassified Epstein Files," February 27, 2025. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-pamela-bondi-releases-first-phase-declassified-epstein-files
[^41]: Epstein Files Transparency Act, Pub. L. 119-38, 139 Stat. 656 (enacted November 19, 2025), §§ 2(a), 2(c)(1) and 3. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-119publ38/pdf/PLAW-119publ38.pdf
[^42]: U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation, unsigned memorandum, July 7, 2025. https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1407001/dl?inline ; Senator Richard J. Durbin, letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, July 18, 2025. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/download/2025-07-18-rjd-letter-to-ag-bondi-re-epstein?download=1
[^43]: "Trump fires Pam Bondi as attorney general, installs Todd Blanche as acting AG," CBS News, April 2, 2026. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-pam-bondi-attorney-general/
[^44]: U.S. Senate, Roll Call Vote 119th Congress, 2nd Session, Vote No. 230, on the nomination of Todd Blanche to be Attorney General (PN1078), August 8, 2026, 50 yeas and 49 nays. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1192/vote_119_2_00230.htm

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@ -1,37 +1,195 @@
---
---
category: "International Organization"
tags:
- Organization
- NATO
- Gladio
- StayBehind
- ColdWar
- StrategyOfTension
- SHAPE
- Intelligence
- Military
summary: "NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is the Western military alliance whose Cold War infrastructure included the Gladio stay-behind networks documented in this vault; its Brussels headquarters is adjacent to the Belgian elite networks investigated in the Dutroux affair, and its expansion and intelligence coordination mechanisms are referenced throughout vault subjects."
created: 2026-05-14
updated: 2026-05-17
- Belgium
- Italy
aliases:
- NATO
- North Atlantic Treaty Organization
- North Atlantic Treaty
- North Atlantic Alliance
summary: "NATO is the Western military alliance founded in 1949 whose Clandestine Planning Committee and Allied Clandestine Committee dealt with the stay-behind networks that Italian and Belgian parliaments investigated in 1990 and 1991."
location: "Brussels, Belgium"
created: 2026-05-14
updated: 2026-10-12
relations:
- type: member_of
with: "[[Belgium]]"
reverse: true
start: 1949-04-04
fn: 1
- type: member_of
with: "[[Italy]]"
reverse: true
start: 1949-04-04
fn: 2
- type: member_of
with: "[[West Germany]]"
reverse: true
start: 1955-05-09
fn: 2
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Operation Gladio]]"
start: 1956-11-26
role: "stay-behind agreement of the Italian and American services; the NATO-level Clandestine Planning Committee and Allied Clandestine Committee handled the networks"
fn: 9
- type: head_of
with: "[[Lyman Lemnitzer]]"
reverse: true
role: "Supreme Allied Commander Europe"
start: 1963-01-01
end: 1969-07-01
fn: 23
- type: head_of
with: "[[Alexander M. Haig, Jr.]]"
reverse: true
role: "Supreme Allied Commander Europe"
start: 1974
end: 1979
fn: 24
- type: head_of
with: "[[Isaac C. Kidd Jr.]]"
reverse: true
role: "Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic"
start: 1975
end: 1978
fn: 25
- type: head_of
with: "[[David K. E. Bruce]]"
reverse: true
role: "United States Permanent Representative on the North Atlantic Council"
start: 1974-10-17
end: 1976-02-12
fn: 26
- type: investigated
with: "[[Commissione Stragi]]"
reverse: true
role: "Italian parliamentary commission on terrorism and the massacres; the Gladio documentation was placed before it in 1990"
fn: 13
- type: investigated
with: "[[Belgian Senate]]"
reverse: true
role: "parliamentary inquiry into an international clandestine intelligence network in Belgium, rapporteurs Erdman and Hasquin"
start: 1991-10-01
fn: 17
---
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a military alliance founded on April 4, 1949, when twelve founding members - the [[United States]], Canada, the United Kingdom, France, [[Belgium]], the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Portugal, and Italy - signed the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington. The treaty's Article 5 commits members to mutual defense, treating an attack on any one member as an attack on all. NATO's current headquarters is located in Brussels, [[Belgium]], having moved there in 1967 when France under [[Charles de Gaulle]] withdrew from the integrated military command and expelled NATO from French soil.[^1]
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a military alliance founded on April 4, 1949, when twelve states signed the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington: the [[United States]], [[Canada]], the [[United Kingdom]], [[France]], [[Belgium]], the [[Netherlands]], [[Luxembourg]], [[Denmark]], [[Norway]], [[Iceland]], [[Portugal]] and [[Italy]].[^1] Article 5 of the treaty provides that "an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all."[^1] [[Greece]] joined in 1952 and [[West Germany]] in 1955.[^2]
### Gladio and Stay-Behind Networks
The most consequential covert dimension of NATO documented in this vault is [[Operation Gladio]] - the NATO-wide network of stay-behind organizations established in the late 1940s to provide armed resistance in the event of a Soviet invasion or communist political takeover. The networks were organized under the authority of what NATO termed the "Clandestine Planning Committee" and the "Allied Co-ordination Committee," and were implemented by national intelligence services with CIA and [[MI6]] technical support.
The Gladio networks are documented to have existed in at minimum 14 NATO member states, including [[Italy]], [[Belgium]], [[Germany]], France, Greece, Portugal, Turkey, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, and Austria. Italian Prime Minister [[Giulio Andreotti]] confirmed Gladio's existence in October 1990 following a parliamentary investigation prompted by Italian judge [[Felice Casson]]'s discovery of the network's records in a military intelligence archive in Rome. The Belgian network, known as [[SDRA8]], has been linked by investigators to the unsolved [[Brabant massacres]] of 1983-1985.[^2]
### NATO Intelligence Sharing
NATO's integrated military command structure required unprecedented peacetime intelligence sharing among its members, creating institutional frameworks for signals intelligence (through the [[UKUSA Agreement]] and SIGINT sharing protocols), human intelligence liaison, and counterintelligence coordination. The CIA operated as the dominant partner in these arrangements, with American intelligence budgets and collection capabilities dwarfing those of most allies. NATO's nuclear planning arrangements also required sharing of classified nuclear targeting and weapon deployment data with allied governments.[^1]
The alliance's headquarters are in [[Brussels]], Belgium, at Evere. The Belgian Senate's 1991 report places the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe ([[SHAPE]]) at Casteau, and records that American commands were moved from Rocquencourt to Casteau after [[Charles de Gaulle]] withdrew France from the integrated military command.[^3] In 1967 the headquarters moved to Belgium after France withdrew from the integrated command and expelled NATO from French soil.[^3][^4]
### Cold War Role
NATO's primary Cold War function was deterring a Soviet conventional military attack on Western [[Europe]] through the threat of American nuclear retaliation. The alliance maintained large conventional forces in [[Germany]] - particularly the U.S. Army's VII Corps and V Corps - alongside nuclear weapons pre-positioned at various European bases. The [[INF Treaty]] of 1987 between [[Ronald Reagan]] and Mikhail Gorbachev, which eliminated intermediate-range nuclear missiles, was a significant Cold War NATO diplomatic moment.
NATO's primary Cold War function was deterring a Soviet conventional attack on Western [[Europe]] through the threat of American nuclear retaliation. The alliance maintained large conventional forces in [[Germany]], particularly the U.S. Army's VII Corps and V Corps, alongside nuclear weapons pre-positioned at European bases.[^4] The [[INF Treaty]] of 1987 between [[Ronald Reagan]] and [[Mikhail Gorbachev]], which eliminated intermediate-range nuclear missiles, was a diplomatic milestone of the period.
After the [[Cold War]], NATO expanded eastward to include former Warsaw Pact members, despite Russian objections. The alliance's Article 5 was invoked for the first time after the September 11, 2001 attacks, leading to NATO's deployment in [[Afghanistan]].[^1]
The integrated command required peacetime exchange of intelligence among members. The [[UKUSA Agreement]] and signals intelligence protocols, liaison between human intelligence services, and counterintelligence coordination were the main channels, with the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] as the largest partner. NATO's nuclear planning also required classified targeting and deployment data to pass to allied governments.[^4]
After the [[Cold War]] ended, NATO admitted former Warsaw Pact members over Russian objections. Article 5 was invoked for the first time after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and NATO deployed to [[Afghanistan]].[^4]
### Stay-Behind Committees: the CPC and the ACC
The stay-behind networks were run through two multinational bodies that sat around the NATO command structure. The Italian parliamentary commission's 1992 report, Doc. XXIII n. 51, traces the first, the Clandestine Planning Committee (CPC). A British member of the service sent the head of the Italian service, SIFAR, a letter on April 7, 1952 informing him that the committee had been set up at the initiative of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe. It was formally constituted in August 1951 under the SHAPE Standing Group, with representatives of the French, British and American services, and the SACEUR had asked that the services of the other NATO countries be added. Italy first attended a CPC meeting as an associate member on May 19, 1959.[^5]
The report describes the second body, the Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC), as created in 1958 on the initiative of the SACEUR and the CPC, with the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg as participants. Italy joined on April 15, 1964, shortly after West Germany.[^6]
The Belgian Senate inquiry describes the Belgian branch of the CPC as the liaison between the Belgian services and the major NATO commands, above all SHAPE. It records that the Belgian CPC secretariat was a branch of SDRA, the military unit, and that no members of SDRA VIII or of the STC/Mob unit of the Sûreté took part in the CPC's work. The commission then asked why a body attached to SHAPE attended ACC meetings when the witnesses claimed the ACC had nothing to do with NATO's mission.[^7] Two witnesses told the commission that the Belgian CPC secretariat was abolished on April 1, 1991.[^8]
The Italian report dates the bilateral work of the Italian and American services to 1953 and 1954, when land was acquired for the Capo Marargiu base near Alghero in Sardinia and construction began with CIA financing under Colonel Santini. The name Gladio is first recorded at an October 18, 1956 meeting between SIFAR (Colonel Giulio Fettarappa Sandri and Major Mario Accasto) and the CIA (Bob Porter and John Edwards). The accord on the post-occupation Italian-American clandestine network exists in a text restated on November 26, 1956; the Italian approval of the American draft was communicated on November 29, and the accord was fixed as in force from November 28, 1956, the date of the first document in the Gladio series.[^9] The same report says the stay-behind networks, already organized in France, the Netherlands and Belgium, were later extended to Denmark and Norway and to the German and Austrian territories under Allied control.[^10] [[Daniele Ganser]]'s study lists stay-behind networks in at least fourteen European states, among them Italy, Belgium, Germany, France, Greece, Portugal, Turkey, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway and the non-member Austria.[^11]
### Italy and the 1990 Disclosure
Italian investigators linked the Italian branch, [[Operation Gladio]], to the bombings of the [[strategy of tension]]. [[Felice Casson]], the magistrate who was working on the 1972 [[Peteano bombing]], obtained documents on the network. In 1984 [[Vincenzo Vinciguerra]], an [[Ordine Nuovo]] member who had become a state's witness, testified that stay-behind networks connected to NATO had organized attacks carried out by neofascist operatives, with military intelligence providing protection. The attacks in his account include the [[Piazza Fontana bombing]].[^12]
On October 24, 1990, Prime Minister [[Giulio Andreotti]] told the Chamber of Deputies that the structure "esiste nel quadro della NATO" (exists within the framework of NATO). He described it as a network providing, in case of occupation by enemy forces, "una rete di salvaguardia, sia informativa sia di reazione" (a network of safeguard, both informational and of reaction), all within the framework of the Alliance. He also told the Chamber that he had opened the archives completely to Casson.[^13] The Italian government's figures, transmitted to the parliamentary commission, put the membership at dissolution at 622 persons, 45 of them deceased, covering 1958 to 1990: 408 members of the cells and 214 of the rapid-deployment units. Recruitment had been started for 1,915 names, two thirds of which ended negatively, and a file was kept on each. The commission recorded that 127 of the 622 were enrolled before the required information on them had been gathered, and that 24 were proposed or confirmed although they had belonged to the Fascist party, the Italian Social Republic or the Decima MAS.[^14]
A parliamentary question filed in Bonn on November 12, 1990 summarized the Italian statements. It said that Andreotti had confirmed the existence of a parallel NATO intelligence service under the name "Organisation Gladio" into the 1980s and possibly later, and that its basis was a secret addendum to the accession declarations of new NATO members. The question records that the former Greek prime minister [[Andreas Papandreou|Papandreou]] had confirmed the same basis for Greece and an activity under the codename "Haut des roten Berges." These are the questioners' statements, not findings.[^15]
### The European Parliament Resolution
On November 22, 1990 the [[European Parliament]] adopted a joint resolution on the Gladio affair, replacing five motions, published in the Official Journal C 324 of December 24, 1990 (page 201).[^16] Its recitals refer to "the existence for 40 years of a clandestine parallel intelligence and armed operations organization in several Member States of the Community," state that for over 40 years "this organization has escaped all democratic controls and has been run by the secret services of the states concerned in collaboration with NATO," and record that "in certain Member States military secret services (or uncontrolled branches thereof) were involved in serious cases of terrorism and crime as evidenced by, various judicial inquiries." The operative paragraphs condemn "the clandestine creation of manipulative and operational networks" and call for "a full investigation into the nature, structure, aims and all other aspects of these clandestine organizations," including "the possible collusion of the secret services of Member States or third countries"; protest "vigorously at the assumption by certain US military personnel at SHAPE and in NATO of the right to encourage the establishment in Europe of a clandestine intelligence and operation network"; call on the member state governments "to dismantle all clandestine military and paramilitary networks"; call on the judiciaries concerned to clarify any action taken "to destabilize the democratic structure of the Member States"; request national parliamentary committees of inquiry to draw up a complete list of such organizations; and instruct the President to forward the resolution to the Commission, the Council, the Secretary-General of NATO, the member state governments and the United States Government.[^16]
### Belgium and the SDRA8 Network
The Belgian network, [[SDRA8]] (SDRA VIII), was the subject of a parliamentary inquiry into the existence in Belgium of an international clandestine intelligence network. The report by Erdman and Hasquin is dated October 1, 1991. It examines two units, the STC/Mob branch of the [[Sûreté de l'État|Sûreté]] and the SDRA VIII unit.[^17]
The inquiry looked at the [[Brabant massacres]], the robberies and killings attributed to the Brabant gang (the Bende van Nijvel) from early 1982 to November 1985, ending with the attack on a supermarket at Aalst. Twenty-eight people died and no one has been convicted; the limitation period, due to expire in 2015, was extended by ten years.[^18] Daniele Ganser dates the massacres 1983 to 1985.[^19]
The Senate report records that the magistrates in the Brabant investigation had turned first to the structure of the military and civil intelligence services and then to the stay-behind networks, and had interviewed the acting administrator-general of the Sûreté, the chief of the military service and Colonel Bodart on the subject. It also records that the chiefs of SDRA VIII and STC/Mob and several instructors did not give the magistrates the identities of their agents, citing their undertaking not to reveal them.[^20] Ganser wrote that the senators ordered Raes (director of the Sûreté from 1977 to 1990 and chief of STC/Mob) and Lieutenant Colonel Bernard Legrand (chief of SDRA8) to supply the names, or at least the birth dates, of the stay-behind agents; that both refused although the Justice Minister and the Defense Minister had ordered them to cooperate; and that in the end the senators could not identify the men behind the Brabant terror. He quotes Legrand: "there remain very good reasons not to reveal the names of the clandestines." He wrote also that Legrand answered in Le Soir with a coded notice addressed to "Dear friends in Operation Stay Behind, section SDRA8," ending "Adolphe is looking well!"[^19]
Daniele Ganser recounted the documentary maker Allan Francovich's thesis that segments of the Belgian stay-behind may have cooperated with the far-right Westland New Post; the statement of the former gendarme Martial Lekeu that members of the gendarmerie and the army were involved in the killings and that he was told to keep quiet when he reported it in December 1983; and the account of the Westland New Post member Michel Libert that from 1982 to 1985 his group, "with cover from the Gendarmerie, with cover from Security," surveyed supermarkets on orders whose purpose he was not told.[^11] The Senate, in its own finding, wrote that on the elements available to it no direct link could be established between SDRA VIII and STC/Mob on one side and the persons and organizations investigated in 1980 and 1988 on the other, and that no known instructor or recruiter of either unit was, in any capacity, involved in the judicial investigation into the Brabant killings. The same section records that a Sûreté official, a military intelligence officer, a court-appointed expert in several Brabant cases and a gendarmerie officer all had sustained relations in the same period with Major Bougerol, that two of them belonged with him to a confraternity (the hospitaliers of Notre-Dame d'Aulne), and that a member of the B.S.R. who had attended at least one far-right meeting acted as an investigating agent in files on the Brabant killings.[^20]
### U.S. Commanders and Envoys
[[Lyman Lemnitzer]] served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff until September 30, 1962. His move to Europe was announced in July 1962: at the news conference of July 23, 1962 [[John F. Kennedy]] answered a question on his "swift appointment" as Commander in Chief of U.S. Forces in Europe on the retirement of General Lauris Norstad, said Norstad's resignation would take effect October 1, and said Lemnitzer "could have retired in October and there would have been a vacancy as Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."[^21] The Joint Staff's history records that Norstad announced his retirement in July 1962 and that his departure, delayed by the Cuban missile crisis, took place on January 2, 1963.[^22] He became Commander in Chief of the U.S. European Command on November 1, 1962 and Supreme Allied Commander Europe on January 1, 1963, a post he held until his retirement on July 1, 1969.[^23]
[[Alexander M. Haig, Jr.]] was announced in September 1974 as the successor to General Andrew J. Goodpaster as SACEUR, and he held the post until 1979.[^24] The Defense Planning Committee of the North Atlantic Council appointed [[Isaac C. Kidd Jr.]] Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic in March 1975, to succeed Admiral Ralph W. Cousins.[^25] [[David K. E. Bruce]] was appointed U.S. Permanent Representative on the North Atlantic Council on October 17, 1974 and left the post on February 12, 1976.[^26]
[[Vernon Walters]] wrote that after the war he served as aide to [[W. Averell Harriman]] at Marshall Plan headquarters in Paris, then helped establish NATO's Supreme Headquarters in 1951, and that during the 1950s he was aide and interpreter to Presidents [[Harry Truman]] and [[Dwight Eisenhower]] at international summits.[^27]
### Dozier and the Red Brigades
[[James L. Dozier]] was kidnapped from his apartment in Verona, Italy, on December 17, 1981 by the [[Red Brigades]]. A press clipping in the CIA reading room describes him as "the highest-ranking U.S. officer in NATO's southern Europe command."[^28] A memorandum of March 23, 1982 from the [[Grill Flame]] project manager records a debriefing of Dozier on February 9, 1982, at which he was asked to review remote-viewing drawings made during the search and to comment on places and events of his captivity.[^29] A January 1982 Army message reported visions by several private individuals in Kent, Washington, that concerned Dozier. The visions described a settlement called the "place of the shepherds" and a hallway behind metal bars, and the message records that the visions linked the settlement to Dozier's whereabouts.[^30]
### Narut and the 1975 Oslo Conference
[[Commander Narut]], a Navy clinical psychologist stationed in Naples, was reported by [[The Sunday Times|the Sunday Times]] on July 6, 1975 to have disclosed at a NATO conference in Oslo a Navy program to select and condition covert assassins. The Pentagon denied the report the same day. Narut partially withdrew his most specific claim within days, and [[Peter Watson]], the paper's science correspondent who wrote the story, did not withdraw it.[^31]
### The Assessment
Retired Army sergeant major [[Robert O. Dean]] has said in speeches and online postings that while stationed at SHAPE in the mid-1960s he read a classified document titled "The Assessment: An Evaluation of a Possible Threat to NATO Forces in Europe," which studied UFOs and the potential threat they posed to NATO.[^32] In a 1995 interview Dean said he held a "cosmic" clearance at SHAPE and found the document in the war-room vault in 1964. He described its origin as NATO detections of unidentified objects crossing from the Soviet Union over the Warsaw Pact countries and central Europe and vanishing over the Norwegian Sea, and a three-year military investigation in which aircraft sent to track "large metallic, circular objects" were outflown. He called the resulting report "mind-boggling" and said it found that "there was no military threat involved, because these dudes have enough technology that if they had wanted to take us over, they apparently had the ability to do it."[^33]
The SHAPE Historical Office has said it has been asked many times for a copy and has analyzed a photograph said to show the cover. It concluded that the cover page is a forgery and that SHAPE "prepared no report on UFOs during the 1960s." The office states that it takes no position on whether UFOs exist.[^32]
### Corporate and Political Links
In June 2026 WIRED reported on a leaked registration list for the 2026 retreat of the [[Dialog]] society, which [[Peter Thiel]] co-founded. The registration records list General Alexus Grynkewich, NATO's supreme allied commander Europe and head of U.S. European Command.[^34]
The [[Liege]] pickup point for American matériel bought from NATO stocks in Europe appears in the account of [[Ari Ben-Menashe]], who described Israeli chartered cargo flights collecting the matériel for transfer to Iran.[^35] [[Barbara Honegger]] alleged in her 1989 book on the [[October Surprise]] that a heroin-smuggling network in Italy was used to launder NATO arms stocks for diversion to Iran, with the involvement of Italian intelligence officers linked to the [[P2]] lodge.[^36]
### Footnotes
[^1]: "North Atlantic Treaty Organization," *Encyclopaedia Britannica.* https://www.britannica.com/topic/North-Atlantic-Treaty-Organization
[^2]: Ganser, Daniele. *NATO's Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe.* Frank Cass, 2005.
