17 February 2002
This series of reports is presented for background to the upcoming congressional probe of intelligence failure for 9/11, recent legislation and presidential orders broadening intelligence agencies' domestic spying (and possibly foreign assassinations), and joint domestic operation of the military, intelligence agencies and law enforcement heretofore prohibited.
These accounts describe mid-1970s congressional investigation of abuses by intelligence agencies and the FBI and subsequent reorganization and legislation to correct and avoid abuses.
Many of the issues and abuses investigated then remain relevant today.
For comparison, reports from 2001 and 2002 on the 9/11 intelligence failure, upcoming probes and the oversight committees are provided.
The material is from the Congressional Quarterly Almanac, annual editions, 1974-1979. The CQ reports on congressional activities, primarily from the viewpoint of Congress, often a bit obsequious toward the vanities while providing excellent coverage of the choatic mess, making sense of it despite its incomparable disarray and compulsive preening -- to be sure no more so than the other two branches.
It is worth noting how the momentum of the investigations is interrupted by leaks of classified information by committee members and the subsequent time-consuming, and reputation-tarnishing investigation of the leaks before proceeding with the main work. That these leaks were orchestrated to be disruptive might be kept in mind for the past as well as the present.
Parallels between then and now: executive branch officers and agencies foolishly lulled by vain-witted congressional members to feel smarter than the Hill's investigators, and being abandoned by their fox-witted superiors when the pressure peaks; brazen refusals upon legal counsel to provide information to investigators, lie about there being nothing in the files, then hammered by leaks about the cover-up from vengeful competitors; declaring presidential papers off-limits to Congress while dispensing favorable information to complicit press; anger at the press for publishing government secrets while straining to get the widest press coverage; posturing about protecting the freedom of the press and the public's right to know while doing all possible to obscure the full truth behind classification smokescreens; devious ploys to divert attention from the investigations -- the hotter the probe the crazier the schemes; senior officials swearing they knew nothing of what was going on, then claiming to have been misunderstood when the truth is revealed. And, as ever in the history of nations, the invocation of narcotizing national security when nothing else works to hide negligence, corrpution and perfidy. If intelligence agencies have no other purpose, they will always be needed to justify shameful ducking of personal responsibility and culpability for crime against the citizenry while loopy-legged on firewater national security -- then, hungover, classifying the wildlife an intelligence means and methods FOIA black jokery.
Part 1
Preamble to Investigations (1974)
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Probed in 1975
See also "The Pike Committee Investigations and the CIA:"
http://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/winter98-99/art07.html
Part 2 http://cryptome.org/tla-probes2.htm
Senate Establishes Intelligence Panel (1976)
President Ford Overhauls Intelligence Agencies (1976)
Divided Intelligence Panel Issues Final Report (1976)
Intelligence Leak Sidetracks Reform Efforts (1976)
Controls Sought on Domestic Intelligence (1976)
Part 3 http://cryptome.org/tla-probes3.htm
House Establishes Intelligence Committee (1977)
First Authorization for Funding of Intelligence Agencies (1977)
White House Initiative on Electronic Surveillance (1977)
Wiretapping Limits (1977)
Controls Tightened on Use of Wiretaps (1978)
President Carter's Wiretapping Views (1979)
Supreme Court on Entry and Eavesdropping (1979)
Biblography of congressional investigations of the CIA in the 1970s:
http://intellit.muskingum.edu/intellsite/cia1970s_folder/cia1970sinva-l.html
http://intellit.muskingum.edu/intellsite/cia1970s_folder/cia1970sinvm-z.html
Part 4 http://cryptome.org/tla-probes4.htm
Flawed Intelligence: No Easy Fix (2001)
Spymasters: Monitoring the Secret War on Terror (2002)
CIA's Role in Afghan War Restores Tenet's Image on Hill (2002)
Hearings
on Sept. 11 Lapse to Test Ties of 2 Leaders (New York Times, February
17, offsite)
The Future
of the C.I.A. (New York Times, February 17, offsite)
CQ Almanac, 1974, p. 580
Intelligence Spending
The Senate June 4 rejected an amendment by William Proxmire (D Wis.) that would have required the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to divulge annually the amount requested in the budget for all U.S. intelligence programs. Supporters of the amendment got more votes than expected, but it was defeated, 33-55. (Vote 216, p. 35-S)
Proxmire stressed that he was not asking a breakdown but merely an over-all figure "so that the taxpayers of this country would have some idea of how much, how many billions of dollars -- and it is billions of dollars -- are going for intelligence efforts by our goverriment." He said there was no way the Soviet Union or any other foreign power could deduce from that figure the specific pur. poses for which the money was being used.
Armed Services Chairman John C. Stennis (D Miss.) and other opponents sharply disagreed. Stennis said it would give "our adversaries all over the world, present and future, a true index as to what our activities are." If the Proxmire proposal passed, he said, "we might as well abolish the agency."
CIA and other intelligence funds are concealed in the budgets of' other agencies. Only 22 members of Congress are privy to the information -- the chairmen of the Appropriations and Armed Services Committees and the members of their intelligence subcommittees. (CQ paperback, "Power of the Pentagon," p. 3)
Of the nine senators in this group, eight voted against the Proxmire amendment and the ninth, Stuart Symington (D Mo.), was absent.
CIA Domestic Activities
Another Proxmire amendment, designed to close the loophole that allowed the CIA to be drawn into the Watergate cover-up and related scandals, was adopted June 3 by voice vote. It amended the National Security Act of 1947 (PL 80-253) to insert the word "foreign" before the word "intelligence" each time it appeared, thus clarifying the intent of existing law barring CIA involvement in domestic activities.
Noting that the CIA had furnished Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt Jr. with disguises and other equipment used in connection with the break-in at the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, Proxmire said his amendment was intended "to protect the CIA from abuses coming from the political system."
Stennis spoke in favor of the amendment after Proxmire deleted language that would have barred any CIA assistance to U.S. police forces without written approval of the congressional oversight committees.
_______________________________
CA Almanac, 1974, p. 586
Senate Provisions Dropped
Seven other Senate amendments were dropped because House conferees insisted
they were not germane and therefore could not be considered under House rules.
The dropped provisions would have:
[unrelated dropped provisions omitted]
For more on CIA domestic spying revealed in late 1974, see "The Pike Committee Investigations and the CIA:"
http://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/winter98-99/art07.html
CQ Almanac, 1975, pp. 387-413.
After decades of operating in closely guarded secrecy, the United States' intelligence operations came under intense public and congressional scrutiny in 1975.
Many previously unknown activities of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other intelligence groups that went beyond their legal authority became known through committee probes, a special commission investigation and newspaper articles.
The disclosures produced a new public skepticism toward the CIA and the FBI, and prompted calls for controls on U.S. intelligence operations to prevent a recurrence of what one senator called "these horror stories."
Those "horror stories" included reports of domestic intelligence gathering, surveillance of U.S. citizens, political spying, drug experimentation, opening of mail, assassination plots, covert plots to topple foreign governments and efforts to disrupt political protest groups.
However, by the end of 1975 no general agreement had been reached about new controls or restrictions on intelligence operations.
Summary of Revelations Investigations of U.S. intelligence operations produced dozens of revelations about controversial activities. Highlights follow.
CIA
National Security Agency
FBI
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Response to Disclosures
The disclosures which led to the new public examination of U.S. intelligence activities began in earnest in the fall of 1974, although there had been reports during the preceding Watergate period of improper or illegal use of the CIA and the FBI by the Nixon administration.
By the end of 1975, these disclosures had produced one non-congressional investigation by a special commission, two congressional probes by special Senate and House panels and numerous proposals for permanent oversight committees in Congress and changes in the CIA's authorizing law.
One major proposal envisioned a joint House-Senate committee to monitor the CIA more closely than in the past by other congressional units charged with that responsibility. The proposed joint committee was modeled after the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, which over some 30 years built a reputation of dealing responsibly with sensitive national security matters.
Besides the joint committee proposal, 1975 proposals being studied
included:
Investigations
All of these proposals, however, ran into the ongoing investigations that continued throughout 1975. One specific proposal -- to disclose the CIA's operating budget -- was rejected by the House in October by a substantial 147-267 margin. That action came when the House was debating the fiscal 1976 defense appropriations bill.
Early in the year, President Ford appointed a Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States, headed by Vice President Rockefeller, which in June confirmed improprieties in CIA domestic operations.
The Rockefeller unit's report was only the beginning. The Senate established a Select Committee to Study Government Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities, headed by Sen. Frank Church (D Idaho). Church called the Rockefeller report "the tip of the iceberg" and promised a fuller investigation, especially of alleged CIA assassination plots.
The House, however, had much more difficulty launching its investigation. The task was first assigned to a Select Committee on Intelligence, headed by Rep. Lucien N. Nedzi (D Mich.), that was created in February. This group never made much progress because of a dispute between Nedzi and other committee Democrats. As a result, the House dissolved the Nedzi panel and transferred the job to a new committee with the same name and mandate, but a slightly different membership. Rep. Otis Pike (D N.Y.) was named chairman.
As the first session of the 94th Congress ended, these two special committees were gathering considerable information about intelligence activities. Some members thought they had seen enough to act on proposals to curb the CIA.
As early as mid-summer, Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. (R Conn.) noted that "everybody wants to move on an investigation, but no one wants to legislate and do the dreary work necessary to make sure these horror stories do not occur again." Weicker and Sen. Howard H. Baker Jr. (R Tenn.) were Senate sponsors of a proposal to establish a joint CIA committee. But Congress as a whole was content to await the results of the investigations and the committee's recommendations.
However, Church told an interviewer Oct. 8 that he favored the formation of a joint congressional intelligence committee composed of 12-20 House and Senate members to oversee the activities of all intelligence agencies.
Church's plan called for the chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services, Appropriations and Foreign Relations Committees to sit on the new panel to prevent jurisdictional disputes and to avoid duplicative appearances by agency officials.
Disband the CIA?
One proposal that seemed to have little chance of success was to abolish the CIA. Even vociferous critics of the agency, such as Rep. Michael J. Harrington (D Mass.), saw a need for collection and evaluation of foreign intelligence by both clandestine and overt methods.
CIA Director William E. Colby warned that if the agency were shut down, "I do fear the result could be a farce or a tragedy, or both."
One alternative some members and former intelligence officials suggested
was to restrict the CIA to specific responsibility for coordinating and
evaluating intelligence information.
Creation of the Rockefeller Commission and the special committees in Congress marked the first time that any group had undertaken a thorough probe of the activities of the nation's post-World War II intelligence community.
Although the CIA was established by the National Security Act in 1947, Congress had either rejected or ignored nearly 200 legislative proposals to strengthen its oversight of the agency. Its oversight record on other intelligence agencies was just as poor.
The House and Senate Armed Services and Appropriations Committees had the oversight duty but had long been criticized for doing a job that many members thought was inadequate. Those committees, usually headed by the most senior members in each chamber, were thought to be too sympathetic to the military and intelligence establishments.
Consequently, when the 94th Congress arrived in 1975 the scene was well prepared for the intensive investigations that were launched. But before that happened, a number of sensational press stories about abuses by intelligence agencies appeared in late 1974 and gave impetus to the 1975 congressional probes.
Although news reports about abuses had appeared from time to time, the principal events that occurred in 1974 were these:
Sept. 8 -- Reports appear in the press saying that the CIA had worked secretly to "destabilize" the government of Chilean President Salvador Allende, who died in a military coup Sept. 11, 1973. Rep. Harrington later acknowledges leaking some of the information on which the reports are based and is reprimanded by the House Armed Services Committee.
Dec. 22 -- The New York Times discloses that the CIA, in violation of its charter, conducted massive, illegal domestic intelligence operations during the Nixon administration, according to government sources. The intelligence activities, aimed primarily at antiwar and dissident groups, allegedly were conducted by a special counterintelligence unit of the CIA. Files on at least 10,000 U.S. citizens were amassed by the agency, the Times says.
Dec. 23 -- President Ford orders Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger to produce a report "within a matter of days" on the thse allegations. Kissinger transmits to the President in late December a report from Colby.
Dec. 24 -- The resignation of James Angleton, CIA counterintelligence chief, is reported. The Times claims he supervised the alleged domestic spying. Angleton says his resignation was requested by "higher authorities."
Once these events occurred, the die was cast in Congress for an investigation. But the congressional determination to act was reinforced when CIA Director Colby Jan. 15, in a 45-page report to the Senate Appropriations Intelligence Operations Subcommittee, acknowledged that the agency had carried out surveillance of journalists and political activists, opened the mail of U.S. citizens ' infiltrated domestic protest groups and gathered secret files on more than 10,000 Americans. Most of these revelations were to be further developed by the congressional probes as the year progressed.
Functions
The National Security Act of 1947 (PL 80-253), which established the CIA, did not expressly authorize the agency to engage in intelligence collection, let alone covert operations. Some witnesses during the congressional hearings opposed giving the CIA any responsibilities for collection. They argued unsuccessfully against empowering the National Security Council to assign "other functions and duties" to the CIA. This provision generally is cited as the agency's authority to collect intelligence.
The legislative history of the 1947 act indicates that Congress wanted the CIA to have that mission although one member of the House said during floor debate that he was "fearful" of combining collection and evaluation assignments in the same agency because data could be selectively gathered to fit the political preconceptions of the organization.
Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks in their book, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence (1974), suggested that Congress "take action to limit the agency to the role originally set out for it ... coordinating and evaluating intelligence." Intelligence should not be presented to the nation's policy makers by the same men who are trying to justify clandestine collection operations, they wrote.
Sen. Church has argued, "The CIA's role was to marshal covert intelligence that was collected by others so it could be analyzed and assessed."
Joint Committee
Debate over the past CIA role was overshadowed by the question of what controls Congress should establish to guard against improper intelligence activities. Twenty years ago, Sen. Mike Mansfield (D Mont.) introduced a resolution to tighten Congress' oversight of the CIA by establishing a joint committee on intelligence. But the Senate rejected the idea in 1956 by a decisive 27-50 vote. Since then similar proposals have surfaced in the Senate and House only to be defeated or ignored.
Standing Committees
Many members of Congress have said that the four standing committees responsible for oversight of most of the intelligence community (the Armed Services and Appropriations panels of both chambers) are unable to give more than "cursory" attention to the agencies because of the amount of time they devote to annual appropriations and defense legislation.
The workload problem is compounded by fragmentation in the way that Congress oversees intelligence activities. According to Patrick J. MeGarvey, author of CIA: The Myth and the Madness (1972), "None of the four committees takes an overall look at the entire structure of intelligence. None considers the entirety of the intelligence budget."
The Armed Services committees, for example, are interested only in the impact of intelligence operations on military effectiveness, MeGarvey wrote. "They do not concern themselves with the larger questions of what intelligence is collected, how the community is managed or other kinds of problems ...."
