Missing Family Jewel On Monday Mystery...!

I know what you're thinking, but I'm not talking about those family jewels, OK?

These family jewels are actually the nickname for a series of reports made my the government. Probably would make some interesting reading, except for the fact that some of the list is missing!

What’s In The Missing Family Jewel jewels

Photo via Wikipedia

In 1973, director James Schlessinger ordered deputy director William Colby to compile a record of any CIA activities since 1959 that might have violated the law or the agency’s charter. Colby put together a loose-leaf package of around 700 papers, which came to be known as “the Family Jewels.” Examples of the Jewels include Yuri Nosenko’s three-year detention, domestic surveillance operations carried out by CIA agents, and the agency’s famous attempts to kill Castro and other foreign leaders. Many of these secrets trickled out over the years or were exposed by congressional investigations like the Church Committee. But the full document was only released in 2007, providing a fascinating insight into the CIA’s most scandalous operations.

Almost all of them anyway. Even in 2007, one prominent Jewel was redacted. A memo from Howard Osborn, CIA director of security, lists the Jewels involving his department. The second Jewel on the list describes how the CIA recruited the Mafia to help assassinate Fidel Castro. But the first item on the list is blacked out. So is a later section describing the redacted operation in more detail. So what’s the missing Jewel? It remains unclear, but it must be good. As National Security Archive director Thomas Blanton told The Nation: “The No. 1 jewel of the CIA’s Office of Security is probably a pretty good one—especially since the second jewel in this list is the Roselli/Castro assassination program.”

I'll have to say that no one can keep a secret better than the boys in the government. After all, they are the pros, right?

Coffee inside again today. More rain is on the way.