[^1]: North Atlantic Treaty, Washington, April 4, 1949, Article 5 and the signatory list. NATO official text. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_17120.htm
[^2]: Deutscher Bundestag, Drucksache 11/8452, Kleine Anfrage, November 12, 1990, which gives the accession years of Italy (1949), Greece (1952) and the Federal Republic of Germany (1955). https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/11/084/1108452.pdf
[^3]: Belgian Senate, Doc. 1117-4 (1990-1991), "Enquête parlementaire sur l'existence en Belgique d'un réseau de renseignements clandestin international," rapport fait au nom de la commission par MM. Erdman et Hasquin, October 1, 1991. Passages on the NATO headquarters at Evere, SHAPE at Casteau, and the transfer of commands from Rocquencourt to Casteau after France's withdrawal from the integrated commands. https://senate.be/lexdocs/S0523/S05231297.pdf
[^4]: "North Atlantic Treaty Organization," *Encyclopaedia Britannica*. https://www.britannica.com/topic/North-Atlantic-Treaty-Organization
[^5]: Commissione parlamentare d'inchiesta sul terrorismo in Italia e sulle cause della mancata individuazione dei responsabili delle stragi, *Relazione sull'inchiesta condotta sulle vicende connesse all'operazione Gladio*, Doc. XXIII n. 51, approved April 1992, chapter "La storia di Gladio," on the CPC, the letter of April 7, 1952 from Peter Frazier, and Italy's associate membership from May 19, 1959. Translated from the Italian. https://www.parlamento.it/service/PDF/PDFServer/BGT/909971.pdf
[^6]: Same report, chapter "La storia di Gladio," on the Allied Clandestine Committee created in 1958 and Italy's entry on April 15, 1964. Translated from the Italian. https://www.parlamento.it/service/PDF/PDFServer/BGT/909971.pdf
[^7]: Belgian Senate, Doc. 1117-4 (1990-1991), section on the Belgian branch of the Clandestine Planning Committee, report page 23. https://senate.be/lexdocs/S0523/S05231297.pdf
[^8]: Belgian Senate, Doc. 1117-4 (1990-1991), same section, on the abolition of the Belgian CPC secretariat on April 1, 1991, as stated by two witnesses. https://senate.be/lexdocs/S0523/S05231297.pdf
[^9]: Same report of 1992, chapter "La storia di Gladio," on the land purchases and CIA-financed works at Capo Marargiu (1953 and 1954), the meeting of October 18, 1956, the restatement text of November 26, 1956 (annex 2), the approval of November 29 and the entry into force from November 28, 1956 (document "Gladio/1"). Translated from the Italian. https://www.parlamento.it/service/PDF/PDFServer/BGT/909971.pdf
[^10]: Same report of 1992, chapter on the origins of the stay-behind networks, on the networks in France, the Netherlands and Belgium, their extension to Denmark and Norway, and the German and Austrian territories under Allied control. Translated from the Italian. https://www.parlamento.it/service/PDF/PDFServer/BGT/909971.pdf
[^11]: Daniele Ganser, *NATO's Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe* (Frank Cass, 2005), pp. 139-144. https://archive.org/details/natos-secret-armies-operation-gladio-and-terrorism-in-western-europe-contemporar
[^12]: Vincenzo Vinciguerra, testimony to the Italian investigating magistrates, 1984, as cited for this passage.
[^13]: Camera dei deputati, X Legislatura, *Discussioni*, seduta del 24 ottobre 1990 (no. 537), statement of Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti. Translated from the Italian. https://legislature.camera.it/_dati/leg10/lavori/stenografici/sed0537/sed0537.pdf
[^14]: Same report of 1992, note 9 to the chapter on the organization of Gladio, on the 622 members at dissolution, the 408 and 214 split, the 1,915 names and the 127 and 24 cases. Translated from the Italian. https://www.parlamento.it/service/PDF/PDFServer/BGT/909971.pdf
[^15]: Deutscher Bundestag, Drucksache 11/8452, Kleine Anfrage of the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen group, November 12, 1990. Translated from the German. https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/11/084/1108452.pdf
[^16]: European Parliament, Resolution on the Gladio affair, November 22, 1990, replacing motions B3-2021, B3-2058, B3-2068, B3-2078 and B3-2087/90, Official Journal of the European Communities C 324, December 24, 1990, p. 201 (EUR-Lex CELEX 51990IP2021). English text of recitals A to G and paragraphs 1 to 8 as reproduced at https://www.voltairenet.org/article219618.html
[^17]: Belgian Senate, Doc. 1117-4 (1990-1991), title page and the table of contents chapters on the STC/Mob and SDRA VIII units. https://senate.be/lexdocs/S0523/S05231297.pdf
[^18]: Joery Matthys, "Ghosts from a (terrorist?) past: the Brabant Killers in Belgium," Leiden Security and Global Affairs Blog, November 13, 2017, on the series beginning in early 1982, ending with the Aalst supermarket robbery of November 1985, and the ten-year extension of the limitation period. https://www.leidensecurityandglobalaffairs.nl/articles/ghosts-from-a-terrorist-past-the-brabant-killers-in-belgium
[^19]: Daniele Ganser, "Terrorism in Western Europe: An Approach to NATO's Secret Stay-Behind Armies," *The Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations*, Winter/Spring 2005, pp. 84-85 (Belgium section), citing the Belgian Senate inquiry. https://scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1122&context=diplo_ir
[^20]: Belgian Senate, Doc. 1117-4 (1990-1991), section on the Brabant investigations and the STC/Mob and SDRA VIII units. The French text reads "aucun lien direct n'a pu être établi entre S.D.R.A. VIII et S.T.C./Mob. d'une part et les personnes et organisations qui firent l'objet des enquêtes de 1980 et 1988" and "aucun instructeur ou recruteur connu du S.T.C./Mob. ou du S.D.R.A. VIII n'est impliqué." https://senate.be/lexdocs/S0523/S05231297.pdf
[^21]: John F. Kennedy, news conference no. 39, July 23, 1962, answer on General Lemnitzer and General Norstad. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-press-conferences/news-conference-39
[^22]: Joint Chiefs of Staff Historical Division, *The Joint Chiefs of Staff and National Policy*, vol. VIII, chapter on NATO, on Norstad's July 1962 announcement and the January 2, 1963 departure. https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/History/Policy/Policy_V008.pdf
[^23]: U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, biography of General Lyman Louis Lemnitzer, archived copy (Wayback Machine, 2024). https://web.archive.org/web/2024/https://www.jcs.mil/About/The-Joint-Staff/Chairman/General-Lyman-Louis-Lemnitzer
[^24]: Office of the White House Press Secretary, announcement of the appointment of General Alexander M. Haig, Jr. as Supreme Allied Commander Europe, replacing General Andrew J. Goodpaster. Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library. https://fordlibrarymuseum.gov/sites/default/files/pdf_documents/library/document/0248/whpr19740916-010.pdf
[^25]: Office of the White House Press Secretary, March 19, 1975, notice of the appointment of Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, Jr. as Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic, to succeed Admiral Ralph W. Cousins. Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library. https://fordlibrarymuseum.gov/sites/default/files/pdf_documents/library/document/0248/whpr19750319-007.pdf
[^26]: U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, biography of David K. E. Bruce, archived copy (Wayback Machine, 2024). https://web.archive.org/web/2024/https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/bruce-david-kirkpatrick-este
[^27]: Vernon A. Walters, *Silent Missions* (Doubleday, 1978).
[^28]: CIA-RDP96-00788R000100240026-8, press clipping on the Red Brigades kidnapping of Brigadier General James L. Dozier, describing him as "the highest-ranking U.S. officer in NATO's southern Europe command." https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r000100240026-8
[^29]: CIA-RDP96-00788R000100250001-4, memorandum of March 23, 1982 from Robert J. Jachim, GRILL FLAME project manager, on the debriefing of BG Dozier at the Command SCIF, Fort Meade, on February 9, 1982. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r000100250001-4
[^30]: CIA-RDP96-00788R000100250011-3, Army Intelligence and Security Command message of January 25, 1982 reporting visions concerning BG Dozier, including "THE PLACE OF THE SHEPHERDS." https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r000100250011-3
[^31]: Peter Watson, "The Strange Tale of Commander Narut," *The Sunday Times* (London), July 6, 1975.
[^32]: Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, Historical Office, statement on the alleged 1960s SHAPE "Assessment" of UFOs, archived copy (Wayback Machine, 2023). It names Robert O. Dean and quotes the title of the document he described. https://web.archive.org/web/2023/https://shape.nato.int/page2148213115
[^33]: "Bob Dean is flying high," *Tucson Weekly*, June 29, 1995, quoting Dean. https://www.tucsonweekly.com/tw/06-29-95/cover.htm
[^34]: Dell Cameron and Yulia Almazova, "Leak Exposes Members of Peter Thiel's Secretive 'Dialog' Society," *WIRED*, June 16, 2026. https://www.wired.com/story/leak-exposes-members-of-peter-thiels-secretive-dialog-society/
[^35]: Ari Ben-Menashe, *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network* (Sheridan Square Press, 1992).
[^36]: Barbara Honegger, *October Surprise* (1989).

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20 - ORGANIZATIONS/INTERNATIONAL/United Nations.md
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---
---
category: "International Organization"
tags:
- Organization
- International
- UnitedNations
- Intelligence
- UNSecurityCouncil
- ColdWar
summary: "The United Nations is the international organization founded in 1945 that appears throughout this vault primarily as an institutional arena for Cold War conflicts and covert operations: the Security Council veto dynamic that constrained collective responses to U.S.- and Soviet-backed proxy wars, the Oil-for-Food scandal that implicated international figures in Iraqi sanctions evasion, and the UNSCOM weapons inspection program."
- Congo
- DagHammarskjold
- PatriceLumumba
- Iraq
- OilForFood
- UNSCOM
- KurtWaldheim
- NSA
- Intelligence
- Epstein
- UFO
- Grenada
aliases:
- United Nations
- UN
- U.N.
- United Nations Organization
summary: "The United Nations is the 1945 international organization whose record here runs through the Congo, Dag Hammarskjöld's death, Iraqi inspections, Oil-for-Food, NSA penetration, and Grenada's UFO item."
created: 2026-05-14
updated: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-10-12
location: "New York City, New York"
relations:
- type: head_of
with: "[[Dag Hammarskjöld]]"
reverse: true
start: 1953-04
end: 1961-09-18
role: "Secretary-General of the United Nations"
fn: 25
- type: head_of
with: "[[Kurt Waldheim]]"
reverse: true
start: 1972-01-01
end: 1981-12-31
role: "Secretary-General of the United Nations"
fn: 54
- type: appointed
with: "[[Folke Bernadotte]]"
reverse: true
start: 1948-05-14
role: "United Nations Mediator in Palestine"
fn: 15
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Benon Sevan]]"
reverse: true
role: "Executive Director of the Oil-for-Food Programme"
fn: 53
- type: appointed
with: "[[Mohamed Chande Othman]]"
reverse: true
start: 2017
role: "Eminent Person on the death of Dag Hammarskjöld"
fn: 34
- type: appointed
with: "[[Cyrus Vance]]"
reverse: true
start: 1991-10-08
end: 1993-05
role: "Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yugoslavia"
fn: 66
- type: appointed
with: "[[James A. Baker III]]"
reverse: true
start: 1997
end: 2004
role: "Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General for Western Sahara"
fn: 67
---
The United Nations is an international organization founded on October 24, 1945, by 51 original member states following [[World War II]]. Its founding charter established six principal organs: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Secretariat. The Security Council holds primary responsibility for international peace and security; its five permanent members ([[United States]], United Kingdom, France, [[Soviet Union|Russia]], and China) hold veto power over substantive resolutions. Headquarters is located in [[New York City]].[^1]
The United Nations is an international organization founded on October 24, 1945, by 51 original member states following [[World War II]]. Its charter established six principal organs: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Secretariat, headed by the Secretary-General. The Security Council holds primary responsibility for international peace and security. Its five permanent members, the [[United States]], the United Kingdom, France, [[Soviet Union|Russia]], and China, hold a veto over substantive resolutions, which require nine votes including the concurring votes of the permanent members. Headquarters is in [[New York City]].[^1]
### Cold War Role
### Security Council and the Cold War
The UN Security Council's veto structure largely paralyzed the organization as a collective security mechanism during the Cold War, as the United States and Soviet Union each blocked resolutions adverse to their clients. The United States used its veto to protect [[Israel]] from resolutions censuring its occupation policies; the Soviet Union used its veto to protect clients including [[Cuba]], [[Syria]], and [[Vietnam]]. This dynamic meant that most of the proxy conflicts documented in this vault - the Contra war in [[Nicaragua]], the covert operations in [[El Salvador]] and [[Guatemala]], Soviet operations in [[Afghanistan]] - proceeded without effective UN constraint.[^1]
The first veto was cast by the Soviet Union on February 16, 1946, on a draft resolution concerning the withdrawal of foreign troops from Lebanon and Syria. The first United States veto followed on March 17, 1970, on a draft concerning Southern Rhodesia.[^2] On September 10, 1972, the United States vetoed S/10784, a draft submitted by Guinea, Somalia and Yugoslavia that called on the parties to the Middle East conflict to "cease immediately all military operations and to exercise the greatest restraint."[^3] Later United States vetoes on Middle East drafts included S/10974 (July 1973, the Middle East situation and the occupied territories), S/11898 (December 1975, [[Israel|Israeli]] air attacks against [[Lebanon]]) and S/11940 (January 1976, Palestinian self-determination and withdrawal from the territories occupied since 1967); the United States cast the only negative vote on each.[^4] The same tabulation lists further United States vetoes on Middle East drafts in the following decades.
### UNSCOM and Iraq Inspections
The United States also vetoed the Security Council draft on the 1983 invasion of [[Grenada]] (S/16077/Rev.1, October 27, 1983, 13-1-1), Nicaragua's draft on the mining of its ports (S/16463, April 4, 1984, 13-1-1), and the draft on compliance with the International Court of Justice judgment in Nicaragua's case against the United States (S/18428, October 28, 1986, 11-1-3).[^5] No Security Council measure came out of the Contra war in [[Nicaragua]], and the covert operations in [[El Salvador]] and [[Guatemala]] proceeded without effective United Nations constraint.
Following the [[Gulf War]], the UN Security Council established the [[UN Special Commission|United Nations Special Commission]] (UNSCOM) under Resolution 687 (April 1991) to verify the elimination of Iraq's chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs and ballistic missiles. UNSCOM operated in [[Iraq]] from 1991 until December 1998, when [[Saddam Hussein]]'s government expelled the inspectors. The inspections were technically groundbreaking but operationally compromised: UNSCOM's executive chairman [[Richard Butler]] and earlier chair [[Rolf Ekeus]] later acknowledged that the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] had used UNSCOM's communications infrastructure to conduct intelligence collection beyond the mandate of weapons verification.[^2]
On January 7, 1980, the Council voted 13-2-0 on S/13729, the draft on the Soviet intervention in [[Afghanistan]]; two days later resolution 462 recorded "the lack of unanimity of its permanent members" that had "prevented it from exercising its primary responsibility" and called an emergency special session of the General Assembly.[^6] That session's resolution ES-6/2 of January 14, 1980 called for the immediate, unconditional and total withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.[^7] The Soviet Union cast the veto when drafts on [[Vietnam|Viet Nam]]'s intervention in Cambodia (S/13027, January 15, 1979) and on the China-Viet Nam border (S/13162, March 16, 1979) failed 13-2-0, and Russia and China vetoed a series of drafts on [[Syria]] beginning with S/2011/612 in October 2011.[^8] The Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 came before the Council on a United States draft (S/5182, October 22, 1962) calling for the dismantling and withdrawal of offensive weapons from [[Cuba]] and for a United Nations observer corps.[^9]
UNSCOM was succeeded by [[UNMOVIC]] (UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission) in 1999. UNMOVIC inspectors under [[Hans Blix]] were in Iraq when the United States and United Kingdom invaded in March 2003, asserting that [[Saddam Hussein]] retained prohibited weapons programs. No such programs were found.
