By host Tom Ashbrook:

“Family Jewels” is, of course, a funny thing to call them. The secret memos released yesterday by the CIA recount a history of law-breaking and dark arts at the agency — the drugging and bugging of Americans, mob deals, assassination plots, poison pills.

People who first talked about this stuff paid dearly. One ended up in a 55-gallon oil drum off Miami Beach.

Now, the CIA is talking itself about what it calls the “family jewels.” But what has it learned?

This hour On Point: the CIA opens its trenchcoat and we take a long look inside, at secrets then and now.

Guests:

Josh Meyer, covers intelligence for the Los Angeles Times

Michael Scheuer, former CIA operations agent and author of “Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror.”;
John Prados, Research Fellow at the National Security Archive and author of “Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA.”;
James Bamford, investigative journalist and author of “Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency.”