The Church Committee (formally the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) was a
US Senate
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and po ...
select committee Select committee may refer to:
*Select committee (parliamentary system) A select committee is a committee made up of a small number of parliamentary members appointed to deal with particular areas or issues originating in the Westminster system o ...
in 1975 that investigated abuses by the
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
(CIA),
National Security Agency
The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...
(NSA),
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice ...
(FBI), and the
Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory t ...
(IRS). Chaired by Idaho Senator
Frank Church (
D-
ID), the committee was part of a series of investigations into intelligence abuses in 1975, dubbed the "Year of Intelligence", including its
House
A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air cond ...
counterpart, the
Pike Committee The Pike Committee is the common name for the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence during the period when it was chaired by Democratic Representative Otis G. Pike of New York. Under Pike's chairmanship, the committee inve ...
, and the presidential
Rockefeller Commission. The committee's efforts led to the establishment of the permanent
US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
The most shocking revelations of the committee include
Operation MKULTRA involving the drugging and torture of unwitting US citizens as part of human experimentation on mind control;
COINTELPRO
COINTELPRO ( syllabic abbreviation derived from Counter Intelligence Program; 1956–1971) was a series of covert and illegal projects actively conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrati ...
involving the surveillance and infiltration of American political and civil-rights organizations;
Family Jewels, a CIA program to covertly assassinate foreign leaders;
Operation Mockingbird as a systematic propaganda campaign with domestic and foreign journalists operating as CIA assets and dozens of US news organizations providing cover for CIA activity.
It also unearthed
Project SHAMROCK
Project SHAMROCK was the sister project to Project MINARET, an espionage exercise started in August 1945. Project MINARET involved the accumulation of all telegraphic data that entered or exited the United States. The Armed Forces Security Agency ...
in which the major telecommunications companies shared their traffic with the NSA (while officially confirming the existence of this
signals intelligence
Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of '' signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ...
agency to the public for the first time).
Background
By the early years of the 1970s, a series of troubling revelations had appeared in the press concerning intelligence activities. First came the revelations by Army intelligence officer
Christopher Pyle
Christopher H. Pyle (born 1939) is a journalist and Professor Emeritus of Politics at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. He testified to Congress about the use of military intelligence against civilians, worked for the Senate Ju ...
in January 1970 of the
US Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
's spying on the civilian population and Senator
Sam Ervin
Samuel James Ervin Jr. (September 27, 1896April 23, 1985) was an American politician. A Democrat, he served as a U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 1954 to 1974. A native of Morganton, he liked to call himself a "country lawyer", and often ...
's Senate investigations produced more revelations. Then on December 22, 1974, ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' published a lengthy article by
Seymour Hersh detailing operations engaged in by the
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
over the years that had been dubbed the "
family jewels".
Covert action programs involving
assassination
Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have ...
attempts on foreign leaders and covert attempts to subvert foreign governments were reported for the first time. In addition, the article discussed efforts by
intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can ...
agencies to collect information on the political activities of US citizens.
The creation of the Church Committee was approved on January 27, 1975, by a vote of 82 to 4 in the Senate.
Overview
The Church Committee's final report was published in April 1976 in six books. Also published were seven volumes of Church Committee hearings in the Senate.
Before the release of the final report, the committee also published an interim report titled "Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders", which investigated alleged attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, including
Patrice Lumumba of
Zaire
Zaire (, ), officially the Republic of Zaire (french: République du Zaïre, link=no, ), was a Congolese state from 1971 to 1997 in Central Africa that was previously and is now again known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Zaire was, ...
,
Rafael Trujillo
Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina ( , ; 24 October 189130 May 1961), nicknamed ''El Jefe'' (, "The Chief" or "The Boss"), was a Dominican dictator who ruled the Dominican Republic from February 1930 until his assassination in May 1961. He ser ...
of the
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...
,
Ngo Dinh Diem of
South Vietnam
South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of th ...
, Gen.
René Schneider
General René Schneider Chereau (; December 31, 1913 – October 25, 1970) was the commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army at the time of the 1970 Chilean presidential election, when he was assassinated during a botched kidnapping attempt. He ...
of
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...
and
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 20 ...
of
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribb ...
