WASHINGTON (Diya TV) — Just-declassified documents about the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy have exposed covert CIA activities during the Cold War, including the creation of secret bases in South Asia. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) released about 80,000 pages of declassified files, providing insight into the agency’s secret activities in the region.
These records indicate that the CIA operated clandestine stations, referred to as “black sites,” in New Delhi and Kolkata. These were contained within the agency’s sprawling program to watch and counterbalance communist forces in South Asia amid geopolitical tensions. The fact that such bases existed indicates the extent of American intelligence activities in India in the 1960s.
The phrase “black sites” comes to describe top-secret CIA facilities, mostly commissioned after the Sept. 11 attacks for their use in keeping and questioning known terrorists. Most of these institutions were situated in areas outside American jurisdiction and were surrounded by reports of abusive practices in interrogating prisoners. Even though the recently declassified memos are connected to activities some decades ago in the 1960s, they shed context on how this type of shadowy facility gained momentum.
The release of the documents completes a promise of transparency about the Kennedy assassination. Yet, experts warn that though the files provide new information on Cold War-era intelligence operations, they might not greatly change what is known about the circumstances surrounding Kennedy’s assassination. Author Gerald Posner stated that the files mostly verify previous information on the 1963 assassination.
The revelation of the CIA’s clandestine bases in India provides a fresh twist to the Cold War history of U.S.-India relations.
