Kissinger talks of Cyprus in declassified docs

The Central Intelligence Agency has declassified hundreds of pages of internal reports, dubbed “the family jewels,” which detail various “embarrassments” in the organization's history such as plotting assassinations against foreign leaders or illegal wiretapping.

The 703-page of “family jewels” were declassified on Tuesday, in line with the Freedom of Information Act.

According to the National Security Archive Web site, which has put pressure on the U.S. administration to declassify secret documents in the past, the latest documents include more than that. One document, among three others made public by the Web site on Friday, includes a statement by the then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on the “unspilling of secret service activities,” which also involve Turkey.

The document, dated Feb. 20, 1975, is a memorandum of a conversation between Kissinger, Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger and CIA Director William Colby, among other officials.

The ‘Turkey aid':

Kissinger, complaining about “professional leakers” in the agency and also investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, says at one point: “In all the world, the things which hurt us the most are the CIA business and Turkey aid. The British can't understand us. Callaghan says insiders there are routinely tapped. Our statements ought to indicate the gravity with which we view the situation.”

According to the “rawstory.com” Web site, what Kissinger refers to by ‘Turkey aid' is “illegal financial aid and arms support to Turkey” for the July 1974 Cyprus military intervention.

“Most historians consider that Kissinger … not only knew about the planned attack on Cyprus, but encouraged it,” claimed the Web site, in an article published Tuesday.

“Some Greek Cypriots … still believe that the invasion was a deliberate plot on the part of Britain and the U.S. to maintain their influence on the island.”

Author Christopher Hitchens, specifically in his book “The Trial of Henry Kissinger”, voiced similar allegations against Kissinger.

Plotting against Castro:

According to the main bulk of declassified documents, the CIA recruited a former FBI agent to approach two of the U.S.'s most-wanted mobsters and gave them poison pills meant for Fidel Castro during his first year in power, The Associated Press reported.

The documents show that in August 1960, the CIA recruited ex-FBI agent Robert Maheu, then a top aide to Howard Hughes in Las Vegas, to approach mobster Johnny Roselli and pass himself off as the representative of international corporations that wanted Castro killed because of their lost gambling operations.

At the time, the bearded rebels had just outlawed gambling and destroyed the world-famous casinos operated by American mobsters in Havana.

Collaborating with mobsters:

Roselli introduced Maheu to "Sam Gold" and "Joe." Both were mobsters on the U.S. government's 10-most wanted list: Momo Giancana, Al Capone's successor in Chicago; and Santos Trafficante, one of the most powerful mobsters in Batista's Cuba.

The agency gave the reputed mobsters six poison pills, and they tried unsuccessfully for several months to have several people put them in Castro's food.

This particular assassination attempt was dropped after the failed CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in April 1961.

Other documents detail the testing of mind and behavior-altering drugs like LSD on unwitting citizens, wiretapping of U.S. journalists, spying on civil rights and anti-Vietnam war protesters, opening mail between the United States and the Soviet Union and China, break-ins at the homes of ex-CIA employees and others.

Another set of documents, also newly declassified, is known as the CAESAR-POLO-ESAU papers. This is an 11,000-page analysis, done between 1953 and 1973, on Soviet and Chinese internal politics and Sino-Soviet relations.