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 order and the CIA's 1975 searches, and surfaced only because of a private citizen's Freedom of Information request.
Then one individual, through a Freedom of Information request, accomplished what two U.S. Senate committees could not. He spurred the agency into finding additional records… These new records were discovered by the agency in March. Their existence was not made known to the Congress until July.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, opening statement, p. 3