603: The Real CIA Vol. 1 | 693 Pages of Forbidden Government Secrets

The Why Files: Operation Podcast

Science, Life Sciences, Fiction, Society & Culture, Documentary, Science Fiction

4.8 • 5.9K Ratings

🗓️ 24 July 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

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Summary

On June 25th, 2007, the CIA quietly released 693 pages of their most classified secrets. No announcement, no fanfare—just a document dump that revealed decades of illegal operations against American citizens.

The Family Jewels documents exposed systematic violations that went far beyond what anyone imagined. Mind control experiments using LSD on unwitting subjects. Surveillance operations targeting 300,000 Americans who committed no crimes.

Media manipulation programs that turned journalists into intelligence assets. Assassination plots approved at the highest levels of government.

These weren't conspiracy theories—they were real operations, documented in the CIA's own words. The Family Jewels revealed how the agency designed to protect America became its greatest threat.

What started as damage control after Watergate became the most comprehensive confession of government crimes in American history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxY3KZ3pQ3o

Transcript

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0:00.0	On June 25, 2007, the CIA quietly released 693 pages of their darkest secrets to the website.
0:21.2	No announcement, no press conference.
0:23.5	Just a document dump of operations so illegal they've been hidden since 1973.
0:29.2	The CIA called this collection their family jewels.
0:33.1	Assassination plots, mind control experiments, journalists on CIA payroll, surveillance of hundreds
0:39.9	of thousands of Americans who'd committed no crimes. These weren't conspiracy theories. These were real.
0:47.5	Each page of the family jewels revealed operations approved at the highest levels, operations that
0:53.5	violated every law meant to constrain the CIA.
0:57.3	And taken together, they revealed something darker than isolated crimes.
1:01.5	They told a story.
1:03.3	The story of the family jewels is the story of the real CIA.
1:19.4	The story of the family jewels didn't start in 2007.
1:24.2	It starts in 1973, when the walls started closing in on the CIA.
1:30.2	On May 9th, James Schlesinger had been CIA director for only three months,
1:35.1	and his timing couldn't have been worse. The Watergate break-in scandal was spreading.
1:40.5	The five intruders were all connected to the CIA, some as officers, some as assets.
1:46.0	The planners of the break-in were E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy. Hunt was former CIA.
1:51.9	Liddy was former FBI with a background in intelligence. Congress and the press were asking questions the CIA didn't want to answer. But the director had a problem. He didn't know what
1:57.1	his own agency had done. He knew there were secrets buried that could destroy them
2:00.9	if ever discovered, so he issued an order to every department head, report any activity that may
2:06.0	have violated the CIA's charter. This was supposed to be a routine investigation, a way to get
2:11.4	the agency out of the headlines. The rumors were bad. He had no idea that the truth was much worse.
	...

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