CIA cryptonyms are code names or code words used by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to refer to projects, operations, persons, agencies, etc.

Format of cryptonyms

CIA cryptonyms sometimes contain a two character prefix called a digraph, which designates a geographical or functional area. Certain digraphs were changed over time; for example, the digraph for the Soviet Union changed at least twice.

The rest is either an arbitrary dictionary word, or occasionally the digraph and the cryptonym combine to form a dictionary word (e.g., AEROPLANE) or can be read out as a simple phrase (e.g., WIBOTHER, read as "Why bother!"). Cryptonyms are sometimes written with a slash after the digraph, e.g., ZR/RIFLE, and sometimes in one sequence, e.g., ZRRIFLE. The latter format is the more common style in CIA documents. HERO was the code name for Col. Oleg Penkovsky, who supplied data on the nuclear readiness of the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. According to former CIA Director Richard M. Helms: "The code names for most Agency operations are picked in sequence from a sterile list, with care taken not to use any word that might give a clue to the activity it covers. On some large projects, code names are occasionally specially chosen—GOLD, SILVER, PBSUCCESS, CORONA. When Robert F. Kennedy requested a code name for the government-wide plan that Richard Goodwin was drafting, an exception was made. Goodwin was on the White House staff, and the plan concerned Cuba. Occasionally the special code names come close to the nerve, as did MONGOOSE." A secret joint program between the Mexico City CIA station and the Mexican secret police to wiretap the Soviet and Cuban embassies was code-named ENVOY.

Some cryptonyms relate to more than one subject, e.g., a group of people.

  • AL: Brazil
  • AM: Cuba
  • IR: Philippines?
  • JM: Cuba (also AM)
  • KK: Israel
  • KU: CIA and CIA components
  • LC: China
  • LN: United States
  • LI: Mexico City
  • MJ: Palestinian-related
  • MK: CIA Technical Services Division (1950s/1960s)
  • MO: Thailand
  • OD: Other US Government Departments (1960s)
  • PB: Guatemala (also ES)
  • PD: Soviet Union (1980s)
  • SZ: Switzerland
  • TP: Iran (1953)
  • TU: South Vietnam
  • WI: Congo-Léopoldville/Kinshasa (1960s)
  • EU-RN: Intelligence intercept program of CIA Staff D ops, the group that worked directly with the NSA (National Security Agency).