In 1974, the House gave its International Relations Committee jurisdiction over "intelligence activities relating to foreign policy." But no similar arrangement has been made for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. (House reorganization, 1974 Almanac p. 641)
Secrecy
Secrecy is another obstacle to congressional oversight. The Rockefeller commission said that members of the oversight committees have not generally received detailed information on CIA operations and that other members of Congress receive even less data.
Richard S. Schweiker (R Pa.), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and the select intelligence panel, recalled that he once questioned why the defense funding bill contained $1.7-billion for spare parts. "I was turned down and turned down," he said, "but finally someone called me aside and said, 'Hey, that's CIA money.' "
"The policy of secrecy for secrecy's sake invites abuse and prevents Congress and the nation from knowing what kind of intelligence apparatus we have," McGarvey wrote.
But some members argue that the nation's security depends on wrapping the intelligence community in as complete secrecy as possible.
Viewpoints
The quality of oversight also is tied to the backgrounds and viewpoints of the overseers. "There is an unwillingness to oversee; almost a willingness to duck," Schweiker said during a June 19 television interview. Sen. Gary Hart (D Colo.), another member of the select intelligence committee, traces this tendency to "generational differences" in Congress. Those responsible for overseeing the agencies are "out of the cold war period, and their attitude is that of 'I don't want to know,' " Hart said.
While the Rockefeller commission also pointed out that the CIA generally has not volunteered information to Congress, CIA Director Colby contended that the protective relationship of Congress to the intelligence community has changed. "Now the arrangements we have with our oversight committees in Congress are a lot more intense than in past years," Colby remarked in a Dec. 2, 1974, interview with U.S. News & World Report. "Today, Congress is more demanding. "We answer questions our oversight committees ask, and I must volunteer to them matters they might know to ask about."
Domestic Activities
One of the widest gaps in the 1947 law establishing the CIA pertained to the agency's authority to collect "foreign intelligence" in the United States. What is not clear is the exact meaning of that term and the extent to which the CIA is or should be authorized to operate domestically.
The legislative history of the 1947 law -- but not the wording of the law itself -- indicates that the agency could collect foreign intelligence from U.S. citizens, such as businessmen who had traveled abroad, but should not direct activities against U.S. citizens or accumulate information on them. Less clear, however, was whether the CIA could collect foreign intelligence in the United States by clandestine means.
To clarify the ambiguities, the Rockefeller commission recommended amending the 1947 act to define "foreign intelligence" as information concerning the capabilities, intentions and activities of foreign nations, individuals or entities, wherever that information can be found. That is, foreign intelligence could be collected at home or abroad.
In addition, the commission recommended that the 1947 act be amended to specifically forbid the agency to collect foreign intelligence information from "unknowing American citizens" by clandestine methods.
Also suggested was a presidential ban on the domestic activities of U.S.
citizens by either overt or covert means. The recommendation was intended
to clarify the intent of the statute, which vaguely prohibited the agency
from engaging in law enforcement and internal security functions. But the
commission recommended the following exemptions:
While the Rockefeller commission recommendations were viewed as a step in tightening the language of the CIA's charter, some observers contended that the exemptions would give the agency the statutory authority it did not have to spy on U.S. citizens.
Another recommendation, for example, states that the CIA "should not infiltrate dissident groups or other organizations of Americans in the absence of a written determination by the director that such action is necessary to meet a clear danger to agency facilities, operations or personnel ...."
"If you turn that proposal inside out," The Washington Post noted in an analysis of the recommendations, "it says the CIA can infiltrate those political groups if its director says it's okay and the FBI isn't doing the job -- which is approximately the situation which government officials claimed in 1967 when that surveillance began."
For many in Congress the problem with the Rockefeller proposals was that they would leave major revisions of CIA activities to the executive branch. "What we need is a law with criminal penalties," said Sen. Church. "Simply an admonishment ... is plainly not adequate."
One bill (S 244) introduced in Congress in 1975 would bar the CIA from conducting domestic activities in the United States. More stringent than the commission's proposals, the bill, for example, would not allow the agency to infiltrate and report on dissident groups. (1974 Almanac p. 586)
Covert Activities
In 1974, Congress adopted an amendment to the fiscal 1975 foreign aid bill (S 339-PL 93-559) prohibiting the CIA's use of foreign assistance funds for overseas operations other than intelligence gathering, unless the President found the expenditures necessary for national security and reported to Congress. (1974 Almanac P. 533)
The action was prompted by disclosures that the CIA had engaged in a secret war in Laos and had financially supported political candidates and news media that opposed the late president of Chile, Salvador Allende.
The 1974 congressional action, however, did not satisfy a number of CIA critics in Congress, who introduced legislation to terminate the agency's covert activities, other than intelligence gathering.
Crucial Question
When Congress established the CIA, it did not specifically authorize the agency to engage in covert foreign operations, but one provision of the act opened the door for these activities. That provision instructed the CIA to "perform such functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the National Security Council may from time to time direct."
In 1947, members expressed little concern over this provision, but the matter of possible operational or covert activities did arise during House hearings on the legislation. Rep. Fred E. Busbey (R Ill., 1943-45; 1947-49; 1951-55) asked Navy Secretary James V. Forrestal: "I wonder if there is any foundation for the rumors that have come to me to the effect that through this Central Intelligence Agency they are contemplating operational activities?" It was a crucial question, but Busbey received a vague reply. David Wise and Thomas B. Ross stated in their examination of the CIA, The Invisible Government (1964), "It is doubtful that many of the lawmakers who voted for the 1947 act could have envisioned the scale on which the CIA would engage in operational activities...."
'Only Prudent'
CIA Director Colby late in 1974 downplayed the amount of time and resources the agency spends on covert activities, but he said the agency should be allowed to engage in them. "There have been, and are still, certain situations in the world in which some discreet support can assist America's friends against her adversaries in their contest for control of a foreign nation's political direction," he told a conference of the Fund for Peace. "While these instances are few today compared to the 1950s, I believe it only prudent for our nation to act in such situations, and thereby forestall greater difficulties for us in the future."
Covert action also has its congressional defenders. During Senate debate in 1974 on an amendment to prohibit the activities, Barry Goldwater (R Ariz.) said, "If we destroy our right to engage in covert activity altogether, I think we would be making a great mistake." Armed Services Chairman John C. Stennis (D Miss.) called the amendment a "dangerous thing" to adopt. It was rejected, 17-68. (1974 Almanac p. 538)
"Sometimes you need to break and enter and engage in illegal activities," said Rep. Samuel S. Stratton (D N.Y.). "It's hard to draw the line on covert activities," he said, referring to an incident during World War II, when an American intelligence team broke into a Japanese consulate and found secret information that led to breaking enemy communications' codes.
'Unsavory'
Mark O. Hatfield (R Ore.), expressed a disdain of covert activities during the 1974 Senate debate, saying the operations "compromised the sincerity of our loudly proclaimed desire for world peace and freedom." But other senators took a cautious approach.
Sen. Church, for example, said that the CIA episode in Chile was both "unsavory
and unprincipled." On the other hand, he added, "I can envision situations
in which the national security of the United States ... would have such
overriding importance as to justify covert activity."
President Ford Jan. 5 named an eight-member commission headed by Vice President Rockefeller to "ascertain and evaluate any facts" about CIA activities that "give rise to questions as to whether the agency has exceeded its statutory authority."
In announcing formation of the "blue ribbon" investigating committee, Ford said that besides requiring it "to determine whether the CIA has exceeded its statutory authority, I have asked the panel to determine whether existing safeguards are adequate to preclude agency activities that might go beyond its authority ...." (Commission findings, box.)
White House Press Secretary Ron Nessen told newsmen the eight commission members were chosen because they had no former connection with the CIA. But observers noted that Rockefeller had been a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board since 1969 and retired Army General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, another member, was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when the CIA engineered the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.
Commission Members
The commission members named by Ford follow:
Rockefeller Commission Reports Illegal CIA Actions ... Makes 30 Recommendations to Prevent AbusesThe Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States, following a five-month investigation, reported that it had found many instances of illegal and improper activities by the intelligence agency and offered 30 recommendations to prevent such abuses. The commission's 299-page report was delivered to President Ford June 6 and made public June 10. The eight-man commission, headed by Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller, and its staff compiled 2,900 pages of sworn testimony from 51 witnesses and took depositions and affidavits from many others during its inquiry, the 11th investigation of the CIA since its establishment in 1947. The commission reported that although "the great majority of the CIA's domestic activities comply with its statutory authority," some were "plainly unlawful and constituted improper invasions upon the rights of Americans." Among the activities that "should be criticized and not permitted to happen again," the report said, were some "initiated or ordered by Presidents, either directly or indirectly." Following is a summary of the principal findings, conclusions and recommendations of the commission: Findings "The CIA has not as a general rule received detailed scrutiny by the Congress," the- report said, and no executive branch agency "has the specific responsibility of overseeing the CIA to determine whether its activities are proper." Through a secret agreement with the Justice Department, the CIA for 20 years was able to decide for itself whether its employees or agents should be prosecuted for alleged criminal misconduct. The commission said the agreement "involved the agency directly in forbidden law enforcement activities, and represented an abdication by the Department of Justice of its statutory responsibilities." Between 1952 and 1973 the CIA intercepted mail between the United States and the Soviet Union at post offices in New York and three other cities. It examined up to 2.3 million items annually and opened as many as 13,000 letters a year. The commission found that the CIA attempted to cover up this activity. A special group within the CIA from August 1967 to March 1972, called Operation CHAOS, collected information on dissident groups within the United States, compiled files on 7,200 American citizens and developed a computerized index with the names of more than 300,000 persons and organizations. The Operation CHAOS staff, which reached a maximum of 52 in 1971, was insulated from review even within the CIA. Using up to 12 persons on a part-tme basis, the CIA infiltrated dissident groups in the Washington, D.C., area in the late 1960s to learn if the planned any activities against CIA or other government installations. In five instances, from 1959 to 1972, tle CIA used wiretaps or physical surveillance of American newsmen to discover their sources of classified information. Nine other U.S. citizens were subjects of investigations involving intrusions on personal privacy. Investigations by the CIA's office of security used means which either were invalid at the time or would be unlawful today. These included 32 wiretaps, 32 instances of bugging, 12 break-ins, the improper obtaining of federal income tax records of 16 persons, and 12 instances of opening mail. In one instance a defector to the United States was unlawfully held by the CIA for three years in solitary confinement under spartan living conditions; a second defector was physically abused. The CIA provided alias documents, disguise material, a tape recorder and photography equipment and services to former CIA employee E. Howard Hunt Jr., who later used some of them in his Watergate-related activities. At the direct request of President Nixon, the CIA in 1971 turned over highly classified information which the report said, "undisclosed to the CIA, was to serve the President's personal political ends." In 1972 and 1973 the CIA monitored telephone calls between the Western Hemisphere (including the United States) and two other countries. The CIA investigation did not include the content of conversations. The CIA's directorate of science and technology conducted an illegal drug testing program from the late 1940s until 1967. The report said one person died in 1953, "apparently as a result" of being given LSD without his knowledge. For two and a half years in the early 1970s the CIA, through one of its proprietary companies, recruited 19 agents for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. Such law enforcement activities are forbidden by the CIA statute. The agency conducted a training school for foreign police and security officers for over 20 years, and annually sold the officers and their departments from $6,000 to $48,000 worth of firearms and police equipment. At the request of the White House, the CIA in 1970 contributed over $33,000 for stationery and other costs for replies to persons who wrote to the President after the invasion of Cambodia. Until prohibited by law in 1973, the CIA offered training courses and supplied equipment to state and local police. For several years the agency gave gifts and gratuities to helpful police officers. The CIA's directorate of information indexed 7 million names of persons of all nationalities, including 115,000 American- citizens. It maintained open files on 57,000 U.S. citizens, in addition to the 7,200 files compiled by Operation CHAOS. Conclusions Both the statutory and administrative functions of the CIA need to be clarified, the commission said, to avoid ambiguities which have been "partially responsible for some, though not all, of the agency's deviations within the United States from its assigned mission." "One of the underlying causes of the problems confronting the CIA," the commission concluded, "arises out of the pervading atmosphere of secrecy in which its activities have been conducted." The "compartmented" nature of CIA operations sometimes has prevented proper supervision and control. The domestic mail opening programs were unlawful. Some activities of Operation CHAOS unlawfully exceeded the CIA's authority and were undertaken without the knowledge of senior CIA officials. CIA infiltration of dissident groups, and efforts to "protect" other government agencies, exceeded statutory authority. The CIA has no authority to investigate newsmen or other American citizens who have no relationship with the agency. The commission concluded that CIA employees should not have provided assistance to E. Howard Hunt Jr., and that "the agency's failure to cooperate fully with ongoing investigations following Watergate was inconsistent with its obligations." But it found no evidence that the CIA had participated in the planning or execution of the break-ins at either the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office building or the office of Dr. Lewis Fielding, Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist. "Engaging in the firearms business was a questionable activity for a government intelligence agency," the commission concluded. "It should not be repeated." Through such activities as Operation CHAOS the CIA has accumulated files "not needed for legitimate intelligence or security purposes," the commission said. It called for purging such material. The commission concluded that there was no credible evidence of any CIA involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Recommendations
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The Senate voted 82-4 on Jan. 27 to establish a Select Committee to Study Government Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities. The authority was contained in S Res 21.
S Res 21 gave the select committee broad powers to determine whether the CIA, FBI or any of the 58 other U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies had engaged in "illegal, improper or unethical activities" as charged in several newspaper reports published in late 1974 and 1975.
The committee was given until Sept. 1, 1975, to submit a final report on its investigation to the Senate, but did not meet that deadline.
The panel, which was given an authorization of $750,000 under the resolution to conduct its inquiry, also was expected to determine 1) whether existing laws governing intelligence and law enforcement operations were adequate, 2) whether present congressional oversight of the agencies was satisfactory and 3) the extent to which overt and covert intelligence activities in the United States and abroad were necessary.
On the 82-4 vote, the four senators voting against the resolution were William Lloyd Scott (R Va.), Jesse A. Helms (R N.C.), Herman E. Talmadge (D Ga.) and Strom Thurmond (R S.C.). Except for Talmadge, the Democrats who had voted against the select committee proposal in a party caucus Jan. 20 voted for S Res 21. They were: Harry F. Byrd Jr. (Ind Va.), Howard W. Cannon (Nev.), James 0. Eastland (Miss.), Sam Nunn (Ga.), John L. McClellan (Ark.) and John C. Stennis (D Miss.). (Vote 1, p. 2-S [elsewhere in Almanac.])
Before approving the resolution, the Senate by voice votes adopted three
amendments, none of which altered the scope of the committee probe.
