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2026-05-17 2026-10-09 Church Committee
Church Committee
Church Committee Interim Report
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities
Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities
Intelligence Scandal
Event
CongressionalInvestigation
SenateResolution21
CIA
FBI
NSA
OperationCHAOS
COINTELPRO
AssassinationPlots
ChurchCommittee
1970s
1975-01-27 1976-04-26 The Church Committee was the Senate investigation that documented CIA, FBI, NSA and IRS abuses, including assassination plots against foreign leaders, Operation CHAOS and COINTELPRO, in a 1975 interim report and a six-book final report. Washington, D.C.
type with reverse start end role fn
head_of Frank Church true 1975-01-27 1976-04-26 Chairman 4
type with start end fn
investigated Central Intelligence Agency 1975-01-27 1976-04-26 1
type with start end fn
investigated Federal Bureau of Investigation 1975-01-27 1976-04-26 1
type with start end fn
investigated NSA 1975-01-27 1976-04-26 1
type with start end fn
investigated James Jesus Angleton 1975-01-27 1976-04-26 10
type with start end fn
investigated Richard Helms 1975-01-27 1976-04-26 34
type with reverse role start end fn
participant_in Richard Ober true Witness, Operation CHAOS 1975-10-01 1975-10-31 10
type with reverse role start end fn
participant_in William Colby true Director of Central Intelligence, supplied the Family Jewels documents 1975-01-27 1975-11-20 8
type with reverse role start end fn
participant_in Larry Devlin true Congo station chief, testified 1975 1975-01-27 1975-11-20 38

The Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, known as the Church Committee after its chairman, Frank Church of Idaho, investigated the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the NSA (NSA) and the Internal Revenue Service from January 1975 to April 1976. It issued an interim report on assassination plots on November 20, 1975, a six-book final report dated April 26, 1976, and seven volumes of hearings.12 The Senate Historical Office gives April 29, 1976 as the date the final report was published.3

Creation and membership

The Senate created the committee on January 27, 1975 under Senate Resolution 21.24 Church chaired it, and John G. Tower of Texas was vice chairman. The other members were Philip A. Hart of Michigan, Walter F. Mondale of Minnesota, Walter D. Huddleston of Kentucky, Robert Morgan of North Carolina, Gary Hart of Colorado, Howard H. Baker Jr. of Tennessee, Barry Goldwater of Arizona, Charles McC. Mathias Jr. of Maryland and Richard S. Schweiker of Pennsylvania.5 William G. Miller was staff director. Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr. was chief counsel, Curtis R. Smothers was counsel to the minority, and Audrey Hatry was clerk.5

Triggering events

On December 22, 1974 the New York Times published on its front page an article by Seymour Hersh, "Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in U.S. Against Antiwar Forces, Other Dissidents in Nixon Years." Hersh wrote that the CIA "conducted a massive, illegal domestic intelligence operation during the Nixon Administration against the antiwar movement and other dissident groups in the United States," and that intelligence files on at least 10,000 American citizens were kept by a special unit of the CIA that reported directly to Richard Helms. The article attributes direction of the domestic activities to the counterintelligence department of James Jesus Angleton, names Richard Ober as the unit's liaison with Helms, and reports that a check of the CIA's domestic files ordered in 1973 by James Schlesinger had produced evidence of dozens of other illegal activities, among them break-ins, wiretapping and mail inspection. The program it describes is the one the committee later documented as Operation CHAOS.6 William Colby wrote that he dismissed Angleton on December 17, 1974, five days before the article appeared.7

Earlier revelations included the "Family Jewels," a compilation of potentially illegal CIA activities that DCI Schlesinger ordered assembled in 1973 and transmitted to Colby in September 1973. Colby retained the document and later provided it to the committee.8 Also earlier, the exposure of COINTELPRO followed the March 1971 Media FBI Office Break-In, and the Watergate investigations revealed CIA involvement in domestic political operations.9

Operation CHAOS and domestic collection

The committee covered the CIA, FBI, NSA, Army intelligence and the IRS. Its account of the program describes a unit run by the Special Operations Group under Ober inside the Counterintelligence Staff of Angleton. On August 15, 1967, Thomas Karamessines sent Angleton a memorandum that referred to "Dick Ober (or whatever officer you select)." The committee found no written directive from Helms to Karamessines establishing the program, and treated the August 15, 1967 memorandum as the first recorded authorization. It recorded that Ober testified before the committee on October 28 and 30, 1975 and that his deputy testified under the name "James Eatinger" on October 14, 1975.10

The CHAOS information was held in a computer system called HYDRA, compartmented into layers of increasing sensitivity and restricted access.11 The committee also documented Project MERRIMAC and Project RESISTANCE, which were administered by the CIA Office of Security rather than by Angleton's staff and which supplied information to CHAOS.12 The Rockefeller Commission 1975 reported about 13,000 CHAOS files, including about 7,200 personality files on American citizens, and an index of more than 300,000 names and organizations. It gave March 15, 1974 as the date the program was terminated.13

