A tweet by Russian-backed international news television network RT on the unredacted files related to the assassination of President John F Kennedy in 1963—posted on the website of the US National Archives and Records Administration—claimed that the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) maintained a "secret base" in New Delhi and Kolkata among other cities in the world.
CIA 'secret bases' worldwide exposed by JFK Files
— RT (@RT_com) March 19, 2025
Is your city on the list? pic.twitter.com/Gh37fstX8C
CIA secret bases, also referred to as "black sites," are clandestine facilities used by the agency for various intelligence operations, including detention and interrogation of suspected terrorists.
It is a known fact that the agency operated secret bases globally, including facilities in Ukraine that support intelligence efforts against Russia.
According to the tweet, the CIA held two secret bases in India, in New Delhi and Kolkata.
𝗧𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆'𝘀 𝗧𝗼𝗽 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 | US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 'secret bases' worldwide exposed by JFK Files - RT
— The African Perspective (@theafricanptv) March 19, 2025
South Africa is the country that dominates in the African continent, with two cities on the list; namely Johannesburg and Pretoria. pic.twitter.com/LjZjXOwd8A
As per the list, the New York division of the CIA maintained secret bases in Kolkata, New Delhi, Rawalpindi in Pakistan, Colombo in Sri Lanka, Tehran in Iran, Seoul in South Korea, and Tokyo in Japan among other places.
Some of these facilities were also reportedly been subjected to legal scrutiny over claims that many detainees were held without formal charges or trials.
It is to be noted that India does have a history with the CIA. In 2013, a PTI report said a declassified official document revealed that India granted permission to the US to use one of its air bases— Charbatia, an abandoned World War II base in Odisha—for refuelling the CIA's U-2 spy planes to target Chinese territories in 1962.
The US National Archives and Records Administration posted to its website on Tuesday roughly 2,200 files containing the documents following an order by President Donald Trump. A vast majority of the National Archives' collection of over six million pages of records, photographs, motion pictures, sound recordings and artifacts related to the assassination have previously been released.
