The Lacuna Project

lacuna (n.) a gap in a record where something should be

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Agency

Central Intelligence Agency

Findings that rest on exhibits naming this entity

  • DEF-2.4: The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reported unanimously in July 2004 that most major key judgments of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq "either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting." The Committee found no evidence that administration officials pressured analysts, and found that the CIA's unclassified white paper dropped the Estimate's caveats and its dissenting agencies.
  • INF-2.9: The CIA Inspector General's Volume II report, unclassified on 8 October 1998, found "No information has been found to indicate that CIA as an organization or its employees conspired with, or assisted, Contra-related organizations or individuals in drug trafficking to raise funds for the Contras or for any other purpose," and Volume I found no CIA relationship with Ricky Ross, Danilo Blandon or Norwin Meneses.
  • INF-2.10: The same Inspector General reported that "CIA acted inconsistently in handling allegations or information indicating that Contra-related organizations and individuals were involved in drug trafficking," and told the House Intelligence Committee on 16 March 1998 that there were instances where CIA did not "in an expeditious or consistent fashion, cut off relationships" with individuals supporting the Contra program who were alleged to have engaged in drug trafficking.
  • INF-2.11: An article by a CIA Directorate of Intelligence officer in the Agency's own journal says "a ground base of already productive relations with journalists" and the Public Affairs Staff's response "helped prevent this story from becoming an unmitigated disaster," and describes sending critical stories to reporters and counting skeptical and negative stories.
  • INF-5.1: CIA Dispatch 1035-960 suggests that addressees describe critics of the Warren Report as "wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in," "politically interested," "financially interested," "hasty and inaccurate," or "infatuated with their own theories," and asks them to "single out Epstein's theory for attack."
  • INF-5.3: Volume I of the CIA Inspector General's 1998 report found no information that any CIA employee or anyone acting for the CIA had "any direct or indirect dealing with Ricky Ross, Oscar Danilo Blandon or Juan Norwin Meneses." Volume II found that the CIA "acted inconsistently in handling allegations or information" that Contra-related individuals and organizations were involved in drug trafficking, and that it did not inform Congress of eight of ten Contra-related individuals during the fiscal year 1987 statutory prohibition.
  • INF-5.4: Nicholas Dujmovic, a CIA Directorate of Intelligence officer, wrote an article in the Agency's journal Studies in Intelligence, written after December 1997 and approved for release on 29 July 2014. It says "a ground base of already productive relations with journalists" and the Public Affairs Staff "helped prevent this story from becoming an unmitigated disaster." It credits the Post, Times and Los Angeles Times criticism of the series with "balanced reporting" and says Public Affairs made sure reporters and news directors received copies of those stories.
  • DEF-6.6: The CIA Inspector General found no information that the CIA or its employees conspired with Contra-related persons in drug trafficking, and found that the CIA acted inconsistently when it learned of trafficking allegations.
  • DEF-6.7: The Senate BCCI report found that Justice Department personnel obstructed the Manhattan District Attorney's inquiry and that the CIA continued to use BCCI and First American after it knew BCCI was a criminal enterprise.
  • DEF-6.9: The 9/11 Commission found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded al Qaeda.
  • DEF-6.10: The Church Committee found that until February 1976 the CIA kept covert relationships with about 50 American journalists or employees of U.S. media organizations, and that it produced, subsidized or sponsored more than a thousand books before the end of 1967.
  • DEF-6.11: The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's 2014 study of the CIA's detention and interrogation program states that Senator Levin's proposal for an independent commission "resulted in concern at the CIA that such a commission would lead to the discovery of videotapes documenting CIA interrogations," that this concern "prompted renewed interest at the CIA to destroy the videotapes," that Levin's amendment failed on 8 November 2005, and that the CIA destroyed the interrogation videotapes the following day.
  • POL-6.15: In a Washington Post column of 22 September 1991, David Ignatius quoted Allen Weinstein, then head of the Center for Democracy, as saying, "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA." The column describes overt funding as avoiding the backlash that exposed covert work produced.
  • POL-7.1: CIA Dispatch 1035-960, stamped 1 April 1967, told chiefs of certain stations and bases to discuss Warren Report critics with "liaison and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors)" and to "employ propaganda assets to answer and refute the attacks of the critics," with the stated aim of inhibiting such claims "in other countries."
  • POL-7.2: The Church Committee reported that the CIA's policy of 11 February 1976 barred paid or contractual relationships with accredited news correspondents and would end fewer than half of about 50 existing relationships with American journalists and media employees. The Committee wrote that "No mechanism exists to protect the U.S. public and the Congress from fallout from black propaganda or any other propaganda."
  • POL-7.3: At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on 17 July 1996, CIA Director John Deutch said CIA policy is not to use accredited American journalists, clergy or Peace Corps members for intelligence purposes, and that the Director or Deputy Director may waive the policy in exceptional circumstances under classified guidelines.
  • POL-7.4: A 1995 article by Michael Warner, hosted by the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence, states that the Congress for Cultural Freedom, publisher of Encounter, "is widely considered one of the CIA's more daring and effective Cold War covert operations," that the Agency arranged a separation in 1966, and that its CIA sponsorship was exposed in 1967. Former CIA officer Thomas Braden wrote on 20 May 1967 that CIA money paid for Encounter and that "few outside the CIA knew about it."
  • POL-7.15: A letter published on 19 October 2020 by former senior intelligence officials, counted at 51 in Executive Order 14152, said the Hunter Biden emails had "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation" and said the signers "do not have evidence of Russian involvement." On 20 January 2025 the order directed revocation of the signers' security clearances and stated that they "willfully weaponized the gravitas of the Intelligence Community to manipulate the political process and undermine our democratic institutions."