Unidentified digraphs

DT, ER, FJ, HB, HO, HT, JU, KM, KO, QK, SC, SE, SG, WO, WS, ZI

Known cryptonyms

  • ADAM: Guatemala City
  • AECASSOWARY-2: Mykola Lebed, President of Prolog and CIA Principal Agent
  • AETENURE: Prolog Research and Publishing Association, Inc.
  • AMBLOOD: Luis Torroella y Martin Rivero, a CIA agent.
  • AMCLATTER-1: Bernard Barker, one of the Watergate burglars.
  • AMBUD
  • AMCLEOPATRA
  • AMCOBRA
  • AMLASH-1: Rolando Cubela Secades, a Cuban official involved in plot to kill Fidel Castro in 1963.
  • AMOT: Cuban exile informants of David Sánchez Morales.
  • AMPALM-4
  • AMTRUNK: A CIA plan by New York Times journalist Tad Szulc initiated in February 1963, also called the "Leonardo Plan", that was "an attempt to find disgruntled military officials in Cuba who might be willing to recruit higher military officials in a plot to overthrow Castro", as well as to overthrow the Cuban government "by means of a conspiracy among high-level ... leaders of the government culminating in a coup d'etat". and as "a plodding bureaucratic effort" that "had worked for months to identify Cuban leaders who might be able to stage a coup".
  • AMWORLD: A plan initiated June 28, 1963, to overthrow the Castro regime in a coup on December 1, 1963 (C-Day), that would have installed Juan Almeida Bosque, a top ranking Cuban military officer, as the new head of state. Some Cuban exiles referred to C-Day as "Plan Omega".
  • AMUPAS-1: June Cobb during her infiltration of the Cuban government under Fidel Castro.Cobb's aliases included "Clarinda E. Sharpe" and "Joyce Pineinch." From September 21 to 29, the CIA maintained surveillance of Cobb's hotel room in New York City. Cobb appears under the crytonym LICOOKY-1, which see, as she continued her CIA employment in Mexico and Gutelmala.
  • BGGYPSY: Russia; Russian;
  • CKSPHERE, CKVANQUISH: Adolf Tolkachev
  • CKTRIGON: Aleksandr Dmitrievich Ogorodnik
  • CKTWINE: Boris Yuzhin
  • CKUTOPIA, CKQUARTZ: Victor Sheymov
  • CORONA: the CIA's first satellite Reconnaissance program, 1958
  • DBACHILLES: 1995 effort to support a military coup in Iraq.
  • DBANABASIS commenced Fall 2002, operation to train Iraqis in Area 51 in Nevada and then to run them on missions of sabotage and assassination inside Iraq.
  • DBROCKSTARS: Iraqi spy ring recruited by the CIA shortly before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
  • Doc: Mazatenango
  • Eddie: El Quiché
  • JMTIDE: CIA air base in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua 1961
  • JMTRAX: CIA covert air base/training camp in Guatemala 1960–1961
  • JMWAVE: CIA station in Miami (that operated against Cuba).
  • JMZIP: CIA office (location unknown) 1961
  • Kent: Carias Viejas, Honduras He knew June Cobb was a CIA agent and was familiar with Elena Garro's knowledge of Lee Oswald. He allegedly hid Elena Garro and her daughter for eight days on the pretext of their saefty.
  • LINC, LINCOLN: PBSUCCESS Headquarters in Florida
  • LITEMPO: Spy network, operated between 1956 and 1969, to exchange information with Mexican top officers.
  • LITEMPO-1 Emilio Bolanos, nephew of Gustavo Díaz-Ordaz Bolaños (Secretary of the Interior in the cabinet of president Adolfo López Mateos)
  • LITEMPO-2: Gustavo Díaz-Ordaz Bolaños, Secretary of the Interior in the cabinet of president Adolfo López Mateos and President of Mexico 1964–1970.
  • LITEMPO-4: Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios, Head of the Dirección Federal de Seguridad (DFS), the top Mexican intelligence agency, at the midst of the dirty war (1964–1970).
  • LITEMPO-8 (later LITEMPO-14): Luis Echeverría, Secretary of the Interior in the cabinet of president Gustavo Díaz-Ordaz Bolaños and President of Mexico 1970–1976.
  • LILINK: Front company providing cover to CIA agents in Mexico City.
  • ODOATH: United States Navy
  • ODOPAL: Counterintelligence Corps, United States Army
  • ODUNIT: United States Air Force Also described as an "assassin recruiter".
  • QKBROIL: Psychological warfare in Romania
  • QKFLOWAGE: United States Information Agency
  • QKHILLTOP: CIA program to study Chinese Communist brainwashing techniques and to develop interrogation techniques.
  • QRDYNAMIC: A financial support program for Ukrainian-language publications to offset Soviet propaganda
  • QRTENURE: Covert operation in New York City
  • SGUAT: CIA Station in Guatemala
  • TPCREDO: Italy
  • TPROACH: Yugoslavia
  • TPTONIC: National Committee for Free Europe (NCFE)
  • UNREST: Otto von Bolschwing