The committee documented the CIA's HTLINGUAL program, which opened first-class mail between the United States and the Soviet Union from 1952 to 1973, as an illegal domestic operation conducted without judicial authorization.14

The committee's NSA section records that from the early 1960s until 1973 the National Security Agency intercepted and disseminated international communications of selected American citizens and groups on the basis of name lists supplied by other agencies, that in 1967 the watch lists were expanded to include individuals and organizations in domestic antiwar and civil rights activities, and that NSA formalized the program under the codename MINARET in 1969. It records that Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Assistant Attorney General Henry Petersen concluded in October 1973 that the watch lists were of "questionable legality."15 On October 29, 1975, the committee opened public hearings on the NSA, and John G. Tower began by saying that from the beginning he had opposed public hearings on NSA activities.16 The committee voted seven to three on November 3, 1975 to make one NSA operation public, subject to confirmation by the Senate Parliamentarian. On November 6 Church read the statement: SHAMROCK was the cover name for a program in which the government persuaded three international telegraph companies, RCA Global, ITT World Communications and Western Union International, to make certain of their international telegraph traffic available, and for almost thirty years copies of most international telegrams originating in or forwarded through the United States were turned over to the NSA and its predecessor agencies. Church said the program appeared to violate section 605 of the Communications Act of 1934 and the Fourth Amendment, and that it had been terminated.17

COINTELPRO and the King investigation

The FBI's programs used infiltration, psychological warfare, fabricated communications, referrals for prosecution and coordination with local police against lawful political activity. Between 1960 and 1974 the Bureau conducted more than 500,000 separate investigations of persons and groups under its "subversive" category.1819

Book III of the final report devotes pages 1 to 80 to COINTELPRO and pages 81 to 184 to the FBI's campaign against Martin Luther King Jr., under the heading "Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Case Study."19 The case study opens with testimony of William Sullivan, then the Bureau's assistant director for domestic intelligence and, in the report's words, the man in charge of the FBI's "war" against King: "No holds were barred." The report records wiretaps on King's home telephone from October 1963 until mid-1965, initially approved by Attorney General Robert Kennedy, wiretaps on the telephones of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference headquarters for a longer period, and sixteen occasions on which the FBI acknowledged hiding microphones in King's hotel and motel rooms.20 The electronic surveillance section begins at page 111, the wiretap account at page 115 and the microphone account (January 1964 to November 1965) at page 120. A later section covers the Bureau's effort in 1964 to discredit King, beginning at page 131, including Sullivan's January 1964 proposal to promote a new Negro leader (page 135).21

The report refers to two of King's advisers as "Adviser A" and "Adviser B." It records that a microphone was installed in the office of Adviser A on March 16, 1962 and a wiretap on his office telephone on March 20, 1962, and that the Attorney General authorized a wiretap on his home telephone in November 1962. It states that the information from the continued coverage of Adviser A "appears to have related solely to his advice to Dr. King concerning the civil rights movement and not at all to the alleged Communist Party origins of that advice."22 The committee found that the FBI's justification for surveillance of Stanley Levison was inadequate to support the scope of the surveillance, and that the surveillance extended beyond counterintelligence into political disruption under COINTELPRO.23

The section on the tape mailed to King begins at page 158. Sullivan testified that Alan Belmont told him that Director J. Edgar Hoover wanted one of the King tapes mailed to Coretta Scott King to precipitate their separation, and that he sent an agent to Tampa, Florida to mail a package. The agent testified that he flew to Miami, telephoned Sullivan, and mailed the package, addressed to King, from a post office near the Miami airport; a travel voucher gives November 21, 1964 as the date of the flight.24 Andrew Young testified that a letter accompanied the tape stating that the tape would be released in 34 days and threatening that "there is only one thing you can do to prevent this from happening," and that the disturbing thing to King was that "somebody was trying to get him to commit suicide." The report discusses the letter's apparent purpose of inducing King to commit suicide at pages 158 to 161.24 Sullivan testified that he did not recall ever having seen the letter given to the committee, that it was "possible" he had something to do with it, and that it might have been "planted" in his files; after reading its last paragraph he conceded that it could be interpreted as an invitation to suicide.25 Sullivan wrote in his memoir that his division prepared the letter.26

The committee also documented the Bureau's coordination with local police in the December 4, 1969 raid in Chicago that killed Fred Hampton of the Black Panther Party. The Black Panther section runs from page 185 to page 224 of Book III.27

Interim report: assassination plots

The Interim Report, "Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders," was issued as Senate Report No. 94-465 on November 20, 1975.28 The Senate voted its release after Gerald Ford wrote to Church on October 31, 1975 asking that the report be suppressed and after Church refused that request on November 4.29

