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GUEST: Ray McGovern, retired CIA officer, who served under seven US Presidents over 27 years and presented the morning intelligence briefings at the White House for many years.

The CIA recently gave up its stranglehold over secret documents it called “The Family Jewels.” Hundreds of pages of documents were declassified revealing long-secret records that detail some of the agency’s worst illegal abuses during 25 years of overseas assassination attempts, domestic spying and kidnapping. The documents were assembled in the early 1970s as part of an internal investigation of illegal activities and turned over to Congress which ordered multiple investigations and reforms. The documents have now been released by CIA director Michael Hayden who said the documents serve as “reminders of some things the CIA should not have done.” These things include assassination attempts against Cuban president Fidel Castro, spying on antiwar activists, secret CIA holding cells and the detention of suspected spies, and the surveillance of US residents. Critics like my next guest, Ray McGovern, contend that these secrets are nothing new, nor are they a drastic departure from current CIA actions. Ray McGovern is a retired CIA officer who served under seven US Presidents over 27 years and presented the morning intelligence briefings at the White House for many years. I asked him what his initial reaction to the release of the so-called “Family Jewels” was.