CIA's 'family jewels' aren't going to help matters across the border

WASHINGTON — The CIA recently declassified almost 700 pages of documents related to illegal activities undertaken by that agency in the 1960s and '70s — the so-called "family jewels." Many skeptical Latin Americans were hoping that this exercise in transparency would help re-establish some trust in the U.S. government south of the Rio Grande, where the CIA was heavily involved at the time. Unfortunately, that is unlikely to happen.

The papers contain few revelations in connection with Latin America, except for the names of the mobsters contacted by the CIA to attempt an assassination of Fidel Castro. One reason is that the "family jewels" refer to the CIA's illegal activities, meaning espionage on U.S. soil. A great deal of the CIA's involvement in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Argentina and Chile — to name but a few countries — at the time fell within the purview of the organization's mandate, because the activities took place outside U.S. territory. Another reason for the likely disappointment is that certain elements have been censored. There are blank spaces, for instance, in the section that refers to the break-ins that occurred at the Chilean Embassy and other Chilean buildings in the United States just before the Watergate break-in — that may or may not have been organized by the CIA.

There are enough teasers in the papers to set one's imagination in motion — never a good thing with regard to U.S.-Latin American relations, which tend to ignite so many conspiracy theories. In a memo addressed to William Colby, then a senior official at the agency, there is a question mark next to the passage on the break-in at the Chilean Embassy, perhaps indicating that someone was asking whether it fell under the category of illegal activities. One is left with the impression that there were people inside the CIA who thought it did. If the CIA was indeed involved, it would be the first time an official document gives credence to the hypothesis that the CIA used the Chilean Embassy as a training ground for the team that would later break into Watergate.

Another interpretation could be that the CIA was looking for papers relating to contacts between Chile and Cuba, or to the activities of the Chilean affiliate of International Telephone and Telegraph, a sworn enemy of Salvador Allende, Chile's socialist president. However, there is not enough information to confirm or discard the hypothesis — but it's enough to give arguments to those who think they know.