. President
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected ...
urged the Senate to withhold the report from the public, but failed, and under recommendations and pressure by the committee, Ford issued
Executive Order 11905
Executive Order 11905 is a United States Presidential Executive Order signed on February 18, 1976, by President Gerald R. Ford in an effort to reform the United States Intelligence Community, improve oversight on foreign intelligence activities, a ...
(ultimately replaced in 1981 by President
Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
's
Executive Order 12333
Executive Order 12333, signed on December 4, 1981 by U.S. President Ronald Reagan, was an Executive Order intended to extend powers and responsibilities of U.S. intelligence agencies and direct the leaders of U.S. federal agencies to co-opera ...
) to ban US sanctioned assassinations of foreign leaders.
In addition, the committee produced seven case studies on covert operations, but only the one on
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...
was released, titled "Covert Action in Chile: 1963–1973". The rest were kept secret at CIA's request.
According to a declassified
National Security Agency
The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...
history, the Church Committee also helped to uncover the NSA's Watch List. The information for the list was compiled into the so-called "Rhyming Dictionary" of biographical information, which at its peak held millions of names—thousands of which were US citizens. Some prominent members of this list were
Joanne Woodward,
Thomas Watson,
Walter Mondale,
Art Buchwald,
Arthur F. Burns
Arthur Frank Burns (April 27, 1904 – June 26, 1987) was an American economist and diplomat who served as the 10th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1970 to 1978. He previously chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under President Dwight ...
,
Gregory Peck
Eldred Gregory Peck (April 5, 1916 – June 12, 2003) was an American actor and one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1970s. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Peck the 12th-greatest male star of Classic Hollywood ...
,
Otis G. Pike
Otis Grey Pike (August 31, 1921 – January 20, 2014) was an American lawyer and politician who served nine terms as a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from New York from 1961 to 1979.
Early life
Pike was born in ...
,
Tom Wicker
Thomas Grey Wicker (June 18, 1926 – November 25, 2011) was an American journalist. He was a political reporter and columnist for '' The New York Times''.
Background and education
Wicker was born in Hamlet, North Carolina. He was a gradua ...
,
Whitney Young,
Howard Baker,
Frank Church,
David Dellinger
David T. Dellinger (August 22, 1915 – May 25, 2004) was an American pacifist and an activist for nonviolent social change. He achieved peak prominence as one of the Chicago Seven, who were put on trial in 1969.
Early life and schooling
Delli ...
,
Ralph Abernathy, and others.
But among the most shocking revelations of the committee was the discovery of
Operation SHAMROCK, in which the major telecommunications companies shared their traffic with the NSA from 1945 to the early 1970s. The information gathered in this operation fed directly into the Watch List. In 1975, the committee decided to unilaterally declassify the particulars of this operation, against the objections of
President Ford's administration.
Together, the Church Committee's reports have been said to constitute the most extensive review of
intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can ...
activities ever made available to the public. Much of the contents were classified, but over 50,000 pages were declassified under the
President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.
Committee members
File:FrankChurch.jpg, alt=Frank Church, Frank Church
File:John Tower.jpg, alt=John Tower, John Tower
John Goodwin Tower (September 29, 1925 – April 5, 1991) was an American politician, serving as a Republican United States Senator from Texas from 1961 to 1985. He was the first Republican Senator elected from Texas since Reconstruction. Towe ...
File:Philip Hart (D-MI).jpg, alt=Philip Hart, Philip Hart
File:Howard Baker photo.jpg, alt=Howard Baker, Howard Baker
File:Mn 1984 mondale.jpg, alt=Walter Mondale, Walter Mondale
File:Unsuccessful 1964.jpg, alt=Barry Goldwater, Barry Goldwater
File:WHuddleston.jpg, alt=Walter Huddleston, Walter Huddleston
Walter Darlington "Dee" Huddleston (April 15, 1926 – October 16, 2018) was an American politician. He was a Democrat from Kentucky who represented the state in the United States Senate from 1973 until 1985. Huddleston lost his 1984 Senate ...