  • WOFIRM: Unidentified cryptonym mentioned in a dispatch which describes a request to release a document pertaining to the Warren Commission. It may have been the codename for Richard Helms or his department.
  • ARTICHOKE: Researching methods of interrogation. Precursor to MKULTRA. Primary goal of Project Artichoke was to determine whether a person could be involuntarily made to perform an act of attempted assassination. The project also studied the effects of mind control and hypnosis, forced addiction to (and subsequent withdrawal from) morphine, and other chemicals, including LSD, to produce amnesia and other vulnerable states in victims.
  • AZORIAN: Project to raise the Soviet submarine K-129 from the Pacific Ocean.
  • BGGYPSY: Communist.
  • BIRCH
  • BLACKSHIELD: A-12 aircraft reconnaissance missions off Okinawa.
  • BLUEBIRD: mind control program
  • BOND: Puerto Barrios, Guatemala.
  • CATIDE: Bundesnachrichtendienst.
  • CHARITY: Joint CIA/OSO-Italian Naval Intelligence information gathering operation against Albania (1948–1951).
  • CHERRY: Covert assassination / destabilization operation during Vietnam War, targeting Prince (later King) Norodom Sihanouk and the government of Cambodia. Disbanded.
  • CKTAW: Wiretap operation in Moscow, Russia.
  • DTFROGS: El Salvador.
  • ESCOBILLA: Guatemalan national.
  • ESMERALDITE: Labor informant affiliated with AFL-sponsored labor movement.
  • ESQUIRE: James Bamford, author of The Puzzle Palace.
  • ESSENCE: Guatemalan anti-communist leader.
  • FDTRODPINT: Afghan tribal agents, formerly known as GESENIOR, reactivated in the 1990s by the CIA to hunt Mir Aimal Kasi and later Osama bin Laden.
  • FIR
  • FUBELT: operation against Salvador Allende in Chile.
  • FJGROUND: Grafenwöhr, Germany paramilitary training ground.
  • FJHOPEFUL: Military base.
  • FPBERM: Yugoslavia
  • GESENIOR: Afghan tribal agents working with the CIA during the Soviet–Afghan War. Later called FDTRODPINT.
  • GRATTIC: Pyotr Popov, CIA Soviet agent.
  • GUSTO: Project to design a follow-on to the Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. Succeeded RAINBOW. Succeeded by OXCART.
  • HBFAIRY: France
  • HTCURIO: American or U.S. (Not Government)
  • IAFEATURE: Operation to support the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) during the Angolan civil war.
  • IDIOM: Initial work by Convair on a follow-on to the Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. Later moved into GUSTO.
  • Project JBEDICT: Tripartite Stay-Behind project.
  • JENNIFER: Document control system for Project AZORIAN.
  • MONGOOSE: "Primarily a relentless and escalating campaign of sabotage and small Cuban exile raids that would somehow cause the overthrow of Castro," which "also included plans for an invasion of Cuba in the fall of 1962".
  • NAOMI: see MK NAOMI.
  • OAK: Operation to assassinate suspected South Vietnamese collaborators during Vietnam War.
  • PANCHO: Carlos Castillo Armas, President of Guatemala, also RUFUS.
  • PAPERCLIP: US recruiting of German scientists after World War II.
  • PHOENIX: Vietnam covert intelligence/assassination operation.
  • PINE
  • RAINBOW: Project to reduce the radar cross section (RCS) of the Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. Succeeded by GUSTO.
  • QKWAVER: Egypt
  • RUFUS: Carlos Castillo Armas, President of Guatemala, also PANCHO.
  • RYBAT: Secret.
  • STBARNUM: CIA Tibetan program (covert action in Tibet, 1950s onwards).
  • STCIRCUS: aerial part of STBARNUM.
  • SYNCARP: The "Junta", Castillo Armas' political organization headed by Cordova Cerna.
  • THERMOS: Unclassified codeword used in lieu of RAINBOW.
  • THROWOFF/2: Albanian ethnic agent/radio operator employed by Italian Navy Intelligence/CIA in several early Cold War covert operations against Albania. Was captured, operated radio under communist control to lure CIA agents to capture/death, tried in 1954, death sentence commuted, freed after 25 years. CIA paid his son $40,000 in 1996.
  • OPERATION TILT: The CIA's name for "an operation put together by John Martino, who was fronting for his boss Santo Trafficante and his roommate Johnny Roselli". OPERATION TILT used "some of the same people working on the CIA-Mafia plots in the spring of 1963 ... [and] involved sending a Cuban exile team into Cuba to retrieve Soviet technicians supposedly ready to defect and reveal the existence of Soviet missiles still on the island".
  • TROPIC: Air operations flown over North Korea, China, and the Soviet Union by CAT pilots during the 1950s.