High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Family Jewels is the informal name used to refer to a set of reports that detail activities conducted by the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Considered illegal or inappropriate, these actions were conducted over the span of decades, from the 1950s to the mid-1970s.William Colby, who was the CIA director in the mid-1970s and helped in the compilation of the reports, dubbed them the "skeletons" in the CIA`s closet. Most of the documents were publicly released on June 25, 2007, after more than three decades of secrecy. The non-governmental National Security Archive had filed a FOIA request fifteen years earlier.