File:charlesmathiasjr.jpg, alt=Charles Mathias, Charles Mathias
File:Sen_Robert_B_Morgan.jpg, alt=Robert Burren Morgan, Robert Morgan
File:RichardSchweiker.jpg, alt=Richard Schweiker, Richard Schweiker
File:Gary hart.jpg, alt=Gary Hart, Gary Hart
Gary Warren Hart (''né'' Hartpence; born November 28, 1936) is an American politician, diplomat, and lawyer. He was the front-runner for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination until he dropped out amid revelations of extramarital affairs. ...
Opening mail
The Church Committee learned that, beginning in the 1950s, the CIA and
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice ...
had intercepted, opened and photographed more than 215,000 pieces of mail by the time the program (called "
HTLINGUAL
HTLINGUAL (also HGLINGUAL), a secret project of the United States of America's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to intercept mail destined for the Soviet Union and China, operated from 1952 until 1973. Originally known under the codename SRPOI ...
") was shut down in 1973. This program was all done under the "
mail covers" program (a mail cover is a process by which the government records—without any requirement for a warrant or for notification—all information on the outside of an envelope or package, including the name of the sender and the recipient). The Church report found that the CIA was careful about keeping the
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the ...
from learning that government agents were opening mail. CIA agents moved mail to a private room to open the mail or in some cases opened envelopes at night after stuffing them in briefcases or in coat pockets to deceive postal officials.
The Ford administration and the Church Committee
On May 9, 1975, the Church Committee decided to call acting CIA director
William Colby. That same day Ford's top advisers (
Henry Kissinger
Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
,
Donald Rumsfeld,
Philip W. Buchen, and
John Marsh) drafted a recommendation that Colby be authorized to brief only rather than testify, and that he would be told to discuss only the general subject, with details of specific covert actions to be avoided except for realistic hypotheticals. But the Church Committee had full authority to call a hearing and require Colby's testimony. Ford and his top advisers met with Colby to prepare him for the hearing.
[ p. 313] Colby testified, "These last two months have placed American intelligence in danger. The almost hysterical excitement surrounding any news story mentioning CIA or referring even to a perfectly legitimate activity of CIA has raised a question whether secret intelligence operations can be conducted by the United States."
Results of the investigation
On August 17, 1975 Senator Frank Church appeared on NBC's ''
Meet the Press
''Meet the Press'' is a weekly American television Sunday morning talk shows, news/interview program broadcast on NBC. It is the List of longest-running television shows by category, longest-running program on American television, though the curr ...
'', and discussed the NSA, without mentioning it by name:
Aftermath
As a result of the political pressure created by the revelations of the Church Committee and the
Pike Committee The Pike Committee is the common name for the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence during the period when it was chaired by Democratic Representative Otis G. Pike of New York. Under Pike's chairmanship, the committee inve ...
investigations, President
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected ...
issued Executive Order 11905.
[Andrew, Christopher (February 1995), "For the President's Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush," (1 ed., HarperCollins), p. 434] This executive order banned political assassinations: "No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination." Senator Church criticized this move on the ground that any future president could easily set aside or change this executive order by a further executive order. Further, President
Jimmy Carter
James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he previously served as th ...
issued Executive Order 12036, which in some ways expanded Executive Order 11905.
In 1977, the reporter
Carl Bernstein wrote an article in the ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...
'' magazine, stating that the relationship between the CIA and the media was far more extensive than what the Church Committee revealed. Bernstein said that the committee had covered it up, because it would have shown "embarrassing relationships in the 1950s and 1960s with some of the most powerful organizations and individuals in American journalism."
R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., editor of the conservative magazine ''
The American Spectator'', wrote that the committee "betrayed CIA agents and operations." The committee had not received names, so had none to release, as confirmed by later CIA director
George H. W. Bush. However, Senator Jim McClure used the allegation in the 1980 election, when Church was defeated.
The Committee's work has more recently been criticized after the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...
, for leading to legislation reducing the ability of the CIA to gather
human intelligence.
In response to such criticism, the chief counsel of the committee,
Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr., retorted with a book co-authored by
Aziz Z. Huq, denouncing the Bush administration's use of 9/11 to make "monarchist claims" that are "unprecedented on this side of the North Atlantic".
In September 2006, the
University of Kentucky
The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a public land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, the university is one of the state ...
hosted a forum called "Who's Watching the Spies? Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans", bringing together two Democratic committee members, former
Vice President of the United States
The vice president of the United States (VPOTUS) is the second-highest officer in the executive branch of the U.S. federal government, after the president of the United States, and ranks first in the presidential line of succession. The vice p ...