When the Security Council was blocked, the General Assembly acted in the 1956 crises. On November 2, 1956, its first emergency special session called for an immediate cease-fire in the fighting around the Suez Canal and the withdrawal of forces behind the armistice lines.[^10] On November 4, its second emergency special session addressed the situation in [[Hungary]] caused by foreign intervention.[^11] On November 1, [[Imre Nagy]]'s cabinet had decided unanimously, [[János Kádár]] included, to renounce Hungary's membership in the [[Warsaw Pact]] and declare neutrality, and the government asked the Secretary-General in a telegram to place the question on the United Nations agenda with special dispatch and asked the four great powers to help defend the country's neutrality.[^12]
### Oil-for-Food Scandal
On July 7, 1950, the Security Council requested that the United States designate the commander of the forces made available to a unified command in Korea, in the [[Korean War]].[^13] [[Seymour Hersh]] wrote that [[David Ben-Gurion]] had secretly offered to send Israeli troops to fight alongside United Nations forces in South Korea, and that [[Harry S. Truman]] declined the offer, reportedly fearing it would bind him to a security arrangement with Israel.[^14]
The Oil-for-Food Programme, established under Security Council Resolution 986 (1995) and operational from December 1996, permitted Iraq to sell oil in order to purchase food and medicine under UN supervision. A 2004-2005 independent inquiry chaired by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman [[Paul Volcker]] found that the programme had been corrupted by systematic kickback schemes in which Iraqi officials collected surcharges on oil contracts and suppliers inflated invoices. The inquiry identified approximately 2,200 companies and individuals from 66 countries as having paid surcharges to the Iraqi government, including officials at UN member states and individuals connected to [[Benon Sevan]], the programme's executive director, who was found to have received allocations.[^2]
### Israel and the Bernadotte mission
### Other Relevant Bodies
On May 14, 1948, the General Assembly authorized a United Nations Mediator in Palestine.[^15] The post went to Count [[Folke Bernadotte]]. Bernadotte was assassinated in [[Jerusalem]] on September 17, 1948, in the part of the city under Jewish control, together with a French United Nations observer.[^16] On September 20, 1948, [[Anthony Eden]] told the [[House of Commons]] that he felt sure the whole House would join in deploring "the callous and the seemingly purposeless assassination of Count Bernadotte."[^17] The General Assembly's resolution of December 11, 1948, on the Palestinian refugees resolved that refugees wishing to return to their homes should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid to those who chose not to return.[^18]
The United Nations Fund for Drug Abuse Control (UNFDAC), a precursor to the [[UN Office on Drugs and Crime]], received funding from sources connected to the CIA-backed anti-narcotics efforts that intersected with the Contra resupply networks. [[UNICEF]]'s institutional name was exploited by the [[CRIES]] pedophile network in Belgium, which used a UNICEF umbrella for operations until the connection was exposed in 1986.
### Congo, Lumumba, and the death of Dag Hammarskjöld
On July 14, 1960, the Security Council authorized the Secretary-General to take the steps needed to provide the Congolese government with military assistance after the [[Katanga]] secession.[^19] On August 9, 1960, it called on [[Belgium]] to withdraw its troops from Katanga and reaffirmed that the United Nations Force in the Congo "will not be a party to or in any way intervene in or be used to influence the outcome of any internal conflict, constitutional or otherwise."[^20] [[Patrice Lumumba]], who had appealed to the United Nations, visited Washington in late July 1960, where Secretary of State [[Christian Herter]] pledged economic aid. After he was dismissed by [[Joseph Kasavubu]] on September 5 and lost the power struggle to Kasavubu and [[Joseph Mobutu]], who seized power on September 14, Lumumba asked the United Nations force for protection.[^21]
The [[Church Committee]] documented the American side of the same weeks. A cable of August 18, 1960 from [[Bronson Tweedy]], chief of the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s Africa Division, referred to "your and our belief Lumumba must be removed if possible"; on August 19 [[Richard Bissell]] cabled "You are authorized proceed with operation" to replace Lumumba with a pro-Western group; and on August 26 [[Allen Dulles]] cabled the Leopoldville station that "targets of opportunity may present themselves to you" and authorized up to $100,000 for "crash programs."[^22] The Committee reported that in the fall of 1960 two CIA officials were asked by superiors to assassinate Lumumba, that poisons were sent to the Congo and that exploratory steps were taken toward gaining access to Lumumba, and wrote that it "does not appear from the evidence that the United States was in any way involved in the killing" by Congolese rivals in early 1961. On the question of authority, the Committee wrote that the chain of events was "strong enough to permit a reasonable inference that the plot to assassinate Lumumba was authorized by President Eisenhower," while the countervailing testimony and the ambiguity of the records precluded a finding that the President intended an assassination effort.[^23]
Lumumba was transferred on January 17, 1961 to the custody of the Katanga authorities, who announced his death several weeks later.[^21] On February 21, 1961, the Security Council noted "with deep regret" the announced killing of Lumumba, [[Maurice Mpolo]] and [[Joseph Okito]], urged the immediate withdrawal and evacuation from the [[Congo]] of all Belgian and other foreign military and paramilitary personnel and political advisers not under United Nations Command, and of mercenaries, provided for the use of force, as a last resort, to prevent civil war, and decided that "an immediate and impartial investigation be held in order to ascertain the circumstances of the death of Mr. Lumumba and his colleagues and that the perpetrators of these crimes be punished."[^24]
[[Dag Hammarskjöld]], the second Secretary-General, died on the night of September 17 and 18, 1961, when a Swedish aircraft carrying sixteen people, flight SE-BDY, crashed near [[Ndola]] in what was then [[Northern Rhodesia]]. All aboard died. The Rhodesian civil aviation board of investigation found no definitive cause and could not rule out a "wilful act of some person or persons unknown"; a Rhodesian commission of inquiry under Chief Justice Sir John Clayden reported in February 1962 that the pilots had allowed the aircraft to descend too low; and the United Nations commission of inquiry reported in April 1962 that it had found no evidence of sabotage or attack but that these possibilities could not be excluded, and was unable to determine the cause.[^25] On October 26, 1962, the General Assembly adopted resolution 1759 (XVII), which took note of that report and requested the Secretary-General to inform the Assembly of any new evidence.[^26]
In 2013 a commission of jurists chaired by Sir [[Stephen Sedley]], assembled by an enabling committee under [[Lord Lea of Crondall]] rather than by the United Nations, and including [[Hans Corell]], [[Richard Goldstone]] and [[Wilhelmina Thomassen]], reported on whether the evidence would justify reopening the inquiry. Its report recorded that "there appear also to be relevant but classified records held by the US National Security Agency." It set out the account of Charles Southall, who in September 1961 was stationed at the NSA naval communications facility in Cyprus and recalled that shortly after midnight on the night of the crash a recording was played back in which a male voice said "I see a transport plane coming low. All the lights are on. I'm going down to make a run on it. Yes, it's the Transair DC6. It's the plane," followed by the sound of cannon fire and the words "I've hit it. There are flames. It's going down. It's crashing."[^27] The Commission concluded: "There is persuasive evidence that the aircraft was subjected to some form of attack or threat as it circled to land at Ndola." It also wrote that "from the broader evidence of the US National Security Agency's worldwide monitoring activities in and about 1961, it is highly likely that the entirety of the local and regional Ndola radio traffic on the night of 17-18 September 1961 was tracked and recorded by the NSA, and possibly also by the CIA," and that the sabotage claim was not capable of verification.[^28]
The Independent Panel of Experts, appointed under General Assembly resolution 69/246 and headed by [[Mohamed Chande Othman]], reported in July 2015. It assigned moderate probative value to nine new eyewitness accounts of more than one aircraft in the air, to the claims of two persons who heard or read alleged intercepts of an attack on SE-BDY, to new information on the air capability of Katanga, and to the possibility that communications from Hammarskjöld's CX-52 cryptographic machine were intercepted. It found that claims by mercenaries that they shot the aircraft down lacked credibility.[^29] In December 2016 the General Assembly, by resolution 71/260, requested the Secretary-General to appoint an eminent person, urged all Member States to release relevant records, and encouraged them to declassify records that "remain classified, more than 50 years after the fact."[^30]
On September 5, 2017, the Secretary-General transmitted the report of Othman, appointed as Eminent Person. The transmittal letter records his conclusion "that it is almost certain that Dag Hammarskjöld and the members of the party accompanying him were not assassinated after landing and that all passengers died from injuries sustained during the plane crash, either instantaneously or soon after," and that he "considered it plausible that an external attack or threat was a cause of the crash." Othman cited "ample eyewitness evidence that tends to establish that there was more than one aircraft in the air at the time flight SE-BDY made its approach to Ndola, that any aircraft present other than flight SE-BDY was a jet and that flight SE-BDY was on fire before it collided with the ground," and wrote that SE-BDY "may have been fired upon or otherwise actively engaged by one or more other aircraft." He noted that "it remains possible that the crash was an accident caused by pilot error without external interference," that it was "not possible at present to conclude whether sabotage was a cause," and "a lack of access to original documents concerning an 'Operation Celeste'" relating to the hypothesis that a bomb had been planted on the aircraft.[^31] He further concluded "that the burden of proof has now shifted to Member States to show that they have conducted a full review of records and archives in their custody or possession, including those that remain classified, for potentially relevant information."[^31]
The eight Member States identified in April and May 2017 as most likely to hold relevant information were Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States; responses came from Belgium, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.[^32] The report stated that new information from the United Kingdom, the United States, the United Nations and individuals "appears to establish that Rhodesian and United Kingdom authorities intercepted United Nations communications in the Congo in 1961," and that the United States confirmed "for the first time" the presence of its military assets in and around Ndola on the night of the crash, including between one and three Dakota aircraft with equipment able to intercept, transmit and receive communications over long distances. Of the two American personnel who had claimed to have heard or read a transmission about an attack, Southall had died in 2015, and the service record of the other, Paul Abram, a United States Air Force Security Services officer, was confirmed by the United States only in July 2017, with information that disputed his location at the time.[^33]
The report of September 12, 2019 reaffirmed those conclusions: "My work under the current mandate does not provide grounds to disturb either finding," namely that it was plausible that an external attack or threat was a cause and that the burden of proof had shifted to Member States.[^34] In 2018 the Eminent Person requested fourteen Member States to each appoint an independent and high-ranking official to review their intelligence, security and defence archives: Angola, Belgium, Canada, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, France, Germany, Portugal, the Russian Federation, South Africa, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, Zambia and Zimbabwe.[^35] The Secretary-General's letter recorded new information on probable intercepts by Member States of relevant communications, the capacity of the armed forces of Katanga or others to stage an attack, including with aircraft and airstrips, the presence in the area of foreign paramilitary personnel, including pilots, and intelligence personnel, and further information on the [[South African Institute for Maritime Research]] in the context of Operation Celeste. It also recorded that not all Member States appointed an Independent Appointee, that searches had not been exhaustive in all, and that the burden of proof remained with Member States.[^34]
The 2019 report stated that Member States including the United Kingdom and the United States received intercepts of communications of the United Nations Operation in the Congo throughout 1961, including encoded communications on sensitive military matters, discussed at a high level by the British High Commissioner Lord Alport, the United States Consul in Elisabethville William C. Canup and the Prime Minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Sir Roy Welensky. It stated that communications sent from Hammarskjöld's CX-52 cryptographic machine "appear to have been intercepted by British and United States signals and intelligence agencies," that two United States personnel confirmed as working for or in support of National Security Agency activities said they overheard a transmission or recording of an attack on flight SE-BDY, that both had died by 2018 without a substantive response from the United States to requests for clarification made since 2015, and that it had not been possible to conclude whether sabotage was a cause, owing in part to difficulties in obtaining access to documentation in South Africa.[^36]
### Cuba and the United Nations
On April 15, 1961, the day of the air raids that preceded the invasion at the [[Bay of Pigs]], the General Assembly's First Committee heard Cuban Foreign Minister [[Raúl Roa]] accuse the United States of aggression, and [[Adlai Stevenson]] told the committee that according to his information the raids had been carried out by defectors from the Cuban Air Force who had landed in Florida and asked for political asylum.[^37] On April 16, Stevenson cabled the Department of State, for the Secretary of State ([[Dean Rusk]]) and Dulles, that he was "greatly disturbed by clear indications" that the bombing incidents "were launched in part at least from outside Cuba," that his answers to Roa "were hastily concocted in Department, and revised by me at last minute on assumption this was clear case of attacks by defectors inside Cuba," and that he did not understand why he had not been "warned and provided pre-prepared material."[^38] The operation ended on April 19, 1961, with the capture of its exile force.[^39]
### Iraq: sanctions, inspections, and Oil-for-Food
The Security Council condemned the invasion of [[Kuwait]] by [[Iraq]] and decided on August 6, 1990 that all States should prevent trade with Iraq, in the aftermath of the [[Gulf War]].[^40] Resolution 687 of April 3, 1991, set the cease-fire terms and provided for a special commission to verify the destruction of Iraq's chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.[^41] The [[UN Special Commission|United Nations Special Commission]] (UNSCOM) operated in Iraq from 1991. UNSCOM evacuated all of its personnel from Iraq in December 1998, immediately before the American and British strikes, and Iraq has barred arms inspections since.[^42]
[[Barton Gellman]] reported in the [[Washington Post]] on March 2, 1999 that United States intelligence services had infiltrated agents and espionage equipment for three years into the arms control teams to eavesdrop on the Iraqi military without the knowledge of UNSCOM. According to that report, the technicians who installed the commission's remote camera monitoring system in 1996 were intelligence operatives, the repeater stations they built contained antennas that intercepted Iraqi microwave military communications, and at least two technicians lent to run the system were employees of the CIA's clandestine service. A second channel, code-named Shake the Tree, used commercial scanners to intercept Iraqi radio transmissions; it was known to UNSCOM's leaders, was disclosed by the Post and the [[Boston Globe]] in January 1999, and was confirmed by the United States government that month. Gellman wrote that the United States decided not to inform Executive Chairman [[Rolf Ekeus]] or his successor [[Richard Butler]] about the second operation, and that the CIA notified [[Charles Duelfer]], the American deputy to both, to help ensure that headquarters staff did not interfere.[^42]
Ekeus said in that report that he did not believe covert antennas could have been built into the video relay system, and that if the United States had used UNSCOM cover for espionage "we have always stood against that"; he cited the 1991 inspection in which American team leaders reported directly to Washington, which, in his words, "we stopped." Butler's spokesman said Butler had no knowledge of the allegations, and Gellman reported that Butler was quoted in a private conversation as saying "If all this stuff turns out to be true, then Rolf Ekeus and I have been played for suckers, haven't we?"[^42] In a [[PBS]] [[Frontline (PBS)|Frontline]] interview, Butler said that he had approved "gifts to us, of persons and technology" to crack Iraqi deceit, that he had disapproved of some proposals as edging "towards a line that we shouldn't cross," and that he could not know whether others were piggy-backing on UNSCOM without telling him.[^43] Gellman told Frontline that when [[David Kay]] was in the parking lot and smuggled out documents in 1991, Washington heard of their contents as soon as New York, that Ekeus was angry and forbade direct communications like that, and that he was "quite confident they continued."[^44] The [[Financial Times]] reported on July 30, 2002 that Ekeus told the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet that he had learned after leaving his position that the United States had placed two of its own agents among the inspectors.[^45]
On January 6, 1999, the spokesman for the Secretary-General, [[Fred Eckhard]], told the noon briefing that the Secretary-General had "no evidence of any kind" that UNSCOM had assisted United States intelligence, and that Butler had "categorically denied them" when the Secretary-General asked him.[^46]
UNSCOM was succeeded by [[UNMOVIC]] (UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission), established by Security Council resolution 1284 on December 17, 1999.[^47] UNMOVIC inspectors under [[Hans Blix]] were in Iraq when the United States and United Kingdom invaded in March 2003, asserting that [[Saddam Hussein]] retained prohibited weapons programs. No such programs were found.
The UN inspection effort also employed [[Karen Jansen]], a U.S. Army major and United Nations inspector who worked on the search for Iraqi biological weapons sites. [[Ruth Sinai]] reported for the [[Associated Press]] that Jansen carried sketches of two sites where the Iraqi leader had supposedly stashed biological weapons, produced by [[Ed Dames]] of [[Psi]], a private firm specializing in remote viewing, and that the sketches were generated through remote viewing.[^48]
The Oil-for-Food Programme, established under Security Council Resolution 986 of April 14, 1995, permitted Iraq to sell oil in order to purchase food and medicine under UN supervision, and became operational in December 1996.[^49] The Independent Inquiry Committee chaired by [[Paul Volcker]], a former chairman of the [[Federal Reserve]], issued its final report on October 27, 2005. The report found that more than 2,200 companies had paid kickbacks to the Iraqi government in the form of inland transportation fees, after-sales-service fees, or both, and listed 2,253 companies in its humanitarian kickback tables. Oil surcharges were paid in connection with the contracts of 139 companies.[^50] The Christian Science Monitor reported on October 28, 2005 that the report named companies and individuals from 66 countries as having sent kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's government, and from 40 countries as having paid illegal oil surcharges.[^51] The report also stated that Iraq dispensed oil allocations to a wide array of individuals and groups "whom it considered influential in their respective countries and who espoused pro-Iraq views or organized anti-sanctions activities," and that Iraq favored companies from countries it perceived as friendly, in particular permanent members of the Security Council.[^52]
The committee's findings on [[Benon Sevan]], the programme's executive director, were that he corruptly received oil allocations and cash proceeds from 1998 through 2001. The proceeds passed through a business controlled by [[Fakhry Abdelnour]] and reached a Swiss bank account controlled by [[Fred Nadler]], the brother-in-law of former Secretary-General [[Boutros Boutros-Ghali]]. The committee also described an Iraqi scheme in 1996 to bribe Boutros-Ghali through [[Samir Vincent]], and wrote that it did not have evidence that Boutros-Ghali took part in or was aware of any of this corrupt activity.[^53]
### Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim
[[Kurt Waldheim]] served as the fourth Secretary-General from January 1, 1972, to December 31, 1981.[^54] He was elected President of [[Austria]] in 1986. On December 14, 1987, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that the United States had placed him on its watch list for unwanted aliens, that [[Neil Sher]] of the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations said the documents behind the decision showed direct involvement in atrocities and could not be handed over to the international commission of historians that Waldheim had convened, and that Waldheim again rejected charges that he participated in reprisals against civilians or in the deportation of Jews to concentration camps.[^55]
On April 27, 2001, the [[National Archives and Records Administration]] opened the CIA's name files on Waldheim, together with files on [[Adolf Hitler]], [[Klaus Barbie]], [[Adolf Eichmann]], [[Josef Mengele]], and [[Heinrich Müller]]. The Archives stated that Waldheim had not been an intelligence resource for the United States, and that the CIA could not conclude that the Soviet Union had used or blackmailed Waldheim with information about his Nazi past.[^56]
### Penetration of UN communications
A January 31, 2003 email from [[Frank Koza]], chief of staff of the Regional Targets section of the [[National Security Agency]], to the British signals agency [[GCHQ]] asked for insight into plans to vote on Iraq-related resolutions and for a "surge effort to revive/create efforts against UNSC members Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria and Guinea." [[The Observer]] published the memo on March 2, 2003 under the headline "Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war"; its article described the targets as the delegations of Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan, the "Middle Six," and quoted the memo's request for the "whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers an edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals or to head off surprises." The Observer reported that three former intelligence operatives judged the memo authentic and that the NSA switchboard connected its reporters to Koza's extension.[^57][^58]
The memo was leaked by [[Katharine Gun]], who worked at GCHQ. She had been charged under section 1 of the Official Secrets Act 1989, and on February 25, 2004 the Crown offered no evidence at the Central Criminal Court. The Attorney General's statement to Parliament said that the evidential deficiency related to the prosecution's inability "to disprove the defence of necessity to be raised on the particular facts of this case," and that the determination had nothing to do with advice given by the Attorney General on the legality of the Iraq war.[^59]
In August 2013 [[Der Spiegel]] reported, on the basis of documents obtained by [[Edward Snowden]], that the National Security Agency had bugged the United Nations' New York headquarters. According to the report, NSA experts cracked the codes of the UN video conferencing system in the summer of 2012, and the number of decoded communications rose from 12 to 458 within three weeks. The same documents reportedly showed collection against the [[International Atomic Energy Agency]], which is part of the UN system, and an NSA bugging program in more than 80 embassies and consulates.[^60]
### Chile, arms embargoes, and the UN Fund for Drug Abuse Control
[[Ari Ben-Menashe]] wrote that [[Alan Sanders]] of [[ITICO]] supplied blueprints for cluster bombs to [[Carlos Cardoen]], and that Cardoen produced the bombs under a covert United States license despite a United Nations arms embargo against Chile.[^61] Security Council resolution 232 of December 16, 1966 imposed mandatory measures against Southern Rhodesia, including a prohibition on the sale or shipment of arms, and resolution 418 of November 4, 1977, adopted unanimously under Chapter VII, imposed a mandatory arms embargo against South Africa.[^62][^63]
On July 14, 1976, [[Carmelo Soria]], a Spanish-Chilean official of the Latin American Demographic Center (CELADE) of [[ECLAC]], was kidnapped by [[DINA]] agents as he left work and was murdered. The [[Inter-American Commission on Human Rights]] found in Report 133/99 that his body and car were left in a stream, that the Chilean courts had determined that State agents participated in the crime and their identities were established, that Chile had violated his rights, and that the self-amnesty decree law was incompatible with the American Convention.[^64]
In an October 1991 affidavit given to [[Bill Hamilton]] of [[INSLAW]], [[Lester Coleman]] stated that third-party funds, including from the [[United Nations Fund for Drug Abuse Control]] in [[Vienna]], were generally made available for the purchase of the PROMIS systems that a DEA proprietary company sold to drug abuse control agencies in several Middle Eastern countries.[^65] The fund was a precursor to the [[UN Office on Drugs and Crime]]. The fund received funding from sources connected to the CIA-backed anti-narcotics efforts that intersected with the Contra resupply networks.
