A MuckRock user found an interesting memorandum from the late ‘70s in our recent assignment From the Archives: Memos mentioning Senator Joe Biden, in which the Central Intelligence Agency bemoaned the “burdens” placed on it by the recently strengthened Freedom of Information Act.

An October 17, 1975 edition of the Central Intelligence Agency’s “Staff Notes” publication, formerly classified SECRET, offered regional specialists with the latest intelligence from Western Europe. While some of the topics covered warrant the hush-hush nature of the classification, some secrecy, like that around an attendance briefing at the 1975 Munich Oktoberfest, is less convincing.

Within the Central Intelligence Agency’s declassified archives there are two volumes of the “Collected Works of Mao Tse-Tung 1917-1949,” originally translated by the Joint Publications Research Service in 1978 and declassified in 2008. While there’s nothing particularly surprising about the CIA’s interest in Mao’s body of work, it is notable that one of the earliest samples of that work is rather literally about Mao’s body: Namely, his preferred exercise routine.

An additional 57 pages of Federal Bureau of Investigation documents shed more light on the FBI’s 1976 investigation into The Village Voice and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press regarding the publication of the classified and censored Pike Committee report. The documents reveal details of how the Bureau approaches espionage investigations of news outlets and journalism organizations.

The Church Committee investigated and exposed some of the largest and most significant scandals in American history, to the point that it was felt that the very existence of the Central Intelligence Agency was threatened. However, a recent FOIA request to the Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed over 18,000 pages that had never been made public - and with your help, we can sue for their release.