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This is a poignant memo that captures the spirit of the times.

Sent to Bill Colby, then the director of central intelligence-designate, from Bill Broe, the C.I.A. inspector general, it reflects the imminent exposure of the CIA’s spying-on-Americans program, which began on President Lyndon B. Johnson’s orders in 1967. Broe was calling Colby’s attention to an internal report of deep unhappiness among clandestine service officers within the C.I.A.’s Europe division. They were part of the large operation code-named Chaos, which went on for almost seven years under Presidents Johnson and Richard M. Nixon.

Helms had created a new Special Operations Group to run Chaos, which was led by a Harvard man named Richard Ober. Some officers grew long hair and infiltrated peace movements in the United States and Europe. Others spied on individual political dissidents Some of the C.I.A.’s officers took to the job.

Others clearly despised it.

This memo discusses a 1972 internal C.I.A. report that recorded “the high resentment we found among many agency employees at their being expected to participate” in Chaos. The political climate was obviously shifting, and opposition to the Vietnam war and the White House was growing within C.I.A. by 1972 and 1973.