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The Church Committee (formally the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) was a
US Senate
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and po ...
select committee in 1975 that investigated abuses by the
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
(CIA),
National Security Agency
The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collect ...
(NSA),
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
(FBI), and the
Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Chaired by Idaho Senator
Frank Church (
D-
ID), the committee was part of a series of investigations into intelligence abuses in 1975, dubbed the "Year of Intelligence", including its
House counterpart, the
Pike Committee The Pike Committee is the common name for the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence during the period when it was chaired by Democratic Representative Otis G. Pike of New York. Under Pike's chairmanship, the committee inv ...
, and the presidential
Rockefeller Commission #REDIRECT United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States #REDIRECT United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States
{{R from move ...
{{R from move ...
. The committee's efforts led to the establishment of the permanent
US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
The most shocking revelations of the committee include
Operation MKULTRA involving the drugging and torture of unwitting US citizens as part of human experimentation on mind control;
COINTELPRO
COINTELPRO (syllabic abbreviation derived from Counterintelligence, Counter Intelligence Program; 1956–1971) was a series of Covert operation, covert and illegal projects actively conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation ( ...
involving the surveillance and infiltration of American political and civil-rights organizations;
Family Jewels, a CIA program to covertly assassinate foreign leaders;
Operation Mockingbird
Operation Mockingbird is an alleged large-scale program of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that began in the early years of the Cold War and attempted to manipulate domestic American news media organizations for propaganda ...
as a systematic propaganda campaign with domestic and foreign journalists operating as CIA assets and dozens of US news organizations providing cover for CIA activity.
It also unearthed
Project SHAMROCK
Project SHAMROCK was the sister project to Project MINARET, an espionage exercise started in August 1945. Project MINARET involved the accumulation of all telegraphic data that entered or exited the United States. The Armed Forces Security Agency ...
in which the major telecommunications companies shared their traffic with the NSA (while officially confirming the existence of this
signals intelligence agency to the public for the first time).
Background
By the early years of the 1970s, a series of troubling revelations had appeared in the press concerning intelligence activities. First came the revelations by Army intelligence officer
Christopher Pyle
Christopher H. Pyle (born 1939) is a journalist and Professor Emeritus of Politics at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. He testified to Congress about the use of military intelligence against civilians, worked for the Senate J ...
in January 1970 of the
US Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
's spying on the civilian population and Senator
Sam Ervin
Samuel James Ervin Jr. (September 27, 1896April 23, 1985) was an American politician. A Democrat, he served as a U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 1954 to 1974. A native of Morganton, he liked to call himself a "country lawyer", and often ...
's Senate investigations produced more revelations. Then on December 22, 1974, ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' published a lengthy article by
Seymour Hersh
Seymour Myron "Sy" Hersh (born April 8, 1937) is an American Investigative journalism, investigative journalist and political writer.
Hersh first gained recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam Wa ...
detailing operations engaged in by the
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
over the years that had been dubbed the "
family jewels".
Covert action programs involving
assassination attempts on foreign leaders and covert attempts to subvert foreign governments were reported for the first time. In addition, the article discussed efforts by
intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be des ...
agencies to collect information on the political activities of US citizens.
The creation of the Church Committee was approved on January 27, 1975, by a vote of 82 to 4 in the Senate.
Overview
The Church Committee's final report was published in April 1976 in six books. Also published were seven volumes of Church Committee hearings in the Senate.
Before the release of the final report, the committee also published an interim report titled "Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders", which investigated alleged attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, including
Patrice Lumumba
Patrice Émery Lumumba (; 2 July 1925 – 17 January 1961) was a Congolese politician and independence leader who served as the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then known as the Republic of the Congo) from June u ...
of
Zaire
Zaire (, ), officially the Republic of Zaire (french: République du Zaïre, link=no, ), was a Congolese state from 1971 to 1997 in Central Africa that was previously and is now again known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Zaire was, ...
,
Rafael Trujillo of the
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...
,
Ngo Dinh Diem
Ngô Đình Diệm ( or ; ; 3 January 1901 – 2 November 1963) was a South Vietnamese politician. He was the final prime minister of the State of Vietnam (1954–1955), and then served as the first president of South Vietnam (Republic o ...
of
South Vietnam, Gen.