Intelligence Oversight Committees In CongressCongressional responsibility for overseeing U.S. intelligence operations is vested primarily in the following four standing subcommittees:
Standing Subcommittees
Select Committees
In addition, the 94th Congress created three select (special) committees
to investigate intelligence gathering activities of the federal government.
Two were created in the House, one to succeed the other. The members of the
Senate committee were:
The two select, House committees had the same name and the same mandate.
Only the membership differed. The first one, created by the House Feb. 19
was headed by Rep. Lucien N. Nedzi (D Mich.) and had 10 members. It was abolished
by the House July 17 because internal disputes had blocked substantive work..
The July 17 House action also created the second committee. It was headed
by Rep. Otis G. Pike (D N.Y.) and had 13 members. (Details in acccompanying
story.) The members of the committees were:
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COMMITTEE REVELATIONS
The Senate committee worked quietly in secret through the winter and summer months gathering evidence. It made no spectacular revelations until fall when it began public hearings and issued reports on activities in which the CIA had been involved.
But these revelations, when they came, were indeed spectacular. Those involving the CIA are reported below; those involving the FBI are in a separate story. (Story, p. 408)
However, the committee did not complete its work by the Sept. 1 deadline and was still working at the end of the year.
Poisons
Holding its first public hearing Sept. 16, the Senate Select Intelligence Committee drew an admission from CIA Director William E. Colby that agency employees had violated a 1970 presidential order requiring the destruction of two deadly poisons, a toxin derived from shellfish and an agent made from cobra venom.
Discovered in a secret cache by CIA officials earlier in 1975, the poisons were part of a $3-million project initiated by the agency and the Army in 1952 for developing potent suicide materials that could be used by captured intelligence and military personnel. The program later was expanded to cover offensive-use research.
Besides the venom and 11 grams of the toxin, which committee Chairman Frank Church (D Idaho) said could kill "hundreds of thousands" of people if administered with "sophisticated equipment," the cache contained quantities of strychnine, cyanide pills and a chemical known as "BZ" that attacked the central nervous system.
Although Colby testified that there was "no indication the agency wanted to defy a presidential order," he stated that "there is no question that a middle officer violated" the 1970 presidential order.
In late 1969 Nixon ordered a halt to the development of biological weapons and, in 1970, called for the destruction of existing stockpiles of chemical toxins not required for research to comply with international treaties limiting chemical and biological warfare.
Colby said that discussions with former CIA Director Richard Helms, who headed the agency from 1966 to 1973, and Thomas Karamessines, deputy director for plans -- the covert action division of the CIA -- in 1970, "have established that both were aware of the requirement" that the chemical and biological agents be destroyed.
"They recall that clear instructions were given that the CIA stockpile should be.destroyed by the Army and that, in accordance with presidential directives, the agency should get out" of the biological warfare business, Colby said.
Helms Testimony
On Sept. 17 Helms testified that he had given oral instructions to his deputies to carry out Nixon's order, but he admitted no follow-up check was undertaken. "I thought they had been destroyed," Helms said.
"Who told you the toxins were destroyed?" asked Church. "I read it in the newspapers," Helms replied.
Helms passed the Nixon order to Karamessines, who testified Sept. 17 that Sidney Gottlieb, former head of the agency's Technical Services Division, "reported to me that the materials had been destroyed." (Gottlieb told the committee through his lawyer that he would invoke the Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer questions.)
CIA Official's Admission
Admitting that he was responsible for hiding the shellfish toxin, Nathan Gordon told the committee Sept. 16 that he had never received instructions from Gottlieb to destroy the material, but that he was aware of the Nixon directive.
Gordon, who was in charge of the CIA's technical services in 1970, said he did not follow the order because he felt it was directed at the Defense Department rather than the CIA. Gordon also said his decision was based on the cost and difficulty of isolating the toxin, which, he explained, were so great that it would be unwise to destroy it, particularly if there was no source of the toxin in the future.
Gordon also told the committee that he felt the order did not cover "chemical agents" such as the shellfish toxin, but committee member Walter F. Mondale (D Minn.) pointed out that this reasoning conflicted with a Feb. 16, 1970, memorandum that Gordon said he had drafted at Gottlieb's suggestion.
Made public by the intelligence committee, the memo was directed to Helms and stated that if the CIA "wishes to continue this special capability," the toxin could be transferred to a private firm in Baltimore "at a [storage] cost no greater than $75,000 a year."
Gordon said Gottlieb later withdrew the idea, and the memorandum was never sent to Helms. Subsequently, the toxin was shipped secretly from Ft. Detrick, Md., to a CIA storage facility in Washington, D.C. Gordon and two colleagues then agreed without telling Gottlieb to withhold the toxins from other materials that were to be destroyed.
Committee Concerns
Throughout the Sept. 16-18 hearings, members of the committee expressed concern that orders had been given orally rather than in writing and that few controls appeared to exist on the activities of lower-level employees.
"This is an illustrative case. It tells us how the CIA works," Charles McC. Mathias Jr. told Helms. The episode "raises questions about the entire command and control" structure within the CIA, Mondale later said.
Although Colby assured the committee that the agency's procedures "are being changed to assure accountability," he conceded that "it is entirely possible that some person can do something not authorized." Colby pointed out that the agency's inspection staff had been enlarged, and that organizational changes were underway to "break down the high degree of compartmentalization" within the CIA.
The CIA opened more than 200,000 pieces of mail and intercepted and photographed more than 2.7 million envelopes in its 20-year mail surveillance program, according to testimony received Oct. 21-22 by the Senate Select Intelligence Committee.
Although the existence of the program had been known earlier, the testimony revealed a larger operation than previously indicated. In addition, it showed that the program was implemented even though CIA officials knew it to be illegal and of doubtful value and though postal officials were not fully informed of the operation.
(Secret testimony about the CIA mail snooping was released March 21 by Robert W. Kastenmeier (D Wis.), chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties and the Administration of Justice. The subcommittee had received the testimony from Chief Postal Inspector William J. Cotter.)
CIA Testimony
The testimony and documents provided to the committee revealed that the CIA photographed the fronts and backs of 2,705,726 pieces of mail to and from the Soviet Union in its New York program between 1953 and 1973, and opened 215,820 individual letters.
Committee Chairman Church had announced on Sept. 24 that the program involved the mail of such prominent Americans and institutions as Richard M. Nixon, Senators Edward M. Kennedy (D Mass.) and Hubert H. Humphrey (D Minn.), Martin Luther King Jr., Federal Reserve'Board Chairman Arthur F. Burns, the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, and Church himself. Besides the New York operation, the CIA conducted similar, although shorter, programs on the West Coast, in Hawaii and in New Orleans.
According to the data given the Senate committee, the program reached its peak in the late 1950s and again in the early 1970s. Between 1970 and 1972, the agency examined about 2 million pieces of mail a year.
That was despite the fact that internal examinations of the program in 1960 and again in 1969 had found it to be of little intelligence value.
Gordon Stewart, inspector general of the CIA in 1969, told the committee Oct. 21 that his office was "quite surprised" to find the mail surveillance going on and had recommended turning it over to the FBI, which was receiving much of the information. Two other former staff members of the inspector general's office also testified -- John Glennon and Thomas Abernathy.
Glennon told the committee that CIA officials involved in the program realized that it was illegal.
That point was pursued the following day when the committee questioned Richard Helms, agency director, 1966-1973. Helms subsequently became U.S. ambassador to Iran.
Helms said he knew the operation was illegal, but continued it on the basis that the legal rationale for its existence had been worked out by former director Allen W. Dulles, who began it in 1953.
Knowledge of Program
Helms stated that he could not recall if the four Presidents during the 20-year period had been told of the program, but thought he had told Lyndon B. Johnson.
In an attempt to find out who did know, the committee Oct. 22 questioned three former postmasters general, whose testimony varied at times from Helms'.
Helms said it was his recollection that the CIA told J. Edward Day, postmaster general from 1961 to 1963, "the truth" about the program, but wasn't positive. Day recalled for the committee that Helms and two other CIA officials had visited him -in 1961 and wanted to tell him something "very secret." Day responded that he did not want to hear about it unless it was necessary. He told the committee he was "sure that I wasn't told anything about opening mail."
Helms said he remembered taking documents to Winton M. Blount, postmaster general from 1969 to 1971, "that would indicate that we had been reading the correspondence between certain individuals in the United States and the Soviet Union." Blount, however, recalled being told of a secret project in which the Post Office was cooperating, but not specifically about the opening of mail. He said he did know that the mail of "avowed enemies of this country" was being intercepted.
Blount also said he was told the legality of the secret program had been discussed with then Attorney General John N. Mitchell.
Both Blount and Day indicated they had doubts, even in 1975, that the opening of the mail was indeed illegal.
John A. Gronouski, postmaster general from 1963 to 1965, told the committee he knew nothing of the program and would have opposed it if he had. His lack of knowledge was confirmed by Helms and CIA memoranda.
Church Panel Operated Under Tight SecurityThe Senate Select Intelligence Committee remained virtually "leakproof' throughout 1975, in contrast to the Senate Watergate committee which drew criticism during its investigation for divulging information to the press and public. One reason for the intelligence panel's lack of leaks was that it adopted stringent rules and procedures governing its staff, investigations, meetings and use of classified materials. The staff worked behind guarded doors in G 308 of the Dirksen Office Building -- a former auditorium that was converted into offices for the Watergate committee. Visitors on committee business had to both print and sign their names and be vouched for by the persons they were to see. Visitors were identified by red badges. The guards also required all staff members to sign in and out. Press Relations Spencer Davis, a former Associated Press diplomatic correspondent who headed the committee's press section, and other staffers would step outside the offices if they decided to speak in person to reporters. The chief spokesmen for the committee were the chairman, Frank Church (D Idaho), and the ranking Republican, John G. Tower of Texas. Church and Tower often held press briefings after the panel's closed sessions. Transcripts of the briefings were available to reporters about an hour after they are were held. The committee usually met in the most secure area of the Capitol-S 407, the Joint Atomic Energy Committee's heavily guarded, "debugged" hearing room. Some briefings were held afterward in the small reception area outside, but Church preferred to use the press photographers' gallery in the Dirksen Office Building, where there was better lighting and more room for television and radio equipment. The committee held its first public hearings in September. Regulations Following is a summary of the regulations imposed by the committee to provide security: Meeting Procedures. Committee meet ings shall open to the public except when otherwise directed by the chairman or majority vote of members present. Media Coverage. Any open committee meeting may be covered by television, radio, still photography or other media, if the chairman authorizes the coverage. Investigations. All investigations must be initiated by majority vote of the committee, but any member may pursue any inquiry individually unless specifically prohibited by a majority vote of the committee members. Classified or Sensitive Material. 1) Committee staff offices shall operate under strict security precautions. 2) Sensitive or classified documents and material shall be segregated in a secure storage area. 3) Each committee member shall at all times have access to all papers and other material received from any source. 4) Access to classified information supplied to the committee shall be limited to the staff director, the chief counsel, the minority counsel and those staff members with appropriate security clearances and a need to know. 5) No materials received by the staff or its consultants shall be made public, in whole or in part or by summary, or disclosed to any person outside the committee unless such action is authorized by majority vote of the committee. 6) No committee member shall release any materials or any information contained in the materials to the public or any person outside the committee unless authorized by a majority vote of the committee. Staff. The staff shall not discuss either the substance or procedure of the committee's work with anyone other than a committee member or other committee personnel. Any staff member or consultant who fails to conform to any of these rules shall immediately be dismissed. Government Agencies. The chairman may use the services, information, facilities and personnel of the executive departments and agencies with respect to any matter under investigation. Reports. No measure or recommendation shall be reported unless a majority of the committee actually is present and a majority of those concur. In cases where the committee is divided, members may submit separate views to be printed along with the majority's. |
Ignoring the protests of the Ford administration, the Senate Select Intelligence Committee Oct. 29 initiated an unprecedented public investigation of the activities of the National Security Agency, a component of the Defense Department that is responsible for foreign intelligence gathering by electronic means as well as for developing and breaking secret communications codes.
Drawing the committee's attention was the agency's 1967-73 monitoring of international cable and telephone traffic to spot Americans suspected of narcotics dealings, terrorism and anti-Vietnam war activities.
Intelligence committee Chairman Church called the NSA activities of "questionable propriety and legality" and suggested that legislative action was necessary to assure that the NSA did not again intrude into the "inalienable rights guaranteed Americans by the Constitution."
The committee's vice chairman, John G. Tower (R Texas), however, sided with the Ford administration in opposing the public hearings, arguing that disclosure of the agency's past activities could "adversely affect" the nation's security.
Allen Testimony
Outlining the monitoring operations to the committee, NSA Director Lt. Gen. Lew Allen Jr. testified that beginning in 1967 such agencies as the CIA, FBI and the Secret Service supplied lists of persons and organizations to the NSA "in an effort to obtain information which was available in foreign communications as a by-product of our normal foreign intelligence mission."
Allen said that the initial purpose of the cable and telephone monitoring was to "determine the existence of foreign influence" on civil disturbances occurring throughout the nation. Later, the surveillance was expanded to include names of persons suspected of drug trafficking and acts of terrorism.
These so-called "watch lists" covered several categories of persons of interest
to U.S. intelligence agencies, Allen explained, including:
Between 1967 and 1973, there was a cumulative total of about 450 names on the narcotics list and about 1,200 U.S. names on all the other lists combined, Allen stated.
"We estimate that over this six-year period, about 2,000 reports were issued by the National Security Agency on international narcotics trafficking and about 1,900 reports were issued covering the three areas of terrorism, executive protection and foreign influence over U.S. groups. These reports included some messages between U.S. citizens, but over 90 per cent had at least one foreign communicant and all messages had at least one foreign terminal," Allen testified.
Termination
Concern over the NSA's role in the intelligence gathering operation first arose in 1973 after the CIA terminated its connection with the "watch lists" because of a statutory ban on CIA domestic activities.
On Oct. 1, 1973, then-Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson wrote Allen that he was concerned with the propriety of requests for information concerning U.S. citizens that NSA had received from the FBI and the Secret Service.
The letter, which ordered a halt to the monitoring, stated: "Until I am able to more carefully assess the effect of Supreme Court decisions concerning electronic surveillance upon your current practice of disseminating to the FBI and Secret Service information acquired by you through electronic devices pursuant to requests from the FBI and Secret Service, it is requested that you immediateIv curtail the further dissemination of such information to these agencies."
Although Allen told the committee that the NSA then stopped accepting "watch lists" from the agencies and that the surveillance was "terminated officially in the fall of 1973," he acknowledged that the NSA continues to pick up communications between U.S. citizens, in situations where one party was at an overseas location, in the course of its authorized overseas intelligence monitoring.
