The Pike Committee Investigations and the CIA (Gerald K. Haines) · 2013. 5. 17. · Pike Committee...

12
Looking for a Rogue Elephant The Pike Committee Investigations and the CIA Gerald K. Haines For the first time in the Agencys history, CIA officials faced hostile Congressional committees bent on the exposure of abuses by intelligence agencies and on major reforms. ~9 A storm broke over the CIA on 22 December 1974, when Seymour Hersh published a front-page article in The New York Times headlined Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in U.S. Against Anti-War Forces. Hershs article alleged that the Agency had been engaged in massive domestic spying activities.1 His charges stunned the White House and Congress. In response, President Ford estab lished a blue-ribbon panel, the Rockefeller Commission, to investi gate CIA activities in the United States. Ford later complicated the already-delicate issue further by hint ing of CIA involvement in assassination attempts against foreign leaders. Congress soon launched its own investigation of the entire Intelli gence Community (IC) and its possible abuses. On 27 January 1975, the US Senate established the Senate Select Committee to Study Govern ment Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities (the Church Committee). On 19 February 1975, the House voted to create a House Select Intelligence Committee (the Nedzi Committee, which was replaced five months later by the Pike Committee.) These Congressional investigations eventually delved into all aspects of the CIA and the IC. For the first time in the Agencys history, CIA officials faced hostile Congressional committees bent on the exposure of abuses by intelligence agencies and on major reforms. In the Congress, there was no longer a consensus to support intelligence activities blindly. The old Congressional seniority1system and its leadership was givir~g way. With the investiga tions, the CIA also became a focal point in ~he ongoing battle between the Congress and the executive branch o~ver foreign policy issues and the imperial presidency. The inve~stigations of the Pike Com mittee, l~eaded by Democratic Represer~tative Otis Pike of New York, pafalleled those of the Church Committee, led by Idaho Senator Frank Church, also a Democrat. While the Church Committee cen tered its lutention on the more sensatior~al charges of illegal activities by the CIA and other components of the IC, the Pike Committee set about ex~mining the CIAs effective ness and its costs to taxpayers. Unfortui~iate1y, Representative Pike, the committee, and its staff never develope~l a cooperative working rela tionship with the Agency or the Ford administration. The con~mittee soon was at odds with the CIA and the White House over que~tions of access to docu ments and information and the declassifi!cation of materials. Rela tions bet~veen the Agency and the Pike Committee became confronta tional. C~IA officials came to detest the committee and its efforts at inves tigation. Many observers maintained moreover, that Representative Pike was seek~ng to use the committee hearings to enhance his senatorial ambitions, and the committee staff, almost 4tirely young and anti-estab lishment, clashed with Agency and White House officials. Gerald K. Haines is the Agency Historian at CIA. He also heads CIAs History Staff. 81

Transcript of The Pike Committee Investigations and the CIA (Gerald K. Haines) · 2013. 5. 17. · Pike Committee...

  • Looking for a Rogue Elephant

    The Pike Committee Investigations and

    the CIA

    Gerald K. Haines

    For the first time in the

    Agencys history, CIAofficials faced hostile

    Congressional committeesbent on the exposure of

    abuses by intelligenceagencies and on major

    reforms.

    ~9

    A storm broke over the CIA on 22

    December 1974, when SeymourHersh published a front-page articlein The New York Times headlined

    Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported inU.S. Against Anti-War Forces.Hershs article alleged that the

    Agency had been engaged in massivedomestic spying activities.1 His

    charges stunned the White Houseand Congress.

    In response, President Ford estab

    lished a blue-ribbon panel, theRockefeller Commission, to investi

    gate CIA activities in the United

    States. Ford later complicated the

    already-delicate issue further by hint

    ing of CIA involvement inassassination attempts against foreignleaders. Congress soon launched itsown investigation of the entire Intelli

    gence Community (IC) and its

    possible abuses. On 27 January 1975,the US Senate established the Senate

    Select Committee to Study Government Operations With Respect to

    Intelligence Activities (the Church

    Committee). On 19 February 1975,the House voted to create a House

    Select Intelligence Committee (theNedzi Committee, which was

    replaced five months later by the Pike

    Committee.)

    These Congressional investigationseventually delved into all aspects ofthe CIA and the IC. For the first

    time in the Agencys history, CIAofficials faced hostile Congressionalcommittees bent on the exposure of

    abuses by intelligence agencies andon major reforms. In the Congress,there was no longer a consensus to

    support intelligence activities

    blindly. The old Congressionalseniority1system and its leadershipwas givir~g way. With the investigations, the CIA also became a focal

    point in ~he ongoing battle betweenthe Congress and the executivebranch o~ver foreign policy issues andthe imperial presidency.

    The inve~stigations of the Pike Committee, l~eaded by Democratic

    Represer~tative Otis Pike of NewYork, pafalleled those of the ChurchCommittee, led by Idaho SenatorFrank Church, also a Democrat.

    While the Church Committee centered its lutention on the more

    sensatior~al charges of illegal activitiesby the CIA and other components ofthe IC, the Pike Committee set

    about ex~mining the CIAs effectiveness and its costs to taxpayers.

    Unfortui~iate1y, Representative Pike,the committee, and its staff never

    develope~l a cooperative working relationship with the Agency or the Fordadministration.

    The con~mittee soon was at odds

    with the CIA and the White House

    over que~tions of access to documents and information and the

    declassifi!cation of materials. Rela

    tions bet~veen the Agency and thePike Committee became confronta

    tional. C~IA officials came to detestthe committee and its efforts at inves

    tigation. Many observers maintained

    moreover, that Representative Pike

    was seek~ng to use the committeehearings to enhance his senatorial

    ambitions, and the committee staff,

    almost 4tirely young and anti-establishment, clashed with Agency andWhite House officials.

    Gerald K. Haines is the AgencyHistorian at CIA. He also heads

    CIAs History Staff.