### Envoys and mediators
Security Council resolution 721 of November 27, 1991 approved the efforts of the Secretary-General and his Personal Envoy to Yugoslavia, a post held from October 8, 1991 by [[Cyrus Vance]].[^66] In resolution 1495 of July 31, 2003 the Council supported the peace plan for self-determination of the people of [[Western Sahara]] presented by the Secretary-General's Personal Envoy, [[James A. Baker III]], who served in that role from 1997 to 2004.[^67]
### CRIES and UNICEF
The [[CRIES]] (Study and Research Center on Children and Sexuality) was a Belgian group whose members were convicted in Brussels in March 1988. A UPI report of March 7, 1988 stated that sixteen people were convicted of participating in a child sex ring that used a laboratory in the cellar of a [[UNICEF]] office to develop photographs, that Jozef Verbeeck, the former director of UNICEF's Brussels office, received two years in prison, and that CRIES served as a cover organization for the ring.[^68] UNICEF's institutional name was exploited by the CRIES network, which used a UNICEF umbrella for operations until the connection was exposed in 1986. S. Dovey wrote that the X-witness dossier compiled under Judge [[Jean-Marc Connerotte]] after the 1996 appeal described the network as having used UNICEF in the production of pornography.[^69]
### Epstein-linked diplomacy
Between November 2015 and January 2017, [[Jeffrey Epstein]] exchanged iMessages with [[Vitaly Churkin]], Russia's Permanent Representative to the United Nations from April 2006 until his death. The Justice Department's Epstein productions include a message log beginning November 16, 2015, in which Epstein wrote, "I'm in town wed- fri if you have time . Jeffrey Epstein."[^70] On August 28, 2016 Epstein wrote to Churkin, "Ehud Barak and TOM Barrack at house tomorw . You are always welcome," and an email from his office that day recorded that Churkin would join the lunch with Epstein, [[Ehud Barak]] and [[Tom Barrack]]; on September 6, 2016 Epstein offered an introduction to [[Tom Pritzker]], and the logs reference a meeting with [[Larry Summers]] in January 2016.[^71]
Churkin collapsed in his office in February 2017 and died on February 20, 2017, at the age of 64. [[CBS News]] reported on March 10, 2017 that the State Department had asked the city in writing on February 24 not to reveal the autopsy results, because Churkin's diplomatic immunity survives his death, and that the city's law department then told the medical examiner's office not to release further information.[^72]
### Unidentified flying objects at the United Nations
In July 1968, [[J. Allen Hynek]] told the [[House Committee on Science and Astronautics]] that "the United States seek the cooperation of the United Nations in establishing a means for the impartial and free interchange among nations of information about, and reports of, unidentified flying objects," which he described as "a sort of international clearinghouse for the exchange of information on this subject," and that Congress should establish a UFO Scientific Board of Inquiry.[^73]
On July 7, 1978, Grenada's Deputy Permanent Representative asked for the inclusion on the agenda of the thirty-third session of the General Assembly of an item entitled "Establishment of an agency or a department of the United Nations for undertaking, co-ordinating and disseminating the results of research into unidentified flying objects and related phenomena," with an explanatory memorandum; the General Assembly allocated it to the Special Political Committee on September 20, 1978.[^74] In the general debate on October 12, 1978, [[Eric Gairy]], the prime minister of Grenada, told the General Assembly that the subject of unidentified flying objects should be studied with research coordinated by United Nations organizations, and that a centre for UFO research might be established in Grenada.[^75]
On November 27, 1978, Gairy introduced to the Special Political Committee draft resolution A/SPC/33/L.20, which would have recommended that the United Nations, in consultation with the appropriate specialized agencies, "initiate, conduct and co-ordinate research into the nature and origin of unidentified flying objects," asked the Secretary-General to invite Member States, specialized agencies and non-governmental organizations to submit information and proposals by May 31, 1979, and provided for a group of experts to meet during the sessions of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. After consultations the Committee agreed by consensus on a draft decision, and Grenada did not press the draft resolution to a vote.[^74] The decision, adopted by consensus by the General Assembly on December 18, 1978 as decision 33/426, took note of Grenada's statements and draft resolutions, invited interested Member States to co-ordinate at the national level scientific research and investigation into extraterrestrial life, including unidentified flying objects, requested the Secretary-General to transmit the Grenada statements and documentation to the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space for its 1979 session, and provided that the Committee would permit Grenada, at its request, to present its views.[^76]
In 1994, [[Laurance Rockefeller]] wrote to the White House science adviser, [[John H. Gibbons]], that preliminary talks had been held about a United Nations conference on extraterrestrial intelligence.[^77]
### Footnotes
[^1]: "United Nations," *Encyclopaedia Britannica.* https://www.britannica.com/topic/United-Nations
[^2]: Volcker, Paul, et al. *Report of the Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme.* 2005.
[^1]: "Charter of the United Nations," signed June 26, 1945, in force October 24, 1945; Article 27 on Security Council voting. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text
[^2]: Security Council Report, "The Veto," Security Council working methods: first veto cast by the USSR on February 16, 1946 on the withdrawal of foreign troops from Lebanon and Syria (S/PV.23); first United States veto March 17, 1970. https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/un-security-council-working-methods/the-veto.php
[^3]: United Nations Security Council, document S/10784, "Guinea, Somalia and Yugoslavia: draft resolution," September 10, 1972. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=S%2F10784&l=en&t=pdf
[^4]: Security Council Report, "The Security Council Veto" (table of vetoes and drafts not adopted), rows for September 10, 1972 (S/10784, 13-1-1), July 1973 (S/10974), December 1975 (S/11898) and January 1976 (S/11940). https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/working%20methods_the%20veto-3.pdf
[^5]: Security Council Report, "The Security Council Veto" (table), rows for October 27, 1983 (S/16077/Rev.1), April 4, 1984 (S/16463) and October 28, 1986 (S/18428, S/PV.2718); drafts S/16463 and S/18428 at https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=S%2F16463&l=en&t=pdf and https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=S%2F18428&l=en&t=pdf
[^6]: United Nations Security Council, document S/13729 (draft resolution, January 6, 1980) and resolution 462 (1980), January 9, 1980; Security Council Report veto table, row for January 7-9, 1980 (S/PV.2190, 13-2-0). https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=S%2FRES%2F462%281980%29&l=en&t=pdf
[^7]: United Nations General Assembly, Sixth Emergency Special Session, resolution ES-6/2, January 14, 1980, "The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security." https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2FRES%2FES-6%2F2&l=en&t=pdf
[^8]: Security Council Report, "The Security Council Veto" (table), rows for January 15, 1979 (S/13027, S/PV.2112), March 16, 1979 (S/13162, S/PV.2129) and S/2011/612 (Syria, 9-2-4). Each 1979 draft failed 13-2-0, and the thirteen affirmative votes listed do not include the USSR. https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/working%20methods_the%20veto-3.pdf
[^9]: United Nations Security Council, document S/5182, "United States of America: draft resolution," October 22, 1962. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=S%2F5182&l=en&t=pdf
[^10]: United Nations General Assembly, First Emergency Special Session, resolution 997 (ES-I), November 2, 1956, on the Middle East. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2FRES%2F997%20%28ES-I%29&l=en&t=pdf
[^11]: United Nations General Assembly, Second Emergency Special Session, resolution 1004 (ES-II), November 4, 1956, "The situation in Hungary." https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2FRES%2F1004%20%28ES-II%29&l=en&t=pdf
[^12]: "Minutes of the Nagy Government's Fourth Cabinet Meeting, November 1, 1956," Document No. 7, National Security Archive, George Washington University. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB76/doc7.pdf
[^13]: United Nations Security Council, resolution 84 (1950), July 7, 1950. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=S%2FRES%2F84%20%281950%29&l=en&t=pdf
[^14]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy.* Random House, 1991.
[^15]: United Nations General Assembly, resolution 186 (S-2), May 14, 1948, "Appointment and terms of reference of a United Nations Mediator in Palestine." https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2FRES%2F186%20%28S-2%29&l=en&t=pdf
[^16]: *Yearbook of the United Nations 1947-48*, "Tributes to Count Bernadotte and Colonel Serot," and the index entry for document A/648, Progress report of the United Nations Mediator on Palestine, dated September 18, 1948.
[^17]: House of Commons, "Count Bernadotte (Assassination)," HC Deb 20 September 1948, vol. 456, col. 521. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1948/sep/20/count-bernadotte-assassination
[^18]: United Nations General Assembly, resolution 194 (III), December 11, 1948, paragraph 11. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2FRES%2F194%20%28III%29&l=en&t=pdf
[^19]: United Nations Security Council, resolution 143 (1960), July 14, 1960, "The Congo Question," paragraph 2. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=S%2FRES%2F143%20%281960%29&l=en&t=pdf
[^20]: United Nations Security Council, resolution 146 (1960), August 9, 1960, paragraphs 2 and 4. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=S%2FRES%2F146%20%281960%29&l=en&t=pdf
[^21]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (Church Committee), *Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders: An Interim Report,* Senate Report No. 94-465, 94th Congress, 1st Session, 1975, section on the Congo (Lumumba's visit to Washington in late July 1960; dismissal of September 5; request to the United Nations force for protection; transfer to Katanga on January 17, 1961). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94465.pdf
[^22]: Church Committee, *Alleged Assassination Plots,* Senate Report No. 94-465, 1975, section "Dulles Cable to Leopoldville: August 26, 1960," quoting CIA cables of August 18, 19 and 26, 1960. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94465.pdf
[^23]: Church Committee, *Alleged Assassination Plots,* Senate Report No. 94-465, 1975, summary of the evidence concerning Patrice Lumumba, and findings and conclusions on Presidential authorization. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94465.pdf
[^24]: United Nations Security Council, resolution 161 (1961), February 21, 1961, preamble and paragraphs 1 to 4. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=S%2FRES%2F161%20%281961%29&l=en&t=pdf
[^25]: Commission of Jurists on the Inquiry into the Death of Dag Hammarskjöld, annexed to the letter of the Secretary-General, United Nations General Assembly document A/68/800, 2014, paragraphs 1.1, 1.2 and 9.1 to 9.4. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F68%2F800&l=en&t=pdf
[^26]: United Nations General Assembly, resolution 1759 (XVII), October 26, 1962, "Report of the Commission of investigation into the conditions and circumstances resulting in the tragic death of Mr. Dag Hammarskjold and of members of the party accompanying him." https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2FRES%2F1759%20%28XVII%29&l=en&t=pdf
[^27]: United Nations General Assembly document A/68/800, paragraphs 1.5, 2.5 and 13.23 to 13.28. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F68%2F800&l=en&t=pdf
[^28]: United Nations General Assembly document A/68/800, paragraphs 15.4, 15.5 and 15.7 to 15.10. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F68%2F800&l=en&t=pdf
[^29]: Independent Panel of Experts appointed under General Assembly resolution 69/246, report transmitted by the Secretary-General, United Nations General Assembly document A/70/132, July 2, 2015, summary of key findings. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F70%2F132&l=en&t=pdf
[^30]: United Nations General Assembly, resolution 71/260, December 23, 2016, paragraphs 1 to 3. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2FRES%2F71%2F260&l=en&t=pdf
[^31]: Report of the Eminent Person, Mohamed Chande Othman, transmitted by letter of the Secretary-General dated September 5, 2017, United Nations General Assembly document A/71/1042, transmittal letter. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F71%2F1042&l=en&t=pdf
[^32]: United Nations General Assembly document A/71/1042, report of the Eminent Person, paragraphs 4 and 6. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F71%2F1042&l=en&t=pdf
[^33]: United Nations General Assembly document A/71/1042, report of the Eminent Person, paragraphs 7 and 8. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F71%2F1042&l=en&t=pdf
[^34]: Letter dated September 12, 2019 from the Secretary-General, attaching the report of the Eminent Person, United Nations General Assembly document A/73/973, transmittal letter and report paragraphs 2, 3 and 33. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F73%2F973&l=en&t=pdf
[^35]: United Nations General Assembly document A/73/973, report of the Eminent Person, paragraph 3. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F73%2F973&l=en&t=pdf
[^36]: United Nations General Assembly document A/73/973, report of the Eminent Person, paragraphs 11 and 16 to 19. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F73%2F973&l=en&t=pdf
[^37]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963,* Volume X, Cuba, January 1961-September 1962, Document 104, editorial note on the meeting of the Political (First) Committee of April 15, 1961 (U.N. doc. A/C.1/SR.1149). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v10/d104
[^38]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963,* Volume X, Document 105, Telegram from the Mission to the United Nations to the Department of State, April 16, 1961. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v10/d105
[^39]: Central Intelligence Agency, Inspector General, "Inspector General's Survey of the Cuban Operation," October 1961, declassified 1998; published in Kornbluh, Peter, ed. *Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba.* New Press, 1998.
[^40]: United Nations Security Council, resolution 661 (1990), August 6, 1990. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=S%2FRES%2F661%20%281990%29&l=en&t=pdf
[^41]: United Nations Security Council, resolution 687 (1991), April 3, 1991. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=S%2FRES%2F687%20%281991%29&l=en&t=pdf
[^42]: Gellman, Barton. "U.S. Spied on Iraq Via U.N.," *Washington Post,* March 2, 1999, p. A1. https://web.archive.org/web/2005/https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/daily/march99/unscom2.htm
[^43]: PBS *Frontline,* "Spying on Saddam," interview with Richard Butler. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/unscom/interviews/butler.html
[^44]: PBS *Frontline,* "Spying on Saddam," interview with Barton Gellman. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/unscom/interviews/gellman.html
[^45]: *Financial Times,* July 30, 2002, reporting Rolf Ekeus's interview with *Svenska Dagbladet,* as quoted at https://www.eurotrib.com/?op=displaystory&sid=2007%2F5%2F31%2F16410%2F6211
[^46]: United Nations, noon briefing by the spokesman for the Secretary-General, Fred Eckhard, January 6, 1999. https://press.un.org/en/1999/19990106.db010699.html
[^47]: United Nations Security Council, resolution 1284 (1999), December 17, 1999. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=S%2FRES%2F1284%20%281999%29&l=en&t=pdf
[^48]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis.* Little, Brown and Company, 2017.
[^49]: United Nations Security Council, resolution 986 (1995), April 14, 1995. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=S%2FRES%2F986%20%281995%29&l=en&t=pdf
[^50]: Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme, *Final Report,* October 27, 2005, Introduction and Executive Summary. https://web.archive.org/web/20051028130508/http://www.iic-offp.org/documents/IIC%20Final%20Report%2027Oct2005.pdf
[^51]: Grier, Peter. "UN Team Names Firms in Oil-for-Food Scandal," *Christian Science Monitor,* October 28, 2005. https://archive.globalpolicy.org/security/sanction/iraq1/oilforfood/2005/1028fifthreport.htm
[^52]: Independent Inquiry Committee, *Final Report,* October 27, 2005, Introduction and Executive Summary, on oil allocations and countries perceived as friendly to Iraq. https://web.archive.org/web/20051028130508/http://www.iic-offp.org/documents/IIC%20Final%20Report%2027Oct2005.pdf
[^53]: Independent Inquiry Committee, *Final Report,* October 27, 2005, Chapter Seven, "Financial Review of the Former Secretary-General," and the Committee's findings on Benon Sevan, Fakhry Abdelnour and Fred Nadler. https://web.archive.org/web/20051028130508/http://www.iic-offp.org/documents/IIC%20Final%20Report%2027Oct2005.pdf
[^54]: United Nations, "Former Secretaries-General," Kurt Waldheim, January 1, 1972 to December 31, 1981. https://www.un.org/sg/en/node/401498
[^55]: Jewish Telegraphic Agency, "Waldheim Denies New Charges of Involvement in Atrocities," December 14, 1987. https://www.jta.org/archive/waldheim-denies-new-charges-of-involvement-in-atrocities
[^56]: National Archives and Records Administration, press release nr01-61, April 27, 2001. https://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2001/nr01-61
[^57]: Bright, Martin, Ed Vulliamy and Peter Beaumont. "Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war," *The Observer,* March 2, 2003. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/02/usa.iraq
[^58]: McGovern, Ray. "When Truth Tried to Stop War," *Consortium News,* January 31, 2013, quoting the Koza email of January 31, 2003. https://consortiumnews.com/2013/01/31/when-truth-tried-to-stop-war/
[^59]: House of Commons, "Katharine Gun," HC Deb 26 February 2004, vol. 418, cc. 427-40, statement of the Attorney General read by the Solicitor-General. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/2004/feb/26/katharine-gun
[^60]: Al Jazeera, "Report: US bugged UN headquarters," August 25, 2013, reporting the *Der Spiegel* account of documents obtained by Edward Snowden. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2013/8/25/report-us-bugged-un-headquarters
[^61]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network.* Sheridan Square Press, 1992 (TrineDay reprint, 2015).