The report states that the committee had "concrete evidence of at least eight plots involving the CIA to assassinate Fidel Castro" in the period 1960 to 1965.30 It records that on December 11, 1959 Allen Dulles approved the CIA's giving "thorough consideration to the elimination of Fidel Castro," following a memorandum of that date from J.C. King, head of the Western Hemisphere Division, and that Dulles told the Special Group the following month that "we do not have in mind the quick elimination of Castro."31 The Cuba section describes the poison pills prepared by the Technical Services Division and the recruitment of underworld figures through Robert Maheu, who brought in Johnny Roselli, Sam Giancana and Santos Trafficante, Jr.. The report states that there is some evidence that Giancana or Roselli originated the idea of putting a poison pill in Castro's drink, and that the second batch of pills prepared by the Technical Services Division, which contained botulinum toxin, was tested on monkeys.32 William Harvey, to whom Richard Bissell was asked to hand the gambling-syndicate operation in November 1961, asked in early April 1962 to be put in touch with Roselli, met him in Miami, and told him to maintain his Cuban contacts but not to deal with Maheu or Giancana.3334 Desmond FitzGerald and a case officer met the AM/LASH asset Rolando Cubela in Paris on November 22, 1963, the day of the Kennedy assassination, and the report records their assurances of support to Cubela.34 The committee found that the plots had not been disclosed to the Warren Commission.3435

The Congo section concerns Patrice Lumumba. In 1960 DDP Richard Bissell asked Bronson Tweedy to explore the feasibility of assassinating Lumumba. Bissell also asked a CIA scientist, identified in the report by the pseudonym "Joseph Scheider," to prepare to assassinate or incapacitate an unspecified "African leader."36 In late September 1960 Scheider delivered the lethal substances to the Leopoldville station officer, whom the report calls "Hedgman," and instructed him to assassinate Lumumba.36 The report records that the toxic substances were never used. Larry Devlin was the Congo station chief. Scheider testified on October 7 and 9, 1975 that he destroyed the viability of the biological material and disposed of it in the Congo River before leaving the Congo on October 5, 1960; the station officer testified on August 21, 1975 that he locked the material in the bottom drawer of his safe and disposed of it months later. Each recalled disposing of it in the Congo River, alone.37 Devlin wrote that he never used the materials and disposed of them in the river.38 The committee examined whether Michael Mulroney received an assassination assignment after refusing one from Bissell, and it examined whether the CIA was involved in Lumumba's transfer to Katanga.39 The committee found that Lumumba was killed in Katanga Province after forces loyal to Mobutu Sese Seko transferred him there.40

The Dominican section concerns Rafael Trujillo. The report records that the CIA supplied three pistols and three carbines to dissidents, and that U.S. officials knew the dissidents intended to overthrow Trujillo, probably by assassination.41

The Vietnam section concerns Ngo Dinh Diem. The report finds that the United States encouraged the coup against Diem but neither desired nor was involved in his death, which appears to have been a spontaneous act by Vietnamese generals.42 The Chile section concerns Rene Schneider, the Chilean army commander who was shot in an attempted abduction in October 1970. The report states that his removal became "a necessary ingredient in the coup plans of all the Chilean conspirators," and that the conspirators decided to kidnap him.43

The Mongoose section records that Robert Kennedy played an active role in Operation Mongoose, and that Maxwell Taylor was chairman of the Special Group (Augmented) that oversaw it. Edward Lansdale coordinated the operation, and William Harvey was placed in charge of the CIA's Task Force W.44

Hearings

The committee published seven hearing volumes under Senate Resolution 21.2

Volume 1, "Unauthorized Storage of Toxic Agents," was held September 16, 17 and 18, 1975, with testimony from Colby (September 16) and Helms (September 17). It concerned the CIA's shellfish toxin stored at Fort Detrick and the MKNAOMI program.45 The September 16 session took testimony from Nathan Gordon, a former chief of the chemistry branch of the Army's Technical Services. Gordon testified that he had not received an order from the Director of Central Intelligence to search out and destroy the CIA's stock of biological agents, and that he, his project officer and a technical consultant regarded the shellfish toxin as a chemical substance rather than a biological agent or biological toxin; he also described a dart tranquilizer device for dogs that had been developed before he joined the branch.46 The committee's September 16 exhibits included the shellfish toxin and two sheets of paper dated February 18, 1970, found with it.46

Volume 2, "Huston Plan," was held September 23, 24 and 25, 1975. Its witnesses were Tom Charles Huston (September 23), Angleton (September 24) and Charles Brennan, former assistant director of the FBI's Domestic Intelligence Division (September 25).47

Volume 3 is titled "Internal Revenue Service." Volume 5 is titled "National Security Agency and Fourth Amendment Rights."2

Volume 4, "Mail Opening," was held October 21, 22 and 24, 1975. Its witnesses included former CIA Inspector General Gordon Stewart and former CIA Director of Security Howard J. Osborn (October 21) and former Postmasters General J. Edward Day, John A. Gronouski and Winton M. Blount (October 22).48