René Schneider of
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
and
Fidel Castro of
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
. President
Gerald Ford urged the Senate to withhold the report from the public, but failed, and under recommendations and pressure by the committee, Ford issued
Executive Order 11905 (ultimately replaced in 1981 by President
Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
's
Executive Order 12333
Executive Order 12333, signed on December 4, 1981 by U.S. President Ronald Reagan, was an Executive Order intended to extend powers and responsibilities of U.S. intelligence agencies and direct the leaders of U.S. federal agencies to co-operat ...
) to ban US sanctioned assassinations of foreign leaders.
In addition, the committee produced seven case studies on covert operations, but only the one on
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
was released, titled "Covert Action in Chile: 1963–1973". The rest were kept secret at CIA's request.
According to a declassified
National Security Agency
The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collect ...
history, the Church Committee also helped to uncover the NSA's Watch List. The information for the list was compiled into the so-called "Rhyming Dictionary" of biographical information, which at its peak held millions of names—thousands of which were US citizens. Some prominent members of this list were
Joanne Woodward
Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward (born February 27, 1930) is an American actress. A star since the Golden Age of Hollywood, Woodward made her career breakthrough in the 1950s and earned esteem and respect playing complex women with a charact ...
,
Thomas Watson,
Walter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale (January 5, 1928 – April 19, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 42nd vice president of the United States from 1977 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. A U.S. senator from Minnesota ...
,
Art Buchwald
Arthur Buchwald (October 20, 1925 – January 17, 2007) was an American humorist best known for his column in ''The Washington Post''. At the height of his popularity, it was published nationwide as a syndicated column in more than 500 newspaper ...
,
Arthur F. Burns
Arthur Frank Burns (April 27, 1904 – June 26, 1987) was an American economist and diplomat who served as the 10th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1970 to 1978. He previously chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under President Dwight ...
,
Gregory Peck,
Otis G. Pike
Otis Grey Pike (August 31, 1921 – January 20, 2014) was an American lawyer and politician who served nine terms as a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from New York from 1961 to 1979.
Early life
Pike was born in ...
,
Tom Wicker
Thomas Grey Wicker (June 18, 1926 – November 25, 2011) was an American journalist. He was a political reporter and columnist for ''The New York Times''.
Background and education
Wicker was born in Hamlet, North Carolina. He was a graduate ...
,
Whitney Young
Whitney Moore Young Jr. (July 31, 1921 – March 11, 1971) was an American civil rights leader. Trained as a social worker, he spent most of his career working to end employment discrimination in the United States and turning the National Urban ...
,
Howard Baker,
Frank Church,
David Dellinger
David T. Dellinger (August 22, 1915 – May 25, 2004) was an American pacifist and an activist for nonviolent social change. He achieved peak prominence as one of the Chicago Seven, who were put on trial in 1969.
Early life and schooling
Delli ...
,
Ralph Abernathy
Ralph David Abernathy Sr. (March 11, 1926 – April 17, 1990) was an American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was ordained in the Baptist tradition in 1948. As a leader of the civil rights movement, he was a close friend and ...
, and others.
But among the most shocking revelations of the committee was the discovery of
Operation SHAMROCK, in which the major telecommunications companies shared their traffic with the NSA from 1945 to the early 1970s. The information gathered in this operation fed directly into the Watch List. In 1975, the committee decided to unilaterally declassify the particulars of this operation, against the objections of
President Ford's administration.
Together, the Church Committee's reports have been said to constitute the most extensive review of
intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be des ...
activities ever made available to the public. Much of the contents were classified, but over 50,000 pages were declassified under the
.
Committee members
File:FrankChurch.jpg, alt=Frank Church, Frank Church
File:John Tower.jpg, alt=John Tower, John Tower
John Goodwin Tower (September 29, 1925 – April 5, 1991) was an American politician, serving as a Republican United States Senator from Texas from 1961 to 1985. He was the first Republican Senator elected from Texas since Reconstruction. Tower ...
File:Philip Hart (D-MI).jpg, alt=Philip Hart, Philip Hart
Philip Aloysius Hart (December 10, 1912December 26, 1976) was an American lawyer and politician. A Democrat, he served as a United States Senator from Michigan from 1959 until his death from cancer in Washington, D.C. in 1976. He was known as ...
File:Howard Baker photo.jpg, alt=Howard Baker, Howard Baker
File:Mn 1984 mondale.jpg, alt=Walter Mondale, Walter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale (January 5, 1928 – April 19, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 42nd vice president of the United States from 1977 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. A U.S. senator from Minnesota ...