    81

  • Pike Committee

    The Nedzi Committee

    Following the lead of the Ford administration with its Rockefeller

    Commission investigation and the USSenate with its Church Committee

    inquiry, the House of Representativesin 1975 established a special committee to investigate the activities of theIC.2 On 16 January 1975, Democratic Representative Michael

    Harrington introduced a resolution inthe House to create a select commit

    tee to conduct such an investigation.Even Democratic RepresentativeLucien Nedzi, Chairman of the

    Armed Services Subcommittee on

    Intelligence and a strong supporter ofthe Agency, concurred in the need forsuch a broadly representative committee. Republican Minority Leader JohnJ. Rhodes also endorsed the proposal.Only a few members of the Housequestioned whether it was necessaryto create such a committee in light ofthe Church Committee investigationsin the Senate and the Rockefeller

    Commission investigation in the executive branch. On 19 February 1975,the House, by a vote of 286 to 120,passed House Resolution 138 creatinga House Select Committee on Intelli

    gence, the Nedzi Committee.

    The committee consisted of seven

    Democrats and three Republicans.Because it was a select committee,the House leadership appointed themembers. Unlike the Senate Com

    mittee, which was carefully balanced

    politically, Speaker of the HouseCarl Albert and Majority LeaderThomas P. ONeill, Jr., chose to givethe committee a liberal Democratic

    majority.3 All Democratic membersof the Nedzi Committee had strong

    negative feelings about the IC. Democratic Congressman Ron Dellums,for example, stated even before thecreation of the committee that I

    think this committee ought to come

    All Democratic members of

    the Nedzi Committee had

    strong negative feelingsabout the Intelligence

    Community.

    9,

    down hard and clear on the side of

    stopping any intelligence agency inthis country from utilizing, corrupting, and prostituting the media, the

    church, and our educational

    system.4

    Albert and ONeill selected Nedzi as

    committee chairman. Nedzi, a 14-

    year veteran of the House, also had

    strong liberal credentials. He had

    opposed the Vietnam war, the devel

    opment of the B-i bomber, and the

    antiballistic missile system. Since

    1971, he had served as chairman of

    the House Armed Services Subcom

    mittee on Intelligence. As chairman,Nedzi had conducted a thoroughinvestigation into the CIAs role in

    Watergate.5

    CIA officials found Nedzi to be a

    solid choice, but other Democrats in

    the House and on the committee had

    major reservations. Harrington especially felt Nedzi had been co-optedby his service as chairman of the subcommittee on intelligence. He asked,How could he investigate himself?6

    The party ratio on the committee

    upset Rhodes and the other Republicans. Nevertheless, Rhodes

    appointed three ideologically conservative and strong supporters of the

    IC and the White House to the com

    mittee.7 The 7-to-3 ideologicaldivision represented a broad spectrum of political thought fromDellums on the left to RepublicanRobert McClory on the right.8

    Nedzi tried to set an agenda for thecommittees investigations. Hebelieved that the committee should

    focus on the Agencys family jewels the list of abuses and possibleillegal activities the Agency itself compiled in the early 1970s. On 5 June1975, however, before the committeecould meet to discuss its program,The New York Times published detailsof the family jewels and revealedthat Director of Central Intelligence(DCI) William Colby had briefedNedzi about them in 1973, when

    Nedzi was chairman of the Armed Ser

    vices Subcommittee on Intelligence.9His fellow Democrats, led by Har

    rington, revolted. Nedzi resigned aschairman of the committee on 12

    June 1975.

    Harrington suspected that Nedzi s

    resignation was simply part of a plotto abolish the Select Committee and

    prevent a House investigation of theIC and the CIA.10 Accordingly, on13 June, with a rump caucus chaired

    by Representative James Stanton, theDemocrats tried to hold a hearing onintelligence with Colby as the firstwitness. At Nedzis urging, however,the Republicans refused to attend,thus preventing an official meeting.The committee investigation then

    ground to a halt.1

    The circus-like atmosphere continued on 16 June, when the House

    rejected Nedzis resignation by a voteof 290 to 64. But Nedzi refused to

    continue as chairman. On 17 July,the House abolished Nedzis Select

    Committee and voted to establish a

    new Select Committee with Representative Pike as chairman.12

    The Pike Committee

    The new committee did not differ

    greatly from the old one. Enlarged to

    82

  • Pike Committee

    Privately, Pike indicated

    13 members, the committee, led byDemocrats, continued to provide asolid liberal Democratic majorityeven after it dropped Nedzi and Har

    rington from membership. Pike alsoretained Searle Field as chief of staff

    from the Nedzi Committee and

    brought in Aaron Donner from NewYork as his chief counsel. Despite the

    new start, the committee remained

    badly divided on ideological grounds.The majority was still hostile towardthe CIA and the White House.13

    Pike, like Nedzi, would have no mandate to develo? an effectiveinvestigation,

    ~ the expiration datefor which was 31 January 1976.

    Unlike the Church Committee,

    which had carefully balanced

    younger staff with Hill professionalsand ex-IC members, the Pike Com

    mittee had a predominantly youngstaff with little experience either onthe Hill or in the Intelligence Community.5 This would cause majorproblems in dealing with the Agencyand the White House.

    The CIA Reaction

    Just as he had done with the Rock

    efeller Commission and the Church

    Committee, DCI Colby promisedhis full cooperation to the Pike Committee. Colby, accompanied bySpecial Counsel Mitchell Rogovinand Enno H. Knoche, Assistant to

    the Director, met with Pike and Con

    gressman McClory, the rankingRepublican on the committee, on24 July 1975. At the meeting, Colbyexpressed his continuing belief thatthe committee would find that the

    main thrust of US intelligence wasgood, solid, and trustworthy.

    Pike responded that he had no intention of destroying US intelligence.What he wanted, he told Colby, wasto build public and Congressional

    that he believed the Agencywas a rogue elephant out

    of control.

