Investigative Journalist Probes CIA Secrets

Fresh Air

Published July 14, 2009 at 5:12 PM EDT

Investigative journalist Jane Mayer discusses a secret CIA counterterrorism program designed to assassinate senior al-Qaida terrorists.

The program was never fully put into action, but word of its parameters was withheld from Congress — reportedly on direct orders from then-Vice President Dick Cheney.

A staff writer for The New Yorker, Mayer wrote about new CIA chief Leon Panetta last month in "The Secret History: Can Leon Panetta move the CIA forward without confronting its past?"

Mayer is also the author of the book The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals.

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