Volume 6, "Federal Bureau of Investigation," was held on November 18 and 19 and December 2, 3, 9, 10 and 11, 1975. Its witnesses included FBI informants Mary Jo Cook and Gary Thomas Rowe (December 2), former FBI officials Cartha DeLoach and Courtney Evans, former Attorneys General Nicholas Katzenbach and Ramsey Clark (December 3), FBI Director Clarence M. Kelley (December 10) and Attorney General Edward H. Levi (December 11). Exhibit 6 is a July 19, 1966 memorandum from Sullivan to DeLoach on "Black Bag" jobs.49

Volume 7, "Covert Action," was held December 4 and 5, 1975. On December 4 the committee heard staff members William G. Miller, William Bader, Karl Inderfurth and Gregory Treverton, and then Ralph Dungan, Charles A. Meyer and Edward Korry, who was ambassador to Chile from 1967 to 1971. Treverton's statement quotes the handwritten notes of Helms from the September 15, 1970 meeting with Richard Nixon, which include "Make the economy scream." It states that between October 5 and October 20, 1970 the CIA made 21 contacts with key military and police officials in Chile, and that on October 22 CIA officials passed three submachine guns to two Chilean officers; later that day General Schneider was mortally wounded in an abortive kidnap attempt, by a group that the statement says was not the group that received the weapons.50 The notes are reproduced as Exhibit 2 (page 96). Treverton wrote to Korry on October 20, 1975 (Exhibit 3, page 97), and Korry's reply to Church of October 23, 1975 is printed as Exhibit 4 (page 100).51

The committee's staff report, Covert Action in Chile 1963-1973, was printed in December 1975. It states that the CIA spent three million dollars in an effort to influence the 1964 Chilean presidential election, and that eight million dollars was spent covertly in the three years between 1970 and the military coup of September 1973, in support of opposition to Salvador Allende. It records that the CIA spent more than thirteen million dollars on covert action in Chile between 1963 and 1974, and that Congress was briefed on projects totaling about 7.1 million dollars of it.52

Final report

The final report, Senate Report No. 94-755, was issued April 26, 1976 in six books.53

Book I, "Foreign and Military Intelligence," covers the assassination programs and the Project MKUltra program. It records approximately 11 grams of shellfish toxin held at a CIA laboratory at Fort Detrick that went undetected for five years, and it records that MKULTRA records were destroyed in January 1973 by Technical Services Division personnel acting on the verbal orders of Sidney Gottlieb.54

Church filed Additional Views on covert action in Book I, writing that the covert action capability ought to be circumscribed more sharply than a majority of the committee was willing to recommend, that "all covert activity unrelated to the gathering of essential intelligence should be severed entirely from the CIA," and that any future secret operation in a foreign land should be done under the direct aegis of the State Department.55

Book II, "Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans," contains the statistic on FBI investigations cited above and the committee's mandate, which includes "The origin and disposition of the so-called Huston Plan."56

Book III, "Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans," contains the following sections: COINTELPRO (from page 1), the King case study (from page 81), the Black Panther Party (from page 185), informants (from page 225), warrantless FBI electronic surveillance (from page 271), black bag operations (from page 353), FBI domestic intelligence investigations (from page 373), domestic CIA and FBI mail opening (from page 559), the CHAOS program and the Office of Security (from page 679) and NSA surveillance affecting Americans (from page 733).57

Book IV, "Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Foreign and Military Intelligence," describes at pages 128 and 129 the CIA's Program Branch 7 (PB/7), headed in the early years of the CIA by Army Colonel Boris Pash, as a "special operations" unit within the Office of Policy Coordination with jurisdiction over assassinations and kidnappings. The committee staff concluded that the unit was assigned responsibility for assassinations and kidnappings if such operations were authorized, and stated that it had found no evidence that the unit carried out any. Howard Hunt told an interviewer, as the New York Times reported on December 26, 1975, that he was told in 1954 or 1955 that Pash was in charge of an assassination unit.58

Book V, "The Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: Performance of the Intelligence Agencies," and Book VI, "Supplementary Reports on Intelligence Activities," complete the set.53

MKULTRA and behavioral research

The committee's inquiry into the CIA's behavioral-control research was hampered because the MKULTRA records had been destroyed in January 1973. Technical Services Division personnel destroyed them on Gottlieb's verbal orders. Gottlieb testified that he was carrying out a verbal order from Helms in doing so, and Helms confirmed that the order was his.54

Gottlieb testified in secret about the assassination programs, under the alias "Joseph Scheider," the name the interim report gives the CIA scientist who took the toxic materials to the Congo. John D. Marks wrote that Gottlieb professed not to remember most of the behavioral-control details.59 Book I describes the program as "concerned with the research and development of chemical, biological, and radiological materials capable of employment in clandestine operations to control human behavior," records that the DCI, Allen Dulles, approved it on April 13, 1953 on a proposal from Assistant Deputy Director for Plans Helms, and records that over its ten-year life many "additional avenues to the control of human behavior" were designated for investigation under its charter, among them "radiation, electroshock, various fields of psychology, psychiatry, sociology, and anthropology, graphology, harassment substances, and paramilitary devices and materials."60