    9~

    understanding and support for intelli

    gence by exposing as much aspossible of its nature without doingharm to proper intelligence activities.Pike related to Colby that he knewthe investigation would cause occasional conflict between us, but that a

    constructive approach by both sidesshould resolve it. Privately, Pikeindicated that he believed the

    Agency was a rogue elephant outof control, as Senator Church had

    charged publicly. It needed to berestrained and major reportingreforms initiated.

    Colby, unaware of Pikes privateviews, then sought an agreementwith Pike and McClory on procedural matters much like the Agencyhad negotiated with the ChurchCommittee. Colby outlined his

    responsibility for protecting sourcesand methods and the complexityposed in meeting far-flung requestsfor all documents and files relatingto a given topic.

    Pike would have none of Colbys rea

    soning. He assured the DCI that thecommittee had its own security standards. He also refused to allow the

    CIA or the executive branch to stipulate the terms under which the

    committee would receive or review

    classified information. Pike insisted,

    moreover, that the committee had

    the authority to declassify intelli

    gence documents unilaterally.16He

    appeared bent on asserting what hesaw as the Constitutional prerogatives of the legislative branch overthe executive branch, and the CIA

    was caught in the middle.

    Given Pikes position, the committees rela~ionship with the Agencyand the ~White House quickly deteriorated. It soon became open warfare.

    Confron~tation would be the key toCIA an4 White House relationshipswith the~ Pike Committee and itsstaff. Eafly on, Republican Representative James Johnson set the tone forthe relat~onship when he told Seymour Bolten, chief of the CIA

    Review Staff, You, the CIA, are the

    enemy. ~ Colby came to considerPike a jackass and his staff a ragtag, imthature and publicity-seekinggroup.~7 Even Colbys ratherreserved counsel, Mitch Rogovin,saw Pik~ as a real prickly guy. . . todeal with. Rogovin believed Pikewas not~really wrong in his position.He jus~ made it so goddamn difficult. You also had to deal with Pikes

    political ambitions.8

    The CTJk Review Staff, whichworked~ closely with both the ChurchCommittee and Pike Committee

    staffs, r~ever developed the samecooper~tive relationship with thePike Committee staffers that it did

    with th~ Church Committee. TheReview~Staff pictured the Pike staffers as flower children, very youngand irr~sponsible and naïve.

    Accord~ng to CIA officer RichardLehman, the Pike Committee staffers

    were ~bsolutely convinced that theywere d~aling with the devil incarnate. For Lehman, the Pike staff

    came in loaded for bear. Donald

    Gregg,~the CIA officer responsiblefor coc~rdinating Agency responses tothe Pike Committee, remembered,The rhonths I spent with the PikeCommittee made my tour in Viet

    nam s~em like a picnic. I wouldvastly prefer to fight the Viet Congthan d~al with a polemical investigation by a Congressional committee,which is what the Pike Committee

    83

  • Pike Committee

    investigation] was. An underlyingproblem was the large cultural gapbetween officers trained in the earlyyears of the Cold War and the youngstaffers of the anti-Vietnam and civil

    rights movements of the late 1 960sand early 1970s.

    As for the White House, it viewed

    Pike as unscrupulous and roguish.Henry Kissinger, while appearing to

    cooperate with the committee,

    worked hard to undermine its investi

    gations and to stonewall the release ofdocuments to it.9 Relations betweenthe White House and the Pike Com

    mittee became worse as the

    investigations progressed. William

    Hyland, an assistant to Kissinger,found Pike impossible..

    Pike and the committee members

    were just as frustrated. On 4 August1975, Pike aired his frustration in a

    committee hearing. What we havefound thus far is a great deal of the lan

    guage of cooperation and a great dealof the activi7 of noncooperation, heannounced. ~ Other committee mem

    bers felt that trying to get informationfrom the Agency or the White Housewas like pulling teeth.21

    By September, the relationship waseven worse. The CIA Review Staff

    found the Pike Committee requestsfor documents silly and the deadlines impossible to meet. For

    example, the committee on 22 September 1975 issued a request for

    any and all documents relating to aseries of covert operations. At thebottom of the request it added it

    would like them today, if possible.

    The final draft report of the Pike

    Committee reflected its sense of frus

    tration with the Agency and theexecutive branch. Devoting an entire

    The CIA Review Staff

    found the Pike

    Committees requests for

    documents silly and thedeadlines impossible to

    meet.

    ~9

    section of the report to describing itsexperience, the committee characterized Agency and White House

    cooperation as virtually nonexistent. The report asserted that the

    executive branch practiced footdragging, stonewalling, and deception in

    response to committee requests for

    information. It told the committee

    only what it wanted the committeeto know. It restricted the dissemina

    tion of the information and ducked

    penetrating questions.22

    The Agency did not allow the draftPike Report to go unchallenged. CIAofficials believed that, to a greatextent, the committees troubles with

    regard to access were of its own mak

    ing. Accountability was a two-waystreet and the committee staff was

    self-righteous and blind, accordingto Robert Chin, Associate LegislativeCounsel. Searle Field did admit later

    that the committee had far more

    trouble with the State Department,the White House, and the Defense

    Department than it did with the

    Agency with regard to access to sensitive documents.

    Investigation of IntelligenceBudget

    Pike himself set the agenda for theHouse investigations. Unlike theChurch Committee and the Rock

    efeller Commission, which allowed

    their agendas to be determined by the

    executive branch, Pike refused to getcaught up in the sensationalism ofthe press charges of domestic abuses.Initially convinced that the IC wasout of control, Pike focused his committees investigations on the cost ofUS intelligence, its effectiveness, andwho controlled it. In his first meetingwith Colby on 24 July 1975, Pikeindicated his committee would beginits investigation by concentrating onintelligence budgets. He told Colbyhe personally believed that knowl

    edge of intelligence expendituresshould be open and widespread.

