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Documents reveal Gerald Ford's effort to block report on CIA assassination plots
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/20/senate-report-cia-assassination-plots-gerald-fordRelease of report comes amid conjecture Trump may have authorized the agency to assassinate Venezuelan president
The White House under Gerald Ford tried to block a landmark Senate report that disclosed the CIA’s role in assassination attempts against foreign leaders and ultimately led to a radical overhaul in how the agency was held to account, documents released to mark the 50th anniversary of the report’s publication reveal.
The documents, dating from 1975, were posted on Thursday by the National Security Archive, an independent research group, as it sought to highlight the report’s significance amid conjecture that Donald Trump may have authorized the agency to assassinate Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, amid a massive US military build-up against the country.
Trump has pointedly refused to confirm or deny such speculation but said of Maduro “his days are numbered” in a recent interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes.
Among the documents posted by the National Security Archive is a “secret/sensitive” options paper addressed to Dick Cheney, then chief of staff to Ford, that included a recommendation of outright opposition to publication of the report, led by the Democratic senator Frank Church.
. . .
The documents, dating from 1975, were posted on Thursday by the National Security Archive, an independent research group, as it sought to highlight the report’s significance amid conjecture that Donald Trump may have authorized the agency to assassinate Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, amid a massive US military build-up against the country.
Trump has pointedly refused to confirm or deny such speculation but said of Maduro “his days are numbered” in a recent interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes.
Among the documents posted by the National Security Archive is a “secret/sensitive” options paper addressed to Dick Cheney, then chief of staff to Ford, that included a recommendation of outright opposition to publication of the report, led by the Democratic senator Frank Church.
. . .