The hearing volume on the storage of toxic agents disclosed the MKNAOMI program and the operations at Fort Detrick.61

John D. Marks wrote that the only time in about twenty-five years that CIA officials sought White House approval for this work was a 1955 contribution of $375,000 toward a research building at Georgetown University Hospital, which Dulles approved. Marks also wrote that a reference to the program in the Rockefeller Commission report led to the Freedom of Information request that surfaced the surviving boxes of MKULTRA financial records.62

Rockefeller Commission and Pike Committee

President Ford created the Rockefeller Commission (Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States, chaired by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller) by Executive Order 11828 on January 4, 1975, and it issued its report in June 1975.63 The National Security Archive has published documents showing that the White House removed an 86-page section on assassination plots from the commission's draft before publication, and that Richard Cheney made handwritten edits to the draft around June 1, 1975.64

The House Select Committee on Intelligence, known as the Pike Committee after Otis Pike, ran in parallel with the Church Committee in 1975 and 1976. The House established the committee by H. Res. 138 on February 19, 1975 and reconstituted it by H. Res. 591 on July 17, 1975.65 The papers of Richard Ober at the Hoover Institution list Pike Committee files alongside the Church Committee and Rockefeller Commission files.66

Successor committees and executive order

The Senate created the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence by S. Res. 400 of the 94th Congress, second session, introduced on March 1, 1976 and agreed to on May 19, 1976, to oversee intelligence activities and to make continuing studies of them.67 The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence followed as the House counterpart.68

President Ford signed Executive Order 11905 on February 18, 1976. Section (g) provides that "No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination."69 The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 created a judicial framework for domestic national security surveillance.70

Footnotes

  1. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Final Report, Book I, S. Rept. 94-755, 94th Congress, 2nd Session, April 26, 1976. https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/book1/ ↩︎

  2. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Hearings, vol. 1, "Unauthorized Storage of Toxic Agents," title page ("Senate Resolution 21"), and vols. 1 to 7 (vol. 2, "Huston Plan," September 23 to 25, 1975; vol. 3, "Internal Revenue Service"; vol. 4, "Mail Opening," October 21, 22 and 24, 1975; vol. 5, "National Security Agency and Fourth Amendment Rights"; vol. 6, "Federal Bureau of Investigation," November and December 1975; vol. 7, "Covert Action," December 4 and 5, 1975). https://archive.org/details/ChurchCommittee ↩︎

  3. United States Senate, "Church Committee Created," Senate Historical Office (final report issued April 29, 1976; 126 full committee meetings, 40 subcommittee hearings, about 800 witnesses, 110,000 documents). https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/investigations/church-committee.htm ↩︎

  4. Final Report, Book I, Letter of Transmittal by Senator Frank Church: "On January 27, 1975, the Senate established a Select Committee to conduct an investigation and study of the intelligence activities of the United States." ↩︎

  5. Final Report, Book I, list of members and staff (p. ii), and Interim Report, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, S. Rept. 94-465, November 20, 1975, list of members and staff. Members: Frank Church (chairman), John G. Tower (vice chairman), Philip A. Hart, Walter F. Mondale, Walter D. Huddleston, Robert Morgan, Gary Hart, Howard H. Baker Jr., Barry Goldwater, Charles McC. Mathias Jr., Richard S. Schweiker. Staff: William G. Miller (staff director), Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr. (chief counsel), Curtis R. Smothers (counsel to the minority), Audrey Hatry (clerk). ↩︎

  6. Seymour M. Hersh, "Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in U.S. Against Antiwar Forces, Other Dissidents in Nixon Years," New York Times, December 22, 1974, p. 1 (continued p. 26). https://archive.org/details/huge-c-i-a-operation-reported-in-u-s-against ↩︎

  7. William Colby and Peter Forbath, Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA (Simon & Schuster, 1978). ↩︎

  8. CIA, "The Family Jewels," CIA Reading Room, released 2007. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/collection/family-jewels ↩︎

  9. Betty Medsger, The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI (Knopf, 2014), on the March 1971 Media break-in. ↩︎

  10. Final Report, Book III, "CIA Intelligence Collection About Americans: CHAOS Program and the Office of Security," S. Rept. 94-755, April 26, 1976, pp. 679 to 732, (the running title of the section is "CHAOS and the Office of Security"); no written directive from Helms and the Karamessines memorandum of August 15, 1967, p. 690; testimony of Ober, October 28, 1975 and October 30, 1975, and of James Eatinger, October 14, 1975, as cited in the footnotes at pp. 690 to 695. https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/book3/pdf/ChurchB3_9_CHAOS.pdf ↩︎

