Documents reveal Gerald Ford's effort to block report on CIA assassination plots

"The White House under Gerald Ford tried to block a landmark Senate report that disclosed the CIA's role in assassination attempts against foreign leaders and ultimately led to a radical overhaul in how the agency was held to account, documents released to mark the 50th anniversary of the report's publication reveal. The documents, dating from 1975, were posted on Thursday by the National Security Archive, an independent research"

"Among the documents posted by the National Security Archive is a secret/sensitive options paper addressed to Dick Cheney, then chief of staff to Ford, that included a recommendation of outright opposition to publication of the report, led by the Democratic senator Frank Church. The memo records Ford accepting the recommendation opposing publication of the report in its present form and stressing that the [Senate select] committee [chaired by Church] must assume responsibility for damage to the nation that publication would supposedly cause."

Documents from 1975 show the Ford administration attempted to prevent publication of a Senate report that exposed CIA involvement in foreign assassination attempts and spurred major reforms in agency oversight. The National Security Archive released the records around the report's 50th anniversary, including a secret options paper recommending outright opposition to publication and a memo noting President Ford accepted that recommendation. The memo urged the Senate committee to assume responsibility for any national damage. The records also record CIA director William Colby and Henry Kissinger expressing strong opposition to the Church investigations and fearing severe damage to the intelligence community.

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