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| Intelligence & Government |
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Richard Helms (1913-2002) served as Director of Central Intelligence from 1966 to 1973. He initiated Operation CHAOS under LBJ and expanded it under Nixon, ordered the destruction of CHAOS and MKULTRA records in 1973, and was convicted in 1977 of lying to Congress about CIA involvement in destabilizing Allende's Chile. | 1913-03-30 | 2002-10-22 | St. Davids, Pennsylvania, USA |
Richard Helms (March 30, 1913 - October 22, 2002) served as Director of Central Intelligence from June 30, 1966, to February 2, 1973. He authorized Operation CHAOS in August 1967 under direct pressure from President Lyndon B. Johnson, ordered the destruction of CHAOS and MKULTRA records in 1973 before congressional investigation, and was convicted in 1977 of making false and misleading statements to Congress about CIA involvement in efforts to prevent Salvador Allende from taking power in Chile.1
Operation CHAOS and Records Destruction
On receiving LBJ's instruction in August 1967 to determine whether foreign powers were directing the American antiwar movement, Helms tasked James Jesus Angleton's Counterintelligence Staff with establishing the Special Operations Group that became Operation CHAOS. He subsequently expanded the program under Nixon's presidency. In 1973, before the Watergate-related congressional investigations reached CHAOS, Helms ordered the destruction of CHAOS operational records. A cache of budget and operational documents survived only because it had been misfiled. In the same period, he ordered the destruction of records related to MKULTRA, the CIA's human experimentation program. The Church Committee found that this records destruction deprived investigators of a complete documentary record of both programs.1
Chile and Congressional Perjury Conviction
In 1970, Helms received a direct instruction from President Nixon to conduct a covert operation to prevent Allende from assuming the Chilean presidency - what Nixon called making the Chilean economy "scream." In 1973, when Helms testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee regarding CIA activities in Chile, he stated that the CIA had not "tried to overthrow the government of Chile" and had not "passed money to the opponents of Allende." The 1974 coup against Allende and subsequent Church Committee investigation revealed that both statements were false. In 1977, Helms was charged with two misdemeanor counts of making false and misleading statements to Congress. He pleaded no contest (nolo contendere) and was fined $2,000 and given a two-year suspended sentence. CIA veterans gave Helms a standing ovation in the courthouse corridor after sentencing.1
Psychic Research
Helms personally approved the continuation and expansion of the CIA's psychic research program, initially known as the Biofield Measurements Program and later as the Paranormal Perception Research Project. His decision was based in part on concern about perceived Soviet advancements in parapsychology research. He authorized testing of Uri Geller at Stanford Research Institute and the program that evolved into Project Stargate.2
Footnotes
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Church Committee, S. Rept. 94-755, April 26, 1976. Powers, Thomas. The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA. Knopf, 1979. Hersh, Seymour M. "Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in U.S. Against Antiwar Forces." New York Times, December 22, 1974. ↩︎
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Jacobsen, Annie. Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis. Little, Brown and Company, 2017. ↩︎