  11. Final Report, Book III, S. Rept. 94-755, p. 696 ("the information in the HYDRA computer system was compartmented into several layers of increasing sensitivity and correspondingly more restricted access"). ↩︎

  12. Final Report, Book III, pp. 679 to 732 (Office of Security programs from p. 721: Project RESISTANCE, p. 721; Project MERRIMAC, p. 723; special security investigations, p. 726), as cited in note 9. ↩︎

  13. Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States, Report to the President, June 1975, ch. 11, "Special Operations Group, 'Operation CHAOS,'" pp. 130 to 151 (about 13,000 files, including about 7,200 personality files; more than 300,000 names in the index; program terminated March 15, 1974). https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/rockcomm/pdf/RockComm_Chap11_CHAOS.pdf ↩︎

  14. Final Report, Book III, "Domestic CIA and FBI Mail Opening," pp. 559 to 678; Hearings, vol. 4, "Mail Opening," October 21, 22 and 24, 1975. ↩︎

  15. Final Report, Book III, S. Rept. 94-755, NSA surveillance affecting Americans (from p. 733), pp. 739 and 748 (watch lists from the early 1960s; expansion in 1967; MINARET charter, July 1969; Richardson and Petersen, October 1973). ↩︎

  16. The National Security Agency and Fourth Amendment Rights, Hearings, Vol. 5, October 29, 1975, opening statements. https://archive.org/details/Church-Committee-Hearings-Volume5-National-Security-Agency ↩︎

  17. Hearings, Vol. 5, Thursday, November 6, 1975, chairman's opening remarks and statement, pp. 57-58. https://archive.org/details/Church-Committee-Hearings-Volume5-National-Security-Agency ↩︎

  18. Final Report, Book II, "Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans," S. Rept. 94-755, p. 19 ("Between 1960 and 1974, the FBI conducted over 500,000 separate investigations of persons and groups under the 'subversive' category"). ↩︎

  19. Final Report, Book III, "COINTELPRO: The FBI's Covert Action Programs Against American Citizens," pp. 1 to 80, and "Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Case Study," pp. 81 to 184. https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/book3/ ↩︎

  20. Final Report, Book III, King case study, pp. 81 to 82 (introduction; Sullivan testimony, November 1, 1975, p. 97; wiretaps from October 1963 until mid-1965; sixteen microphone occasions). ↩︎

  21. Final Report, Book III, King case study, section IV ("Electronic Surveillance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference," from p. 111; wiretaps, October 1963 to June 1966, at p. 115; microphone surveillance, January 1964 to November 1965, at p. 120) and section V ("The FBI's Effort to Discredit Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1964," from p. 131; Sullivan's plan to promote a new Negro leader, January 1964, at p. 135). ↩︎

  22. Final Report, Book III, King case study, p. 88 (microphone in Adviser A's office, March 16, 1962; wiretap on his office telephone, March 20, 1962, authorized by the Attorney General) and p. 89 (authorization of a wiretap on his home telephone, November 1962; "appears to have related solely to his advice to Dr. King"). ↩︎

  23. Final Report, Book III, King case study, pp. 81 to 184, on the surveillance of King's advisers. ↩︎

  24. Final Report, Book III, King case study, section VI.B ("Tapes are mailed to Dr. King: November 21, 1964," p. 158), and the suicide passages at pp. 158 to 161. ↩︎

  25. Final Report, Book III, King case study, pp. 159 to 161 (Sullivan, November 1, 1975, pp. 104 to 106 and 112; letter given to the committee by the FBI; Young, February 19, 1976, p. 36). ↩︎

  26. William C. Sullivan, The Bureau: My Thirty Years in Hoover's FBI (Norton, 1979). ↩︎

  27. Final Report, Book III, "The FBI's Covert Action Program To Destroy The Black Panther Party," pp. 185 to 224. ↩︎

  28. Interim Report, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, S. Rept. 94-465, November 20, 1975, title page. https://archive.org/details/allegedassassina00unit ↩︎

  29. National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 543, "Gerald Ford White House Altered Rockefeller Commission Report in 1975; Removed Section on CIA Assassination Plots," February 29, 2016, Document 21 (Ford letter to Church, October 31, 1975; Church's rejection, November 4, 1975). https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence/2016-02-29/gerald-ford-white-house-altered-rockefeller-commission-report ↩︎

  30. Interim Report, S. Rept. 94-465, p. 71 (Cuba section, opening; "concrete evidence of at least eight plots involving the CIA to assassinate Fidel Castro"). ↩︎

  31. Interim Report, S. Rept. 94-465, pp. 92 to 93 (the December 11, 1959 memorandum of J. C. King, approved by Allen Dulles) and p. 268 ("he approved the CIA's giving 'thorough consideration to the elimination of Fidel Castro,' but told the Special Group in a meeting the following month that 'we do not have in mind the quick elimination of Castro'"). ↩︎