[^62]: United Nations Security Council, resolution 232 (1966), December 16, 1966. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=S%2FRES%2F232%20%281966%29&l=en&t=pdf
[^63]: United Nations Security Council, resolution 418 (1977), November 4, 1977. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=S%2FRES%2F418%20%281977%29&l=en&t=pdf
[^64]: Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Report No. 133/99, Case 11.725, Carmelo Soria Espinoza (Chile), November 19, 1999, paragraphs 1 and 2. https://hrlibrary.umn.edu/cases/133-99.html
[^65]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010, reporting Lester Coleman's October 1991 affidavit.
[^66]: United Nations Security Council, resolution 721 (1991), November 27, 1991, paragraph 1. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=S%2FRES%2F721%20%281991%29&l=en&t=pdf
[^67]: United Nations Security Council, resolution 1495 (2003), July 31, 2003, preamble and paragraph 1. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=S%2FRES%2F1495%20%282003%29&l=en&t=pdf
[^68]: "Child sex ring run out of UNICEF office," United Press International, Brussels, March 7, 1988. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/03/07/Child-sex-ring-run-out-of-UNICEF-office/2464573714000/
[^69]: Dovey, S. *Eye of the Chickenhawk.* Thehotstar, 2023, drawing on Bulté, Annemie, Douglas De Coninck and Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, *De X-dossiers: wat België niet mocht weten over de zaak-Dutroux,* Houtekiet, 1999.
[^70]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01619434, DataSet 10, iMessage log with contact "Vitaly Churkin," November 16, 2015 to February 23, 2016. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01619434.pdf
[^71]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01619438, DataSet 10, iMessage log with contact "Vitaly Churkin," May 23, 2016 to September 7, 2016, https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01619438.pdf ; EFTA02044775, email "Churkin to join lunch tomorrow as well," August 28, 2016, https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA02044775.pdf ; EFTA01619434, message of January 13, 2016.
[^72]: "Russia Ambassador Vitaly Churkin's cause of death won't be released," *CBS News / Associated Press,* March 10, 2017. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-ambassador-cause-of-death-wont-be-released/
[^73]: Hynek, J. Allen, statement at the *Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects,* Hearings before the Committee on Science and Astronautics, House of Representatives, 90th Congress, 2d session, July 29, 1968, pp. 14-15. https://nicap.org/books/1968Sym/1968_UFO_Symposium.pdf
[^74]: United Nations General Assembly, 33rd session, document A/33/512, "Establishment of an agency or a department of the United Nations for undertaking, co-ordinating and disseminating the results of research into unidentified flying objects and related phenomena: Report of the Special Political Committee," December 16, 1978, paragraphs 1 to 9. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F33%2F512&l=en&t=pdf
[^75]: United Nations General Assembly, 33rd session, plenary meeting record A/33/PV.32, October 12, 1978, statement of Sir Eric Gairy, paragraphs 225 to 236. Verbatim record: https://un-project.org/debate/33/3504/
[^76]: United Nations General Assembly, 33rd session, 87th plenary meeting, December 18, 1978, record A/33/PV.87, report of the Special Political Committee on agenda item 126 (A/33/512), decision 33/426. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F33%2FPV.87&l=en&t=pdf
[^77]: Melvin R. Laird to Laurance Rockefeller, May 9, 1994, and Rockefeller to John H. Gibbons, June 1, 1994, attached to http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-6-13-94.htm

45
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Cambridge Analytica.md
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@ -108,14 +108,14 @@ relations:
start: 2017-05
end: 2020-10-02
role: "formal investigation into data analytics in political campaigns"
fn: 37
fn: 38
- type: subject_of
with: "[[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]]"
end: 2020-08-18
role: "Volume 5 of the committee's Russia report examined the company"
fn: 2
created: 2026-10-01
updated: 2026-10-01
updated: 2026-10-12
---
Cambridge Analytica, formally Cambridge Analytica LLC, was a [[Delaware]] limited liability company formed in December 2013 with its principal office at 597 Fifth Avenue in [[New York City]], and part of the family of companies of the British firm [[SCL Group]].[^1] [[Robert Mercer]] capitalized the company, [[Steve Bannon]] served on its board, and its chief executive officer was [[Alexander Nix]].[^2] The company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in the [[United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York]] on May 17, 2018 ([[In re Cambridge Analytica LLC]], Case No. 18-11500-shl).[^3]
@ -164,27 +164,27 @@ The committee obtained a campaign data team presentation of August 22, 2016 with
### Russian and WikiLeaks contacts
Wylie said that from spring 2014 through 2015 Cambridge Analytica representatives met representatives of Lukoil, that Nix's presentations included discussion of rumor and disinformation campaigns, and that in May 2018 he told the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]] that Lukoil "has formal information sharing agreements with the Russian Federal Security Service."[^30] Kaiser told the committee the discussions concerned a customer loyalty application for Lukoil's stations in Turkey, said she was told the data could also be useful for political activities there, and furnished a February 2015 presentation prepared by SCL Commercial; neither she nor Wylie believed that a contract resulted, and the committee stated that it did not independently corroborate the allegation that Lukoil intended to use the company to affect elections.[^30] The committee noted that the [[Office of Foreign Assets Control]] had added Lukoil to its Sectoral Sanctions Identifications List on September 12, 2014.[^30]
Wylie said that from spring 2014 through 2015 Cambridge Analytica representatives met representatives of Lukoil, that Nix's presentations included discussion of rumor and disinformation campaigns, and that in May 2018 he told the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]] that Lukoil "has formal information sharing agreements with the Russian Federal Security Service."[^30][^31] His written statement said that after a request for information from Lukoil executives in the spring of 2014, Cambridge Analytica discussed with Lukoil its experience with "foreign disinformation, rumour campaigns, microtargeting and its American data assets."[^31] Kaiser told the committee the discussions concerned a customer loyalty application for Lukoil's stations in Turkey, said she was told the data could also be useful for political activities there, and furnished a February 2015 presentation prepared by SCL Commercial; neither she nor Wylie believed that a contract resulted, and the committee stated that it did not independently corroborate the allegation that Lukoil intended to use the company to affect elections.[^30] The committee noted that the [[Office of Foreign Assets Control]] had added Lukoil to its Sectoral Sanctions Identifications List on September 12, 2014.[^30]
Wylie also told the committee that in spring 2014 Bannon approved focus groups about [[Vladimir Putin]] and Russian expansionism preparatory to a predictive model, and that Bannon and [[Konstantin Kilimnik]] were two of three people likely responsible for the idea.[^31] [[Sam Patten]], a consultant who worked for the company in Nigeria, Mexico, Kosovo and the Czech Republic, told the committee there was "no connection" between Kilimnik and Cambridge Analytica; Kaiser said that on the Nigerian project the company may have assisted its client in retaining former Israeli intelligence officers working privately to conduct opposition research.[^31]
Wylie also told the committee that in spring 2014 Bannon approved focus groups about [[Vladimir Putin]] and Russian expansionism preparatory to a predictive model, and that Bannon and [[Konstantin Kilimnik]] were two of three people likely responsible for the idea.[^32] [[Sam Patten]], a consultant who worked for the company in Nigeria, Mexico, Kosovo and the Czech Republic, told the committee there was "no connection" between Kilimnik and Cambridge Analytica; Kaiser said that on the Nigerian project the company may have assisted its client in retaining former Israeli intelligence officers working privately to conduct opposition research.[^32]
The committee reported open-source accounts that during the 2016 campaign Nix emailed [[Julian Assange]] about the possible release of [[Hillary Clinton]]'s deleted emails, and that Assange said in October 2017 that [[WikiLeaks]] had rejected an approach by Cambridge Analytica. The committee obtained no additional information, and Bannon and others close to the campaign said they had no prior awareness of the contact.[^32] The committee also recorded that it was unable to obtain the company's corporate communications, which were in the hands of United Kingdom authorities, and that Nix "generally disregarded the Committee's requests for an appearance."[^33] It found "no convincing evidence that Russia's government or intelligence services worked with or through" Cambridge Analytica, Psy Group or Colt Ventures in furtherance of the 2016 interference.[^33] Cambridge Analytica, LLC is named among the respondents in matters under review 7207, 7268, 7274 and 7623 before the Federal Election Commission, in which Commissioners Shana Broussard and Ellen Weintraub issued a statement of reasons citing Volume 5 after a certification dated April 22, 2021; the text of the statement concerns the Russian Federation, the Internet Research Agency and the Trump committee and does not mention Cambridge Analytica outside the caption.[^34]
The committee reported open-source accounts that during the 2016 campaign Nix emailed [[Julian Assange]] about the possible release of [[Hillary Clinton]]'s deleted emails, and that Assange said in October 2017 that [[WikiLeaks]] had rejected an approach by Cambridge Analytica. The committee obtained no additional information, and Bannon and others close to the campaign said they had no prior awareness of the contact.[^33] The committee also recorded that it was unable to obtain the company's corporate communications, which were in the hands of United Kingdom authorities, and that Nix "generally disregarded the Committee's requests for an appearance."[^34] It found "no convincing evidence that Russia's government or intelligence services worked with or through" Cambridge Analytica, Psy Group or Colt Ventures in furtherance of the 2016 interference.[^34] Cambridge Analytica, LLC is named among the respondents in matters under review 7207, 7268, 7274 and 7623 before the Federal Election Commission, in which Commissioners Shana Broussard and Ellen Weintraub issued a statement of reasons citing Volume 5 after a certification dated April 22, 2021; the text of the statement concerns the Russian Federation, the Internet Research Agency and the Trump committee and does not mention Cambridge Analytica outside the caption.[^35]
### Regulatory and criminal proceedings in the United Kingdom
The Information Commissioner's Office issued a monetary penalty notice of £500,000 to Facebook on October 25, 2018, the highest fine permitted under the Data Protection Act 1998, citing lack of transparency and security failures relating to the harvesting of data.[^35] The office also executed a warrant at the company's premises at 8 p.m. on March 23, 2018, seized servers and other material, and reported that Cambridge Analytica and SCL Elections entered administration on May 3, 2018, that an enforcement notice of May 4, 2018 required it to answer a subject access request from the American academic [[David Carroll]] that had been made in January 2017, and that the deadline of June 3, 2018 passed without compliance.[^18] The office reported that Nix and Kogan had declined invitations to voluntary interviews under caution and that it would have issued a substantial fine had the company not been in administration.[^18] SCL Elections pleaded guilty at [[Hendon Magistrates' Court]] on January 9, 2019, the day set for trial, to failing to comply with the enforcement notice; press reports gave the penalty as a fine of £15,000 with £6,000 in costs and a victim surcharge of £170.[^36] The Information Commissioner's 2020 letter to Parliament gives the fine as £18,000.[^37]
The Information Commissioner's Office issued a monetary penalty notice of £500,000 to Facebook on October 25, 2018, the highest fine permitted under the Data Protection Act 1998, citing lack of transparency and security failures relating to the harvesting of data.[^36] The office also executed a warrant at the company's premises at 8 p.m. on March 23, 2018, seized servers and other material, and reported that Cambridge Analytica and SCL Elections entered administration on May 3, 2018, that an enforcement notice of May 4, 2018 required it to answer a subject access request from the American academic [[David Carroll]] that had been made in January 2017, and that the deadline of June 3, 2018 passed without compliance.[^18] The office reported that Nix and Kogan had declined invitations to voluntary interviews under caution and that it would have issued a substantial fine had the company not been in administration.[^18] SCL Elections pleaded guilty at [[Hendon Magistrates' Court]] on January 9, 2019, the day set for trial, to failing to comply with the enforcement notice; press reports gave the penalty as a fine of £15,000 with £6,000 in costs and a victim surcharge of £170.[^37] The Information Commissioner's 2020 letter to Parliament gives the fine as £18,000.[^38]
On October 2, 2020 the Information Commissioner, [[Elizabeth Denham]], wrote to the chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee that the office had concluded its investigation, that the company had purchased commercially available data amounting at one estimate to more than 130 billion data points, mostly about United States voters, to combine with Facebook-derived data from Kogan, that its models were mostly built from "off the shelf" tools, that the office found no further evidence to change its view that the company was not involved in the European Union referendum campaign beyond early inquiries about UK Independence Party data, and that it found no additional evidence of Russian involvement in the servers it obtained.[^37] The letter also reported evidence that in its last stages the company was drawing up plans to move its data offshore to avoid regulatory scrutiny, which it did not carry out before it ceased trading.[^37]
On October 2, 2020 the Information Commissioner, [[Elizabeth Denham]], wrote to the chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee that the office had concluded its investigation, that the company had purchased commercially available data amounting at one estimate to more than 130 billion data points, mostly about United States voters, to combine with Facebook-derived data from Kogan, that its models were mostly built from "off the shelf" tools, that the office found no further evidence to change its view that the company was not involved in the European Union referendum campaign beyond early inquiries about UK Independence Party data, and that it found no additional evidence of Russian involvement in the servers it obtained.[^38] The letter also reported evidence that in its last stages the company was drawing up plans to move its data offshore to avoid regulatory scrutiny, which it did not carry out before it ceased trading.[^38]
The Insolvency Service announced in September 2020 that Nix had given an undertaking disqualifying him from acting as a company director for seven years from October 5, 2020, having, in the service's words, caused or permitted SCL Elections or associated companies to act with a lack of commercial probity by marketing services including "bribery or honey trap stings, voter disengagement campaigns, obtaining information to discredit political opponents and spreading information anonymously in political campaigns." The service did not say whether any such services were performed, and Nix told Reuters he had made no admission of wrongdoing.[^38] The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee had recorded in February 2019 that the Insolvency Service was investigating the directors of SCL Elections, SCL Group, SCL Analytics, SCL Commercial, SCL Social and Cambridge Analytica (UK) under the [[Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986]].[^39]
The Insolvency Service announced in September 2020 that Nix had given an undertaking disqualifying him from acting as a company director for seven years from October 5, 2020, having, in the service's words, caused or permitted SCL Elections or associated companies to act with a lack of commercial probity by marketing services including "bribery or honey trap stings, voter disengagement campaigns, obtaining information to discredit political opponents and spreading information anonymously in political campaigns." The service did not say whether any such services were performed, and Nix told Reuters he had made no admission of wrongdoing.[^39] The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee had recorded in February 2019 that the Insolvency Service was investigating the directors of SCL Elections, SCL Group, SCL Analytics, SCL Commercial, SCL Social and Cambridge Analytica (UK) under the [[Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986]].[^40]
### Emerdata and the end of the group
Emerdata Limited (Companies House number 10911848) was incorporated on August 11, 2017 with Wheatland as a director, and its persons with significant control from incorporation were Wheatland and Dr Alexander Bruce Tayler, each holding more than 25 percent and up to 50 percent until January 23, 2018.[^40] From January 23, 2018 the register shows Cambridge Analytica Holdings LLC, with an address on Orange Street in Wilmington, Delaware, as holder of more than 50 percent and less than 75 percent of shares and votes until August 9, 2022; since that date the register carries a statement that there is no registrable person.[^40] The register records the officers appointed on January 23, 2018 as Nix (resigned March 28, 2018), Johnson Chun Shun Ko (resigned May 9, 2018), Cheng Peng (resigned May 8, 2018) and Ahmad Al Khatib (resigned May 7, 2018); Tayler was a director again from March 28 to April 18, 2018, Gary Ka Chun Tiu from June 12, 2018 to December 3, 2024, and Wheatland until May 22, 2019.[^40] Rebekah and Jennifer Mercer were appointed directors on March 16, 2018 and remained in office as of the register consulted on October 1, 2026, with [[Jacquelyn James-Varga]] (appointed May 22, 2019) and Bradley David Golub (appointed December 3, 2024).[^40]
Emerdata Limited (Companies House number 10911848) was incorporated on August 11, 2017 with Wheatland as a director, and its persons with significant control from incorporation were Wheatland and Dr Alexander Bruce Tayler, each holding more than 25 percent and up to 50 percent until January 23, 2018.[^41] From January 23, 2018 the register shows Cambridge Analytica Holdings LLC, with an address on Orange Street in Wilmington, Delaware, as holder of more than 50 percent and less than 75 percent of shares and votes until August 9, 2022; since that date the register carries a statement that there is no registrable person.[^41] The register records the officers appointed on January 23, 2018 as Nix (resigned March 28, 2018), Johnson Chun Shun Ko (resigned May 9, 2018), Cheng Peng (resigned May 8, 2018) and Ahmad Al Khatib (resigned May 7, 2018); Tayler was a director again from March 28 to April 18, 2018, Gary Ka Chun Tiu from June 12, 2018 to December 3, 2024, and Wheatland until May 22, 2019.[^41] Rebekah and Jennifer Mercer were appointed directors on March 16, 2018 and remained in office as of the register consulted on October 1, 2026, with [[Jacquelyn James-Varga]] (appointed May 22, 2019) and Bradley David Golub (appointed December 3, 2024).[^41]
