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SOME LESSER-KNOWN C.I.A. PLOTS FROM THE ARCHIVES

Last month, CIA director Michael Hayden came clean about secret illegal activities it has engaged in down the years. The disclosure of this hitherto classified material, dubbed the CIA’s ‘Family Jewels’, was hotly anticipated in the press. But the 693-page document that emerged was something of a damp squib.

Here Eoin Butler trawls through the small print to highlight some of the agency’s less storied exploits…
• Punch spiked at 1952 KGB Christmas party

• Abortive 1987 plot to reunite Wham

• Illegal wire-tapping at controversial 1968 Star Trek convention in Chicago

• In attempt to depose King of the Tinkers Dan ‘The Man’ Rooney, CIA provides covert training to Rooney’s rival Dennis ‘Anie’ McGinley

• Popularly elected Singapore Idol 2003 winner Fu Chung overthrown, US puppet Kim Wu installed.

• Missile launched from CIA-controlled Predator drone assassinates Bambi’s mother

• Clandestine efforts to steal Christmas 1958, ’62, ’64, 75, ’79, ’81 and ‘02