  32. Interim Report, S. Rept. 94-465, p. 80 (origin of the poison-pill idea; botulinum toxin batch tested on monkeys). ↩︎

  33. Interim Report, S. Rept. 94-465, pp. 83 to 84 (Harvey's notes of November 16, 1961; April 1962 introduction to Roselli in Miami; Harvey's view that Maheu and Giancana were "untrustworthy" and "surplus"). ↩︎

  34. Interim Report, S. Rept. 94-465, Cuba section, pp. 71 to 90 (poison pills, pp. 79 to 82; Maheu, Roselli, Giancana and Trafficante, pp. 74 to 82; FitzGerald and Cubela on November 22, 1963, summarized at p. 72 and described at pp. 86 to 89). ↩︎

  35. Interim Report, S. Rept. 94-465, p. 269 (Helms "failed to inform the Warren Commission of the plots"; McCone failed to disclose the plot to the Commission; Allen Dulles, a member of the Commission, did not inform the other members). ↩︎

  36. Interim Report, S. Rept. 94-465, pp. 18 to 24 (Bissell and Tweedy; "Joseph Scheider" at pp. 19 to 21; delivery of lethal substances to the Leopoldville station officer on September 26, 1960 at p. 24). ↩︎

  37. Interim Report, S. Rept. 94-465, pp. 29 to 31 (Scheider, October 7 and 9, 1975; Hedgman, August 21, 1975, pp. 48 to 49 and 84 to 85; the Station Officer's October 7, 1960 cable that "certain items of continuing usefulness" were left). ↩︎

  38. Lawrence Devlin, Chief of Station, Congo: Fighting the Cold War in a Hot Zone (Public Affairs, 2007), describing his 1975 testimony to the committee. ↩︎

  39. Interim Report, S. Rept. 94-465, pp. 37 to 42 (Mulroney's assignment in the Congo). ↩︎

  40. Interim Report, S. Rept. 94-465, pp. 48 to 49 (Lumumba's imprisonment and death in Katanga Province). ↩︎

  41. Interim Report, S. Rept. 94-465, p. 191 (Dominican Republic: "Material support, consisting of three pistols and three carbines, was supplied to various dissidents"; U.S. officials "knew that the dissidents intended to overthrow Trujillo, probably by assassination"). ↩︎

  42. Interim Report, S. Rept. 94-465, pp. 217 to 224 (Diem), and p. 217 on U.S. encouragement of the coup. ↩︎

  43. Interim Report, S. Rept. 94-465, pp. 225 to 256 (Chile; Schneider's removal as "a necessary ingredient in the coup plans of all the Chilean conspirators," p. 225; the attempted abduction of October 19, 1970 and the later attempt, pp. 245 et seq.). ↩︎

  44. Interim Report, S. Rept. 94-465, pp. 139 to 157 (Operation MONGOOSE; Special Group (Augmented); Robert Kennedy, Maxwell Taylor, Lansdale, Harvey and Task Force W). ↩︎

  45. Hearings, vol. 1, "Unauthorized Storage of Toxic Agents," September 16, 17 and 18, 1975, Exhibit No. 6 (memorandum to Chief, TSD, Subject: MKNAOMI). ↩︎

  46. Unauthorized Storage of Toxic Agents, Hearings, Vol. 1, September 16, 1975: testimony of Nathan Gordon at pp. 51-63 (no order to search out and destroy, pp. 56-57; chemical substance, p. 58; dart tranquilizer device for dogs, p. 63); exhibit No. 3 (p. 198). https://archive.org/details/Church-Committee-Hearings-Volume1-Toxic-Agents ↩︎

  47. Hearings, vol. 2, "Huston Plan," September 23, 24 and 25, 1975. https://archive.org/details/ChurchCommittee ↩︎

  48. Hearings, vol. 4, "Mail Opening," October 21, 22 and 24, 1975. ↩︎

  49. Hearings, vol. 6, "Federal Bureau of Investigation," title page, list of witnesses and Exhibit 6 (p. 357). ↩︎

  50. Hearings, vol. 7, "Covert Action," December 4 and 5, 1975, list of witnesses; statement of Gregory Treverton, pp. 13 to 15 (Helms's handwritten notes quoted at p. 14, including "Make the economy scream."; contacts of October 5 to 20, 1970 and submachine guns of October 22, 1970, p. 14); Exhibit 2, p. 96 (handwritten notes by Richard Helms taken during the meeting of September 15, 1970 with President Nixon). ↩︎

  51. Edward M. Korry, letter to Senator Frank Church, October 23, 1975, Hearings, vol. 7, "Covert Action," Exhibit 4, p. 100; Gregory Treverton, letter to Edward M. Korry, October 20, 1975, Exhibit 3, p. 97; Korry's testimony begins at p. 29. ↩︎