The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee reported in February 2019 that Emerdata had not gone into administration, was the largest creditor of SCL Elections and was paying the administration costs, and listed shareholders as of August 10, 2018 that included Cambridge Analytica Holdings LLC, Tayler, Wheatland, trusts for the benefit of Rebekah, Jennifer and Heather Mercer, Alexander and Catherine Nix, five members of the Marland family, Henry and Roger Gabb, Nigel and Alexander Oakes, and Reza Saddlou-Bundy.[^39] The committee recommended that the [[National Crime Agency]] investigate the connections between SCL Elections and Emerdata.[^39] The committee also reported that SCL Insight Limited, owned by Nigel Oakes, had been spun off in the 2017 reorganization.[^39]
The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee reported in February 2019 that Emerdata had not gone into administration, was the largest creditor of SCL Elections and was paying the administration costs, and listed shareholders as of August 10, 2018 that included Cambridge Analytica Holdings LLC, Tayler, Wheatland, trusts for the benefit of Rebekah, Jennifer and Heather Mercer, Alexander and Catherine Nix, five members of the Marland family, Henry and Roger Gabb, Nigel and Alexander Oakes, and Reza Saddlou-Bundy.[^40] The committee recommended that the [[National Crime Agency]] investigate the connections between SCL Elections and Emerdata.[^40] The committee also reported that SCL Insight Limited, owned by Nigel Oakes, had been spun off in the 2017 reorganization.[^40]
Emerdata entered administration on December 9, 2024, the register names Benjamin Stanyon and Nedim Patrick Ailyan as practitioners, records a cessation to act on April 8, 2026, and gives the registered office as care of Opus Restructuring LLP, Milton Keynes.[^40] SCL Group Limited, SCL Elections Limited and Cambridge Analytica (UK) Limited were in administration from May 3, 2018 to April 17, 2019, then in compulsory liquidation on a petition of August 13, 2018, which concluded on September 1, 2025; the first two were dissolved on January 31, 2026 and the third on January 30, 2026.[^41]
Emerdata entered administration on December 9, 2024, the register names Benjamin Stanyon and Nedim Patrick Ailyan as practitioners, records a cessation to act on April 8, 2026, and gives the registered office as care of Opus Restructuring LLP, Milton Keynes.[^41] SCL Group Limited, SCL Elections Limited and Cambridge Analytica (UK) Limited were in administration from May 3, 2018 to April 17, 2019, then in compulsory liquidation on a petition of August 13, 2018, which concluded on September 1, 2025; the first two were dissolved on January 31, 2026 and the third on January 30, 2026.[^42]
### Footnotes
@ -218,14 +218,15 @@ Emerdata entered administration on December 9, 2024, the register names Benjamin
[^28]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, p. 672 and note 4348 (Kaiser transcript, pp. 40 to 43). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
[^29]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 675 to 678 and notes 4367 to 4379 (Parscale transcript, pp. 53 to 60; Trump Data Team Presentation, August 22, 2016, FLYNN_SSCI_00011770 and 00011773; FBI FD-302 of Rick Gates, October 29, 2018; Kaiser transcript, pp. 161 to 164). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
[^30]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 670 to 671 and notes 4334 to 4341 (Wylie proffer; Wylie written statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, May 16, 2018; Kaiser transcript, pp. 66 to 67 and 121 to 123; SCL Commercial presentation for Lukoil, February 18, 2015; OFAC listing of September 12, 2014). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
[^31]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, p. 668 and notes 4318 to 4325 (Wylie proffer; Patten transcript, pp. 29 to 38; Kaiser transcript, pp. 67 to 68; Bannon transcript, pp. 253 to 256). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
[^32]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 678 to 679 and notes 4380 to 4383 (Betsy Swan, "Trump Data Guru Alexander Nix: I Tried To Team Up With Julian Assange," *The Daily Beast*, October 25, 2017; Kara Scannell, Dana Bash and Marshall Cohen, CNN, October 25, 2017). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
[^33]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 663 to 664 (section introduction, "Committee did not examine the effectiveness of the work these companies may have conducted"; limitations including Nix's non-appearance and the seizure of the company's corporate communications by U.K. authorities). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
[^34]: Federal Election Commission, Statement of Reasons of Commissioners Shana M. Broussard and Ellen L. Weintraub, MURs 7207, 7268, 7274 and 7623 (Russian Federation; Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.; Donald J. Trump; H. Russell Taub; Cambridge Analytica, LLC; Internet Research Agency; Paul Manafort), note 2 (certification dated April 22, 2021). https://www.fec.gov/files/legal/murs/7207/7207_47.pdf
[^35]: UK Information Commissioner's Office, *Investigation into the use of data analytics in political campaigns: A report to Parliament*, November 6, 2018, section 3.2.4 (p. 38). https://www.statewatch.org/media/documents/news/2018/nov/uk-ico-report-investigation-into-use-of-data-political-campaigns-6-11-18.pdf
[^36]: UK Information Commissioner's Office, *Investigation into the use of data analytics in political campaigns*, November 6, 2018, section 3.2.3 (trial set for January 9, 2019 at Hendon Magistrates' Court); "Cambridge Analytica Pleads Guilty In UK Data Access Case," *MediaPost*, January 9, 2019 (fine of £15,000, costs of £6,000, victim surcharge of £170, citing the ICO announcement) https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/330338/ ; Ellen Tannam, "Cambridge Analytica owner hit with £15,000 fine for disobeying UK ICO," *Silicon Republic*, January 2019 (District Judge Kenneth Grant: "wilful disregard of the enforcement notice") https://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/cambridge-analytica-scl-fine
[^37]: Elizabeth Denham, Information Commissioner, letter to Julian Knight MP, Chair, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, reference ICO/O/ED/L/RTL/0181, October 2, 2020, paragraphs 3 to 15. https://cy.ico.org.uk/media2/migrated/2618383/20201002_ico-o-ed-l-rtl-0181_to-julian-knight-mp.pdf
[^38]: "Ex-Cambridge Analytica head banned from running firms in UK," Reuters, published by Al Jazeera, September 25, 2020 (statement of the Insolvency Service of September 24, 2020; Mark Bruce, chief investigator; disqualification from October 5, 2020). https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/9/25/uk-bans-ex-cambridge-analytica-boss-for-unethical-services
[^39]: House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, *Disinformation and "fake news": Final Report*, HC 1791, February 18, 2019, paragraphs 285 to 290, 296 and notes 327 to 329 and 338. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/1791/1791.pdf
[^40]: Companies House, EMERDATA LIMITED (company number 10911848), overview, officers, persons with significant control and insolvency pages, viewed October 1, 2026; personal appointments pages for Jennifer Lynne Mercer, Rebekah Anne Mercer, Jacquelyn James-Varga and Bradley David Golub. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10911848
[^41]: Companies House, insolvency pages for SCL GROUP LIMITED (05514098), SCL ELECTIONS LIMITED (08256225) and CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA(UK) LIMITED (09375920), viewed October 1, 2026 (administration May 3, 2018 to April 17, 2019; compulsory liquidation, petition August 13, 2018, winding up commenced April 17, 2019 and concluded September 1, 2025; dissolved January 31, 2026, January 31, 2026 and January 30, 2026). https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/05514098/insolvency
[^31]: Christopher Wylie, written statement, "In the Matter of Cambridge Analytica and Other Related Issues," Senate Committee on the Judiciary, May 16, 2018, paragraphs 32 and 33. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/download/06/03/2026/05-16-18-wylie-testimony
[^32]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, p. 668 and notes 4318 to 4325 (Wylie proffer; Patten transcript, pp. 29 to 38; Kaiser transcript, pp. 67 to 68; Bannon transcript, pp. 253 to 256). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
[^33]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 678 to 679 and notes 4380 to 4383 (Betsy Swan, "Trump Data Guru Alexander Nix: I Tried To Team Up With Julian Assange," *The Daily Beast*, October 25, 2017; Kara Scannell, Dana Bash and Marshall Cohen, CNN, October 25, 2017). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
[^34]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 663 to 664 (section introduction, "Committee did not examine the effectiveness of the work these companies may have conducted"; limitations including Nix's non-appearance and the seizure of the company's corporate communications by U.K. authorities). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
[^35]: Federal Election Commission, Statement of Reasons of Commissioners Shana M. Broussard and Ellen L. Weintraub, MURs 7207, 7268, 7274 and 7623 (Russian Federation; Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.; Donald J. Trump; H. Russell Taub; Cambridge Analytica, LLC; Internet Research Agency; Paul Manafort), note 2 (certification dated April 22, 2021). https://www.fec.gov/files/legal/murs/7207/7207_47.pdf
[^36]: UK Information Commissioner's Office, *Investigation into the use of data analytics in political campaigns: A report to Parliament*, November 6, 2018, section 3.2.4 (p. 38). https://www.statewatch.org/media/documents/news/2018/nov/uk-ico-report-investigation-into-use-of-data-political-campaigns-6-11-18.pdf
[^37]: UK Information Commissioner's Office, *Investigation into the use of data analytics in political campaigns*, November 6, 2018, section 3.2.3 (trial set for January 9, 2019 at Hendon Magistrates' Court); "Cambridge Analytica Pleads Guilty In UK Data Access Case," *MediaPost*, January 9, 2019 (fine of £15,000, costs of £6,000, victim surcharge of £170, citing the ICO announcement) https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/330338/ ; Ellen Tannam, "Cambridge Analytica owner hit with £15,000 fine for disobeying UK ICO," *Silicon Republic*, January 2019 (District Judge Kenneth Grant: "wilful disregard of the enforcement notice") https://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/cambridge-analytica-scl-fine
[^38]: Elizabeth Denham, Information Commissioner, letter to Julian Knight MP, Chair, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, reference ICO/O/ED/L/RTL/0181, October 2, 2020, paragraphs 3 to 15. https://cy.ico.org.uk/media2/migrated/2618383/20201002_ico-o-ed-l-rtl-0181_to-julian-knight-mp.pdf
[^39]: "Ex-Cambridge Analytica head banned from running firms in UK," Reuters, published by Al Jazeera, September 25, 2020 (statement of the Insolvency Service of September 24, 2020; Mark Bruce, chief investigator; disqualification from October 5, 2020). https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/9/25/uk-bans-ex-cambridge-analytica-boss-for-unethical-services
[^40]: House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, *Disinformation and "fake news": Final Report*, HC 1791, February 18, 2019, paragraphs 285 to 290, 296 and notes 327 to 329 and 338. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/1791/1791.pdf
[^41]: Companies House, EMERDATA LIMITED (company number 10911848), overview, officers, persons with significant control and insolvency pages, viewed October 1, 2026; personal appointments pages for Jennifer Lynne Mercer, Rebekah Anne Mercer, Jacquelyn James-Varga and Bradley David Golub. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10911848
[^42]: Companies House, insolvency pages for SCL GROUP LIMITED (05514098), SCL ELECTIONS LIMITED (08256225) and CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA(UK) LIMITED (09375920), viewed October 1, 2026 (administration May 3, 2018 to April 17, 2019; compulsory liquidation, petition August 13, 2018, winding up commenced April 17, 2019 and concluded September 1, 2025; dissolved January 31, 2026, January 31, 2026 and January 30, 2026). https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/05514098/insolvency

6
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/ITICO.md
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@ -6,8 +6,12 @@ tags:
category: "Private Organization"
summary: "ITICO (Integrated Technologies International Co.) was a company that served as a cover for Alan Sanders, who had links to the Central Intelligence Agency."
location: "USA"
updated: 2026-10-12
---
[[ITICO]] (Integrated Technologies International Co.) was a company that served as a cover for [[Alan Sanders]], who had links to the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]. Through [[ITICO]], Sanders was involved in supplying technology for cluster bombs to [[Carlos Cardoen]] in the form of blueprints, despite a [[United Nations]] arms embargo against [[Chile]].[^1]
[[ITICO]] (Integrated Technologies International Co.) was a company that served as a cover for [[Alan Sanders]], who had links to the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]. Through ITICO, Sanders was involved in supplying technology for cluster bombs to [[Carlos Cardoen]] in the form of blueprints. [[Ari Ben-Menashe]] wrote that this was done despite a [[United Nations]] arms embargo against [[Chile]].[^1] Security Council resolution 232 of December 16, 1966 imposed mandatory measures against Southern Rhodesia, including a prohibition on the sale or shipment of arms, and resolution 418 of November 4, 1977 imposed a mandatory arms embargo against South Africa.[^2][^3]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*. Sheridan Square Press, 1992 (TrineDay reprint, 2015).
[^2]: United Nations Security Council, resolution 232 (1966), December 16, 1966. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=S%2FRES%2F232%20%281966%29&l=en&t=pdf
[^3]: United Nations Security Council, resolution 418 (1977), November 4, 1977. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=S%2FRES%2F418%20%281977%29&l=en&t=pdf

10
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Matrix Churchill.md
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@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ summary: "British machine tool maker bought in 1987 by an Iraqi military procure
start: 1987
location: "England"
created: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-10-12
---
Matrix Churchill Ltd was a British machine tool manufacturer with an American affiliate, Matrix-Churchill Corporation, in [[Cleveland, Ohio|Cleveland]]. In 1987 it was bought by a holding company controlled from [[Baghdad]] by [[Iraq]]'s [[Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization]]. Its American arm bought for Iraqi projects with money from the [[Atlanta]] branch of [[Banca Nazionale del Lavoro]]. Three directors were tried at the [[Old Bailey]] in 1992 for deceiving the export licensing authorities. The trial collapsed, and the collapse produced the [[Scott Inquiry]].[^1][^2]
@ -36,9 +36,11 @@ In the [[United States]] the network comprised Matrix-Churchill Corporation, [[B
Prime Minister [[John Major]] announced a judicial inquiry on November 10 and told the Commons that ministers who failed to cooperate "can expect to lose their jobs." [[Robin Cook]] said for the [[Labour Party]]: "This is a political scandal, not a legal failure. The deception went right to the top." The writer [[Anthony Sampson]] said the affair showed "a deeper dishonesty and irresponsibility than is normal, even in the arms trade." In a parallel case, [[Paul Grecian]] of the fuse maker [[Ordtec]], had been convicted at [[Reading Crown Court]] and lost his appeal on February 25, 1992, after ministers withheld documents in the same way.[^2][^5]
On November 18, 1992, in answer to a Commons question on whether the papers supplied to defence counsel would be placed in the Library, the Prime Minister replied (holding answer of November 17): "No. The papers were supplied to the defence for the purposes of the trial. Lord Justice Scott will have access to them."[^6] The Scott inquiry was commissioned in November 1992 following the end of the trial. In the government's statement on the report, [[Ian Lang]] said that Scott "concludes, after more than three years of painstaking investigation, that all Ministers who signed PII certificates did so without any impropriety."[^7] The charges Lang answered, "made and repeated in the media," were that ministers who signed the certificates "were seeking to deprive defendants in a criminal trial of the means by which to clear themselves."[^7]
### Credit
The report of Sir [[Richard Scott]] found that the [[Export Credits Guarantee Department]] had created an undisclosed defence allocation within its Iraqi credit line in September 1985 and enlarged it that December, that Parliament first learned of it through an oblique reference in a departmental memorandum of November 6, 1991, and that Prime Minister [[Margaret Thatcher]] initialed a [[Secret Intelligence Service]] report on the trade dated November 30, 1987. Scott also recorded that in June 1988 a British company told officials it believed it was making missile parts for Iraq, and that no action followed until late 1989.[^6]
The report of Sir [[Richard Scott]] found that the [[Export Credits Guarantee Department]] had created an undisclosed defence allocation within its Iraqi credit line in September 1985 and enlarged it that December, that Parliament first learned of it through an oblique reference in a departmental memorandum of November 6, 1991, and that Prime Minister [[Margaret Thatcher]] initialed a [[Secret Intelligence Service]] report on the trade dated November 30, 1987. Scott also recorded that in June 1988 a British company told officials it believed it was making missile parts for Iraq, and that no action followed until late 1989.[^8]
### Footnotes
@ -47,4 +49,6 @@ The report of Sir [[Richard Scott]] found that the [[Export Credits Guarantee De
[^3]: "Government's Response to Defense Motions for List of Unindicted Co-Conspirators," United States v. Drogoul, No. 1:91-CR-078 (N.D. Ga. September 12, 1991), reproduced in House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, Serial No. 103-95, November 9, 1993.
[^4]: Lacey, Frederick B. "The Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Investigation: Report of the Independent Counsel," reproduced in House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, Serial No. 103-95. https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit
[^5]: R v. Blackledge and Others, Court of Appeal (Criminal Division), February 25, 1992; Gonzalez, Henry B. "Update on BNL Investigation," *Congressional Record,* House, January 21, 1993.
[^6]: Newton, Scott. Review of Davina Miller, *Export or Die: Britain's Defence Trade with Iran and Iraq* (Cassell, 1996), *Lobster* 32, citing Scott Report paragraphs D2.111, D2.120, D4.30, and G12.30.
[^6]: Major, John, written answer on Matrix Churchill, House of Commons, November 18, 1992, HC Deb vol. 214, cols. 216-7W. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written_answers/1992/nov/18/matrix-churchill
[^7]: Lang, Ian, statement on the Scott Report, House of Commons, February 15, 1996, HC Deb vol. 271, cols. 1139-64. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1996/feb/15/scott-report
[^8]: Newton, Scott. Review of Davina Miller, *Export or Die: Britain's Defence Trade with Iran and Iraq* (Cassell, 1996), *Lobster* 32, citing Scott Report paragraphs D2.111, D2.120, D4.30, and G12.30.

247
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/National Security Archive.md
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@ -1,37 +1,252 @@
---
category: "Private Organization"
aliases:
- "NSArchive"
- "National Security Archives"
- "National Security Archive Fund"
- "National Security Archive Fund, Inc."
- "Fund for Peace National Security Archive"
category: "Private Organization"
tags:
- Organization
- FOIA
- Declassification
- Archive
summary: "Nongovernmental research institute and FOIA litigant at George Washington University, founded in 1985, whose suits and briefing books released the Family Jewels, the Bay of Pigs inspector general's report and Gottlieb's testimony."
- PeterKornbluh
- FOIALitigation
- ChileDeclassification
- FoundationFunding
- AbleArcher83
summary: "Nongovernmental research institute at George Washington University, founded in 1985, whose FOIA requests, suits and electronic briefing books have published the Family Jewels, the Bay of Pigs inspector general's report and Sidney Gottlieb's 1975 testimony."
start: 1985
location: "Washington, D.C."