    Illustrative of just how quickly the

    relationship between the Agencyand the Pike Committee turned

    sour was a sarcastic letter Pike

    addressed to Colby on 28 July1975, only four days after their first

    meeting. In the letter, Pikeinformed the DCI that the commit

    tee would be investigating the ICs

    budget. Pike began the letter by stating, First of all, its a delight toreceive two letters from you not

    stamped Secret on every page.Pike then criticized Colbys letterswhich laid out the basic legislationestablishing the National SecurityCouncil, the CIA, and the DCI and

    detailed the compartmentation issuein developing the atomic bomb andthe U-2as not particularly pertinent to the present issue.

    Pike made it clear he was seekinginformation on the ICs budget. Hewrote that he was not interested in

    history, sources and methods, or thenames of agents. I am seeking toobtain information on how much of

    the taxpayers dollars you spend each

    year and the basic purposes for

    which it is spent, he wrote Colby.He justified his focus on the budgetby citing Article I, Section 9 of the

    84

  • Pike Committee

    The Pike Committees final

    Constitution: No money shall be

    drawn from the Treasury but in con

    sequence of appropriations made bylaw; and a regular statement andaccount of the receipts and expenditures of public money be publishedfrom time to time. He then

    continued:

    1 would assume that a reasonable

    place to lookfor that statement ofaccount would be in the Budgetofthe United States Governmentand while it may be in there, I

    cant find it. Ihope that Mr.

    Lynn James Lynn, Director ofthe Office ofManagement and

    Budget] may be able to help me.The Index ofthe Budgetforfiscalyear 1976 under the Cs moves

    from Centerfor Disease Controlto Chamizal Settlement and to a

    little old count~y lawyer, it wouldseem to me that between those

    two might have been an appropriate place to find the CIA but it isnot there. Its possibly in theresomewhere but I submit that it is

    not there in the manner which

    thefoundingfathers intendedand the Constitution requires.

    Pike seemed to believe that, by fol

    lowing the dollars, the committeecould locate activities and prioritiesof our intelligence services. Accord

    ingly, on 31 July 1975, the PikeCommittee held its first hearing onthe CIA budget. Elmer B. Staats, the

    Comptroller General of the General

    Accounting Office (GAO), was thefirst witness. Staats testified that the

    GAO had no idea how much moneythe CIA spent or whether its management of that money was effective or

    wasteful because his agency had no

    access to CIA budgetaryinformation.23

    report concluded that the

    foreign intelligence budgetwas three or four times

    larger than the Congresshad been told.

    9,

    When Colby appeared before thecommittee on 4 August, he refused totestify publicly on the intelligencebudget. The next day, however, he

    appeared in executive session and outlined the expenditures of the Agencyin some detail, stressing that the largest portion of the budget wasjustifiably devoted to the Soviet Unionand to China, the primary US intelli

    gence targets. Colby argued that

    revealing even the total of the CIA

    budget would do substantial harm tothe US intelligence effort. Accordingto Colby, it would enable foreign intel

    ligence services to improveconsiderably their estimates of US

    capabilities. Turning the argumentaround, Colby reasoned that the USGovernment would benefit consider

    ably from access to this sameinformation concerning the Soviet

    intelligence effort. He then stated, Tothe best of my knowledge, no other

    intelligence service in the world publicizes its intelligence budget.

    Colby further argued that publicknowledge of CIA budget totalswould not significantly increase thepublics or Congresss ability to make

    judgments about CIA programsbecause, without greater detail and

    understanding of the programs themselves, no significant conclusions couldbe drawn. Rogovin and other CIA officials evidently believed Colby had

    presented a strong case before the committee for maintaining secrecy in the

    budgetary process. They thought he

    had effec~tively deflected all majorcriticisms.

    The CL~. assessment was very differentfrom the Pike Committees. The Pike

    groups ¶lnal report concluded that theforeign i~itelligence budget was threeor four t~mes larger than Congress hadbeen tol~1; that money appropriatedfor the I~ was hidden throughout theentire F~deral budget; that the totalamount~offtmnds expended on intelligence w~s extremely difficult todetermi~ie; and that Congressionaland executive scrutiny of the budgetranged I?etween cursory and nonexistent. The report described the GAO

    as the aiiditing arm of Congress, but,when it came to the intelligence agencies, especially the CIA, it was no armat all.

    The GAO was, the report found, prevented ~y security constraints fromlooking carefully into intelligence bud

    gets. Tl~e end result, according to the

    report, 1was insufficient executive and

    legislari~e oversight. The committeealso saw a too cozy, almost inbred

    relation~ship between the Office ofManag~ment and Budget officials andthe int~lligence budget makers.24

    Taking on the issue of secrecy, thereport ~irgued that taxpayers andmost of Congress did not know and

    cannot~ find out how much they spendon spy activities. The committee saw

    this as ~eing in direct conflict with theConstitution, which required a regularand pi~blic accounting for all fundsspent i~y the Federal Government.25The document then addressed Colbys

    argum~nt that the Soviets wouldbenefi~ enormously from disclosure.The report claimed that the Soviets

    probably already had a detailed

    accout~t of US intelligence spending,far mc~re than just the budget total. It

    85

  • Pike Committee

    On 12 September 1975,

    concluded that in all likelihood, the

    only people who care to know and donot know these costs are the American

    taxpayers.26

    In addition, the report found that the

    DCI, who was nominally in charge ofthe entire Community budget, controlled only 15 percent of the total

    intelligence budget. The Secretary ofDefense had much greater power and

    control over a greater portion of the

    intelligence budget than the DCI.27

    When CIA officials reviewed the

    draft report, they took exception tothe document as a distorted view of

    the budgetary process. Arguingagainst the disclosure of a budget figure for the IC, Agency officials feltthat any disclosure permits thecamel to put his nose under the

    tent. The general feeling amongAgency officials was that the releasewould grossly misrepresent to the USpublic and to the world what wasactually spent on intelligence by theUnited States. They reasoned that, ifsuch gross estimates led to publicpressures for reducing intelligenceexpenditures, it could do irreparabledamage to real intelligence functionsand their ability to support US for

    eign and defense policies. They alsocontended that if the report was

    released as is, it would give the public the erroneous impression that theCIA did not have thorough budgetreviews. The official Agency positionrecommended deleting almost all thebudget references from the report.

