Confessed Conspiracies: Top 10 Government Deceptions and the Truths That Changed History

Ten government operations that were dismissed as conspiracy theory and later confirmed in the official record. Each one documented, dated, and sourced to the admission.

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Documents (28)

ACLU v. Clapper, 785 F.3d 787 (2d Cir. 2015)
Court Filing · 2015
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
The federal appeals court ruling that the NSA's bulk telephone metadata program exceeded what Congress authorized under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act.
United States v. Moalin, 973 F.3d 977 (9th Cir. 2020)
Court Filing · 2020
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
The federal appeals court ruling that the NSA's bulk collection of Americans' telephone metadata violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and may have violated the Fourth…
Tonkin Gulf Resolution, Public Law 88-408 (1964)
Government Record · 1964
United States Congress
The joint resolution Congress passed after the reported August 1964 attacks in the Gulf of Tonkin. It authorized the President to use military force in Southeast…
Skunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds, and the Flying Fish: The Gulf of Tonkin Mystery, 2-4 August 1964
Government Record · 2000
National Security Agency (Robert J. Hanyok, Cryptologic Quarterly)
An internal NSA history by agency historian Robert J. Hanyok, published in the classified Cryptologic Quarterly and declassified in 2005. It concludes that the second reported…
Church Committee Final Report, Book I: Foreign and Military Intelligence (1976)
Government Record · 1976
Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (Church Committee)
Book I of the Senate Select Committee's final report on U.S. intelligence agencies. It covers the CIA's drug and behavior-control testing, including MKULTRA, and the CIA's…
Church Committee Final Report, Book II: Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans (1976)
Government Record · 1976
Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (Church Committee)
Book II of the Church Committee's final report: its findings on domestic intelligence abuses, including the FBI's COINTELPRO program and the Bureau's campaign against Dr. Martin…
Church Committee Final Report, Book III: Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans (1976)
Government Record · 1976
Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (Church Committee)
The Church Committee's detailed staff reports on COINTELPRO, the FBI's covert campaign against Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Black Panther Party, CIA mail opening, NSA…
CIA “Family Jewels” Memorandum (1973)
Government Record · 1973
Central Intelligence Agency
The CIA's internal 1973 compilation of its own activities that may have violated its charter, released in 2007. It records Project MOCKINGBIRD, the 1963 telephone taps…
European Parliament Resolution on the Gladio Affair (1990)
Government Record · 1990
European Parliament
The European Parliament's November 22, 1990 resolution on the Gladio affair, adopted after Italy's prime minister confirmed the secret stay-behind network existed. It called for full…
Report on the Telephone Records Program Conducted under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act (PCLOB, 2014)
Government Record · 2014
Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board's review of the NSA's bulk collection of Americans' telephone records. It found the program lacked a viable legal foundation…
Report on the Surveillance Program Operated Pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (PCLOB, 2014)
Government Record · 2014
Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board's review of NSA surveillance under Section 702 of FISA, the authority behind PRISM. The Board found the program valuable…
The Gulf of Tonkin, the 1964 Incidents: Hearing before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (1968)
Transcript · 1968
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
The 1968 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in which Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara defended the account of the August 1964 attacks as senators questioned whether…
Project MKULTRA, The CIA’s Program of Research in Behavioral Modification: Joint Hearing (1977)
Transcript · 1977
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research
The 1977 joint Senate hearing on MKULTRA, held after surviving financial records of the program were found. The records had escaped Director Richard Helms's 1973 destruction…
Current and Projected National Security Threats to the United States: SSCI Hearing, S. Hrg. 113-89 (2013)
Transcript · 2013
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
The March 12, 2013 Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in which Senator Ron Wyden asked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper whether the NSA collects data on…
The CIA and the Media (Carl Bernstein, Rolling Stone, 1977)
News Report · 1977
Rolling Stone (Carl Bernstein)
Carl Bernstein's 1977 investigation into the CIA's relationships with American journalists. This is the source of the widely repeated figure of more than 400 journalists. The…
Hampton v. Hanrahan, 600 F.2d 600 (7th Cir. 1979)
Court Filing · 1979
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
The federal appeals court decision in the civil rights suit over the December 4, 1969 Chicago police raid that killed Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and…
Report to the President by the Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States (Rockefeller Commission, 1975)
Government Record · 1975
Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States
The 1975 presidential commission report on CIA domestic activities. It found that some were plainly unlawful, including parts of Operation CHAOS, the CIA's program of collecting…
Nazis and Axis Collaborators Were Used to Further U.S. Anti-Communist Objectives in Europe — Some Immigrated to the United States (GAO/GGD-85-66)
Government Record · 1985
U.S. General Accounting Office
The 1985 General Accounting Office report on U.S. intelligence use of former Nazis and Axis collaborators after World War II. It found no agency program to…
Records of the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency, Record Group 330 (National Archives)
Government Record · 1995
National Archives and Records Administration
The National Archives guide entry for the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency, the office that ran Operation Paperclip. It confirms the foreign scientist case files, 1945 to…
Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair (1987)
Government Record · 1987
House and Senate Select Committees on the Iran-Contra Affair (H. Rept. 100-433, S. Rept. 100-216)
The joint House and Senate committees' 1987 report on the secret sale of arms to Iran and the diversion of proceeds to the Nicaraguan Contras despite…
Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters, Volume I (Walsh, 1993)
Government Record · 1993
Office of Independent Counsel (Lawrence E. Walsh)
Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh's final report on the Iran-Contra prosecutions, covering the arms sales to Iran, support to the Contras in violation of the Boland Amendment,…
Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy (Kerry Committee Report, 1988)
Government Record · 1988
Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations (S. Prt. 100-165)
The Senate subcommittee report led by Senator John Kerry. It found substantial evidence of drug smuggling through the Contra war zones by individual Contras, Contra suppliers…
Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States, Volume II (CIA Inspector General, 1998)
Government Record · 1998
Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Inspector General
The CIA Inspector General's 1998 report (the Hitz report) on allegations that the CIA tolerated or assisted cocaine trafficking by people tied to the Contras. The…
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954, Iran, 1951-1954 (Retrospective Volume, 2017)
Government Record · 2017
U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian
The State Department's official documentary record of U.S. covert operations in Iran, culminating in the August 1953 overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosadeq. Documents 169 to…
The Battle for Iran (CIA History Staff)
Government Record · 2014
Central Intelligence Agency, History Staff
The CIA History Staff's internal history of the 1953 Iran coup, released in redacted form through the National Security Archive in 2014. It states directly that…
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954, Guatemala (2003)
Government Record · 2003
U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian
The State Department's official documentary record of the CIA's covert operation in Guatemala, Operation PBSUCCESS, which overthrew President Jacobo Arbenz in 1954.
Covert Action in Chile 1963-1973 (Church Committee Staff Report, 1975)
Government Record · 1975
Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (Church Committee)
The Church Committee staff report on a decade of CIA covert action in Chile, including election spending and the 1970 effort to foment a military coup.…
CIA Activities in Chile (Hinchey Report, 2000)
Government Record · 2000
Central Intelligence Agency
The CIA's 2000 report to Congress on its activities in Chile, prepared under the Hinchey Amendment. It acknowledges CIA support for the military junta after the…

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