Walter Mondale and former
US Senator
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and power ...
Walter "Dee" Huddleston of Kentucky, and Schwarz to discuss the committee's work, its historical impact, and how it pertains to today's society.
See also
*
COINTELPRO
COINTELPRO ( syllabic abbreviation derived from Counter Intelligence Program; 1956–1971) was a series of covert and illegal projects actively conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrati ...
*
FBI–King suicide letter
The FBI–King suicide letter or blackmail package was an anonymous 1964 letter and package by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) meant to blackmail Martin Luther King Jr. The suicide letter was part of the FBI's COINTELPRO operation again ...
*
Hope Commission (established to investigate Australia's intelligence agencies)
*
Hughes–Ryan Amendment
The Hughes–Ryan Amendment was an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, passed as section 32 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974. The amendment was named for its co-authors, Senator Harold E. Hughes (D-Iowa) and Representative L ...
*
Human rights violations by the CIA
*
Operation Gladio
Operation Gladio is the codename for clandestine " stay-behind" operations of armed resistance that were organized by the Western Union (WU), and subsequently by NATO and the CIA, in collaboration with several European intelligence agencies durin ...
(included in the classified part of the report)
*
Operation Mockingbird
*
Pike Committee The Pike Committee is the common name for the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence during the period when it was chaired by Democratic Representative Otis G. Pike of New York. Under Pike's chairmanship, the committee inve ...
*
Presidential Emergency Action Documents
Presidential Emergency Action Documents (PEADs) are draft classified executive orders, proclamations, and messages to Congress that are prepared for the President of the United States to exercise or expand powers in anticipation of a range of emerg ...
*
Project MKUltra
Project MKUltra (or MK-Ultra) was an illegal human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), intended to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used in interrogations to weak ...
*
Project Mockingbird
Project Mockingbird was a wiretapping operation initiated by United States President John F. Kennedy to identify the sources of government leaks by eavesdropping on the communications of journalists.
History
In October 2001, the Miller Center ...
*
Project SHAMROCK
Project SHAMROCK was the sister project to Project MINARET, an espionage exercise started in August 1945. Project MINARET involved the accumulation of all telegraphic data that entered or exited the United States. The Armed Forces Security Agency ...
*
Rockefeller Commission
* ''
The Shadow Factory
''The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America'' is a book on the National Security Agency by author James Bamford.
Fort Gordon, Georgia
Bamford's book contains a description of a processing center at NSA ...
''
*
Surveillance abuse Surveillance abuse is the use of surveillance methods or technology to monitor the activity of an individual or group of individuals in a way which violates the social norms or laws of a society.
During the FBI's COINTELPRO operations, there was ...
*
Unethical human experimentation in the United States
*
Special Activities Center
The Special Activities Center (SAC) is a division of the United States Central Intelligence Agency responsible for covert and paramilitary operations. The unit was named Special Activities Division (SAD) prior to 2015. Within SAC there are two ...
(CIA)
References
Further reading
*
*
External links
Church Committee reports (Assassination Archives and Research Center)National Security Agency Tracking of U.S. Citizens – "Questionable Practices" from 1960s & 1970spublished by the
National Security Archive
The National Security Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-governmental, non-profit research and archival institution located on the campus of the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1985 to check rising government secrecy. The N ...
Church Report: Covert Action in Chile 1963-1973 (US Dept. of State)*
ttp://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/docset/getList.do?docSetId=1014 Church Committee Reports (Mary Ferrell Foundation)*
Church Committee Report On Diem CoupFlashback: A Look Back at the Church Committee’s Investigation into CIA, FBI Misuse of PowerThe Church Committee: Idaho's Reaction to Its Senator's Involvement in the Investigation of the Intelligence Community
{{US Intelligence Reform Attempts 1947-2005
Central Intelligence Agency operations
Reports of the United States government
Investigations and hearings of the United States Congress
Defunct committees of the United States Senate
Lockheed bribery scandals
Publications of the United States government
1975 establishments in Washington, D.C.
Official enquiries concerning the assassination of John F. Kennedy
1976 disestablishments in Washington, D.C.
Select Committees of the United States Congress