Exhibits naming this entity

  • Exhibit 305 26 April 1976. United States Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations: Foreign and Military Intelligence (Church Committee, Book I), S. Rep. 94-755: Covert Relationships with the United States Media
  • Exhibit 314 29 January 1998. CIA Office of Inspector General: Report of Investigation: Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States, Vol. I, The California Story (96-0143-IG)
  • Exhibit 315 8 October 1998. CIA Office of Inspector General: Report of Investigation, Vol. II, The Contra Story (98-0001-IG, unclassified 8 Oct 1998)
  • Exhibit 316 8 October 1998. CIA Office of Inspector General: CIA OIG Vol. II, conclusion on handling of allegations
  • Exhibit 318 December 1992. United States Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations: The BCCI Affair, S. Prt. 102-140 (Kerry and Brown)
  • Exhibit 319 December 1992. United States Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations: The BCCI Affair, Finding 7 (CIA)
  • Exhibit 323 1 September 2005. FBI and CIA: Executive Summary, joint FBI-CIA report on the nature and extent of Saudi Government support for terrorism (cover letters 1 September 2005; declassified 15 July 2016)
  • Exhibit 385 October 2002 (released copy marked April 2004). National Intelligence Council (U.S. intelligence community): National Intelligence Estimate 2002-16HC: Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction
  • Exhibit 386 9 July 2004. U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence: Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, S. Rpt. 108-301
  • Exhibit 836 22 September 1991. David Ignatius, The Washington Post: Innocence Abroad: The New World of Spyless Coups
  • Exhibit 849 1 April 1967. Central Intelligence Agency: Countering Criticism of the Warren Report (CIA Dispatch 1035-960, to Chiefs, Certain Stations and Bases)
  • Exhibit 850 17 July 1996. U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence: CIA's Use of Journalists and Clergy in Intelligence Operations, S. Hrg. 104-593
  • Exhibit 851 1995. Central Intelligence Agency, Center for the Study of Intelligence: Origins of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, 1949-50 (Michael Warner, Studies in Intelligence 38, no. 5)
  • Exhibit 852 20 May 1967. The Saturday Evening Post (author Thomas W. Braden): I'm Glad the CIA Is 'Immoral' (Thomas W. Braden), Saturday Evening Post, pp. 10, 12, 14
  • Exhibit 853 20 October 1977. Rolling Stone (author Carl Bernstein): The CIA and the Media (Carl Bernstein), Rolling Stone, with the magazine's press release (copy in the National Security Archive)
  • Exhibit 870 19 October 2020. Signatories (former senior national security and intelligence officials), first published by Politico: Public Statement on the Hunter Biden Emails (open letter of 51 former intelligence officials)
  • Exhibit 871 20 January 2025. Office of the President: Executive Order 14152, Holding Former Government Officials Accountable for Election Interference and Improper Disclosure of Sensitive Governmental Information
  • Exhibit 927 20 November 1975. United States Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (Church Committee): Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders: An Interim Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, S. Rep. No. 94-465
  • Exhibit 930 9 December 2014. United States Senate, Select Committee on Intelligence: Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program: Foreword, Findings and Conclusions, and Executive Summary, S. Rpt. 113-288
  • Exhibit 1011 Written after December 1997; approved for release 29 July 2014. Central Intelligence Agency, Studies in Intelligence (Nicholas Dujmovic): Managing a Nightmare: CIA Public Affairs and the Drug Conspiracy Story
  • Exhibit 1262 15 October 1997. Central Intelligence Agency: Statement of the Director of Central Intelligence Regarding the Disclosure of the Aggregate Intelligence Budget for Fiscal Year 1997
  • Exhibit 1263 20 March 1998. Central Intelligence Agency: Statement by the Director of Central Intelligence Regarding the Disclosure of the Aggregate Intelligence Budget for Fiscal Year 1998