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The best kept secrets of CIA were revealed Tuesday when the
agency released hundreds of pages of documents. Known inside CIA as “family
jewels” as a sign of their importance the documents are probing hundreds of questionable
and illegal activities.
The CIA released the information based on a request from the
National Archives under the Freedom of Information Act after years of resisting
demands to publicly disclose the documents.
For example, the documents reveal CIA planned to kill the
Cuban leader Fidel Castro and was seeking help from the mafia in order to
complete the mission.
"The CIA fully understands that it has an obligation to
protect the nation's secrets, but it also has a responsibility to be as open as
possible," CIA Director Michael V Hayden said.
"I've often spoken about our social contract with the
American people, and the declassification of historical documents is an
important part of that effort."
According to the documents, other leaders targeted by the CIA
included Congo independence
leader Patrice Lumumba and Dominican
Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo.
Other secretes revealed by the documents are tight to CIA
drug experiments on US citizens and the monitoring of groups and individuals
opposed to the war in Vietnam.
Although much of the information disclosed in the documents
has already been published through the investigation and later by scholars and
former CIA agents, historians believes they will offer more details about CIA
covert operations during the Cold War.
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