File:Unsuccessful 1964.jpg, alt=Barry Goldwater, Barry Goldwater
File:WHuddleston.jpg, alt=Walter Huddleston, Walter Huddleston
Walter Darlington "Dee" Huddleston (April 15, 1926 – October 16, 2018) was an American politician. He was a Democrat from Kentucky who represented the state in the United States Senate from 1973 until 1985. Huddleston lost his 1984 Senate re- ...
File:charlesmathiasjr.jpg, alt=Charles Mathias, Charles Mathias
Charles McCurdy Mathias Jr. (July 24, 1922 – January 25, 2010) was an American politician and attorney. A Republican, he served as a member of the United States Senate, representing Maryland from 1969 to 1987. He was also a member of ...
File:Sen_Robert_B_Morgan.jpg, alt=Robert Burren Morgan, Robert Morgan
File:RichardSchweiker.jpg, alt=Richard Schweiker, Richard Schweiker
Richard Schultz Schweiker (June 1, 1926 – July 31, 2015) was an American businessman and politician. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 14th U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Ronald Reagan from 198 ...
File:Gary hart.jpg, alt=Gary Hart, Gary Hart
Opening mail
The Church Committee learned that, beginning in the 1950s, the CIA and
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
had intercepted, opened and photographed more than 215,000 pieces of mail by the time the program (called "
HTLINGUAL") was shut down in 1973. This program was all done under the "
mail cover
Mail cover is a law enforcement investigative technique in which the United States Postal Service, acting at the request of a law enforcement agency, records information from the outside of letters and parcels before they are delivered and then se ...
s" program (a mail cover is a process by which the government records—without any requirement for a warrant or for notification—all information on the outside of an envelope or package, including the name of the sender and the recipient). The Church report found that the CIA was careful about keeping the
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U ...
from learning that government agents were opening mail. CIA agents moved mail to a private room to open the mail or in some cases opened envelopes at night after stuffing them in briefcases or in coat pockets to deceive postal officials.
The Ford administration and the Church Committee
On May 9, 1975, the Church Committee decided to call acting CIA director
William Colby
William Egan Colby (January 4, 1920 – May 6, 1996) was an American intelligence officer who served as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from September 1973 to January 1976.
During World War II Colby served with the Office of Strateg ...
. That same day Ford's top advisers (
Henry Kissinger
Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
,
Donald Rumsfeld,
Philip W. Buchen, and
John Marsh John Marsh may refer to:
Politicians
* John Marsh (MP fl. 1394–1397), MP for Bath
* John Marsh (MP fl. 1414–1421), MP for Bath
*John Allmond Marsh (1894–1952), Canadian Member of Parliament
* John Otho Marsh Jr. (1926–2019), American c ...
) drafted a recommendation that Colby be authorized to brief only rather than testify, and that he would be told to discuss only the general subject, with details of specific covert actions to be avoided except for realistic hypotheticals. But the Church Committee had full authority to call a hearing and require Colby's testimony. Ford and his top advisers met with Colby to prepare him for the hearing.
[ p. 313] Colby testified, "These last two months have placed American intelligence in danger. The almost hysterical excitement surrounding any news story mentioning CIA or referring even to a perfectly legitimate activity of CIA has raised a question whether secret intelligence operations can be conducted by the United States."
Results of the investigation
On August 17, 1975 Senator Frank Church appeared on NBC's ''
Meet the Press
''Meet the Press'' is a weekly American television news/interview program broadcast on NBC. It is the longest-running program on American television, though the current format bears little resemblance to the debut episode on November 6, 1947. ' ...
'', and discussed the NSA, without mentioning it by name:
Aftermath
As a result of the political pressure created by the revelations of the Church Committee and the
Pike Committee The Pike Committee is the common name for the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence during the period when it was chaired by Democratic Representative Otis G. Pike of New York. Under Pike's chairmanship, the committee inv ...
investigations, President
Gerald Ford issued Executive Order 11905.
[Andrew, Christopher (February 1995), "For the President's Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush," (1 ed., HarperCollins), p. 434] This executive order banned political assassinations: "No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination." Senator Church criticized this move on the ground that any future president could easily set aside or change this executive order by a further executive order. Further, President
Jimmy Carter
James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1 ...
issued Executive Order 12036, which in some ways expanded Executive Order 11905.