"It necessarily occurs that some circuits which are known to carry foreign communications necessary for foreign intelligence will also carry communications between U.S. citizens," Allen stated. But this interception "is conducted in such a manner as to minimize the unwanted messages; nevertheless, many unwanted communications are potentially available for selection," he explained.
Operation Shamrock
Following Allen's appearance, the intelligence committee debated whether to release a report on another aspect of NSA's activities that Church said "appeared to be unlawful."
This activity, labeled "Operation Shamrock," could be revealed without disclosing sensitive NSA work, Church said. The committee had voted the previous day to disclose the details of the project, which was reported to involve the agency's arrangement with private communications companies for monitoring international cables. "The case at hand relates to unlawful conduct of companies in this country," Church disclosed.
The Ford administration has insisted that the report not be released, and Tower as well as committee member Barry Goldwater (R Ariz.) objected to its disclosure.
"I do believe the people's right to know should be subordinated to the people's right to be secure," said Tower, who added that disclosure would "adversely affect our intelligence-gathering capability."
The committee met later in the day behind closed doors to settle the issue and agreed to submit the report on Shamrock to Gen. Allen for his comment on whether its release would endanger sources and methods of intelligence
House Probe
From references made by the committee during the public session, it was clear that the report on "Operation Shamrock" paralleled an investigation conducted by the House Government Operations Government Information and Individual Rights Subcommittee chaired by Bella S. Abzug (D N.Y.).
During a hearing by the subcommittee Oct. 23, Abzug revealed that government agents for years had monitored and photographed private international cables sent to and from Washington.
"The FBI and NSA have apparently engaged in illegal and unconstitutional interception and copying of private communications sent by private individuals," Abzug said.
Summarizing a report of the subcommittee staff, Abzug said that these agencies examined "all cables in the Washington office of RCA Global Communications Inc." and "all cables to and from selected countries in the Washington office of ITT World Communications."
On Nov. 6, the Church committee released its Shamrock report, which revealed that over the past 30 years three international telegraph companies -- RCA Global, ITT World Communications and Western Union International -- supplied the U.S. government with international telegrams originating in or forwarded through the United States.
"At the outset, the purpose apparently was only to extract international telegrams relating to certain foreign targets," the report said, but "later the government began to extract telegrams of certain U.S. citizens."
Shamrock was terminated by the secretary of defense on May 15, 1975, according to the report.
NSA Mission
Established in 1952 by executive order, the NSA, according to Gen. Allen, has been delegated responsibility for providing security for U.S. government communications as well as seeking intelligence from foreign electronic communications.
The agency is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense because most of the NSA's work involves military communications.
Foreign intelligence obtained from electronic and electrical signals also is released to other government agencies, such as the State Department and CIA, in response to their authorized requirements for intelligence.
Although the NSA is restricted to monitoring foreign communications, this term has never been defined, according to Allen, who said the omission was "pertinent" to the committee's review of the agency's activities.
Flouting the last-minute objections of the Ford administration and the wishes of three committee Republicans, the Senate Select Intelligence Committee Nov. 20 released a long-awaited interim report detailing CIA involvement in assassination attempts against five foreign leaders.
The report showed that the CIA had directly plotted the deaths of two leaders, Premiers Fidel Castro of Cuba and Patrice Lumumba of the Congo (now Zaire). Two others, General Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic and President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam, were targets of CIA covert activity and were eventually assassinated, but the committee could find no direct link between the deaths and the agency. Similarly, the committee found no CIA intent behind the murder of Chilean General Rene Schneider in 1970, although the agency was known to have supported groups who tried to kidnap him for his opposition to a military coup against Marxist President Salvador Allende.
Release of the 347-page report came after a rare secret session of the Senate to consider release of the report. CIA Director Colby had called a press conference the previous day to ask that at least certain names in the report be withheld from the public. And the administration mounted a frantic last-minute lobbying campaign against the release, including a personal letter from President Ford to the Senate leadership citing national security concerns, that continued "right up until the doors were closed," according to Committee Chairman Frank Church (D Idaho).
The committee had already voted 12-0, with John G. Tower (R Texas) abstaining, to release the report, contending that it was the committee's prerogative and not the Senate's to make that decision. Administration supporters reportedly pushed for a vote on the report in the hope that a close vote would at the least lessen the report's impact if not stop the release altogether. But the Democrats managed to block a vote, thus leaving the decision to release the report with the committee.
A number of Republicans, including committee members Tower, Howard H. Baker Jr. (Tenn.) and Barry Goldwater (Ariz.), emerged from the four-hour session bitter over the Senate's refusal to vote. The Senate action prompted Tower, Baker and Goldwater to boycott a subsequent committee press conference to discuss the findings. "In view of the fact that the Senate did not take a vote," declared Vice Chairman Tower in a statement read for him at the conference, "I dissociate myself from the publication of the report." Two other committee Republicans, Charles McC. Mathias Jr. (Md.) and Richard S. Schweiker (Pa.) joined the six majority members in attending the conference and backing the release.
The major revelations in the report:
Castro. From 1960 to 1965-a period spanning the administrations of Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson-the CIA concocted "at least eight plots" to assassinate Castro, according to "concrete evidence" found by the committee. Some of the plots never got beyond the planning stage, some reached the point of sending operatives to Cuba with deadly poisons and a few involved American underworld figures enlisted by the CIA. All, according to the report, involved a range of exotic devices "which strain the imagination"-poison pens and pills, deadly bacterial powders, poison cigars, exploding seashells and a "contaminated diving suit!" One scheme in 1960 involved dusting the Cuban leader's shoes with a powder that would cause his beard to fall out and thus, in the CIA's estimation, ruin his charismatic image.
The CIA itself, as quoted in the report, noted the irony of one attempt on Nov. 22, 1963 -- the day President Kennedy was assassinated -- to have Castro assassinated with a poison ballpoint pen.
Lumumba. The only other direct evidence found by the committee of CIA intent to assassinate was in the case of Lumumba, who had threatened to bring the Congo under Soviet influence after the African country declared independence from Belgium in 1960. With the support of Director Allen Dulles, two senior CIA officials were dispatched to the Congo with poison to kill Lumumba. Apparently an attempt was never made, and he was killed in 1961 by Congolese rivals without CIA assistance.
Trujillo. The Dominican Republic dictator was shot to death on May 31, 1961, by Dominican dissidents who had received weapons and support from the CIA. The committee cited conflicting evidence on whether CIA guns were intended for or used in Trujillo's assassination.
Diem. South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother Nhu were assassinated Nov. 2, 1963, in a military coup. The CIA knew in advance of plans for a coup and assassination, but the committee found that the agency had not participated in either and had opposed the killings.
Schneider. Although the United States supported a move to block the coming to power of Allende-and recognized Gen. Schneider as an obstacle to military action-the committee found no direct CIA role in the ambush and mortal wounding of Schneider on Oct. 22, 1970. The CIA had supplied guns to a group that had made two unsuccessful attempts to kidnap Schneider, but that group did not include Schneider's assassins.
Accountability
The committee was unable to trace orders for assassination attempts to Presidents in office at the time, but it did find some indications of presidential authority. The report found a "reasonable inference" that Eisenhower authorized the Lumumba assassination and suggested that he and Kennedy knew of dissidents' intention to kill Trujillo. It fixed no blame for the Diem assassinations. It suggested that at least Robert Kennedy, if not his brother, knew of attempts to kill Castro after the fact and did not discourage future attempts. And the report disclosed that President Nixon, despite his repeated claims to the contrary, directly initiated CIA action to thwart the presidency of Allende.
Detailing for the first time clandestine activity by the United States in Chile between 1963 and 1973, a special Dec. 4 report of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee concluded that "extensive and continuous" CIA covert action was aimed at influencing that nation's elections and overthrowing the government of the late Chilean President Salvador Allende.
The United States was involved "on a massive scale" in the 1964 presidential election in Chile, the report said, pouring $3-million into the contest to prevent the election of a socialist or communist candidate, including Allende. The U.S.-backed candidate, Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei, received more than half his campaign funds from the CIA without his knowledge, according to the report.
After Allende's eventual election in 1970, the United States spent $8-million in opposing his presidency. He was overthrown by a military junta on Sept. 11, 1973. Allende died during the coup d'etat, reportedly by suicide.
1970 Coup Attempt
Although the committee staff found "no evidence" that the United States was "directly involved, covertly" in the 1973 coup, they said that in 1970 the CIA attempted to foment a military takeover to prevent Allende from taking office after his election Sept. 4.
"On Sept. 15, President Nixon informed CIA Director Richard Helms that an Allende regime in Chile would not be acceptable to the United States and instructed the CIA to play a direct role in organizing a military coup d'etat the ...," the committee report disclosed.
The CIA between Oct. 5 and Oct. 20,1970, made 21 contacts with key military and police officials in Chile, but the agency was instructed by Nixon not to inform the Departments of State or Defense or the U.S. ambassador in Santiago of these activities.
In addition, the Forty Committee -- a subcommittee of the National Security Council whose express purpose was to review proposed covert actions -- was kept in the dark about the CIA activities.
"In practice, the agency was to report, both for informational and approval purposes, to the White House," the report stated.
The Forty Committee, however, did approve at Nixon's request some indirect covert activities in Chile, including political, economic and propaganda actions designed to induce Allende's opponents to prevent his taking office.
The thrust of this effort was "to create concerns about Chile's future if Allende" gained power, according to a CIA memorandum obtained by the Senate committee staff. During the six-week period between the election and Allende's inauguration, 726 articles, broadcasts, editorials and other propaganda items were disseminated in the Latin American and European media as part of the CIA's campaign against Allende.
The CIA effort also produced a "change in the basic thrust of the Time [magazine] story on Allende's victory," according to CIA documents the panel reviewed. The Time correspondent in Chile "had accepted Allende's protestations of moderation and constitutionality at face value," the report said, but a briefing "requested by Time and provided by the CIA in Washington" resulted in a change of attitude toward Allende in the story.
Despite the direct efforts by the CIA to foment a coup, "the plans of dissident Chileans never got off the ground" and the U.S. overthrow policy failed. the study said.
1970-1973 Period
Between Allende's inauguration and overthrow in 1973, the United States "adopted a policy of opposition to Allende, and it remained in intelligence contact with the Chilean military, including officers who were participating in coup plotting," according to the Senate staff study.
"There is no hard evidence of direct U.S. assistance to the 1973 coup, despite frequent allegations of such aid," the report said. "Rather the United States -- by its previous actions [in 1970], its existing general posture of opposition to Allende, and the nature of its contacts with the Chilean military -- probably gave the impression that it would not look with disfavor on a military coup. And U.S. officials in the years before 1973 may not always have succeeded in walking the thin line between monitoring indigenous coup plotting and actually stimulating it."
During this period, national intelligence estimates produced by the U.S. intelligence community were downplaying the "extreme fears" about the effects of Allende's election, while at the same time the Forty Committee authorized greater amounts of money for covert operations. (In 1970, $1.5-million; 1971, $3.6-million; 1972, $2.5-million; and 1973, $1.2-million.)
According to the committee study, the intelligence estimates for the period showed that "there never was a significant threat of a Soviet military presence; the 'export' of Allende's revolution was limited, and its value as a model more restricted still ...."
The committee said, however, that it had determined that the intelligence analysts responsible for drawing up the estimates on Chile were not privy to information concerning covert operations approved by the Forty Committee. "That flaw was telling," the panel said. "It meant that the 1972 assessment of the durability of the opposition was written without knowledge of covert American funding of the opposition. Thus, there was no estimate of whether they would survive absent U.S. money."
ITT Connection
In addition to the aid supplied by the CIA to Allende's opponents in 1970,
the International Telephone and Telegraph Corp. (ITT) and other U.S.
multinational firms based in Chile channeled about $700,000 to Allende's
principal opponent, Jorge Alessandri. "ITT representatives met frequently
with CIA representatives both in Chile and in the United States, and CIA
advised ITT as to ways in which it might safely channel funds both to Alessandri
and the National Party," the report said. The corporation passed "at least"
$350,000 to the campaign, the report indicated, while other U.S. companies
contributed "a roughly equal amount" with the CIA's knowledge, but not its
assistance.
House efforts in 1975 to establish a special committee to investigate the CIA and other parts of the U.S. intelligence establishment were plagued until late summer by disputes-primarily among the Democrats-over personalities involved in the probe.
As a result, the House created two select investigative committees, one to succeed the other. The two committees had the same name and the same mandate, but the second one was larger and the two most controversial persons from the first were dropped.
Even when the House probe got underway in earnest, there were further delays as a result of disputes with the Ford administration over release of documents.
Nedzi Committee Created
The House created the first Select Committee on Intelligence Feb. 19 (H Res 138) by a 286-120 vote. (Vote 9, p. 6-H)
Rep. Lucien N. Nedzi (D Mich.) was named chairman; Nedzi also was chairman of the House Armed Services Special Subcommittee on Intelligence, a role which was to be a principal source of conflict in his role on the select committee, (Other committee members, box.)
On the 286-120 vote, Republicans split (55-77) fairly evenly and Democrats gave overwhelming (231-43) approval.
John B. Anderson (R Ill.) offered an amendment to require equal representation of Republicans and Democrats on the committee, but the proposal was rejected by a 141265 vote. (Vote 8, p. 6-H)
"If the people wanted the responsibilities to be divided 50-50 between the two parties, they would have voted that way," said freshman William McNulty Brodhead (D Mich.). Supporters of the amendment said a 5/5 party ratio was needed to ensure that the investigation was conducted without partisanship.
The House also rejected a second amendment offered by Anderson to move forward the reporting date from Jan. 31, 1976, to Sept. 1, 1975, so that both the House and Senate committees would issue their final reports simultaneously.
The House did agree to two other Anderson amendments by voice votes. The first required the select committee to establish rules to prevent the disclosure of CIA-related information that would interfere with the agency's foreign operations; the second established a $750,000 ceiling on committee expenses. .
Among the agencies which H Res 138 authorized the committee to investigate were the National Security Agency, United States Intelligence Board, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of the Treasury and the intelligence components of the Army, Navy and Air Force.
The Ford administration did not take a position on H Res 138.
The committee was given until Jan. 31, 1976, to issue a final report. H Res 138 authorized $750,000 to carry out the study.
Nedzi Resignation Rejected
Dissension within the committee became public in June when it was learned that Nedzi had received secret briefings in 1974 about illegal activities of the CIA. He did not inform the select committee of these briefings, and the Democrats on the committee felt he could not conduct a full and impartial investigation of the CIA.
At first, committee Democrats called for Nedzi's resignation, but then they voted to place all select committee members in a subcommittee headed by Rep. James V. Stanton (D Ohio). Nedzi said this left him with only "a gavel and a title" and he sought to resign.
