The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has announced it will release hundreds of pages of declassified documents that detail the agency's assassination plans, domestic spying, opening of private mail, and investigation of journalists.
CIA Director Michael Hayden says the information is not flattering, but is part of the agency's history.
The documents to be released were created between the early 1950s and the early 1970s. They illustrate CIA responses to such events as widespread fear of communism in the 1950s and the Watergate scandal of the 1970s, which prompted then-President Richard Nixon to resign his office.
The CIA documents, nicknamed "the Family Jewels," are to be released next week. They were compiled in 1973 by then-CIA director James Schlesinger as he sought details about whether and when the CIA might have overstepped its authority.