    But the Agencys comments and protests had little impact on the final

    report. As drafted, it recommendedthat all intelligence-related items beincluded as intelligence expendituresin the Presidents budget, and that thetotal sum budgeted for each agencyinvolved in intelligence be disclosed.

    Pike subpoenaed records

    relating to the 1968 Tetoffensive in Vietnam. His

    action touched off a major(albeit short-lived) war

    between the Pike

    Committee and the

    White House.

    9,

    If such an item was a portion of the

    budget of another agency or department, it should be identified

    separately. The report also recommended that the Congress draft

    appropriate legislation to prohibit anysignificant transfer of funds or significant expenditures of reserve orcontingency funds in connection with

    intelligence activities without specificapproval of the Congressional intelli

    gence committees. in addition, the

    committee recommended that the

    GAO be empowered to conduct a fulland complete management as well asfinancial audit of all intelligence agencies.28 These clearly were not wildand crazy recommendations.

    Evaluating US IntelligencePerformance

    The budget issue was only one majorquestion raised by the Pike Committee. The committee also wanted to

    know just how effective the CIA andUS intelligence had been over the

    past 10 years. This investigation also

    provoked a major confrontationbetween the Agency and the WhiteHouse on the one hand and the Pike

    Committee on the other. On 9 September 1975, after submittinginformal requests for information,

    the Pike Committee formallyrequested all CIA estimates, currentintelligence reports and summaries,situation reports, and other pertinentdocuments that related to the ICs

    ability to predict the 1973 Mideastwar; the 1974 Cyprus crisis; the1974 coup in Portugal; the 1974nuclear explosion by India; the 1968Tet offensive in Vietnam; the 1972declarations of martial law in the

    Philippines and Korea; and the 1968Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

    The committee, of course, wanted all

    of this by the next morning. The

    request outraged Agency officials.

    House Select Committee hearings onthe 1973 Middle East War began on11 September. They almost immediately degenerated into open warfarewith the executive branch. Pike, afirm believer that the classification

    system was strictly that of the executive branch and that his committee

    had the right to unilaterally declassify and release information, released

    part of a CIA summary of the situa

    tion in the Middle East prepared on6 October 1973 that had seriouslymisjudged Egyptian and other Arabintentions. The CIA and the White

    House both objected, maintainingthat the release compromised sourcesand national security. As released,the report read:

    The (deleted) large-scale mobilization exercise may be an effort tosoothe internalproblems as muchas to improve milita7y capabilities. Mobilization ofsome

    personnel, increased readiness ofisolated units, and c~reater commu

    nications security are all assessed

    as part ofthe exercise routine.There are still no military orpolitical indicators ofEgyptianintentions or preparation toresume hostilities with IsraeL29

    86

  • Pike Committee

    On the same day, 12

    According to Agency officials andthe White House, the release of the

    four words and greater communica

    tions security meant that theUnited States had the capability tomonitor Egyptian communications

    systems.But the Agency and theWhite House were on shaky ground.Kissinger himself had leaked the

    same information to Marvin and Ber

    nard Kalb for their book on

    Kissinger. Discussing the Yom Kippur war, the Kaib brothers wrote:

    Finally, from a secret US base insouthern Iran, the National Secu

    rity Agency, which specializes inelectronic intelligence, picked upsignals indicating that the Egyptians had set up a vastly more

    complicatedfield communications network than mere

    maneuvers warranted.30

    To add fuel to the fire, on 12 September 1975, Pike subpoenaedrecords relating to the Tet offensivein Vietnam in 1968. His action

    touched off a major (albeit short-

    lived) war between the Pike Commit

    tee and the White House. The CIA

    played a secondary role in this knockdown Constitutional struggle. Onthe same day, President Ford orderedthat the Pike Committee be cut off

    from all access to classified docu

    ments and forbade administration

    officials from testifying before thecommittee.

    Despite this action, each of the principalsthe White House, the CIA,and the House of Representativessought a political compromise thatwould avoid a court test. The Pike

    Committee itself proposed to resolvethe issue by giving the executivebranch a 24-hour notice before

    September 1975],President Ford ordered

    that the Pike Committee be

    cut off from all access to

    classified documents and

    forbade administration

    officials from testifyingbefore the committee.

    On 26 September, Ford

    agreed to lift his order.

    9,

    release of information in order to

    provide for consultation.

    At a joint meeting at the WhiteHouse on 26 September, Ford

    agreed to lift his order prohibitingthe further release of classified materi

    als to the Pike Committee. In return,

    Pike and McClory agreed on havingthe President be the ultimate judgein any future disputes over the public release of classified materials.3

    The near war over the declassifica

    tion issue detracted from the

    committees work of evaluating theoverall performance of the IC. In

    general, however, the committee wascritical of the performance of US

    intelligence in predicting the 1973Mideast war; the 1968 Tet offensive

    in Vietnam; the 1974 coup in

    Cyprus; the 1974 coup in Portugal;the 1974 testing of a nuclear device

    by India; and the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.32

    For example, using the Agencys own

    postmortems on the Yom Kippurwar, the committee found that the

    principal conclusions concerning

    the commencement of hostili

    ties.. .we~requite simply, obviously,and starl~1ywrong.3~ In earlier testimony before the committee, Colbyadmitted that, We did not cover

    ourselve~ with glory. We predictedthe day ~efore the war broke out thatit was n~t going to break

    out.34

    Despite Colbys forthright assessment, tl?e Agency reacted defensivelyto the draft report. Disregardingtheir o~n postmortems, which basically supported the committees

    finding~, Agency officials fought tohave most of the section on the Mid

    east waif deleted. They argued thatthe section was unbalanced in its

    treatme~it of the war and that the

    parts w~iich spoke of the Arab fighting units as inferior would confirmArab b~1ief that the US view of themwas degrading, thereby exacerbatingrelatior~s. They also worried that thereport provided too much detail onthe USJ capability to read Soviet traffic to Egypt. Unlike the give-and-take br~kering that characterizedCIAs relations with the Church

    Comm~ttee, positions on both sidesof the pike Committee/Agency relationship tended to be

    uncompromising. Pike Committeestaffers1 did remove names andsource~, but they left in most of whatthe Ag~ncy objected to. They contende~ that to comply with theAgency recommendations wouldleave qothing.

