1945 to 1974
Secret programs
Radiation and germ tests on people who were not told, MKULTRA, COINTELPRO, the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, and the end of the gold standard.
Key facts
- The government injected patients with plutonium, infected 1,308 people in Guatemala, and sprayed bacteria over San Francisco, none with consent.
- The Tonkin Gulf Resolution passed 416 to 0 and 88 to 2. The NSA's historian later found the second attack did not happen.
- COINTELPRO became public in 1971 after files were taken from the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania.
Timeline
10 events in CIA, War & Covert Operations, oldest first
- 1947September 23, 1947CIA, War & Covert Operations
General Twining tells the Army Air Forces the flying discs are something real and not visionary or fictitious
Air Materiel Command's opinion, three months into the reports; Project Sign followed in December.
- 1953January 1953CIA, War & Covert Operations
A CIA scientific panel recommends a public program of debunking to reduce interest in flying saucers
The Robertson Panel: television, motion pictures, and popular articles, to reduce the public's gullibility.
- 1953CIA, War & Covert Operations
Frank Olson dies a week after the CIA doses him with LSD
Made public in 1975.
- 1955May 5, 1955CIA, War & Covert Operations
The Air Force's statistical study of 3,201 UFO reports finds 689 unknown, a third of its best-rated reports
Blue Book Special Report No. 14; the summary's 3 percent came from 131 reports of early 1955.
- 19601960 to 1965CIA, War & Covert Operations
CIA plots to kill Castro, with the help of organized crime
Found by the Senate in 1975.
- 1962March 13, 1962CIA, War & Covert Operations
The Joint Chiefs of Staff send the Secretary of Defense a list of incidents the United States could stage and blame on Cuba to justify an invasion
Three days later the President, told the military had plans for creating plausible pretexts, said they were not discussing the use of military force; the memorandum stayed classified until 1997.
- 1964August 7, 1964CIA, War & Covert Operations
Tonkin Gulf Resolution passes 416 to 0 and 88 to 2
Authorizes all necessary measures on the report of an attack the NSA's historian later found did not happen.
- 1969December 17, 1969CIA, War & Covert Operations
The Air Force closes Project Blue Book with 701 of 12,618 cases unidentified
No threat to national security, no evidence of technology beyond present knowledge, no evidence of extraterrestrial vehicles.
- 19731973CIA, War & Covert Operations
CIA director authorizes destruction of the MKULTRA records
Seven boxes of invoices survive by a filing error.
- November 7, 1973CIA, War & Covert Operations
War Powers Resolution enacted over a veto
Report in 48 hours, withdraw in 60 days. Treated as a formality since.
Stories (2)
- 1961 to 1997Operation Northwoods (1962): The Joint Chiefs' Top-Secret Plan to Stage Terror Attacks as a Pretext to Invade CubaOn March 13, 1962 the Joint Chiefs of Staff sent Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara a top secret memorandum, signed by their chairman, Gen. Lyman Lemnitzer, that listed incidents the United States could stage and blame on Cuba to justify invading it. They included staged attacks on the Guantanamo base by friendly Cubans in uniform, blowing up a U.S. ship and blaming Cuba, a "Communist Cuban terror campaign" in Miami and Washington, sinking a boatload of Cuban refugees "real or simulated," and faking the shootdown of a charter airliner by flying an empty drone in its place. The Joint Chiefs wrote it in answer to a request from the head of the administration's covert Cuba program, Operation Mongoose, who said he was asking "in response to direction." Three days later Lemnitzer told President Kennedy that the military had plans for "creating plausible pretexts to use force." Kennedy said "bluntly" that they were not discussing the use of military force, and he approved guidelines saying the program's Cuban resources would be used "to prepare for and justify" an American intervention. The memorandum stayed classified until the Assassination Records Review Board brought it out in 1997.CIA, War & Covert Operations
- 1964 to 2005The 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident: How the NSA Faked the Pretext for the Vietnam WarOn August 4, 1964 the government told the country that North Vietnamese boats had attacked two American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. Three days later Congress passed a resolution, 416 to 0 in the House and 88 to 2 in the Senate, authorizing the president to take all necessary measures. The National Security Agency's own historian concluded that no attack happened that night, that about 90 percent of the intercepts were left out of the reports sent to the White House, and that what remained was presented so as to fit the claim. The agency kept his study secret until 2005 because officials feared comparisons with Iraq. 58,220 Americans died in the war.CIA, War & Covert Operations