White House Attempted to Suppress Damning CIA Revelations
Previously classified documents have revealed that the Gerald Ford administration actively worked to suppress a groundbreaking Senate investigation that exposed the Central Intelligence Agency's involvement in assassination plots against foreign leaders. The documents, released to mark the 50th anniversary of the Church Committee report's publication, show the extent of White House opposition to transparency about the CIA's darkest operations.
The National Security Archive, an independent research organisation, published these 1975 documents on Thursday. Their release comes amid contemporary speculation that Donald Trump may have authorised the CIA to assassinate Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro, during a significant US military build-up against the South American nation.
Ford's Direct Involvement in Blocking Publication
Among the released papers is a "secret/sensitive" options paper addressed to Dick Cheney, who served as Ford's chief of staff before becoming vice-president. This memorandum recommended outright opposition to publishing the report led by Democratic Senator Frank Church.
The documents record President Ford accepting the recommendation to oppose publication "in its present form" while insisting that the Senate select committee should "assume responsibility for damage to the nation" that would supposedly result from making the findings public.
The memo suggested that strong White House opposition might persuade the committee to "revise the most harmful areas of the report," indicating a concerted effort to water down the damning conclusions.
Kissinger's Fears of Intelligence Community Damage
The newly public documents also reveal the strong antipathy towards Church's investigations from key figures including CIA director William Colby and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who also served as national security adviser.
A memorandum from February 1975 records Kissinger expressing fears that the investigation into the CIA's domestic spying activities "could be as damaging to the intelligence community as McCarthy was to the foreign service."
Kissinger added ominously: "The result could be the drying up of the imaginations of the people on which we depend," suggesting that transparency would undermine the CIA's operational effectiveness.
The Church Committee's Explosive Findings
Despite White House resistance, the Church Committee's first report – titled Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders – was published on 20 November 1975. The 285-page document exposed the CIA's covert actions overseas in devastating detail.
The report asserted unequivocally: "The evidence establishes that the United States was implicated in several assassination plots." It declared that "short of war, assassination is incompatible with American principles, international order, and morality" and should be "rejected as a tool of foreign policy."
The investigation pulled back the curtain on CIA attempts to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro and revealed American involvement in the assassinations of Congo's first post-colonial prime minister Patrice Lumumba and General Rene Schneider, commander-in-chief of Chile's armed forces.
Immediate Consequences and Lasting Impact
The public revulsion provoked by these revelations led to significant reform. The following year, President Ford signed the first of several executive orders expressly banning the CIA and other US forces from attempting to assassinate foreign leaders outside of war situations.
Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst with the National Security Archive, emphasised the report's contemporary relevance amid speculation about Venezuela: "Fifty years after the scandal of the revelations of the Church committee report, we've come a long way in the wrong direction where we have US presidents who now seem to feel they can openly discuss assassination plots against foreign leaders."
Kornbluh noted that there had been a "public consensus of repudiation for this tactic of US foreign policy" following the Church Committee's work. "It was deemed immoral, unethical and not in keeping with the character of the United States public," he added.
Modern Parallels: Venezuela and Evolving Standards
The release of these historical documents comes amid intensified pressure on the Maduro government in Venezuela. According to reports, at least 83 people have been killed in 21 US drone strikes against alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Pacific since early September.
The Trump administration has offered a $50 million bounty for Maduro's arrest and accused him of "narco-terrorism." The New York Times has reported that the Justice Department's office of legal counsel is drafting an opinion that could legally justify any assassination of Maduro.
The State Department has announced it will designate Cartel De Los Soles, which the Trump administration insists Maduro heads, as a terrorist organisation from 24 November. This designation could provide legal justification for assassination strikes similar to those used against al-Qaida leaders.
Erosion of Church Committee Principles
Fulton Armstrong, a former CIA analyst for Latin America, believes the principles established by Church's report have been significantly eroded over time. "Frank Church was the man who on the Hill did more to rescue CIA from itself and demand transparency and accountability," Armstrong stated.
He added: "The ethics that Church in his sometimes clumsy ways, introduced into CIA along with the levels of accountability and oversight – those things have been reversed. And they are desperately needed."
Kornbluh noted that the 9/11 attacks fundamentally changed public perception about the acceptability of assassinations, at least when targeting terrorists. "If someone was designated a terrorist, they could then legitimately be taken out," he observed, "and that is why you today see the Trump administration doing linguistic and legalistic somersaults."
He warned that applying this logic to Venezuela would violate the principles established by Church and might not serve US foreign policy goals: "It doesn't necessarily advance your foreign policy agenda to create instability and chaos in a country. Just because the Trump administration somehow finds a way to drop a drone bomb on Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela doesn't mean that his regime collapses necessarily."