    The Committee Reviews Covert

    Actioi~s

    The ~gency, with close WhiteHous~ cooperation and support, continued its assault on the Pike

    Comr~ittee investigations and findings w~hen the committee announcedit wot~1d investigate 10 years of

    87

  • Pike Committee

    covert action in general, as well asspecific CIA actions with regard tothe 1972 Italian elections, US covertaid to the Kurds in Iraq from 1972to 1975, and US covert activities in

    Angola. Under orders from theWhite House, CIA officials refused

    to testify in open session before thecommittee on these operations,declaring that such hearings wouldonly benefit foreign intelligenceservices.35

    The committee instead heard from

    Congressman Michael Harringtonand Harvard law professor RogerFisher, both of whom called for the

    outlawing of all covert action; formerNational Security Adviser McGeorgeBundy, who opposed covert actionin peacetime; and historian Arthur

    Schlesinger, Jr., who claimed thatthe CIA was indeed a rogue ele

    phant and who suggested that the

    only remedy was to impose strictexecutive and legislative oversightand drastically cut the intelligencebudget as the ways to curb covertactions.36

    The committee followed these hear

    ings with a detailed examination ofthe role of the National SecurityCouncil and the 40 Committee,the major decisionmaking bodieswhen it came to covert action

    approval. The key question for thecommittee was whether the CIA was

    a rogue elephant or under strictcontrol of the President and the exec

    utive branch?37

    The committee found that covert

    actions were irregularly approved,sloppily implemented, and, at times,had been forced on a reluctant CIA

    by the President and his national

    -security advisers. Except for assassination attempts, however, it did not

    The CIA never did

    anything the White Housedidnt want. Sometimes

    they didnt want to dowhat they did.

    Rep. Otis Pike

    ~9

    recommend abolition of all covert

    action; it merely called for tightercontrols.

    With tighter controls in mind, thecommittee recommended that the

    DCI notify it in writing with adetailed explanation of the nature,extent, purpose, and cost of all covert

    operations within 48 hours of initial

    implementation. It also proposedthat the President certify in writingthat such a covert action operationwas required to protect the nationalsecurity oi the United States.38

    The committees findings in this areawere generally unexpected by CIAofficers. These findings made clearthe committee believed that the CIA

    was not out of control and that the

    Agency did not conduct operationswithout approval from higher authority. Pike himself stated publicly thatthe CIA does not go galloping offconducting operations by itself.The major things which are done arenot done unilaterally by the CIAwithout approval from higher up theline.39

    The committees final report also

    made it clear that the committee did

    not believe the CIA was out of con

    trol. It stated, All evidence in hand

    suggests that the CIA, far from beingout of control, has been utterlyresponsive to the instructions of thePresident and the Assistant to the

    President for National SecurityAffairs.40 Even Pike, who startedout convinced that the CIA and the

    IC were indeed out of control,concluded:

    I wound up the hearings with ahigher regardfor the CIA thanwhen I started. We didfind evidence, upon evidence, uponevidence where the CIA said:

    No, don .t do it. The State

    Department or the White Housesaid, Were going to do it. TheCIA was much more professionaland had afar deeper reading onthe down-the-road implicationsofsome immediately popular actthan the executive branch or

    administration officials. One

    thing I really disagreed withSenator Frank] Church on washis characterization ofthe CIAas a rogue elephant. The CIAnever did anything the WhiteHouse didnt want. Sometimes

    they didnt want to do what theydid.41

    The Final Report

    Determined to finish his work by 31January 1976, Pike pushed his committee for a final report. Searle Field

    at first hired Stanley Bach, a politicalscientist with some Hill experience,to write a draft report. Working primarily from the transcripts of thecommittees hearings, Bach produced a rather balanced report not

    uncritical of the IC. The reportcalled for the establishment of a jointintelligence oversight committeeusing the Joint Atomic Energy Committee as a model.42

    88

  • Pike Committee

    The solid

    recommendations the

    Pike rejected the draft and assignedthe responsibility for producing a satisfactoiy final report to Field andAaron Donner. By early January,they had a draft.

    On 19 January, Field turned over a

    copy of the 338-page report for

    Agency review. He wanted it back bythe close of business on 20 January.Rogovin responded with a scaldingattack on the report. He criticized

    the extreme time constraints placedon the Agency in making its responseand pictured the report as an unre

    lenting indictment couched inbiased, pejorative and factually erroneous terms. For Rogovin and mostof the Agency, the report focusedalmost exclusively on negative matters and totally lacked balance. It

    gave the American public a distortedview of US intelligence, therebyseverely limiting its impact, credibil

    ity, and the important work of yourcommittee.

    ~

    Despite Rogovins protest, on 23 January 1976 the committee voted 9 to

    7 along party Lines to release its

    report with no substantial changes.The Republicans on the committee,strongly supported by the Agencyand the White House, now led the

    fight to suppress the report.

    At the same time, Colby, fearing thatthe report would be released, called a

    press conference to denounce the

    committee and called the committee

    report totally biased and a disserviceto our nation. Colby claimed the

    report gave a thoroughly wrongimpression of American

    intelligence.44

    Unofficially supported by the

    Agency and the White House,McClory and the other Republicans

    committee made.. .

    were

    overlooked in the

    commotion surroundingthe leaking of the

    committees report to

    the press.