The House, however, decisively rejected the resignation, 64-290, June 16. (Vote 221, p. 70-H) The debate on this move showed the depth of bitterness within the committee. Nedzi said "from the outset any hope of successful achievement through mutual trust and respect was nonexistent or destroyed." He referred to the three months it took just to hire a committee staff director. Nedzi also charged other committee Democrats with "hostile interrogation" about his role.
The dissident Democrats noted the secret briefings issue, and said they also were irritated by a Nedzi move to exclude from a planned subcommittee that would probe the CIA two of the House's most outspoken critics of the agency-Reps. Michael J. Harrington (D Mass.) and Ronald V. Deflums (D Calif.).
A number of members said they had voted against the resignation to signal both support of Nedzi's leadership and dissatisfaction with the actions of five Democrats on the panel who had called for his resignation June 2, but Nedzi told the House that "to remain as chairman under the present conditions" would mean becoming "an accomplice to a charade." The Democrats were: Harrington, Dellums, Stanton, Robert N. Giaimo (Conn.) and Don Edwards (Calif.).
On the vote, 97 Republicans -- all of those voting -- and 193 Democrats opposed the resignation; 64 Democrats supported Nedzi's offer to resign. Forty-four members, some of whom said the party dispute should be left to the Democratic Caucus rather than to both House Republicans as well as Democrats, voted "present" on the resignation question.
New Committee Formed
With this bitter division making the Nedzi committee virtually inoperative by summer, the House July 17 voted to abolish the unit and transfer its name, unused funds and mandate to a new unit of the same name but with 13, instead of 10, members. The action came after three sessions of often acrimonious debate and several votes on alternative proposals, one of which would have ended the House's intelligence probe entirely. This proposal was killed 122-293. (Vote 289, p. 90-H)
The closest vote during the House action was rejection, 178-230, of a proposal directing the House to set up a joint Senate-House intelligence committee in the near future. (Vote 290, p. 90-H) Democrats argued that the select committee's recommendations were needed first and overwhelmingly opposed the idea, 57-214.
The resolution to abolish the Nedzi committee and create the new unit (H Res 591-H Rept 94-351) was adopted by voice vote.
After the House action, Rep. Otis G. Pike (D N.Y.) was named to head the new select committee. Nedzi and Harrington were dropped from the membership. (For other members, see box.)
Like the Nedzi unit, the new committee was authorized to investigate the activities of the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, military intelligence components and other federal agencies engaged in intelligence operations. It was to report to the House by Jan. 31, 1976, including in its recommendations any suggestions for improving congressional oversight of the intelligence establishment.
The new committee began work in August under a pledge by Pike to do as much of its work as possible in public. "I think the magnitude of what we're spending to investigate our 'enemies' is a matter of which the American people ought to know," Pike told reporters after a committee-organizing session in July.
Complaint Against HarringtonA complaint brought by Robin L. Beard Jr. (R Tenn.) against Michael J. Harringon (D Mass.) that might have put the House through a divisive debate was dismissed Nov. 6 by the House Standards of Official Conduct Committee. By a 7-3 vote, the committee set aside Beard's charges that Harrington had violated House rules by revealing secret information about the CIA's political activities in Chile. The classified testimony had been presented to the Armed Services Investigations Subcommittee bv CIA Director William E. Colby on April 22, 1974. The subcommittee was probing alleged U.S. efforts to prevent the 1970 election of the late president of Chile, Salvador Allende. The committee's vote came after John J. Flynt Jr. (D Ga.), chairman, told other members of the panel that the occasion on which Colby testified was not a legal executive session. Until this was disclosed Nov. 5, the committee's decision to go forward with hearings on the charges was based on an understanding that Colby had testified in a formal executive meeting, Flynt said. Flynt said no public notice of the April 22, 1974, meeting was issued, a quorum was not present, no vote ,.vas taken to meet in executive session as required by House rules and only one member of the panel, Lucien N. Nedzi (D Mich.), was present when Colby testified. Voting for dismissal on a motion by Thomas S. Foley (D Wash.) were: Flynt, Melvin Price (D Ill.), Floyd Spence (R S.C.), Edward Hutchinson (R Mich.), Albert Quie (R Minn.). Thad Cochran (R Miss.) and Foley. Opposed were Olin E. Teague (D Texas), F. Edward Hebert (D La.) and James H. (Jimmy) Quillen (R Tenn.). The panel, also known as the Ethics Committee, could have recommended to the full House either that no action be taken against Harrington or that he be censured for violating rules that prevent the disclosure of classified information or testimony taken in executive session by a committee without its consent. The last disciplinary action taken by the House against one of its members occurred in 1967 when Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (D N.Y. 1945-71) was excluded from the 90th Congress. (Background, 1967 Almanac p. 533) Harrington, who had confirmed that he discussed Colby's testimony with a number of persons including a Washington Post reporter, had tried to shift the focus of the investigation to the question of a member's obligation to disclose information he received that indicated illegal U.S. government activity, even though his action might violate House rules. "The implication of the Beard complaint and those behind it is that the rules of the House and the classification process itself can prevent the reporting of a crime. I don't accept that Harrington said after the Ethics Committee vote. On June 16 the House Armed Services Committee, reacting to Harrington's disclosure, had voted 16-13 to deny him future access to its files pending a ruling by the ethics panel. |
Repeated attempts by the House Select Intelligence Committee to pry loose the total secret operating budget of the federal intelligence community were thwarted by Ford administration officials during public hearings July 31-Aug. 8.
CIA Director Colby declined at Aug. 4 and 6 hearings to disclose the annual cost of intelligence gathering activities and covert activities because, he said, the information might be helpful to the Soviet Union and other adversaries.
Colby did reveal that intelligence funds are buried in 20 Defense Department appropriations accounts and one State Department fund. And three Justice Department officials disclosed that the FBI had budgeted $82-million for intelligence operations in fiscal 1976.
Unofficial estimates of annual intelligence costs have been placed in the $6-billion range for a half-dozen agencies, including the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency and secret work of the State and Treasury Departments. The CIA's budget is estimated at $750-million annually.
Although Colby refused to divulge the budgets and number of persons employed in intelligence operations during the open hearings, he reportedly gave details to the panel when it met in executive session Aug. 4 and 6.
Demands for Details
Colby told the panel in open session Aug. 4 that he "would like to be able to tell the American people about our activities." But the CIA director, who is coordinator of the entire intelligence community, said that "once the budget total was revealed, the demand for details would probably grow." The next questions, he said, would be, "What does it include? What does it exclude? Why did it go up? Why did it go down? Is it worth it? How does it work?"
Pike asked whether the Soviet Union knew how much money was spent each year by U.S. intelligence agencies. "I don't think they know precisely," Colby replied, but "they undoubtedly have a better perception of it than the average [American] taxpayer."
The committee voted 6-5 Aug. 4 to meet with Colby behind closed doors, but Pike opposed the move because of the experience Aug. 1 with James T. Lynn, director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Lynn had declined to disclose the budget figures in public, reasoning that it might be a "criminal violation" of federal statutes, but he offered to provide the information in private. Pike said that Lynn then reneged on the promise. "The result could only be described as acutely disappointing," Pike commented before the vote on the motion to meet privately with Colby.
The lack of information by Congress on intelligence operations was underscored during the first day of hearings, Aug. 1, when General Accounting Office Comptroller Elmer B. Staats told the committee that he did not know how much the intelligence community spent each year.
Staats added that the GAO, an investigative arm of Congress, had stopped auditing the CIA's expenditures in 1962, since it was unable to obtain information for a comprehensive review.
Although the committee decided to focus at first on the cost of intelligence activities as a means of determining whether the secret agencies had overstepped their mandates, the hearings branched into other areas during the week of July 31-Aug. 8.
Colby said that while the CIA "was heavily engaged" in covert (political and paramilitary) operations during the 1950s and 1960s, such efforts have dropped to a "very low percentage" of overall CIA work in recent years.
Many in Congress would like to ban covert activities entirely, but Colby told the panel that "it is very important to our country that we keep the capability" because of future international developments.
Suggesting that it might be necessary "to help some group in a foreign land struggling against a hostile or extremist group there," Colby insisted that the United States have "some option between a diplomatic protest and sending the Marines."
Trying to draw Colby out to pinpoint where covert activities were being conducted, committee member Robert N. Giaimo (D Conn.) asked if there was not very little covert activity directed at the Soviet Union. "If there's very little against anyone, there's little against the U.S.S.R.," Colby replied.
On the issue of assassinations, Colby said he had put out a directive in 1973 prohibiting the agency from engaging in plots to assassinate foreign leaders. "I'm against it, but I confess I would not have been against an effort to assassinate Hitler in World War II," Colby added.
Under questioning by Les Aspin (D Wis.), Colby confirmed allegations that the National Security Agency eavesdropped on foreign telephone calls by Americans. He said it was "impossible to separate" the conversations of U.S. citizens from the "traffic that is being monitored."
Aspin contended that the practice is illegal because of a 1967 Supreme Court ruling prohibiting electronic eavesdropping on domestic telephone calls without a warrant. Colby explained that the practice was incidental to the work of the National Security Agency and was done only in the course of monitoring "foreign communications."
Describing the CIA's budget procedures and accounting methods, Colby disclosed that only two proprietary companies established to conceal CIA operations ever made a profit. The two were Air America, an airline being disbanded that provided cover for agency activities in Southeast Asia, and an unnamed investment company that handles CIA employee accounts.
Profits from the two companies, Colby said, are channeled to the Treasury Department, although the revenues before 1973 were retained by the companies.
House Vote on CIA Funds
The House demonstrated in October that it was not prepared to challenge the policy of secrecy for CIA funds. It rejected by a decisive 147-267 margin a proposal to disclose the CIA's operating budget. The action came when the House was debating the fiscal 1976 defense appropriations bill. (Vote 423, p. 130-H.- story, appropriations chapter)
U.S. Laws and Congressional Regulations Governing Use of Classified Information VaryThe investigations of the practices and performance of the U.S. intelligence community by the House and Senate Select Intelligence Committees ignited their own controversy over the laws and congressional regulations governing the use and public disclosure of classified government documents. Those rules are found in the Standing Rules of the House and Senate, the procedures and rules of the individual congressional committees and U.S. criminal law. Senate Rules The Standing Rules of the Senate explicitly prohibit unauthorized disclosure of "all confidential communications made by the President of the United States to the Senate" (Rule 36). However, the Senate by majority vote may approve disclosure. Senators or Senate employees who defy this rule are liable for expulsion or dismissal and "to punishment for contempt." However, no punishment is specified for disclosure of documents obtained from sources other than the executive branch. A more general prohibition on disclosure of confidential material is contained in Rule 38. This rule allows all proceedings pertaining to nominations, treaties or "other matters" to be considered in "closed executive session" of the Senate. Proceedings in these sessions must remain secret unless the Senate by majority vote permits disclosure. House Rules The rules of the House are less precise. Reference to confidential materials and executive sessions is made in Rule IX, in the section dealing with investigative hearings. The section states that "no evidence or testimony taken in executive session may be released or used in public sessions without the consent of the committee." Rule XXIX sets forth procedures for full House consideration in secret session of confidential communications from the President. That rule, however, according to the House parliamentarian, has not been used since the mid-1800s. U.S. Constitution Although the Constitution does not deal directly with the question of confidential government documents, Article 1, See. 6, exempts all representatives and senators from being questioned "in any other place for any speech or debate in either House." This language has been construed as precluding prosecution of any member of Congress for any statement made on the floor in either house in the course of legislative proceedings. It was partly by this language that Sen. Mike Gravel (D Alaska) escaped punishment for disclosure of the Pentagon Papers in June 1971. A second factor in that case was that the papers had not been taken from the executive branch. (Background on Gravel case, 1972 Almanac p. 815) U.S. Law The U.S. Criminal Code sets penalties for release of classified and confidential information. See. 798 of Title 18 sets a maximum $10,000 fine or imprisonment for not longer than 10 years, or both, for "knowingly and willfully" disclosing or using "in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States" any classified information "concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government." In a departure from the procedures used by previous Presidents, the Ford administration began to rely on statutes in U.S. laws pertaining to individual executive agencies-rather than to general federal laws pertaining to disclosures of information-as grounds for withholding information from Congress. CIA Director Colby, in a letter dated Aug. 15 to the House Government Operations Subcommittee on Government Information and Individual Rights, cited a provision of the 1947 National Security Act establishing the CIA as a basis for refusing to provide certain information requested by the committee. That act states that "the director of Central Intelligence shall be responsible for protecting intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure." Similarly, Commerce Secretary Rogers C. B. Morton invoked a provision of the 1949 Export Control Act, as amended, for not disclosing to the House Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations the names of U.S. businesses complying with the Arab boycott of Israel. The provision cited by Morton states that "no department, agency or official exercising any functions under this Act shall publish or disclose information obtained hereunder which is deemed confidential or with reference to which a request for confidential treatment is made by the person furnishing such information, unless the head of such department or agency determines that the withholding thereof is contrary to the national interest." According to aides to Rep. John E. Moss (D Calif.), chairman of the House Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, provisions in more than 100 separate laws enacted before 1960 had been located that could be cited by the executive branch as authorizing the withholding of information. Efforts were underway in 1975 to update that list. Committee aides estimated that nearly 300 separate provisions were in existence that regulated the release of government information. Staff members said Moss was of the opinion that the Ford administration intentionally cited these provisions rather than "executive privilege" or "national security" because the latter terms were discredited in the public mind as a result of their use by the Nixon administration. Committee Rules Under the authority of House and Senate rules, individual committees set their own regulations governing their procedures, including rules on handling classified information. Committee rules must comply with the general guidelines contained in the rules of the chamber, but they differ among committees. The House Armed Services Committee, for example, stipulates that any national security information classified by the government as "secret" must not be released or used in public sessions without the consent of the committee or subcommittee, determined by a majority vote.
Committee chairmen are authorized to establish, with committee approval,
procedures to prevent unauthorized disclosure of national security information.
However, committee materials must be accessible to all representatives in
accordance with House rules. Committee aides acknowledge the potential conflict
between the chairman's responsibilities to protect national security information
and the House rule to provide all members access to information. The following
is a sampling of specific committee rules:
|
A fundamental and recurring issue -- whether Congress has unlimited access to documents held by the executive branch -- arose once again in 1975 as the House proceeded on its investigation of U.S. intelligence activities.
The issue came up in a number of contexts and at times overshadowed the substantive issues which the Pike committee was probing. The access issue became more heated as the committee went from one issue to another until by November Secretary of State Kissinger faced a contempt of Congress proceeding in the House. However, compromises were reached before the citations reached a vote, with both sides appearing to salvage their positions.
The material that follows discusses the substantive issues that the House committee was investigating and the struggles that resulted over access to documents.
Intelligence Assessment
Following its August review of intelligence agency budgets and procedures (see above), the Pike committee began an assessment of the quality of intelligence reports and other actions that were taken during various international crises.