created: 2026-09-22
updated: 2026-09-22
updated: 2026-10-12
relations:
- type: founded
with: "[[Scott Armstrong]]"
reverse: true
role: "founding director"
start: 1985
end: 1989
fn: 4
- type: director_of
with: "[[Thomas S. Blanton]]"
reverse: true
role: "executive director"
start: 1992
fn: 4
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Malcolm Byrne]]"
reverse: true
role: "deputy director; director of research"
fn: 6
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Peter Kornbluh]]"
reverse: true
role: "director of the Cuba and Chile Documentation Projects"
fn: 6
- type: director_of
with: "[[Edgar N. James]]"
reverse: true
role: "board chair"
start: 2019
end: 2025
fn: 4
- type: director_of
with: "[[Nancy E. Soderberg]]"
reverse: true
role: "vice chair"
fn: 5
- type: director_of
with: "[[Cliff Sloan]]"
reverse: true
role: "secretary"
fn: 5
- type: director_of
with: "[[Vivian Schiller]]"
reverse: true
role: "director"
fn: 5
- type: funded
with: "[[John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation]]"
reverse: true
role: "20 grants listed in the foundation's database, 1985 to 2025, totaling $9,968,770"
start: 1985
fn: 9
- type: funded
with: "[[Carnegie Corporation of New York]]"
reverse: true
role: "payments for archival programs on U.S.-Russia relations and nuclear security"
start: 2020
fn: 10
- type: funded
with: "[[Ford Foundation]]"
reverse: true
role: "grants for freedom of information, Colombia and Cuba projects"
start: 2013
fn: 11
- type: funded
with: "[[Foundation to Promote Open Society]]"
reverse: true
role: "general support"
start: 2020
end: 2021
fn: 12
- type: funded
with: "[[William and Flora Hewlett Foundation]]"
reverse: true
role: "Cyber Vault"
start: 2021
end: 2022
fn: 13
- type: funded
with: "[[Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust]]"
reverse: true
role: "general purpose"
start: 2021
end: 2024
fn: 14
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President]]"
role: "plaintiff"
start: 1989-01-19
fn: 21
---
The National Security Archive, at George Washington University in Washington, was "founded in 1985 by journalists and scholars to check rising government secrecy." It describes itself as an investigative journalism center, a research institute, a library of declassified documents, a leading nonprofit user of the [[Freedom of Information Act]], a public interest law firm and a publisher of former secrets.[^1]
The National Security Archive is a nongovernmental research institute and library at [[George Washington University]] in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1985 by journalists and scholars to check rising government secrecy. The Archive describes itself as an investigative journalism center, a research institute on international affairs, a library and archive of declassified U.S. documents, a leading nonprofit user of the [[Freedom of Information Act]], a public interest law firm and a publisher of former secrets.[^1] Its legal entity is the National Security Archive Fund, Inc., a District of Columbia nonprofit.[^2] Until 1998 its press releases described it as a project of the nonprofit [[Fund for Peace]], Inc.[^3]
### Releases Forced or Published
### Founding and Leadership
After a two-year effort under the Freedom of Information Act, the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] declassified on February 22, 1998, the 1961 report of its inspector general, Lyman Kirkpatrick, on the [[Bay of Pigs]], published that year as *Bay of Pigs Declassified*, edited by the archive's [[Peter Kornbluh]].[^2] The CIA released the [[CIA Family Jewels|Family Jewels]], under Director [[Michael Hayden]], on June 26, 2007, after a lawsuit by the archive.[^3] On February 13, 2001, the archive drafted a complaint against the Archivist of the [[United States]] and the Secretary of State over the telephone transcripts that [[Henry A. Kissinger|Henry Kissinger]] had removed on leaving office and shipped to [[Nelson Rockefeller]]'s estate; the government recovered copies in August 2001.[^4]
[[Scott Armstrong]], formerly of the [[Washington Post]], served as founding director from 1985 to 1989. The Archive credits him with the vision for what the organization became.[^4] Its list of founders also names [[Raymond Bonner]] of the [[New York Times]], Congressman [[Jim Moody]] of Wisconsin, [[Ruth Chojnacki]], who worked for Moody and ran the Central America Papers Project he started in 1984, [[Morton H. Halperin]], who provided space for the papers at the [[American Civil Liberties Union]] Washington Office in 1984 and sponsored the Archive in 1985 through the Fund for Peace and the [[Center for National Security Studies]], and [[Stephen R. Paschke]], who set up the financial records in 1985 as chief financial officer of the Fund for Peace and is the Archive's vice president for finance.[^4] The list adds [[Jeffrey T. Richelson]], [[John Prados]] and [[Stan Norris]], who with Bonner and Armstrong formed an early 1980s discussion group on SI/TK-BYEMAN documents that shared documents and declassification requests.[^4]
Its electronic briefing books have published the planning record of the 1964 coup in Brazil, in No. 118 (2004), edited by Kornbluh, and No. 465 (2014), edited by Kornbluh and James G. Hershberg;[^5] the drafts showing that the [[Gerald Ford]] [[White House]] altered the [[Rockefeller Commission 1975|Rockefeller Commission]]'s report, including [[Dick Cheney]]'s handwritten comments, in 2016;[^6] the 1978 confession of the DINA agent [[Michael Townley]] in 2023;[^7] documents on the assassination of General [[Carlos Prats]] in 2024;[^8] and in October 2025 the transcripts of [[Sidney Gottlieb]]'s Top Secret testimony to the [[Church Committee]] in October 1975.[^9] In 2025 it added a note to its 2000 publication of [[State Department]] documents on the killing of [[Charles Horman]] stating that the theory of an American role was now in doubt.[^10]
Board chairs were [[John Shattuck]] (1985 to 1989), [[Walter B. Slocombe]] (1989 to 1992), [[Joseph N. Onek]] (1989 to 1994), [[Russell Hemenway]] (1994 to 2014), [[Sheila S. Coronel]] (2014 to 2019) and [[Edgar N. James]] (2019 to 2025).[^4] [[Thomas S. Blanton]] has served as executive director since 1992 and is listed as president on the current governance page.[^4][^5] [[Malcolm Byrne]] served as deputy director and is listed as director of research.[^4][^6] [[Peter Kornbluh]] is director of the Cuba and Chile Documentation Projects.[^6]
### Board and Officers
The Archive's Form 990 for 2023 lists as directors Edgar N. James (chair), [[Nancy E. Soderberg]] (vice chair), [[Cliff Sloan]] (secretary), [[Nancy Kranich]] (treasurer), [[Michael Abramowitz]], Sheila S. Coronel, [[Sajit Gandhi]], [[Danielle R. Holley]] and [[Vivian Schiller]], with Thomas S. Blanton as director and president, Malcolm M. Byrne as vice president for programs and Stephen R. Paschke as vice president for finance. The returns for 2021, 2022 and 2024 list the same slate. The reportable compensation shown for Blanton was $175,000 in each of those years and for Paschke $140,000.[^7]
The governance page gives these biographical lines for the directors. Soderberg is described as a former U.S. Alternate Representative to the [[United Nations]], former Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, former Staff Director of the [[National Security Council]], former vice president of the [[International Crisis Group]] and chair of the [[Public Interest Declassification Board]] from January 2012. Sloan is described as a retired partner of [[Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom]], Special Envoy for Guantanamo Closure at the [[State Department]] in 2013 and 2014 and general counsel of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive from 2000 to 2008. Abramowitz is described as director of [[Voice of America]] News, former president of [[Freedom House]], former director of the National Institute for Holocaust Education of the [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]] and former White House correspondent and national editor of the Washington Post. Gandhi is described as a senior professional staff member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and a former Presidential Management Fellow at the State Department. Schiller is described as executive director of [[Aspen Digital]], former president and chief executive of [[National Public Radio]], former head of news partnerships at [[Twitter]], former chief digital officer of [[NBC News]] and former senior vice president of the [[New York Times Company]]. James is described as a partner of James & Hoffman and pro bono litigator for the Archive; Kranich as a former president of the [[American Library Association]]; Coronel as director of the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at [[Columbia University]]; and Holley as president of [[Mount Holyoke College]].[^5]
The advisory board listed on the same page includes [[Anne Cahn]], described as a former [[Arms Control and Disarmament Agency]] and [[Department of Defense]] staffer and author of *Killing Detente*; [[Thomas Susman]], described as director of the American Bar Association Washington Office, former counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee and co-author of the 1974 Freedom of Information Act amendments; [[Philip Brenner]], described as the lead plaintiff in the Archive's lawsuit for Cuban Missile Crisis documents; [[David Alan Rosenberg]], a professor of maritime strategy at the [[National War College]]; [[John Dinges]]; [[Tina Rosenberg]]; [[Joan Hoff]]; [[Akira Iriye]]; [[Rosemary Chalk]]; [[Herbert N. Foerstel]]; [[Susan Brynteson]]; and [[Jack Siggins]]. The page lists in memoriam Russell Hemenway as chair of the Board of Directors from 1999 to 2014, [[John Steinbruner]] on the Board of Advisors from 1985 to 2015, Gen. [[William Y. Smith]] on the Board of Directors from 1999 to 2016 and [[Richard Steckel]] on the Board of Advisors from 1994 to 2015.[^5]
### Funders and Filings
The funders page lists the [[Carnegie Corporation of New York]], the [[Ford Foundation]] and its program-related investment division, the [[John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation]], the [[J. Roderick MacArthur Foundation]], the [[Democracy Fund]], the [[William and Flora Hewlett Foundation]], the [[John S. and James L. Knight Foundation]] and [[Fundación Ford]] in [[Santiago]], Chile.[^8] The founding funders named in the Archive's 2025 anniversary booklet are Ruth Adams, the Arca Foundation, Anne Bartley, the Deer Creek Foundation, the Field Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Lance Lindblom, both MacArthur foundations, Stewart Mott, Aryeh Neier, the Norman Foundation, Gary Sick, Philip M. Stern and Margery Tabankin.[^4] The Carnegie Corporation published a collection of the Archive's declassified documents under the title "Carnegie Results: The National Security Archive," covering Area 51 and the Cuban Missile Crisis among other topics.[^1]
The MacArthur Foundation's grants database lists 20 grants to the Archive totaling $9,968,770. Eleven are made out to the Fund for Peace National Security Archive: $25,000 in 1985 "To provide seed money for planning and development"; $200,000 in 1986 "To establish this organization, a central repository for all documentation released under the Freedom of Information Act and the Mandatory Declassification Review procedures"; $200,000 in 1987; $200,000 in 1988; $500,000 in 1990; $50,000 in 1992 for the Cuba Documentation Project; $300,000 in 1993 for "Recovering the Secret History of Eastern Europe and Russia"; $543,770 in 1995; $330,000 in 1996; $150,000 in 1997; and $600,000 in 1998 for the Project on Openness and Archives in Latin America. Nine are made out to the National Security Archive Fund: $600,000 in 1999 "To establish a reserve fund"; $900,000 in 2000 for "greater transparency in U.S. foreign policy and intelligence operations and for special projects in Mexico and Cuba"; $200,000 in 2001; $1,000,000 in 2003 for general operations; $900,000 in 2010 for the International Human Rights Evidence Program; $1,500,000 in 2013 for international human rights and nuclear security; $620,000 in 2016 and $900,000 in 2018 for the Nuclear Risks Documentation Project; and $250,000 in 2025 for general operations.[^9]
The Carnegie Corporation's Form 990-PF reports payments to the National Security Archive Fund of $546,000 in the fiscal year ended September 30, 2020, $404,000 in 2021, $555,000 and $200,000 in 2022, $395,000 in 2023, and $560,000 and $175,000 in 2024. The larger payments are described as for archival programs on U.S.-Russia relations, nuclear security and cooperative threat reduction, and the smaller as for a study on nuclear targeting, civilian casualties and the laws of war. The returns list further approved payments of $404,000 (2020 return), $395,000 (2022 return), and $390,000 and $125,000 (2024 return).[^10]
The Ford Foundation's Form 990-PF for 2020 lists payments to the Archive of $250,000 to use freedom of information laws to access, analyze and publish evidence of grave human rights violations, $100,000 for the Colombia Truth Commission Documentation Project and $50,000 for a collaborative effort with Cuban historians; the return for 2021 lists $100,000 for the Colombia project and $75,000 for the Cuba effort. The foundation's grants database lists a $100,000 grant approved in May 2021 for the Colombia project, and a $63,000 grant approved in July 2013 for the IFTI Watch and freedominfo.org project on the openness practices of global institutions that make the rules for finance, trade and economic development.[^11] The [[Foundation to Promote Open Society]] reported grants of $185,000 in 2020 and $300,000 in 2021 for general support.[^12] The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation reported payments of $250,000 and $50,000 in 2021 and $130,000 in 2022 for the creation of a Cyber Vault and its website.[^13] The Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust reported general-purpose payments of $300,000 in 2021, $300,000 in 2022, $650,000 in 2023 and $350,000 in 2024.[^14]
Form 990 filings for the National Security Archive Fund, Inc. (employer identification number 22-2127884) show total revenue for tax years 2011 through 2023 ranging from $1,483,438 in 2014 to $4,482,160 in 2013, and contributions ranging from $834,300 in 2012 to $3,955,097 in 2013. For 2023 the filing reports total revenue of $2,400,353, functional expenses of $2,638,330 and year-end assets of $2,675,321. For 2024 it reports revenue of $1,807,989, contributions of $1,272,164, expenses of $2,531,878, year-end assets of $2,147,279 and 22 employees.[^2][^15]
### Fee Status Under the Freedom of Information Act
In 1988 the Archive challenged the Department of Defense over its fee category. The District Court found the dispute ripe but granted the Defense Department summary judgment.[^16] On appeal, the D.C. Circuit held that the Archive "is not an educational institution" and that "it is a representative of the news media by reason of its publication activities," so that it could be charged only duplication costs for requests furthering that function.[^17]
The [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] reached different conclusions. In September 2004 it placed the National Security Archive Fund in the news media fee category. In October 2004 it withheld the 2004 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in full under Exemptions 1 and 3, and on September 30, 2005 the District Court granted the CIA summary judgment and dismissed the case.[^18] In 2005 the CIA had also placed the Archive itself in its "all other" category, and the Archive sued in 2006. The CIA then acknowledged it had acted in error and granted news media status, which mooted the claims about past requests. The court dismissed the rest for lack of jurisdiction.[^19] In November 2008 the court granted the Archive's motion for reconsideration.[^20]
### Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President
On January 19, 1989, the final day of the [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]] presidency, the Archive filed several Freedom of Information Act requests for all material stored on the [[Executive Office of the President]] and National Security Council electronic communications systems from their installation in the mid-1980s. The same day the plaintiffs filed suit for a declaration that the electronic documents were federal and presidential records and an injunction against their destruction. The plaintiffs were Scott Armstrong, [[Gary M. Stern]], [[Eddie Becker]], the Archive, the Center for National Security Studies, the [[American Historical Association]] and the American Library Association. The defendants included the White House Communications Agency and Acting Archivist of the United States [[Trudy Peterson]].[^21] The Executive Office of the President had used the [[PROFS]] electronic mail system, which ceased operations in 1992. The National Security Council kept its own PROFS system and a similar system called All-In-One.[^21]
In 1991 the D.C. Circuit found that the plaintiffs had standing, that the President is not an agency under the Administrative Procedure Act, and that the Presidential Records Act impliedly precluded judicial review of the President's record decisions, while the agency guidelines remained reviewable.[^22] On January 6, 1993, the District Court ruled that the electronic communications on these systems were federal records within the Federal Records Act, found the agencies' practices arbitrary and capricious, and enjoined the Archivist to preserve electronic federal records, including backup tapes. On May 21, 1993, it held the defendants in civil contempt over the preservation orders. The rulings are reported at 810 F. Supp. 335 and 821 F. Supp. 761.[^21] The D.C. Circuit's opinion of August 13, 1993 found that the electronic communications systems contain preservable records.[^21]
A February 14, 1995 memorandum opinion by Judge Charles R. Richey recounted the case as filed in 1989 at the close of the Reagan administration.[^23] On August 29, 1995, after a July 28, 1995 opinion ordering in camera review of four of seventeen documents, the court granted summary judgment to the government on 88 White House Intelligence Summaries that had been reprocessed.[^24] On August 2, 1996, the D.C. Circuit reversed the district court on the question of whether the National Security Council is an agency under the FOIA. The panel held that the NSC is not an agency because it operates close to the President, who chairs it, and does not exercise substantial independent authority.[^25]
The Archive states that it has filed more than 75 Freedom of Information lawsuits against the U.S. government, 30 of them successful, and that its White House e-mail lawsuits against the Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations preserved 220 million electronic records, 22 million of them recovered from the George W. Bush White House when the Obama administration settled the case in 2009.[^26]
In 2019 the Archive joined [[Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington]] in a suit over White House use of message-deleting applications under the Presidential Records Act. The district court held that nothing in the Act "obligates the President to perform any duty with the requisite level of specificity that mandamus requires," and the D.C. Circuit affirmed the dismissal on May 28, 2019.[^27]
### Bay of Pigs and the Official History
The Archive's Cuba project obtained the declassification of the CIA's 1961 inspector general's report on the [[Bay of Pigs]], written by [[Lyman Kirkpatrick]] as the "Inspector General's Survey of the Cuban Operation." The Archive's press release of February 22, 1998 announced that the 150-page report had been made public that day after a two-year Freedom of Information Act effort, with Kornbluh as the requester. The release stated that CIA director [[John McCone]] had ordered all but one copy destroyed and that the original, with rebuttals by the officials in charge of the invasion, remained in a safe in the director's office. It quoted an attached memorandum by [[Charles P. Cabell]], then deputy director: "In unfriendly hands, it can become a weapon unjustifiably to attack the entire mission, organization, and functioning of the Agency."[^3] The report was published that year as *Bay of Pigs Declassified*, edited by Peter Kornbluh.[^28] On June 4, 1998 the CIA, under Director [[George Tenet]], announced the transfer to the [[National Archives and Records Administration]] of about 3,200 pages of Bay of Pigs records, and stated that the Inspector General's assessment and the Directorate of Plans' response had been released in February 1998 to the Archive in response to a FOIA request.[^29]
The CIA released only Volume III of the five-volume official history by its staff historian [[Jack B. Pfeiffer]] that year, under the Kennedy Assassination Records Act. The volume was found in the National Archives in 2005 by the Villanova political scientist [[David Barrett]] and posted on his university's website. Pfeiffer had himself sued in 1987 for Volume V, and the court accepted the CIA's position that the volume could not be declassified.[^30]
The Archive requested Volumes I, II, IV and V in August 2005. It filed suit on April 14, 2011, and on July 25, 2011, the CIA released Volumes I, II and IV. In May 2012 the District Court granted the CIA summary judgment on Volume V, a draft, under the deliberative process privilege of Exemption 5.[^31] The D.C. Circuit affirmed on May 20, 2014, in an opinion by Judge Kavanaugh. The panel held that a draft of an agency's official history is pre-decisional and deliberative and that the draft of Volume V "is exempt in its entirety under Exemption 5."[^32]
### The Perroots Memorandum
In January 1989, as [[Leonard Perroots]], a lieutenant general of the U.S. Air Force, was retiring, he wrote an "End of Tour Report Addendum." The D.C. Circuit's opinion describes the background in these words: in 1983, "during the Cold War, Leonard H. Perroots, then an Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence in the United States Air Forces in Europe, allegedly recommended a course of action to his Commander in response to an elevated alert status demonstrated by the military forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ('Soviet Union'), which helped avert a nuclear crisis." In the addendum he wrote to "detail the 'chain of events' from 1983 to help the U.S. Intelligence Community learn lessons 'as relates to our [Indications and Warning] capability and exercise planning.'"[^33]
The Archive describes the 1983 events as the Soviet reaction to [[Able Archer 83]], a NATO command post exercise held in November 1983, and states that Perroots served as director of the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] from 1985 to 1989. According to the Archive, the addendum reported that signals intelligence showed the Soviet 4th Air Army issuing an alert that "included preparations for immediate use of nuclear weapons," that it warned of an "ominous picture," and that it warned the exercise could have led to "a potentially disastrous situation." The Archive states that the addendum set off an all-source investigation by the [[President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board]], whose report was declassified in 2015 after a 12-year appeals effort by the Archive through an interagency panel.[^34]
The State Department published a transcribed version of the memorandum in February 2021 in *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981-1988, Volume IV, Soviet Union, January 1983 to March 1985*. The volume thanked CIA staff "for arranging full access to CIA records" and stated that its declassification review "began in 2015 and was completed in 2019." Six months later the Archive filed a FOIA request with the CIA for the memorandum, and in October 2021 it sued. In April 2022 the CIA provided Perroots' cover letter and a completely redacted copy of the memorandum, citing Exemptions 1 and 3. On October 4, 2022 Judge [[James E. Boasberg]] granted the CIA summary judgment, finding that the CIA was not properly involved in the disclosure to the Foreign Relations volume and so had not waived the exemptions, and on November 16, 2022 the court denied the Archive's motion to amend the judgment. The Archive was represented pro bono by [[Beveridge & Diamond]].[^33][^34]
The D.C. Circuit affirmed on June 7, 2024 in an opinion for the court by Circuit Judge Childs, joined by Circuit Judge Rao and Senior Circuit Judge Ginsburg. The court stated that the Archive had conceded that the response was justified under Exemptions 1 and 3 and held that the CIA had not waived them by the publication in the Foreign Relations volume.[^33] According to the Archive's account of November 14, 2025, which cites reporting by the Washington Post, a State Department official confirmed that the Department had republished the volume without a 15-page appendix on Able Archer 83 that contained the memorandum, a CIA response to it and a 1988 memorandum on Oleg Gordievsky's reporting. The official told the Post that the Department removed the documents because the Archive's case "was litigated in District Court and the Court of Appeals and [b]oth courts upheld withholding the information," and that "[t]he Department was not required to provide public notice." The Archive states that the Court of Appeals "said nothing about removing the already published record" from the volume.[^35]
### Records Requests Over the Years
Electronic Briefing Book No. 2, "The Contras, Cocaine, and U.S. Covert Operations," prints the handwritten notebooks of [[Oliver North]] that the Archive obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed in 1989. It includes North's entry for August 9, 1985, which summarizes a meeting with [[Robert Owen]], his liaison with the contras.[^36] The notebooks bear on the [[Iran-Contra Affair]].
