It’s no secret that the C.I.A. has long placed agents undercover as State Department officials. Daniel Alcorn, president of the Assassination Archives and Research Center, the largest private collection of material related to the Kennedy assassination, speculated that the newly released portion of Schlesinger’s memo to Kennedy about the practice had long been redacted because it confirmed the C.I.A.’s cover arrangements. “I guess they consider that a matter of secrecy,” he said. “They really just didn’t want the embarrassment or the negative attention.”
A newly unredacted portion of a 1961 memo to President Kennedy describes how the C.I.A. had placed about 1,500 agents overseas as State Department employees. The aide who authored the memo, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., wrote that the practice, which was originally meant to be temporary and limited, was threatening the State Department’s control of foreign policy.
“In the Paris Embassy today, there are 128 CIA people,” Schlesinger wrote to Kennedy. “CIA occupies the top floor of the Paris Embassy, a fact well known locally; and on the night of the Generals’ revolt in Algeria, passers-by noted with amusement that the top floor was ablaze with lights.”