An early dispute with the Ford administration developed in September when the committee sought documents about the 1968 Vietnam Tet offensive. The dispute began Sept. 12 after the committee released secret documents relating to the 1973 Yom Kippur war in the Mideast that included phrases that the administration considered sensitive. After the information was disclosed, Ford demanded that the committee return all classified reports sent the panel (which the committee did not do) and vowed that no more would be produced "until the committee satisfactorily alters its position."
Committee Chairman Pike Sept. 17 refused to accept a package of documents from the White House because the materials had been screened by the administration and offered only "on the condition that they remain classified documents not subject to declassification or publication by the committee." This was the foundation for the disagreement with the committee which contended it had the right to obtain secret documents "without any strings attached."
The committee did not return the documents as requested by the administration and instead issued a new subpoena to obtain material it had been denied.
However, after three weeks of confrontation on the issue, the administration and the committee reached an agreement to transfer classified documents about the Tet offensive with the promise not to publicly disclose the material without White House approval. The committee voted 10-3 on Oct. 1 to accept this agreement.
Information on Tet
U.S. military forces were taken by surprise in the spring of 1968 when North Vietnam and the Viet Cong launched their massive Tet invasion because American officials "deliberately underestimated" the size of enemy forces, Samuel A. Adams, a former CIA intelligence analyst, told the committee Sept. 18.
Adams said the late Gen. Creighton Abrams and Ambassador to South Vietnam Ellsworth Bunker insisted on keeping official estimates of Viet Cong troop strength at about 300,000 despite intelligence reports that indicated enemy levels of about 600,000.
Showing the committee secret cables between the two officials, Adams said the Tet figures were altered to support the contention of Abrams and Bunker that the Viet Cong were demoralized by U.S. military successes.
A motion by ranking Republican Robert McClory (Ill.) to close the session to the public because the cables were marked "secret, eyes only" was rejected on a 6-3 vote.
Adams also charged that former White House national security adviser Wait W. Rostow, Helms and Gens. Earle G. Wheeler and William C. Westmoreland were among those "who knew that there was an attempt going on to fool the press" and the American public about the Viet Cong's military activity.
Adams told the committee that the astonishment over the Tet offensive "stemmed in large measure from corruption in the intelligence process." In 1967, according to Adams, Gen. Abrams sent a memorandum to Gen. Wheeler, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, suggesting that two categories of Viet Cong be dropped from the intelligence estimates.
On Dec. 3, Lt. Gen. Daniel Graham, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and CIA Director Colby denied that estimates of enemy strength in South Vietnam had been artificially lowered for political reasons shortly before the 1968 Tet offensive.
Colby cited CIA reports dating from June 1966 that criticized military estimates as seriously underestimatinLy Communist strength. "CIA did not sweep numbers under the rug," he said. "When it was necessary, the CIA raised questions, debated the issues and provided its own independent assessments without regard to how they would be received."
Along with Colby, Graham, who headed the current intelligence office of Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) during the Tet offensive, denied that U.S. forces had been caught by surprise, although he conceded that the intensity of the attack had exceeded expectations. He attacked Adams' estimates of enemy strength as far too high because of methodological flaws.
"Mr. Adams' general approach was to take a VC [Viet Cong] document that suggested certain levels of strength in the VC apparatus in one district and multiply those numbers by the numbers of districts," he said. "This, to MACV, seemed rather simple-minded and reflected a mechanical approach by a Wash i ngton-based analyst totally unfamiliar with the vast differences from district to district and province to province in Vietnam."
Both witnesses agreed on the reason why the CIA's estimate of 120,000 irregular enemy militia had been replaced with an unquantified reference to "other elements" con - tributing to over-all Communist capabilities. "The military had a point," reasoned Colby, "in its argument that their concern was with the combat threat represented by the order of battle in the classic sense."
Graham argued that events had validated this point of view. "The evidence from the Tet offensive does prove that all estimates were wrong by being too high in terms of total VC combat strength available and that the u,orst estimate around by far was Mr. Adams' 600,000."
Both men denied that there was any ceiling imposed on enemy force estimates that would be "politically acceptable."
Settlement of the Tet documents issue did not resolve a larger issue-whether the Pike committee's requests and subpoenas for other classified material would be honored by the Ford administration. On Oct. 2 Pike's panel issued a subpoena to Secretary of State Kissinger to supply a secret memorandum on the 1974 Cyprus invasion.
The committee voted 10-3 Sept. 30 to seek approval of a resolution from the House in support of its demandfor unrestricted access to classified material.
The resolution was seen as a first step toward a committee request that the House find CIA Director Colby in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with the pa~el's Sept. 10 subpoena for the classified information on the Tet offensive.
Although Pike said Oct. 1 that Colby was in compliance with the subpoena, some other materials ordered from the National Security Agency, the National Security Council and the Defense Intelligence Agency had not been supplied by Oct. 2.
Pike indicated that he had not been assured these materials would be provided, but the ranking Republican member of the committee, Robert McClory (R Ill.), said he had been told by President Ford that these agencies would "cooperate fully."
State Department Order
Complicating the Ford-Pike dispute was a Sept. 25 order by the State Department prohibiting middle-level bureaucrats from testifying about their intelligence recommendations to senior department officials.
On Oct. 2 the committee voted 9-2 to subpoena Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger to release a memorandum written by a middle-level official detailing alleged mismanagement of the 1974 Cyprus crisis.
The committee had tried on Sept. 25 to interview the former State Department official, Thomas Boyatt, who headed the Cyprus desk in 1974. But the committee was told by Lawrence S. Eagleburger, deputy under secretary for management, that Boyatt could answer questions only about the memo and that senior officials would testify on what his recommendations had been.
The committee was seeking testimony from middlelevel government officials to determine whether faulty and inadequate intelligence or high-level misinterpretation of the intelligence caught the United States off guard at the time of the Tet offensive, the 1973 Mideast war and the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.
Kissinger Oct. 15 offered instead to submit a summary of "all dissenting views" within the department over U.S. policy during the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus.
Explaining why he would not comply with the subpoena, Kissinger said that policy-making officers were "not prepared to attach to opinions we receive the names of officials at the middle and senior levels," but "we may give a summary of all the dissenting views from all sources which we received."
Other high-level department policymakers argued that to permit lower-ranking officers to be questioned about their recommendations would risk a repeat of the damage inflicted upon the Foreign Service during the McCarthy era in the 1950s.
Compromise on Subpoena
By an 8-5 vote Nov. 4, the House committee ended a six-week confrontation with Kissinger over his refusal to meet the requirements of the Oct. 2 subpoena.
The committee's vote permitted the secretary to provide the wording of the memorandum interspersed with paragraphs from other documents also relating to U.S. Cyprus policy. Kissinger had proposed this compromise in his appearance before the committee Oct. 31.
It was Kissinger's contention that Foreign Service Officers must be free to make recommendations that were "not subject to later public scrutiny." But Pike and other members of the committee maintained that since Boyatt agreed to release the memo, the department's position was invalid.
Pike called the compromise a "giant jigsaw puzzle" which would not provide the needed information. "I don't see any sense in us ever subpoenaing any other documents from thesecretaryof state, or anything else that wasever in his possession as assistant to the President for national security affairs," Pike said.
Initiating the compromise move was Les Aspin (D Wis.), who argued that any effort to enforce the letter of the subpoena would be regarded as "trivial" on the House floor' "We ought not to push on a trivial issue," Aspin said. "If we go to the mat, it should be on a big issue."
Under Kissinger's compromise offer, the paragraphs from Boyatt's memo would not be attributed to him.
Voting for the compromise were all four Republicans on the committee and four of the panel's nine Democrats.
Hearing on Issue
During his first appearance before the House committee Oct. 31, Kissinger was the target of harsh criticism by both Democratic and Republican members for his refusal to turn over the subpoenaed memorandum.
"Let me make one thing clear," Kissinger told the committee, "there is no concern that the Boyatt memorandum contains anything that will be embarrassing to the administration, the President or the secretary of state."
An offer by the secretary of state to provide a summary of the Boyatt memo was rejected outright by Pike during the hearing. "There is a tremendous difference between the statements we get from policymakers and the facts we get from people. There is no such thing as a full summary," Pike declared.
Although Kissinger insisted that the precedent of allowing Boyatt to testify on the contents of the memo might dry up the "dissent channel" within the department that "had been established to encourage officers to make the hard, blunt and critical comments we seek," Robert McClory (R Ill.) remarked that the department did not have the right to bar employees from willingly providing information to Congress.
During the hearing, Robert N. Giaimo (D Conn.) repeatedly demanded to know what authority Kissinger was invoking for his refusal to comply with the subpoena. Kissinger, who said that he had not asked President Ford to invoke executive privilege and was not trying to devise a "secretarial privilege" in its place, answered that he was not a lawyer and would have to rely on the advice of the department's legal division.
Dellums' Accusations
In an unusual public attack on a cabinet secretary during a congressional hearing, Ronald V. Dellums (D Calif.) charged Oct. 31 that the secretary of state had wiretapped his employees and abused his power. "I am concerned with your power and the method of your operation," Dellums asserted.
"Apart from that, there is nothing wrong with my operation?" Kissinger asked. He reminded the House committee that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had sustained his position on the wiretapping controversy by a 16-0 vote in 1974. (1974 Almanac p. 515)
Forty Committee
Contradicting the testimony of a former State Department liaison officer to the National Security Council's Forty Committee-the group created in the 1950s to determine what secret operations would be implemented-Kissinger told the Pike panel that U.S. covert activities abroad have been approved by the President "during all the time I have been in Washington." Kissinger joined the Nixon administration in 1969.
The liaison officer, James R. Gardner, testified Oct. 30 that between 1972 and 1974 Kissinger had not bothered to obtain approval for overseas clandestine activities from the Forty Committee.
Robert W. Kasten Jr. (R Wis.) said later that Gardner had left the committee with the impression that Kissinger did not seek Nixon's or Ford's approval for any but "the most sensitive" projects.
Kissinger, however, denied that he had assumed most decision-making responsibility for covert activities. "The case is that all the decisions are passed to the President for final determination," Kissinger said.
After Kissinger refused to discuss in open session the procedures for approving covert activities, the committee voted, with Dellums dissenting, to meet with the secretary in executive session the same day.
The Pike committee approved contempt citations against Secretary of State Kissinger in November but did not bring them before the House for a vote because compromises on the information sought were reached with the administration.
The committee voted 10-3 on Nov. 14 to cite Kissinger for contempt of Congress for refusal to turn over certain documents that had been subpoenaed Nov. 5. The committee's action came on three citations. The action was reaffirmed Nov. 20 when the panel approved in three separate votes the reports accompanying the citations.
The committee voted 10-3 to approve the report accompanying a citation against Kissinger in his post as secretary of state. Dale Milford (D Texas), Vice Chairman Robert McClory (R Ill.) and David C. Treen (R La.) opposed it.
On the two other reports accompanying citations against Kissinger in his role as the President's national security adviser, the vote was 8-5, with Republicans Robert W. Kasten Jr. (Wis.) and James P. Johnson (Colo.) joining the other three opponents.
Details of Citations
The three citations accused Kissinger of "contumacious conduct" for refusing
to comply with three committee subpoenas. Two had been sent to him as the
President's adviser for national security affairs and the third as secretary
of state. They had sought the following information:
Parliamentary Procedure
Pike and other committee members made clear that approval of the reports did not bar a future reversal on any of the citations if information the committee sought was provided by the National Security Council or the State Department.
A resolution citing a person for contempt of Congress needs only a simple majority for adoption. Pike said he would take the matter to the floor as "Privileged" resolutions, which under House rules would bypass the Rules Committee. That way it would receive immediate attention by the House. If the House approves the resolution, the matter is referred to a U.S. attorney, who quested by the committee.
Effect on Kissinger
Kissinger, State Department officials and President Ford all were clearly disturbed by the potential adverse effect of the citations on Kissinger's image abroad.
"We consider it unbelievable that a committee of Congress would move toward a citation of contempt on the eve of an important summit meeting, two weeks before a presidential visit to China and less than a month before a major NATO meeting," said William G. Hyland, State Department director of intelligence and research, at a press briefing Nov. 15.
Kissinger, too, was unhappy with the committee's move, calling it "frivolous." Immediately after the Nov. 14 votes, he indicated to reporters the adverse worldwide impact the citations might have: "I profoundly regret that the committee saw fit to cite in contempt a secretary of state, raising serious questions all over the world what this country is doing to itself ...." Ford called the citations "shocking" and carrying "very broad and serious ramifications."
At the Nov. 15 briefing, Hyland said Kissinger had refused to turn over the State Department documents on the orders of Ford, who cited executive privilege. The material requested involved "highly sensitive military and foreign affairs assessments and evaluations" as well as consultation and advice to former Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, according to the White House letter to Kissinger ordering withholding of the material. Pike countered that executive privilege could not be invoked by Ford for the documents of previous administrations.
On the other two requests, involving the NSC papers, Hyland said that some material had been turned over. He also argued that Kissinger no longer was responsible for NSC documents because of Ford's Nov. 3 action replacing the secretary of state as national security adviser and thus as head of the council.
The intelligence committee staff contended, however, that Kissinger's replacement, Lt. Gen. Brent Scoweroft, had not yet been sworn in so that Kissinger legally still was NSC chief.
CONTEMPT ACTION DROPPED
Committee chairman Pike Dec. 10 said his committee had received "substantial compliance" with its subpoena of Nov. 5 and that, as a result, the panel's contempt action against Kissinger was "moot." On Dec. 9, a delegation of committee members and staff received the sought-after information on the third of three subpoenas in a White House briefing. Pike said that the outcome would be called a victory for the committee, "but I am not going to do so."
On Dec. 2, Pike announced that the committee had received "substantial compliance" with two of the subpoenas and that it would not proceed with the contempt actions based on them.
Negotiations
The third subpoena called for State Department records of the department's proposals for covert operations since 1961.
President Ford had inkoked executive privilege on Nov. 19 as the basis for Kissinger's non-compliance with this third subpoena.
Ford subsequently offered to identify those operations carried out which had been requested by the State Department. Pike rejected the proposal, arguing that the committee needed information about the mechanism by which covert operations were controlled within the executive branch and that this required access to recommendations that were not acted on.
In a letter dated Dec. 6, Counsel to the President Philip W. Buchen pointed out that the committee already had received documents dating from 1965 identifying the agencies which had recommended each covert operation carried out. He offered to turn over the corresponding documents dating back to 1961, the period covered by the subpoena.
Committee sources reported that intensive discussions between the administration and committee members continued over the next few days, with the White House proposing to make available additional classes of documents under various conditions of access.
