Trail of Destruction, Pt. 8: RFK Autopsy Photos Found Among Dismissed CIA Counterintelligence Chief's Files

The CIA compounds a mystery that still plagues the assassination of JFK’s brother

[Editor’s Note: This is the eighth installment in the JFK Facts series, “Trail of Destruction.” New installments will appear every Wednesday.]

Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy speaking at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after winning the 1968 California Democratic primary. Minutes later he was shot to death. (Credit: Sven Walnum/JFK Library)

On Dec. 22, 1974, CIA Director William Colby fired James Jesus Angleton, longtime chief of the agency’s Counterintelligence Staff. That same day the New York Times ran a triple-decker front-page banner headline announcing Angleton had presided over a massive domestic surveillance program, in violation of the CIA’s own charter.

What the Times didn’t report was that Colby replaced Angleton with George T. Kalaris, an operations officer Colby had worked with in the Agency’s Far East Division.

It would be Kalaris who cleaned up Angleton’s mess — and what a mess it was.