In 1977, the reporter
Carl Bernstein
Carl Milton Bernstein ( ; born February 14, 1944) is an American investigative journalist and author. While a young reporter for ''The Washington Post'' in 1972, Bernstein was teamed up with Bob Woodward, and the two did much of the original n ...
wrote an article in the ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...
'' magazine, stating that the relationship between the CIA and the media was far more extensive than what the Church Committee revealed. Bernstein said that the committee had covered it up, because it would have shown "embarrassing relationships in the 1950s and 1960s with some of the most powerful organizations and individuals in American journalism."
R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.
Robert Emmett Tyrrell Jr. (born December 14, 1943) is an American conservative magazine editor, book author and columnist. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of ''The American Spectator'' and writes with the byline "R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr."
Bac ...
, editor of the conservative magazine ''
The American Spectator
''The American Spectator'' is a conservative American magazine covering news and politics, edited by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. and published by the non-profit American Spectator Foundation. It was founded in 1967 by Tyrrell, who remains its editor- ...
'', wrote that the committee "betrayed CIA agents and operations." The committee had not received names, so had none to release, as confirmed by later CIA director
George H. W. Bush. However, Senator Jim McClure used the allegation in the 1980 election, when Church was defeated.
The Committee's work has more recently been criticized after the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...
, for leading to legislation reducing the ability of the CIA to gather
human intelligence
Human intelligence is the intellectual capability of humans, which is marked by complex cognitive feats and high levels of motivation and self-awareness. High intelligence is associated with better outcomes in life.
Through intelligence, humans ...
.
In response to such criticism, the chief counsel of the committee,
Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr., retorted with a book co-authored by
Aziz Z. Huq, denouncing the Bush administration's use of 9/11 to make "monarchist claims" that are "unprecedented on this side of the North Atlantic".
In September 2006, the
University of Kentucky
The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a public land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, the university is one of the state ...
hosted a forum called "Who's Watching the Spies? Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans", bringing together two Democratic committee members, former
Vice President of the United States
The vice president of the United States (VPOTUS) is the second-highest officer in the executive branch of the U.S. federal government, after the president of the United States, and ranks first in the presidential line of succession. The vice ...
Walter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale (January 5, 1928 – April 19, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 42nd vice president of the United States from 1977 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. A U.S. senator from Minnesota ...
and former
US Senator
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and powe ...
Walter "Dee" Huddleston of Kentucky, and Schwarz to discuss the committee's work, its historical impact, and how it pertains to today's society.
See also
*
COINTELPRO
COINTELPRO (syllabic abbreviation derived from Counterintelligence, Counter Intelligence Program; 1956–1971) was a series of Covert operation, covert and illegal projects actively conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation ( ...
*
FBI–King suicide letter
The FBI–King suicide letter or blackmail package was an anonymous 1964 letter and package by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) meant to blackmail Martin Luther King Jr. The suicide letter was part of the FBI's COINTELPRO operation agai ...
*
Hope Commission (established to investigate Australia's intelligence agencies)
*
Hughes–Ryan Amendment
The Hughes–Ryan Amendment was an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, passed as section 32 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974. The amendment was named for its co-authors, Senator Harold E. Hughes (D-Iowa) and Representative L ...
*
Human rights violations by the CIA
This article deals with the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the federal government of the United States that are violations of human rights.
Training and support
The CIA has been involved in the support and training of ...
*
Operation Gladio (included in the classified part of the report)
*
Operation Mockingbird
Operation Mockingbird is an alleged large-scale program of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that began in the early years of the Cold War and attempted to manipulate domestic American news media organizations for propaganda ...
*
Pike Committee The Pike Committee is the common name for the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence during the period when it was chaired by Democratic Representative Otis G. Pike of New York. Under Pike's chairmanship, the committee inv ...
*
Presidential Emergency Action Documents
*
Project MKUltra
Project MKUltra (or MK-Ultra) was an illegal human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), intended to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used in interrogations to weak ...
*
Project Mockingbird
Project Mockingbird was a wiretapping operation initiated by United States President John F. Kennedy to identify the sources of government leaks by eavesdropping on the communications of journalists.
History
In October 2001, the Miller Center o ...
*
Project SHAMROCK
Project SHAMROCK was the sister project to Project MINARET, an espionage exercise started in August 1945. Project MINARET involved the accumulation of all telegraphic data that entered or exited the United States. The Armed Forces Security Agency ...
*
Rockefeller Commission #REDIRECT United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States #REDIRECT United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States
{{R from move ...
{{R from move ...
* ''