Committee Report
In its report filed Dec. 8 (H Rept 94-693), the committee reviewed the chronology of events relating to the subpoena and summarized the legal authority for its action. It then recommended that the House adopt the resolution citing Kissinger for contempt, "to the end that he may be proceeded against as provided by law." Contempt of a congressional subpoena is a misdemeanor.
Filing a concurring view, Pike noted ironically that when the committee was investigating U.S. intelligence in the 1974 Cyprus incident, Kissinger had insisted that it seek information from policy-level officers rather than from mid-level career officers.
"If the recommendations of lower level officers ... are to be denied to Congress on the grounds of 'McCarthyism' and those of top level officers ... on grounds of 'executive privilege,' then the State Department has arrogated unto itself total non-accountability for its recommendations," he concluded.
Committee member James P. Johnson (R Colo.) objected to Ford's treatment of the membership of the National Security Council as personal advisers to the President. He pointed out that recommendations for covert action from the entire intelligence community go through the council or through its subcommittee, known as the Forty Committee. "If this material is subject to the claim of executive privilege," said Johnson, "then Congress can be effectively bypassed in the future, as it has been in the past."
Dissenting Views
Dale Milford (D Texas), Robert McClory (R Ill.) and David C. Treen (R La.) filed dissents from the committee report.
Milford agreed that the committee had presented "a good 'technical argument' " for access, but warned that a confrontation with the executive branch that was "based on nebulous and abstract points of law can quickly destroy public confidence in both sides of the controversy." He argued further that Congress was not prepared procedurally to handle extremely sensitive information in a secure manner.
Ranking Republican McClory called the contempt citation "hasty and mistaken." He argued that the documents in question were not part of the normal bureaucratic paper flow, but were "at the heart of the consultative process" protected by executive privilege.
Treen relied heavily on the Supreme Court's finding in U.S. v. Nixon, pointing out that the decision had unequivocally affirmed the "need for confidentiality" in executive branch consultations as a basis for assertion of executive privilege. He concluded that if Congress were to take Kissinger to court, "there is a very substantial doubt that prosecution for contempt in this matter would be successful."
Agreement
On Dec. 9, committee members Les Aspin (D Wis.), Dellums and McClory and two staff members visited the White House to discuss which documents would be made available. The following morning, committee counsel A. Searle Field reported that the delegation had received an oral briefing that included the information which was the target of the subpoena. According to Field, William Hyland, deputy assistant to the President for national security affairs, read verbatim from minutes of the Forty Committee to identify the State Department's 20 recommendations since 1961 for covert action and to describe the disposition of each recommendation.
Pike told the committee that if there were no objection he would report to the House that there had been "substantial compliance" with the subpoena. There was no objection and no vote.
Committee Hearings
On Dec. 8, the committee began two days of hearings on the legal basis of covert action, receiving testimony from CIA General Counsel Mitchell Rogovin; Prof. Norman Dorsen, general counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union; former Attorney General Nicholas deB. Katzenbach and former presidential aide McGeorge Bundy.
On Dec. 11, the committee took up the role of Congress in oversight of intelligence activities. John B. Anderson (R Ill.) and Michael J. Harrington (D Mass.) presented testimony, as did historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Robert D. Murphy, chairman of the Commission on the Organization of Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy.
SALT Violations
Administration witnesses admitted before the House Select Intelligence Committee Dec. 17 that information indicating possible Soviet violations of the 1972 strategic arms limitation agreements (SALT) had been withheld from regular intelligence channels. The witnesses insisted, however, that government officials with a "need to know" were always aware of these "hold" items and could find out through informal communications if they needed to.
Retired Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt, former chief of naval operations, Dec. 2 had accused Secretary of State Kissinger of keeping relevant information from intelligence analysts in order to insulate the arms agreements from criticism.
Ray S. Cline, former director of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, in Dec. 17 testimony generally concurred with Zumwalt's charges. He said that verification of SALT violations was extremely difficult at best and that the "hold" system exacerbated the problem.
Edward W. Proctor, CIA deputy director for intelligence, told the committee that senior Defense Intelligence Agency and CIA officials, including himself, made the decisions on what intelligence data to place on a "hold" status. He listed three reasons for doing this: 1) to allow clarification of the information's significance; 2) to forestall leaks that could jeopardize ongoing negotiations and risk compromising intelligence sources; and 3) to conform to an understanding reached with the Soviet government restricting public statements on any subject under active discussion in the SALT negotiations or in the Standing Consultative Commission set up in 1972 to oversee compliance with the agreement.
"Hold" procedures had been used in the past, Proctor emphasized, citing as examples information relating to U-2 overflights of the Soviet Union in the late 1950s and to the emplacement of Soviet missiles in Cuba in the fall of 1962.
William G. Hyland, deputy assistant to the President for national security affairs, insisted that as a practical matter the "hold" procedures could not keep any properly interested officials in ignorance of important information for any length of time. Informal communication within Washington's "SALT community" would prevent that, he said.
But Cline said that as a result of the "hold" procedure, key policyrnakers-including former Secretary of State William P. Rogers-were kept in the dark about Soviet moves for as long as several months. Cline argued for an orderly examination of the various charges through the regular channels at the National Security Council level. He warned that the "hold" procedure might permit officials with a personal and political stake in the success of SALT I to obfuscate evidence of Soviet non-compliance.
In response to a question by committee member Robert W. Kasten Jr. (R Wis.), Hyland said he was not aware of any other areas currently subject to a "hold." He specifically denied that there had been any new restrictions on access to intelligence about Angola in recent months in the State Department's Intelligence and Research office, which Hyland headed until November.
Portugal
Three senior U.S. intelligence officials told the House committee Oct. 6 that neither the CIA nor the Defense or State Department had predicted the overthrow of the Portuguese government in April 1974.
Hyland, director of the State Department's Intelligence and Research Bureau, stated that "even a cursory review" of intelligence documents from the 1974 period "indicates there was no specific warning of the coup" in which the government of Premier Marcello Caetano was deposed by military officers.
Citing four events that might have been interpreted as a "warning signal" to U.S. intelligence analysts, Hyland said: "One could have speculated that a crisis of major proportions was brewing; but it is also a fact that in the 30 days preceding the coup there was no indication of the kind of coup that in fact actually occurred."
The CIA's national intelligence officer for Western Europe, Keith Clark, described the field reporting before the coup as "neither outstandingly good nor outstandingly bad." Clark said no one in the intelligence community had provided "a full picture of the plans, programs, ideological orientation and differing philosophies of the armed services movement" led by Gen. Antonio de Spinola.
The three officials explained that Portugal before 1974 was not a nation that received major U.S. intelligence attention, and this fact, according to Hyland, may raise a "legitimate criticism of intelligence that it is not well set up to shift rapidly to new areas of concern."
The intelligence committees in both houses in 1975 looked into the activities of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They discovered repeated incidents of illegal or questionable activity ranging from burglaries against "domestic subversive targets" to continual harassment of dissident and political protest groups in the United States.
The Senate committee revealed that the FBI conducted a long campaign to discredit civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. The campaign involved blackmail, bugging and intimidation.
The Senate committee also discovered that the FBI had been used by Presidents going back to Roosevelt for activities that were strictly political.
The FBI acknowledged to a House subcommittee Oct. 21 that a threatening note left at its Dallas office by Lee Harvey Oswald in November 1963 was destroyed shortly after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The FBI's "exhaustive internal inquiry," begun in July, turned up conflicting accounts of the course of events that led to the note's destruction two hours after Oswald himself was assassinated Nov. 24, 1963, according to FBI Deputy Associate Director James B. Adams. He testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, which was looking into the FBI's relationship with both Oswald and his assassin, Jack L. Ruby, and also into its cooperation with the Warren Commission. The investigation of those two aspects was part of the subcommittee's long-range oversight hearings on the bureau.
Adams stated that neither Oswald nor Ruby were ever paid informants of the bureau and that there was no information in FBI files to indicate that Oswald was an agent of any other government agency, including the CIA.
The FBI, however, did contact Ruby nine times in 1959 as a potential informant, but he never provided the agency with any information, Adams said. That fact was supplied to the Warren Commission by former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover in a letter, but it was not mentioned in the commission's report.
Subcommittee Chairman Don Edwards (D Calif.) called it "shocking" that the FBI's contacts with Ruby, and the existence of the Oswald note, had not become publicly known until nearly 12 years after the assassination of Kennedy. Coming so late, he continued, they added to the "paranoia" that may exist in this country. Edwards said later he wanted more information on Ruby's FBI role.
Adams told the subcommittee that the bureau's investigation of the Oswald visit and note, which began in July, 1975, on the basis of information obtained by the Dallms Times-Herald, left "no doubt" that Oswald visited the Dallas office in early November 1963 and left a note for a special agent, James P. Hosty, who was conducting a subversive activities investigation of him.
Three FBI employees told the FBI investigators that they recalled that the note was generally threatening, but did not contain anything to warn of the assassination, Adams said. Hosty 6d told FBI investigators that he was ordered by the special agent in charge of the Dallas office to destroy the note, and a memorandum, two hours after Oswald died Nov. 24. The special agent in charge denied giving the order and claimed to have no knowledge of the entire matter before July 1975. The Neu, York nmes reported in September that the note had been ordered destroyed by high FBI officials, probably including Hoover.
Adams detailed for the subcommittee the bureau's efforts to identify any high officials who might have known about the note. He reported that one former FBI assistant director told bureau investigators he thought it was common knowledge at FBI headquarters that a threatening note had been received from Oswald and that the Dallas office chief had told him he, along with an assistant to Hoover, was handling the matter.
That assistant denied under oath any such knowledge, Adams said. Knowledge of the existence of the Oswald note also was denied by agents at FBI headquarters supervising the assassination investigation.
"Our inquiry into this matter has included interviews with a large number of present and former FBI officials, including the entire still-living chain of 'Command of the two investigations divisions at our headquarters that supervised the Kennedy assassination case," Adams testified. "With the exception of the above-mentioned former assistant director, all have furnished statements denying any knowledge of this matter."
No record of the note or Oswald's visit appears in FBI files, Adams pointed out. He called the agency's handling of the episode poor. The Justice Department concluded, however, that criminal prosecution was not appropriate because the statute of limitations had expired. Adams said the bureau was studying whether to take further administrative action.
Adams could provide subcommittee members with no motive for the note's destruction except to avoid embarrassment to the bureau over its handling of the Oswald investigation. He noted, too, that there were conflicting statements from the nearly 80 persons interviewed.
Adams also dealt with allegations of a teletype message received Nov. 17, 1963, in the bureau's New Orleans office purportedly warning that a militant revolutionary group might try to assassinate Kennedy in Dallas.
.Similar allegations arose in 1968, and on the basis of an investigation at that time, as well as another in September, the FBI could find "no evidence" to indicate or corroborate the former employee's claim of the existence of the message, he testified.
Contradicting the testimony of at least one former high FBI official, the long-time personal secretary of former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover told a House Government Operations subcommittee Dec. 1 she destroyed reams of Hoover's personal files immediately after his death, but that none pertained to FBI work.
Helen W. Gandy, who served as Hoover's secretary from 1919 until his death in 1972, told the Government Information and Individual Rights Subcommittee, chaired by Bella S. Abzug (D N.Y.), that she destroyed some 30 to 35 file drawers of documents according to long-standing instructions by Hoover and with the approval of then Acting Director L. Patrick Gray III. She said she reviewed "every single page of every single personal file" and none contained sensitive bureau information or matters relating to prominent citizens. "I destroyed nothing that pertained to bureau matters," she said. "I was very careful to make sure nothing had gotten in the personal files."
Her testimony clashed directly with the recollection of former Assistant Director William C. Sullivan, whose taperecorded testimony to a committee investigator was played for the committee during the questioning of Gandy. Sullivan said the files "could deal with a Cabinet officer, or a misconduct of some other person highly placed, or it could deal with certain political considerations." Specific examples cited by Sullivan included information that the 1968 Democratic presidential candidate, Hubert H. Humphrey (D Minn.), was planning to replace Hoover if elected, allegations of "very reprehensible conduct" by a "highly placed" figure he declined to name and background on newly elected members of Congress.
"The general rule," Sullivan recalled, "was that when a man was elected to the House of Representatives or to the United States Senate, a man or a woman, ...the indices were reviewed on the officeholder ... to see what we had on him, good or bad." The information was used accordingly in the bureau's dealings with Congress, Sullivan said.
Confronted with the taped statement, Gandy disputed Sullivan's account. "If Mr. Sullivan knows that, then his memory is a whole lot better than mine." She said the files contained no political intelligence and that she knew of no files on members of Congress.
Several witnesses testified the same day that another set of files, marked "official and confidential," was transferred after Hoover's death from the director's office to the office of W. Mark Felt, then associate director. Felt told the committee the files contained some sensitive information, but nothing on members of Congress. He said Hoover had held the files out of the bureau's general filing !ystem "in order to protect the privacy" of the individuals involved.
Gray's Role
Gandy strongly implicated former Acting Director Gray in the destruction of Hoover's files. Appointed by President Nixon, Gray subsequently asked that his nomination as director be withdrawn in 1973 after he was implicated in the Watergate scandal. Hoover's former secretary said Gray leafed through the personal files immediately after Hoover's death and told her "it was perfectly all right" to proceed with their destruction.
In a written statement to the committee, Gray denied seeing the files and said he had not authorized their destruction. A committee source said during a break in the hearings that Gandy had been much stronger in her description of Gray's role than in her pre-hearing statement to committee investigators.
Gray also came under criticism from a former assistant to Hoover, John P. Mohr, who said Gray had pressured him to yield some "secret files" that Gray thought Hoover had been keeping. "I think he was looking for secret files that would embarrass the Nixon administration," Mohr testified. He said he assured Gray there were no such files.
Richard G. Kleindienst, who was acting attorney general at the time, told the committee he had ordered that Hoover's office be sealed when he heard of the death. Mohr testified that he had understood the order, which Kleindienst conceded was vague, to refer only to Hoover's immediate office and not the entire suite. The files had been in Gandy's office elsewhere in the suite.
Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Church disclosed Sept. 25 that the FBI had conducted 238 break-ins against "domestic subversive targets" between 1942 and 1968, and records of the burglaries were placed in seeret files kept by former FBI Assistant Director William C. Sullivan.
According to documents obtained by the committee, the late FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover ordered a halt to the burglaries in 1966 after Sullivan wrote Hoover aide Cartha D. DeLoach that the "black bag jobs" were "clearly illegal." But Sullivan also praised the operations as "a very valuable weapon which we have used to combat the highly clandestine efforts of subversive elements seeking to undermine our nation."
Charles Brennan, a former assistant director of the FBI's intelligence division, told the committee Sept. 25 that it was his opinion that Hoover, who reached the federal government's mandatory age of 70 in 1965, stopped the illegal operations because he feared disclosure of an embarrassing incident that would force his resignation from the bureau.
