Report by the CIA on How to Commit an Assassination

An instructional guide on assassination has been found among the CIA's training files for "Operation PB Success" -- the agency's covert 1954 operation that overthrew the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in June 1954. The CIA released it to the public on May 23, 1997, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

Planning for assassination included budgeting, training programs, creation of hit teams, drafting of target lists of persons, and transfer of armaments. The CIA history states that "until the day that Arbenz resigned in June 1954 the option of assassination was still being considered."

According to the official history, the assassination plans were never implemented. But names of the targeted individuals were deleted when the documents were made public, making it impossible to verify that none of them were killed during or in the aftermath of the coup.

In the 1970s, revelations about CIA assassination plots led to strict prohibitions against U.S.-sponsored assassinations.

I found this report on the web, but a few days later discovered that it had been deleted. Why was is deleted? Did the CIA order that it be taken down? I do not ever remember what keys I hit to find this report, but I do know that where it was before, it is not there now. Has it survived anywhere but on my hard drive? Does anybody know? Anyway, here is the complete "CIA Study of Assassination".


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