Declassification

How and Why the CIA Censored Marchetti's 'The Cult of Intelligence'

Newly-discovered CIA documents in the JFK files have provided fresh details on exactly what the Agency censored from ex-CIA officer Victor Marchetti’s book, and why.

The new documents reveal previously-unknown CIA operations involving nuclear-powered spy drones, political subsidies to foreign parties, surveillance of a US ambassador and the use of front companies, including sponsorship of media outlets for propaganda purposes. Many of these details were included in original drafts of The CIA and The Cult of Intelligence, but were removed by the Agency for political reasons.

In 1974 former special assistant to the deputy director of the CIA Victor Marchetti and former State Department officer John Marks published The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, one of the first inside accounts of the US spy community. When they submitted it to the CIA’s Publications Review Board the Agency demanded that they delete 399 passages, so Marks and Marchetti took them to court. Arguing paragraph-by-paragraph the court partly upheld their right to publish, though the CIA successfully argued against 168 passages. When the book was finally published the deleted passages were left in as blank spaces, while the other sections that the CIA tried to delete were in bold typeface.