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8 Historic Cases That Show the FBI and CIA Were Out of Control Long Before Russiagate
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Foundation for Economic Education
Posted: September 21st, 2025
https://fee.org/articles/8-historic-cases-that-show-the-fbi-...
It’s no secret that the US government sought to assassinate Fidel Castro for years. Less well known, however, was that part of their regime-change plot included a plan to blow up Miami and sinking a boat-full of innocent Cubans. The plan, which was revealed in 2017 when the National Archives declassified 2,800 documents from the JFK era, was a collaborative effort that included the CIA, the State Department, the Department of Defense, and other federal agencies that sought to brainstorm strategies to topple Castro and sow unrest within Cuba. One of those plans included Operation Northwoods, submitted to the CIA by General Lyman Lemnitzer on behalf of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. One of the official CIA documents shows officials musing about staging a terror campaign (“real or simulated”) and blaming it on Cuban refugees. In the summer of 2014, the CIA’s inspector general concluded that the CIA had “improperly” spied on US Senate staffers who were researching the agency’s black history of torture. CIA officers ... also sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department based on false information. In the wake of 9/11, the FBI has, on numerous occasions, targeted unstable and mentally ill individuals, sending informants to bait them into committing terror attacks. Before these individuals can actually carry out the attack, however, the Bureau intervenes, presenting the foiled plot to the public as a successfully thwarted attack.
Note: Read more about Operation Northwoods. Learn more about the rise of the CIA in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on intelligence agency corruption.
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