The committee also disclosed that the FBI expanded its campus surveillance activities in September, 1970, three months after Nixon rejected the Huston plan, one aspect of which called for the recruitment of 18-year-old college students to monitor the activities of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) members.
The Senate Select Intelligence Committee Nov. 18-19 made public a detailed 20-year history of FBI activities t0 disrupt U.S. protest groups and movements. The committee's investigation of the bureau revealed an undercover FBI effort to discredit civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that involved blackmail, bugging and intimidation.
Much of the information revealed in two days of hearings was already known, but in less detail than given by committee majority counsel F.A.O. Schwarz Jr. and minority counsel Curtis R. Smothers. The disclosures were the product of six months of investigation of FBI files and other information sources by the committee headed by Sen. Frank Church (D Idaho).
FBI officials appeared before the committee on the second day of hearings to "deplore" the activities and urge congressional direction in formulating domestic intelligence gathering policies.
King Disclosures
The committee investigators sketched a pattern of FBI hostility to King beginning when the civil rights advocate first assumed national prominence in a 1956 bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala. The campaign to discredit him, the investigators said, stemmed directly from the top, in the office of then Director J. Edgar Hoover.
The campaign against King began in earnest in 1963, when,according to an internal memo, FBI officials met to discuss ways to obtain information about him.
The bureau eventually settled on using telephone taps and hidden microphones to secretly gather information. In all, 16 separate bugs were installed in hotel rooms used by King around the country in 1964 and 1965, and wiretaps were employed against the offices of King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference in New York and Atlanta from 1963 to 1966.
The bugs apparently revealed sensitive personal information about King which, Schwarz said, the bureau tried to turn against him in 1964. Shortly before the civil rights leader was to receive the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize ' the FBI sent him an anonymous letter, accompanied by transcripts from the hotel room bugs, which the committee investigators said suggested that King commit suicide.
According to a draft found in FBI files, the note read:
"King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days (apparently, the period before the Nobel ceremony) in which to do it.... You are done. There is but one way out for you."
According to the investigators, FBI harassment of King continued until and even after his death. FBI files revealed that the bureau leaked to a friendly reporter that King was staying in a white-owned Holiday Inn in Memphis during a 1968 sanitation workers strike that included a boycott of white-owned businesses. King subsequently moved to a black-owned motel, where he was shot to death April 4. Schwarz said that after King's death, the bureau devised a plan to dissuade individual congressmen from supporting legislation to declare his birthday a national holiday. Schwarz did not know if the plan was ever implemented, but no such legislation has been enacted.
Other Activities
The campaign against King was just one of a range of FBI activities to disrupt political movements under its counter-intelligence program, according to the testimony. King, for instance, was among a number of figures who were bugged and spied upon at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. According to FBI documents and other sources, the information -personal as well as political-was relayed to the White House. For years subsequently, information was supplied to the White House on a regular basis under a project code-named "Inlet." In a letter to bureau field offices, Hoover placed a premium on "items with an unusual twist or concerning prominent personalities."
Much of the bureau's activities, according to the testimony, was directed
against such groups as the Ku Klux Klan, black nationalist organizations,
the Socialist Workers Party and the New Left. Among the disclosures:
FBI Reaction
Testifying the day after the committee disclosures, FBI officials "abhorred" the activities and said they had been curtailed in 1971 with the end of the counterintelligence program.
James Adams, deputy assistant director for intelligence, conceded there was "no statutory basis or justification" for the campaign against King and said he had not been privy to the motivations for it. The actions were undertaken as part of the bureau's responsibility to counter Communist influence in U.S. institutions, he said, but he could point to no specific legal authority for that responsibility.
"This is the hangup with the whole problem," he said. "At the time, we had men who felt there was an immediate danger to the country, who felt the responsibility to act, and having felt that responsibility, did act."
Adams said the authority for much agency activity, especially domestic intelligence gathering, is blurred, and he called for specific direction from Congress for devising guidelines.
While agreeing with a need for at least closer congressional oversight, committee Chairman Church suggested that the lack of guidelines had not been the FBI's only problem. "The federal government's chief law enforcement agency ought not to violate the law," he said.
Soviet SubmarineNewspaper stortes March 19 disclosed that the Central Intelligence Agency secretly spent $350-mulion to recover a sunken Soviet submarine. The submarine, a diesel-powered vessel equipped with missiles containing nuclear warheads, sank northwest of Hawaii in 1968. The recovery operation was carried out in the summer of 1974 by a marine mining ship called the Hughes Glomar Explorer built under a CIA contract by a company owned by billionaire Howard Hughes. Although several major newspapers and magazines knew of the submarine salvage operation in 1974, the information was not published until March 19 after columnist Jack Anderson reported details of the operation. Anderson claimed the CIA was trying to withhold the information "not because the operation was a secret but because it was a $350-million failure." The Hughes ship raised the submarine almost to the surface, where the "hull cracked and fell off," Anderson reported. He added that "two-thirds of the vessel, including its missiles, nuclear power plant and communications gear, plunged back to the bottom" of the ocean. CIA, Pentagon and White House officials refused to say March 19 what part of the submarine was raised, what was done with it and what equipment, if any, it contained. |
Young Election Sabotage
On the same day that the Senate committee learned of FBI excesses against King, a former agent told the House Select Intelligence Committee that the FBI had tried to use him in an effort to sabotage the 1972 election campaign of Rep. Andrew Young (D Ga.).
Arthur Murtagh, now retired, said that while assigned to Atlanta he had rejected a request from superiors to obtain handwriting samples of the black leader. "I knew damn well it was going to be used in an unrecorded counterintelligence operation to destroy Mr. Young's chance of getting elected to the House of Representatives."
FBI Role in Klan Violence
His face concealed by a white hood, a former FBI informant told the Senate Select Intelligence Committee Dec. 2 that the bureau had allowed him to participate in Ku Klux Klan violence against blacks and civil rights advocates during the early 1960s in order to penetrate the Klan's operations.
Identified as Gary Rowe, the former FBI employee in 1975 lived in California under an alias and wore the hood to protect his identity. Rowe told the committee that when he joined the FBI in 1960, he was informed by the agency that "we have to tell you not to participate [in violent acts], but we know it's necessary to get information."
Rowe testified that in 1961 a group of Klansmen were allowed to attack Freedom Riders in Birmingham, Ala., with chains and clubs. The attack was permitted by the city's police department, which promised not to interfere with the violence for 15 minutes after it started.
When asked whether he had told the FBI of the plan, Rowe replied that he had, but the response he then received was: "Who in the hell are we going to report it to? The police department is involved."
Adams Testimony
Later, an FBI investigations official, James B. Adams, testified that "in every case" when the bureau learned of planned violence, the information was reported to the local police. "But we had no authority to make an arrest," Adams said. "Historically in those days we were just as frustrated as Mr. Rowe."
Adams said that "there was a breakdown" within the Justice Department relating to the Klu Klux Klan violence until the attorney general "finally sent 500 marshals" to the South who were empowered to make arrests.
Adams pointed out that in such current violence-prone areas as Boston and Louisville, where disturbances over school busing have occurred, the FBI reports on demonstrations and the potential for violence to the Justice Department "as we learn about them."
Although Adams said that eventual action by the FBI against the Klan "was one of our finest hours," he conceded that the bureau has "bungled the intelligence operations of the United States; we have made mistakes."
Airing FBI political abuses over the past 35 years, the Senate Select Intelligence Committee Dec. 2-3 probed the operations of the bureau's paid informants and charted how Presidents, beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt, used the FBI "for their own political purposes."
In its study of FBI political abuses, the Senate intelligence committee concluded that Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon had received reports from the FBI on journalists, political opponents and critics of administration policies.
"The FBI intelligence system developed to a point where no one inside or outside the bureau was willing or able to tell the difference between legitimate national security or law enforcement information and purely political intelligence," the staff report stated.
The first example cited by the committee of the "bureau's subservience to the presidency and its willingness to carry out White House requests without question" occurred in 1940 when the FBI complied with a request to make reports on persons who had sent letters to President Roosevelt that were critical of defense policies or expressed approval of Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh's criticism of the President.
When L. Patrick Gray, as acting FBI director, thirtythree years later gave FBI reports to various presidential aides whom the FBI should have been investigating after the Watergate break-in, "he just carried to the extreme an established practice of service to the White House," according to the report.
Testifying Dec. 3, a former FBI official and Hoover confidant, Cartha D. DeLoach, said that he "didn't recall" any cases in which White House requests were turned down by the FBI.
In 1964, according to the committee study, the plans of those who supported the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegate challenge at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, N.J., were picked up by FBI wiretaps on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and then forwarded to the White House.
While DeLoach said that the request for the wiretap came from White House aides because Johnson was "obsessed that he might be assassinated," the committee study drew no conclusions about the political data, maintaining that the abuse might have resulted "from FBI officials volunteering information to serve and please the President" or from the failure of anyone to "shut-off the political intelligence by-product" of a legitimate civil disorder intelligence operation.
Katzenbach Testimony
Connected with the committee's attempt to determine who was responsible for authorizing FBI political abuses, the panel focused on whether Justice Department officials "were aware of and exercised proper supervision over the bureau's activities."
The difficulty of that task was underscored when the panel for the first time cited documents showing that Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and his successor, Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, had provided authorization for wiretapping and electronic bugging of Dr. King's conversations during the 1960s.
Three documents from FBI files dated May, October and December 1965 informed Katzenbach that the bureau had planted electronic monitoring devices in hotel rooms occupied by King. Each document contained Katzenbach's initials, but the former attorney general said he had "no recollection of reading or receiving these memorandum."
"Are you suggesting that what appear to be your initials on the documents are forgeries?" asked minority counsel Curtis R. Smothers.
"If they are my initials, I am clearly mistaken in this recollection," Katzenbach replied. "I have no doubt in my mind that I would remember if I had approved.... I would have considered it [the bugging] improper."
Katzenbach also said that he could not recall the circumstances of a Dec. 10, 1965, note cautioning the FBI on the sensitivity of surveillance and the importance of not involving persons other than bureau agents in their plans.
"I recall writing that note," Katzenbach stated, but "I do not recall the circumstances." The former attorney general said earlier in a prepared statement that the memoranda "appear to present me with information after the fact and request no authority to perform similar surveillances in-the future."
The committee study also indicated that Ramsey Clark, Katzenbach's successor, had turned down a 1968 request from the FBI for authorization to wiretap protest demonstrators at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Having completed its investigation of FBI political abuses and unlawful activities, the Senate Select Intelligence Committee Dec. 10 began a series of hearings on recommendations to prevent future wrongdoing by the bureau.
Committee Chairman Church outlined four issues the committee might discuss in its final report in 1976: 1) whether FBI surveillance in the future should extend beyond the investigation of persons likely to commit specific crimes; 2) whether there should be outside supervision or approval before the FBI conducts certain types of investigations or uses certain surveillance techniques; 3) whether foreign-related intelligence activities should be separated from the FBI's domestic law enforcement functions; and 4) what should be done about information already in the FBI's extensive files.
Kelley Testimony
Calling for a "legislative charter" that would define the FBI's authority to gather intelligence on groups and individuals in the United States, FBI Director Clarence M. Kelley in an appearance before the committee Dec. 10 said that abuses had occurred in the past because "there were many calls for action from members of Congress and others, but few guidelines were furnished."
Referring to FBI surveillance and disruption of political groups during the 1960s, Kelley said the FBI employees involved in the programs "did what they felt was expected of them by the President, the attorney general, the Congress and the people of the United States." They felt a responsibility "to counter conspiratorial efforts of selfproclaimed revolutionary groups and to neutralize violent activities," he added.
While insisting that Congress clarify the FBI's intelligence responsibilities, Kelley objected to suggestions that the FBI be limited to investigating activities forbidden by law and opposed proposals that would impose court supervision on FBI techniques and operating methods.
Pointing out that in 1924 Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone restricted the FBI to criminal investigations, committee member Walter F. Mondale (D Minn.) asked Kelley if he agreed with the suggestion that the bureau refrain from gathering intelligence on political leaders and groups. "Once you get into politics you're in trouble," said Mondale.
Kelley objected, replying that "life has become more sophisticated" since 1924. The director maintained that political abuses were not likely to recur because of the "impact of Watergate" and because "we are getting a number of fine people in the bureau."
The FBI's practice of hiring informants to gather intelligence on political dissidents, such as the Ku Klux Klan and anti-war groups in the 1960s, prompted Philip A. Hart (D Mich.) to suggest that abuses could be prevented by obtaining court approval for these operations. "We use courts to authorize wiretaps, why not for informants?" Hart asked.
"What is the court going to do? Are they going to monitor it all the way through?" Kelley answered. In his prepared statement, Kelley cautioned against a "too-ready reliance upon the courts to do our tough thinking for us." Judicial review, he said, cannot be a substitute for congressional oversight or executive decision. "I think there is satisfactory control over informants today," Kelley said.
Ruckelshaus Proposals
William D. Ruckelshaus, who served for a short time as acting FBI director and then deputy attorney general in the Nixon administration, suggested Dec. 9 that FBI abuses could be prevented by limiting the director's term to eight or nine years, by establishing a joint committee of Congress to oversee the bureau's activities and by requiring the President to communicate with the FBI only through the attorney general.
"Congress permitted too much unchecked power to accumulate in [J. Edgar] Hoover's hands," said Ruckelshaus. "This should never be permitted to happen again."
Both he and two other witnesses, former Assistant Attorney General Henry E. Peterson and New York University law professor Norman Dorsen, agreed that the FBI's use of paid informants should not be terminated, but they proposed some type of check on the practice.
Peterson suggested that the FBI obtain court approval before fielding an informant, pointing out that "there are situations where there is no other way to obtain information."
Dorsen insisted that "we cannot allow a limitless infiltration of groups;" the use of informants "must be limited to time and place, not a general long-time surveillance." Before an informant is deployed, there "must be some concrete evidence that a crime has occurred or is likely to occur," he added.
Dorsen would require both the courts and the attorney general to approve FBI use of informants.
Levi Guidelines
Attorney General Edward H. Levi Dec. 11 outlined a number of tentative guidelines under study by the Justice Department that would govern FBI activities in the future. Under discussion is a proposal that would limit domestic security investigations to cases "when there is a likelihood that the activities of individuals or groups involve or will involve the use of force or violation of federal law," Levi explained.
Disagreeing with the opinion of some in Congress that the FBI should only conduct investigations of committed crimes, Levi testified that the bureau's legal authority broadly permits investigations of official matters as may be directed by the attorney general.
"The detection of crime in some areas requires preparation and at least some knowledge of what is likely to be going on," Levi said in defense of the FBI's practice of gathering intelligence on political organizations.
But domestic security investigations would be limited under the proposed guidelines to those intending to overthrow the U.S. government, deprive individuals of their civil rights or cause rioting and violence.
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