Operation CHAOS
What happens when security becomes its own enemy?
4.7 (33)
49 mins
Explore Operation CHAOS, the CIA’s covert effort to spy on American citizens during the Vietnam War era. Learn how paranoia about communist subversion led to illegal domestic surveillance, internal dissent within the agency, and one of the most important reckonings over privacy, power, and constitutional rights in US history.
Ep 1:
Birth of an Illegal Empire
As protests engulf America, a paranoid President Johnson orders the CIA to break its own charter, spawning the secret, illegal domestic spying program called Operation CHAOS.
Ep 2:
The Chase for Phantom Enemies
Behind closed doors, CHAOS destroys lives and hunts for Soviet puppet-masters that don't exist—yet Nixon expands the doomed search, entangling police, journalists, and countless innocent Americans.
Ep 3:
Burning the Evidence
Watergate's shadow closes in as reporters sniff out CHAOS's secrets, forcing the CIA to shut it down and incinerate mountains of evidence in a desperate cover-up.
Ep 4:
Exposed: America Confronts Its Watchers
Congress launches explosive hearings into CHAOS, exposing shocking abuses of power that shatter public trust and reshape America's relationship with its intelligence agencies forever.
Ep 5:
Shadows That Never Fade
Decades later, CHAOS's ghost still haunts America's surveillance debates, from Iran-Contra to Snowden, as the same dangerous questions about power and privacy resurface again and again.
Discussions (12)
Ashley
Level 2 · 8 mo agoLooool at LBJ thinking the only way people would protest his war was if the Soviets paid them. The fragile ego on these men is actually terrifying.
Walter
Level 10 · 8 mo agoLBJ really convinced himself the KGB was behind the protests because he couldn't handle that people just hated him lol. Naming the computer system HYDRA is straight up supervillain behavior though
Valerie
Level 6 · 8 mo agoHow disgusting to hear they burned the files to hide their crimes. They are totally corrupt.