    ,,

    took the fight to suppress the reportto the House floor on 26 January1976. McClory argued that therelease of the report would endangerthe national security of the UnitedStates.45 On the same day, The NewYork Times printed large sections ofthe draft report.46

    On 29 January 1976, the Housevoted 246 to 124 to direct the Pike

    Committee not to release its reportuntil it has been certified by thePresident as not containing information which would adversely affect the

    intelligence activities of the CIA.47Democratic Representative WayneHays seemed to reflect the basic feel

    ings of the majority in the Housewhen he commented just before the

    vote:

    I wiliprobably vote not to releaseit, because Ido not know what is

    in it. On the other hand, let me

    say it has been leakedpage bypage, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph to The NewYork Times, but I suspect, and I

    do not know and this is what dis

    turbs me, that when this report

    comes out it is going to be the biggest non-event since BrigitteBardot, after 40 years andfourhusbands and numerous lovers,

    held a press conference to

    announce that she was no longera virguin.48

    Pike was1 bitter over the vote. Heannoun~ed to the House, TheHouse ji~ist voted not to release a document it had not read. Our

    committee voted to release a document it had read.49 Pike was soupset th~it he threatened not to file areport at all with the House becausea repor~ on the CIA in which theCIA would do the final rewrite

    would t~e a lie.50 Later, Pike

    reflecte~ that They, the WhiteHouse, ~wanted to precensor our final

    report. This was unacceptable.5

    In an at~tempt to pacify Pike,McCloiy on 3 February made amotionjin committee that SpeakerCarl Albert be asked to submit the

    final re~ort to President Ford so thatit might be sanitized and released.The co~nmittee rejected this lasteffort ar compromise by a vote of 7to 4~52 Journalist Daniel Schorr then

    gave a Øopy of the entire Pike Reportto The Village Voice, which publishedit in fuil on 16 February 1976 underthe titl~ The Report on the CIAthat President Ford Doesnt Want

    You to~Read.~~ When Schorr admitted that he leaked the report to The

    Village~ Voice, the House voted tohave its Committee on Standards of

    Official Conduct investigate theleak. After extensive inquiry, it failedto finc~ out who leaked the report. Soended the House investigation of theIC.54

    The dommittee Recommendations

    The sclid recommendations the Pike

    Comr~ittee made for improving Congressiqnal and executive oversight ofthe IC and for strengthening the

    89

  • Pike Committee

    DCIs command and control authori

    ties were overlooked in the

    commotion surrounding the leakingof the committees report to the

    press. In addition to its recommenda

    tions for prohibiting assassinations,opening the IC budget, allowingGAO audits of the CIA, and intro

    ducing stricter oversight of covertactions, the committees number-one

    recommendation, like the Church

    Committees, was the establishmentof a Standing Committee on Intelli

    gence. Unlike its Senate counterpart,the House committee would have

    jurisdiction over all legislation and

    oversight functions relating to all US

    agencies and departments engaged inforeign or domestic intelligence. Itwould have exclusive jurisdictionover budget authorization for all

    intelligence activities and for allcovert actions.

    The Pike Committee also proposedto vest this committee with subpoenapower and the right to release anyinformation or documents in its possession or control. Coupled with thislast recommendation was an addi

    tional section that recommended

    criminal sanctions for the unautho

    rized disclosure of information

    tending to identify any US intelli

    gence officer.55

    All these reform recommendations

    were attempts to improve the organization, performance, and control ofthe IC without adversely affectingUS intelligence capabilities. Yet, inthe turmoil surrounding the controversy over whether to release the

    report, the recommendations were

    ignored, forgotten, or simply lumpedin with the report as outrageous and

    missing all the points. Not until

    July 1977 did the House vote to create a permanent House intelligencecommittee. Later, a reflective Pike

    saw the leaks and fights over disclosure as distracting from thecommittee findings.56

    Assessment

    Despite its failures, the Pike Committee inquiry was a new and dramaticbreak with the past. It was the first

    significant House investigation ofthe IC since the creation of the CIA

    in 1947.

    In the final analysis, both the CIAand the committee were caught upin the greater power strugglebetween the legislative and executivebranches in which the Congress inthe late 1970s tried to regain controlover US intelligence activities and

    foreign policy. The investigationswere part of this overall struggle.And the inquiry foreshadowed,

    although it was not clear at the time,that Congress would become muchmore of a consumer of the intelli

    gence product.

    NOTES

    1. Seymour Hersh, Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in U.S. Against AntiWar forces, The New York Times,22 December 1974, p. 1.

    2. FrankJ. Smist, Jr., Congress Overseesthe United States Intelligence Commitnily, 1947-1989 (Knoxville:University of Tennessee Press, 1990),

    p. 134.

    3. Congressional Quarterly, 19 February1975, p. 240. See House ApprovesInvestigation of CIA, FBI. TheDemocratic members were Robert

    Giaimo, Don Edwards, James V.

    Stanton, Michael Harrington,Ronald Dellums, and MorganMurphy.

    4. Smist, Congress Oversees the UnitedStates Intelligence Community, p. 161.Dellums is quoted in House SelectCommittee on Intelligence, US.intelligence Agencies and Activities:Committee Proceedings, 2 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1976): 2163.

    5. Smist, Congress Oversees the UnitedStates Intelligence Community, pp.146-150.

    6. Ibid.,p.151.

    7. Rhodes appointed Robert McClory,David Treen, and Robert Kasten tothe committee. Smist, Congress Oversees the United States IntelligenceCommunity, pp. 137-145.

    8. Smist, Congress Oversees the UnitedStates Intelligence Community, p. 161.

    9. See TheNew York Times,5 June1975, p. 1. The CIA family jewelswas a 663-page internal report compiled on possible Agency illegalactivities. It was ordered by DCIJames Schlesinger following theWatergate revelations in 1973. Seealso Smist, Congress Oversees theUnited States Intelligence Communitypp. 152-153.