  52. Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Covert Action in Chile 1963-1973: Staff Report (December 18, 1975), overview, p. 1 (three million dollars in 1964; eight million dollars between 1970 and September 1973), and the section on congressional briefings (more than thirteen million dollars spent, 1963 to 1974; about 7.1 million dollars briefed). https://archive.org/details/Covert-Action-In-Chile-1963-1973 ↩︎

  53. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Final Report, S. Rept. 94-755, Books I to VI, April 26, 1976. Book V: "The Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: Performance of the Intelligence Agencies." Book VI: "Supplementary Reports on Intelligence Activities." https://archive.org/details/ChurchCommittee ↩︎

  54. Final Report, Book I, pp. 362 to 363 (approximately 11 grams of shellfish toxin acquired from SOD personnel at Fort Detrick, about one-third of the total world production) and p. 389 (the toxin stored in a little-used CIA laboratory where it went undetected for five years; MKULTRA records destroyed in January 1973 by TSD personnel on Gottlieb's verbal orders, as Gottlieb testified and Helms confirmed the order was Helms's). ↩︎

  55. Final Report, Book I, S. Rept. 94-755, "Additional Views of Senator Frank Church Concerning Covert Action," pp. 563-565. https://archive.org/details/finalreportofsel01unit ↩︎

  56. Final Report, Book II, S. Rept. 94-755, mandate section (the Senate resolution's list of inquiries, including "The origin and disposition of the so-called Huston Plan"). ↩︎

  57. Final Report, Book III, table of contents and the King case study's own contents page: COINTELPRO p. 1; King case study p. 81; Black Panther Party p. 185; informants p. 225; warrantless electronic surveillance p. 271; black bag operations p. 353; FBI domestic intelligence investigations p. 373; domestic CIA and FBI mail opening p. 559; CHAOS p. 679; NSA p. 733. ↩︎

  58. Final Report, Book IV, "Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Foreign and Military Intelligence," S. Rept. 94-755, pp. 128 to 129 (section II, "The 'Special Operations' Unit," and subsection A, "Program Branch 7: A Special Operations Unit with Assassination Jurisdiction"; Pash testimony; Hunt as reported in the New York Times, December 26, 1975, p. 9; CIA letter to the committee of January 16, 1976 and Director of Operations Planning memorandum of January 1, 1976, among the staff's sources). ↩︎

  59. Interim Report, S. Rept. 94-465, pp. 19 to 21 (pseudonym "Joseph Scheider"). On the professed lack of memory: John D. Marks, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control (Times Books, 1979), chapter 12. ↩︎

  60. Final Report, Book I, p. 389 ("concerned with the research and development of chemical, biological, and radiological materials capable of employment in clandestine operations to control human behavior"; records destroyed January 1973) and p. 390 (Helms proposal; approval by the DCI on April 13, 1953; the 1963 Inspector General's survey; "additional avenues to the control of human behavior"). ↩︎

  61. Hearings, vol. 1, "Unauthorized Storage of Toxic Agents," Exhibit No. 6, p. 204 (October 13, 1967 memorandum from Chief, TSD Biological Branch, to Chief, TSD). ↩︎

  62. John D. Marks, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control (Times Books, 1979), chapter 12. ↩︎

  63. Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States, Report to the President, June 1975, Preface. https://archive.org/details/reporttopresiden01unit ; Executive Order 11828, "Establishing a Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States," January 4, 1975, sec. 6 (final report due within three months). https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-11828-establishing-commission-cia-activities-within-the-united-states ↩︎

  64. National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 543, February 29, 2016, Document 15 (Cheney's handwritten edits, c. June 1, 1975) and Document 19 (the 86-page section, "Summary of Facts: Investigation of CIA Involvement in Plans to Assassinate Foreign Leaders," June 5, 1975). https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence/2016-02-29/gerald-ford-white-house-altered-rockefeller-commission-report ↩︎

  65. H. Res. 138, 94th Cong. (agreed to February 19, 1975); H. Res. 591, 94th Cong. (introduced July 11, 1975; agreed to July 17, 1975), "Resolution establishing a Select Committee on Intelligence." https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/94/hres138 ; https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/94/hres591 ↩︎

  66. Richard Ober Papers, Hoover Institution Library and Archives, finding aid (Pike Committee, Church Committee and Rockefeller Commission files). ↩︎

  67. S. Res. 400, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. (introduced March 1, 1976; agreed to May 19, 1976), "A resolution to establish a Standing Committee of the Senate on Intelligence Activities." https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/94/sres400 ; Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, text of the resolution. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/about-the-committee/s-res-400/ ↩︎

  68. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, committee history. https://intelligence.house.gov/ ↩︎

  69. Executive Order 11905, "United States Foreign Intelligence Activities," February 18, 1976, sec. (g), "Prohibition of Assassination." https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-11905-united-states-foreign-intelligence-activities ↩︎

  70. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, Pub. L. 95-511, 92 Stat. 1783. ↩︎