Electronic Briefing Book No. 123, "The Kissinger Telcons," was posted on May 26, 2004, five years after the Archive initiated legal action to compel the State Department and the National Archives to recover the transcripts of [[Henry A. Kissinger|Henry Kissinger]]'s telephone calls. On October 29, 1976, while still Secretary of State, Kissinger had arranged to move the telephone notes from the State Department to the New York estate of [[Nelson Rockefeller]], and the Supreme Court held in 1980 that the Freedom of Information Act did not reach the transcripts.[^37][^38] The Archive's correspondence with the Archivist of the [[United States]] [[John W. Carlin]] began in January 1999. A complaint written by pro bono counsel Lee Rubin and Craig Isenberg of [[Mayer Brown]] was presented to the Archivist and the Secretary of State on January 25, 2001, and attorneys for the Archive wrote again to the State Department, the National Archives and the Justice Department on April 25, 2001. The State Department announced on August 8, 2001, that Kissinger had provided copies of the transcripts to the department, and a statement by spokesman Richard Boucher credited the Archive with prompting the recovery. The Archive's account states that the transcripts had been held at the [[Library of Congress]] under a 1976 deed of gift. On May 26, 2004 the National Archives released about 20,000 pages of the telcons, covering Kissinger's service from 1969 to August 1974.[^38]
On June 21, 2007 the Archive posted the CIA's "[[CIA Family Jewels|Family Jewels]]," the compilation that Director James Schlesinger had ordered on May 9, 1973 and that [[William Colby]] assembled into 693 pages. The posting reports that CIA director [[Michael Hayden]] announced that day that the agency was declassifying the full file, which had been the subject of multiple Freedom of Information Act requests over the years and of which only a few dozen heavily censored pages had been declassified. Thomas Blanton was quoted: "This is the first voluntary CIA declassification of controversial material since George Tenet in 1998 reneged on the 1990s promises of greater openness at the Agency." Hayden also announced the declassification of some 11,000 pages of the CAESAR, POLO and ESAU papers and hundreds of pages on the A-12. The Archive separately obtained and posted a six-page summary prepared by Justice Department lawyers after a CIA briefing in December 1974 and the memorandum of conversation of the January 3, 1975 briefing of President [[Gerald R. Ford]]. On June 26, 2007 the 702-page collection was delivered to the Archive at about 11:30 a.m., fifteen years after the Archive filed its Freedom of Information Act request for the documents.[^39]
In 2001 the Archive posted a memorandum of March 13, 1962, from the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]] to the Secretary of Defense, signed by Chairman [[Lyman Lemnitzer]], under the subject "Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba (TS)." It responds to a request from the Chief of Operations, Cuba Project, for "brief but precise description of pretexts which would provide justification for US military intervention in Cuba," and recommends forwarding the enclosed memorandum as a preliminary planning submission. The request for pretexts belongs to the planning record of [[Operation NORTHWOODS]].[^40]
Its electronic briefing books have published the planning record of the 1964 coup in [[Brazil]]. No. 118, "Brazil Marks 40th Anniversary of Military Coup," was edited by Kornbluh in 2004, and No. 465, "Brazil Marks 50th Anniversary of Military Coup," was edited by [[James G. Hershberg]] and Kornbluh and posted on April 2, 2014.[^41] No. 118 includes the planning for tankers carrying petroleum and a naval task force to be positioned for intervention in the overthrow of [[Joao Goulart]] on April 1, 1964.[^42]
In 1998 the Archive's Electronic Briefing Book No. 8, "Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup, September 11, 1973," by Peter Kornbluh, appeared on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the coup in [[Chile]].[^43] Electronic Briefing Book No. 33, "New Information on the Murders of U.S. Citizens [[Charles Horman]] and [[Frank Teruggi]] by the Chilean Military," was published on June 30, 2000, under Kornbluh as project director.[^44]
In November 2023 the Archive posted documents on the confessions of [[Michael Townley]], an agent of [[DINA]], including a letter in which Townley wrote in March 1978: "I accuse the government of Chile of my death." Townley was turned over to the FBI on April 8, 1978.[^45] In October 2024 it published documents on the assassination of General [[Carlos Prats]] and [[Sofía Cuthbert]] by a car bomb in [[Buenos Aires]].[^46] In 2025 the Archive's posting *Chile in Their Hearts* challenged the theory that Charles Horman was targeted because he "knew too much."[^47] An editor's note added to the 2000 posting states that "new information has emerged casting doubt on the theory that the U.S. had a role in Charles Horman's death or that he was killed because he had stumbled across evidence of U.S. involvement in the Chilean coup."[^44]
In 2016 the Archive published documents on the editing of the [[Rockefeller Commission 1975|Rockefeller Commission]] report by the Ford [[White House]], including handwritten edits by [[Dick Cheney]] to the commission's draft and the removal, on White House orders, of the report's entire 86-page section on CIA plots to assassinate foreign leaders.[^48] In October 2025 the Archive published the Top Secret transcripts of [[Sidney Gottlieb]]'s testimony to the [[Church Committee]], given in closed hearings held October 15 to 18, 1975, together with declassified CIA memoranda on [[Project MKUltra|MKULTRA]]. The transcripts had been classified Top Secret at the time and were released through FOIA.[^49]
In 2012 the Archive published its collection on [[Jonathan Pollard]], compiled by Richelson, which includes a 1987 CIA damage assessment. The assessment was initially heavily redacted and was later substantially restored after an Archive appeal to an interagency panel.[^50] Electronic Briefing Book No. 434, "The Secret History of the U-2 and Area 51," edited by Richelson and posted on August 15, 2013, collects the CIA history of the U-2 and OXCART programs by Gregory Pedlow and Donald Welzenbach, with material on [[Area 51]].[^51]
### Footnotes
[^1]: National Security Archive, "About the National Security Archive." https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/about
[^2]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. *Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba.* New Press, 1998, as cited on the Bay of Pigs page.
[^3]: CIA FOIA Reading Room, "The Family Jewels," released 2007, as cited on the CIA Family Jewels page.
[^4]: National Security Archive Briefing Book No. 852, ed. William Burr, February 13, 2024; NSAEBB No. 123, "The Kissinger Telcons," and No. 263.
[^5]: National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 118, "Brazil Marks 40th Anniversary of Military Coup," ed. Peter Kornbluh, March 31, 2004; No. 465, "Brazil Marks 50th Anniversary of Military Coup," ed. James G. Hershberg and Peter Kornbluh, 2014.
[^6]: National Security Archive, "Gerald Ford White House Altered Rockefeller Commission Report in 1975," February 29, 2016, as cited on the Rockefeller Commission 1975 page.
[^7]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "The Pinochet Dictatorship Declassified: Confessions of a DINA Hit Man." National Security Archive, November 22, 2023. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2023-11-22/pinochet-dictatorship-declassified-confessions-dina-hit-man
[^8]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "The Pinochet Regime at 50: The Assassination of General Carlos Prats and Sofía Cuthbert." National Security Archive, October 1, 2024. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2024-10-01/pinochet-regime-50-assassination-general-carlos-prats-and-sofia
[^9]: National Security Archive, "Top Secret Testimony of CIA's MKULTRA Chief, 50 Years Later," October 30, 2025, as cited on the Sidney Gottlieb page.
[^10]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "Chile in Their Hearts." National Security Archive, May 7, 2025, as cited on the Charles Horman page.
[^2]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, National Security Archive Fund Inc., EIN 22-2127884, filings for tax years 2011 to 2023 (total revenue, contributions, functional expenses and assets). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/222127884.json and Form 990 for tax year 2023, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/download-filing?path=IRS%2F222127884_202312_990_2025030723163126.pdf
[^3]: National Security Archive, press release "Scathing CIA Critique on Bay of Pigs Declassified," February 22, 1998 (contact Peter Kornbluh; the Archive described as "a project of the nonprofit Fund for Peace, Inc."). https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/news/19980222.htm
[^4]: National Security Archive, "The National Security Archive 1985 to 2025," anniversary booklet with founders, founding funders, board chairs and executive directors. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/2025-12/Celebrating%20%2040%20YEARS%20%288c%29.pdf The governance page (note below) gives 1999 to 2014 for Russell Hemenway's term as chair of the Board of Directors.
[^5]: National Security Archive, "Governance" (Board of Directors, President, In Memoriam and Advisory Board, with the biographical lines quoted). https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/about/governance
[^6]: National Security Archive, "Staff and Fellows." Lists Malcolm Byrne as deputy director and research director, and Peter Kornbluh as director of the Cuba and Chile Documentation Projects. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/about/staff-fellows
[^7]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990 of the National Security Archive Fund Inc., EIN 22-2127884, Part VII (officers, directors and key employees), tax years 2021 to 2024 (return IDs 202243189349308164, 202323189349304972, 202423209349305017 and 202513189349305171, from the IRS TEOS e-file XML batches 2022_TEOS_XML_02A, 2023_TEOS_XML_11A, 2024_TEOS_XML_11A and 2025_TEOS_XML_11D). https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2024/2024_TEOS_XML_11A.zip
[^8]: National Security Archive, "Funders and Supporters." https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/about/funders-supporters
[^9]: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, grants database, grantee pages "Fund for Peace National Security Archive" (11 grants, 1985 to 1998) and "National Security Archive Fund" (9 grants, 1999 to 2025), grant amounts, years and purposes as listed. https://www.macfound.org/grantee/fund-for-peace-national-security-archive-683/ and https://www.macfound.org/grantee/national-security-archive-fund-29961/
[^10]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990-PF of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, EIN 13-1628151, Part XV (grants and contributions paid during the year and approved for future payment), fiscal years ended September 30, 2020 to 2024 (returns 202131949349100773, 202241899349100304, 202342269349100709, 202442259349101009 and 202531929349101203). https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2025/2025_TEOS_XML_07A.zip
[^11]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990-PF of the Ford Foundation, EIN 13-1684331, Part XV, calendar years 2020 and 2021 (returns 202123199349107292 and 202203199349101880; https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2021/2021_TEOS_XML_01A.zip and https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2022/2022_TEOS_XML_02A.zip); Ford Foundation, grants database entries 120611 (IFTI Watch/freedominfo.org Project, $63,000, July 2013) and 140176 (Colombia Truth Commission Documentation Project, $100,000, May 2021). https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/our-grants/awarded-grants/grants-database/national-security-archive-fund-120611/ and https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/our-grants/awarded-grants/grants-database/national-security-archive-fund-140176/
[^12]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990-PF of the Foundation to Promote Open Society, EIN 26-3753801, Part XV, calendar years 2020 and 2021 (returns 202113519349100511 and 202213209349101601). https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2021/2021_TEOS_XML_01A.zip and https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2022/2022_TEOS_XML_02A.zip
[^13]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990-PF of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, EIN 94-1655673, Part XV, calendar years 2021 and 2022 (returns 202233189349104163 and 202343179349104459). https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2022/2022_TEOS_XML_02A.zip and https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2023/2023_TEOS_XML_11A.zip
[^14]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990-PF of the Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust, EIN 13-7298842, Part XV, calendar years 2021 to 2024 (returns 202203189349106530, 202303189349102710, 202403189349101555 and 202513119349100441). https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2025/2025_TEOS_XML_11D.zip and the corresponding 2022, 2023 and 2024 batches
[^15]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990 of the National Security Archive Fund Inc., tax year 2024 (return 202513189349305171): revenue, contributions, expenses, assets and employee count. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2025/2025_TEOS_XML_11D.zip
[^16]: National Security Archive v. U.S. Department of Defense, 690 F. Supp. 17 (D.D.C. June 16, 1988). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2359370/national-security-archive-v-us-department-of-defense/
[^17]: National Security Archive v. U.S. Department of Defense, 880 F.2d 1381 (D.C. Cir. 1989) (Ginsburg, J.). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/526958/national-security-archive-v-us-department-of-defense/
[^18]: National Security Archive Fund, Inc. v. Central Intelligence Agency, 402 F. Supp. 2d 211 (D.D.C. Sept. 30, 2005), Civ. A. 04-1821 (RMC). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2426293/national-security-archive-fund-inc-v-central-intelligence-agency/
[^19]: National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, 564 F. Supp. 2d 29 (D.D.C. July 14, 2008), Civil Action No. 06-1080 (GK). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1407597/national-security-archive-v-central-intelligence-agency/
[^20]: National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, 584 F. Supp. 2d 144 (D.D.C. Nov. 4, 2008), Civil Action No. 06-1080 (GK), granting reconsideration. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2356756/national-security-archive-v-central-intelligence-agency/
[^21]: Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 1 F.3d 1274 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 13, 1993), Nos. 93-5002 et al., describing 810 F. Supp. 335 (D.D.C. 1993) and 821 F. Supp. 761 (D.D.C. 1993), and the January 19, 1989 requests and suit. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/7025904/armstrong-v-executive-office-of-the-president/
[^22]: Scott Armstrong v. George Bush, 924 F.2d 282 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 25, 1991), No. 90-5173. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/555040/scott-armstrong-v-george-bush/
[^23]: Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 877 F. Supp. 690 (D.D.C. Feb. 14, 1995), Civ. A. No. 89-142 (CRR). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1396736/armstrong-v-executive-office-of-the-president/
[^24]: Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 897 F. Supp. 10 (D.D.C. Aug. 29, 1995), Civ. A. No. 89-0142 (CRR), on the July 28, 1995 opinion and the reprocessing of 88 White House Intelligence Summaries. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1470396/armstrong-v-executive-office-of-the-president/
[^25]: Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 90 F.3d 553 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 2, 1996), Nos. 95-5057 and 95-5061, reversed. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/722513/scott-armstrong-appelleescross-appellants-v-executive-office-of/
[^26]: National Security Archive, "Accomplishments." https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/about/accomplishments
[^27]: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. Trump, 924 F.3d 602 (D.C. Cir. May 28, 2019), No. 18-5150, affirming dismissal of the mandamus petition by CREW and the National Security Archive; district court quoted at 302 F. Supp. 3d 127. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4623612/citizens-for-responsibility-ethics-in-wash-natl-sec-archive-v-trump/
[^28]: National Security Archive, "Bay of Pigs: 40 Years After," listing Peter Kornbluh, *Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba* (New Press, 1998). https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/bayofpigs/
[^29]: Central Intelligence Agency, press release "CIA Releases Documents Pertaining to Bay of Pigs," June 4, 1998. https://irp.fas.org/cia/news/pr060498.html
[^30]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 341, "CIA Sued for 'Holding History Hostage' on Bay of Pigs Invasion." Covers the 1998 declassification of the Inspector General's Survey and of Volume III, the 1987 Pfeiffer suit, the 2005 discovery of Volume III by David Barrett, and the 2011 suit. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB341/index.htm
[^31]: National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, 859 F. Supp. 2d 65 (D.D.C. May 10, 2012), Civil Action No. 11-724 (GK). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2662444/national-security-archive-v-central-intelligence-agency/
[^32]: National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, 752 F.3d 460 (D.C. Cir. May 20, 2014), No. 12-5201 (Kavanaugh, J.). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2675034/national-security-archive-v-central-intelligence-agency/
[^33]: National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, No. 23-5017 (D.C. Cir. June 7, 2024) (Childs, J.; Rao, J.; Ginsburg, Sr. J.), affirming No. 1:21-cv-02857 (D.D.C. Oct. 4, 2022, 2022 WL 5062523) and the order of Nov. 16, 2022 (2022 WL 18493099). https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2024/06/23-5017-2058350.pdf
[^34]: National Security Archive, "The Censored History of Able Archer 83," November 14, 2025, with the 2021 posting "Able Archer War Scare 'Potentially Disastrous'," February 17, 2021. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/able-archer-83/2025-11-14/censored-history-able-archer-83 and https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/aa83/2021-02-17/able-archer-war-scare-potentially-disastrous
[^35]: National Security Archive, "The Censored History of Able Archer 83," November 14, 2025, reporting the Washington Post's account and the State Department official's statements. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/able-archer-83/2025-11-14/censored-history-able-archer-83
[^36]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 2, "The Contras, Cocaine, and U.S. Covert Operations." https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/index.html
[^37]: Kissinger v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 445 U.S. 136 (1980) (statement of facts on the October 29, 1976 removal of the telephone notes to the Rockefeller estate). https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/445/136
[^38]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 123, "The Kissinger Telcons," posted May 26, 2004. Document list includes the correspondence with Archivist John W. Carlin of January 15 and 21, 1999, the complaint presented January 25, 2001, the attorneys' letter of April 25, 2001, and State Department press release "Former Secretary of State Kissinger Provides Department with Documents," August 8, 2001. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB123/index.htm
[^39]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 222, "The CIA's Family Jewels," posted June 21, 2007, updated June 26, 2007. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB222/index.htm
[^40]: Joint Chiefs of Staff, memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, "Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba (TS)," March 13, 1962, signed by L. L. Lemnitzer, Chairman, with its enclosure, as posted by the National Security Archive in 2001. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/news/20010430/northwoods.pdf
[^41]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 118, "Brazil Marks 40th Anniversary of Military Coup," edited by Peter Kornbluh, 2004, and Electronic Briefing Book No. 465, "Brazil Marks 50th Anniversary of Military Coup," edited by James G. Hershberg and Peter Kornbluh, posted April 2, 2014. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB118/ and https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB465/
[^42]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 118, introduction and planning documents on the 1964 coup. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB118/
[^43]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 8, "Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup, September 11, 1973," by Peter Kornbluh. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8.htm
[^44]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 33, "New Information on the Murders of U.S. Citizens Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi by the Chilean Military," published June 30, 2000, with the editor's note cross-referencing "CHILE IN THEIR HEARTS, published May 7, 2025." https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB33/index.html
[^45]: National Security Archive, "The Pinochet Dictatorship Declassified: Confessions of a DINA Hit Man," November 22, 2023, Kornbluh, ed. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2023-11-22/pinochet-dictatorship-declassified-confessions-dina-hit-man
[^46]: National Security Archive, "The Pinochet Regime at 50: The Assassination of General Carlos Prats and Sofía Cuthbert," October 1, 2024. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2024-10-01/pinochet-regime-50-assassination-general-carlos-prats-and-sofia
[^47]: National Security Archive, "Chile in Their Hearts," May 7, 2025. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2025-05-07/chile-their-hearts
[^48]: National Security Archive, "Gerald Ford White House Altered Rockefeller Commission Report in 1975," Electronic Briefing Book No. 543, February 29, 2016, edited by John Prados and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence/2016-02-29/gerald-ford-white-house-altered-rockefeller-commission-report
[^49]: National Security Archive, "The Top Secret Testimony of CIA's MKULTRA Chief, 50 Years Later," October 30, 2025. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/dnsa-intelligence/2025-10-30/top-secret-testimony-cias-mkultra-chief-50-years-later
[^50]: National Security Archive, "Jonathan Pollard: Revisiting a Still Sensitive Case," Electronic Briefing Book No. 407, edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson, posted December 14, 2012. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence/2012-12-14/jonathan-pollard-spy-case-cias-1987-damage-assessment-declassified and https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB407/
[^51]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 434, "The Secret History of the U-2 and Area 51," edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson, posted August 15, 2013. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/