    10. See House Votes New IntelligenceCommittee, 18 July 1975, Congressional Quarterly, p. 230. See also JohnRanelagh, The Agency: The Rise andDecline ofthe CIA (New York: Simonand Schuster, 1987), p. 587.

    11. Smist, Congress Oversees the UnitedStates Intelligence Community, pp.139and 16 1-165. New Democratic mem

    bers included Les Aspin, DaleMilford, Philip Hays, and WilliamLehman. All the original Republicansremained on the new committee, and

    they added James Johnson.

    12. Pike, a World War II Marine Corpscaptain, was a close friend of Nedzi.Both had served in the House for

    seven terms and both had been on the

    House Armed Services Committee.

    Pike had also conducted the House

    90

  • Pike Committee

    investigation of the North Korean seizure of the Pueblo in 1968. In 1975,

    Pike expressed interest in running forthe Senate irs 1976.

    13. See Smist, Congress Oversees theUnited States Intelligence Community,p. 176.

    14. Ibid., pp. 176, 208, and 290.

    15. Ibid., p.29O.

    16. Ibid., p. 290.

    17. See William Colby and Peter For-bath, Honorable Men: My Lifi in theCIA (New York: Simon and Schuster,1978), pp. 431-432.

    18. Rogovin, telephone interview withauthor.

    19. See Smist, Congress Oversees theUnited States Intelligence Community,pp. 157 and 189.

    20. See House Select Committee on

    Intelligence, US. intelligence Agenciesand Activities. Intelligence Costs,(Washington, DC, GPO, 1975), P.169.

    21. See Smist, Congress Oversees theUnited States Intelligence Community,p. 178.

    22. See CIA, The Pike Report, (Nottingham, England: Spokesman Books,1977), pp. 26-94.

    23. See House Select Committee on

    Intelligence, US. Intelligence Agenciesand Activities: Intelligence Costs,(Washington, DC; GPO, 1975), p.126.

    24. Ibid., pp. 110-113.

    25. ibid., pp. 110-113.

    26. Ibid., pp. 113-116.

    27. Ibid., pp. 115-120. The report alsonoted that the military intelligencebudget did nor include expendituresfor tactical military intelligence, andthat this greatly distorted the intelli

    gence budgets of the Services. See alsoHouse Select Committee on Intelli

    gence, Intelligence Costs, pp. 109-224.

    28. See The Pike Report, pp. 259-260and House Select Committee on

    Intelligence, Intelligence Costs, pp.109-224.

    29. See Daniel Schorr, Clearing the Air(Boston: Houghton Muffin, 1977),P. 188 and Smist, Congress Overseesthe United States Intelligence Community, p. 185.

    30. See Marvin and Bernard Kaib, Kiss

    inger (Boston: Little Brown, 1974),p. 454 and Smist, Congress Overseesthe United States IntelligenceCommunity, p. 186.

    31. See Smist, Congress Oversees theUnited States Intelligence Community,P. 186. Pike later maintained that this

    agreement did not extend to the com

    mittees final report.

    32. For the Pike Committee evaluations

    of US intelligence relating to the Mideast war, see the Pike Report,pp. 141-148; for the Tet offensive,see pp.i30-l38 on Portugal,pp. 149-154; on India, pp. 155-157;on Cyprus, pp. 158-168; and onCzechoslovakia pp. 139-140.

    33. The Pike Report, p. 141.

    34. See Colby, statement before the committee, 4 August 1975, House SelectCommittee on Intelligence, US. Intelligence Agencies andActivities: Risksand Control, pp. 1771-1773.

    35. See Select Committee on Intelli

    gence, Risks and Control, pp. 1575-1576.

    36. House Select Committee on Intelli

    gence, Risks and Control, pp. 1729-

    1770, 1848-1850, and 1858.

    37. House Select Committee on Intelli

    gence; Performance ofthe IntelligenceComr~iunity, Pp. 777-778 and 827-828. The committee issued a sub

    poen~ for 40 Committee records on6 No~,rember 1975.

    38. The Pike Report, P. 258.

    39. House Select Committee on Intelligenc~, Peiformance ofthe IntelligenceCom~nunity, p. 813.

    40. The~Pike Report, p. 189.

    41. Pik~ as quoted in Smist, CongressOver~cees the United States intelligenceCom~rndnity, p. 197.

    42. See Smist, Congress Oversees the

    Uni~ed States Intelligence Community,p. 207.

    43. Ibid. p. 297.

    44. The~ New York Times, 26 Januaryl976,p. 1.

    45. SeeSmist, Congress Oversees theUnited States Intelligence Community,p. 1~9.

    46. Sed The New York Times, 26 January197~, p. 1.

    47. Se~ Smist, Congress Oversees theUnited States Intelligence Community,p. 170.

    48. Se4 Congressional RecordHouse, 94thCoi~gress, 2nd Session, 29 January19~6, p. 1639.

    49. Ibid., p. 1639.

    50. Se~ David E. Rosenbaum, House

    Pr~vents Release of Report, The NewYork Times, 30 January 1976, p. 2.

    91

  • 5 1. Quoted in Smist, Congress Overseesthe United States Intelligence Community, p. 162.

    52. Ibid., p. 163.

    53. See The Village Voice, 16 February1976, p. 1. The Village Voiceversionof the Pike Report, with an introduction by Philip Agee, was published inBritain in 1977. See CIA, The Pike

    Report (Nottingham, England:Spokesman Books, 1977).

    54. See Smist, Congress Oversees theUnited States Intelligence Community,p. 171.

    55. See The Pike Report, pp. 257-258.Under the Church Committee recom

    mendations and the subsequentestablishment of a Senate Select Com

    mittee on Intelligence, responsibilityfor tactical military intelligenceremained solely within the jurisdiction of the Senate Armed Services

    Committee.

    56. See The New York Times, 10 October 1976, p. 6.

    92