Confirmed Government Programs

A CIA research program, approved in 1953 and run mainly through the mid-1960s, that funded experiments with LSD, hypnosis, sensory deprivation and other ways of influencing behavior, some on people who did not know they were being tested. Most of its files were destroyed in 1973; a surviving cache came to light in 1977.

The FBI's COINTELPRO operations (1956-1971) were covert programs that surveilled, infiltrated, discredited and disrupted American political groups, including Black nationalist and civil rights organizations, the Communist and Socialist Workers parties, the Klan and the New Left. They came to light after activists took files from an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania in March 1971, and the Senate's Church Committee documented them in 1976.

A 13 March 1962 Joint Chiefs of Staff memorandum, written in response to a request from Operation Mongoose chief Edward Lansdale, proposed staging or faking incidents (some with simulated or real casualties) to blame on Cuba as pretexts for a US invasion. It was a preliminary planning submission: no civilian approval is documented and none of its incidents is recorded as having been carried out. The file was released through the JFK Assassination Records Review Board in 1997 and the full memorandum was posted by the National Security Archive in 2001.

CIA relationships with American journalists and media organizations, running from the early 1950s into the 1970s, are documented by Carl Bernstein's 1977 Rolling Stone investigation and the Church Committee. A single named "Operation Mockingbird" program controlling US media is not documented, and claims of ongoing control today are unsupported. Partially confirmed.

The reported second attack on US destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin (4 August 1964), cited to justify retaliatory air strikes and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, never happened. The NSA's own historian concluded, in a study declassified in late 2005, that no attack occurred and that the signals intelligence cited as proof was deliberately selectively reported, though he found no conspiracy with the administration. The record shows a mistaken report that Washington acted on despite known doubts, not a documented hoax.

Reagan administration officials secretly sold arms to Iran, despite a US embargo, in an effort to free hostages in Lebanon, and diverted part of the profits to fund Nicaraguan Contra rebels while Congress had banned such aid. Exposed in November 1986; the Independent Counsel charged 14 people and won 11 convictions, but two were overturned on appeal and six defendants were pardoned by President Bush in December 1992.

US program (1945-1959) that secretly recruited over 1,600 former Nazi scientists, engineers, and technicians — including many with documented war crimes — and brought them to America for military and space programs, circumventing President Truman's anti-Nazi directive.

Agents of President Nixon's re-election committee broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in June 1972, and Nixon and his closest aides then covered it up through hush money, false statements and efforts to turn the FBI and CIA aside. Who ordered the burglary is still unsettled. The cover-up led to Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974, the first resignation of a US president.

NATO and CIA-coordinated "stay-behind" paramilitary networks across Western Europe during the Cold War. In Italy, elements were implicated in false-flag terrorism (the "strategy of tension"). Confirmed by Italian PM Giulio Andreotti to Parliament in 1990.

A sophisticated computer worm discovered in 2010 that sabotaged centrifuges at Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility — later confirmed to have been developed jointly by the US (NSA/CIA) and Israel (Unit 8200) under Operation Olympic Games.

Militia-era claims that unmarked black helicopters signaled UN or federal occupation plans.

Claims that the Jade Helm 15 military exercise was preparation for martial law or hostile takeover of US states.

Claims that FEMA maintains secret detention camps for political dissidents or mass internment.

Claims that unelected bureaucratic, intelligence, or security networks secretly control elected governments.

Claims that Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt was abducted, defected, or killed rather than drowning.

Claims that CIA-linked Contra networks contributed to crack cocaine trafficking in the United States.

Claims that Reagan campaign representatives secretly interfered with Iran hostage negotiations before the 1980 election.

Claims that the USS Liberty attack involved intentional targeting and later cover-up beyond official findings.