Transcripts For CSPAN3 James 20240703

National press club the place where news happens im Eileen O Reilly the 2023 president of the National Press club and managing editor of standards and training and axios thank you for joining us both here at the National Press club and on cspan for our headliner book event. I wanted to take a quick moment to thank our wonderful staff and volunteers here at the National Press club for helping put this event together, including our headliners, team cochairs dan on line one, la jay and laurie russo and cecily martin, who is the clubs membership events and program coordinator. We have a very exciting tonight with our esteemed Panel Focused on a book just out called last honest man. The cia, the fbi, the mafia and the kennedys and senators fight to save democracy. So lets get started. Quote, if dictator ever took charge in this country, technological capacity that the Intelligence Community has given that government could enable it to impose total and there would be no way to fight back. That may sound like a statement from today, but it dates to 1975 from then senator. Frank church, a democrat from idaho. Church served in u. S. Senate from 1957 to 1980 and assembled a committee in 1975 to investigate abuses. The cia, the National Security, the fbi and the irs. Tonight, we are looking forward an exciting conversation with james risen, author of the last honest man and former senator gary hart, who served on the Church Committee. We also have with us former Church Committee staff members, peter fenn loch johnson, Frederick Baron and rick under firth. Im happy to say. We also have coauthor and National Club member tom risen. They were joining us and answering questions. These congressional staffers recently found themselves at the center news when they wrote an open letter to. Representative jim jordan, a republican from ohio. Jordan chairs the newly formed select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government. And these former Church Committee staffers urged jordan to change course, pursue a bipartisan inquiry which they felt had made the church successful and effective. Senator hart, who was the last surviving member of the Church Committee, also wrote an op ed in the New York Times calling jordans subcommittee a mockery. We are privileged to have both james risen and senator hart here to discuss some of the lessons from the Church Committee and how they are relevant today. Ryzens currently the intercept Senior National security correspondent. Prior to that was a reporter for the New York Times. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 2006 for stories about the National Security agencys domestic program. He was also part of a team that won a 2002 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting for coverage of the september attacks and terrorism. Senator hart represented colorado in the senate from 1975 to 1987. A graduate yale law school. He returned to private practice after leaving the senate. He earned a doctor of philosophy from oxford in 2001. Hart also stayed active in government as chair of the u. S. State Departments International advisory council, chair of the u. S. Defense Departments Advisory Council and chair of the american security. Gentlemen, welcome to the National Press club. So i figured id start with senator and james risen for a couple questions and then broadening the topic out to the rest of the panel. But please feel free to pop in if you have any comments or suggest or, you know, quotes you want to give with a different question. And i would try to ask as many questions from the audience as possible. So just write them down a card and hand up to me. All right. So, jim, you spent decades doing investigate reporting and National Security issues, have written several of their books on the kgb. The cia and other topics. What prompted you to write about frank church specifically, and why now . Sure. Well, thanks again for having us. The reason i wrote tom and i wrote this book, the idea originally to me because i covered the cia, the New York Times for many years, especially. 911. And after 11, if you remember the Bush Administration started complaining very loudly and publicly, the 911 attacks had been made possible by the frank church and the Church Committee, which had existed 20 years before cheney, in particular, Vice President , constant. They complained that the problems in the Intelligence Community that had led to the intelligence failure of 911 had been caused by frank church by that time had been out of the senate for 20 years and dead for than 15. And so it was a weird, weird excuse, lets put it that way that they constantly made. And so i began to think at the time that i should learn more about the Church Committee. And as time went on and as republicans and the Bush Administration continued to make that refrain, saying that 911 was caused by frank church, i realized i should learn more about it. And then over the following years, when the iraq war went badly and bush and cheney lost popularity, a lot of americans began. Listen to what cheney had been saying, the Church Committee, and realized that that they had turned against cheney. Maybe they should have another Church Committee that. And so the idea of a new Church Committee became, something that people started talking about to investigate, the bush and cheney abuses of intelligence. And so that led me to begin to think about eventually a book about what the truth about the Church Committee. And then as i was writing about it and about publish the book, the the new Republican Party in the house started talking the need for and for a new Church Committee. And so its something i realized that has become part of the american political lexicon and the Church Committee is now a synonym for, a truth and reconciliation committee. And every time there is an a big scandal or a call for investigations everyone in washington now says we need a new Church Committee. And so i thought we needed a new history of what really happened with the Church Committee. Thats how some. Did you find any surprises . You were digging into this. Oh, yeah, lots of surprises. I mean, it was the thing that amazed the most is how much these guys investigated in one year, a span of just one year. You got remember going back into that time period and its its to watch so fascinating to me was getting back into the mindset of the 1970s to realize there were had never been any congressional of the intelligence prior to the Church Committee the cia had gone for 30 years with no supervision whatsoever and there were no rules in place no laws no rules really governed the cia or fbi, for that matter, or the nsa. And there was no public debate or public discussion of what the Intelligence Community do. And so everything the Church Committee did was brand new. And that is if you step back and you think you a committee and then you tell them you have to investigate 30 years of history, an agency, its pretty awesome. And i think they did a really Pretty Amazing job in one year. I agree. The book really details the work that you did put into it. Its amazing. And your book, as you just mentioned, the cia was around three decades old when they the committee was formed. How do you think it was able to amass so much power, operate without oversight for long . Well, thats a great question. It was something that maybe senator could talk about also. But i think there was a sense in the postworld world postwar era that americans didnt want to ask too many questions, especially after World War Two. And then the era hit in the early fifties, and there was a witch hunt for communists and for anyone was a dissident. And it was a i think in the fifties there was a sense that americans were taught to trust the government. And i think that all began to break down vietnam and the civil rights and then watergate. And i think watergate really opened the floodgates to questioning of the Intelligence Community and so that really think in a lot of ways, the Church Committee was a it seen at the time as kind of a sequel to whats with the watergate investigation, even though it ended up in a very different place. But it was it was a kind of a that was the beginning of a progressive and Reform Movement in the 1970s. And what do you think made senator church begin to question the inner workings of the American Government . Because you really did go through a transformation, didnt he . It was fascinating to learn about his background. Frank church was from idaho. He grew up in boise and in the 1920s and thirties he was know. And then when he got to the senate, when he was only 32, in 1956, he was really a very traditional liberal cold warrior. A lot like john kennedy, who he really looked up to. They were both in the senate at the same time, and he was typical 1950s democrat who believed in the the cold war fight against communism. But vietnam really radicalized him and he became one of the first opponents of the of the war in the senate. And it was largely because of his service in china in world two where he had seen how corrupt the regime ishan kaishek was that he saw in vietnam something very similar and he realized very quickly how corrupt the south vietnamese government was and that radical he eventually became radicalized by. The u. S. Involvement in the war and he he began see that United States was on the path of becoming militaristic empire. And he thought that the Intelligence Community was part of that. Senator hurt you knew senator church personally. Oh, sorry. Senator, you knew senator church personally. What was he like and what is your fondness memory of senator church. Well. We became very good friends out of that experience and a lot of democratic caucuses over the years. And when i became a National Candidate in the eighties he and nothing what i went out of the way to encourage me and me in their own way. And he was ailing at that. But if i may, id like to answer a question you have and ask him the first of many phone conversations that james risen i had. He called and said im going to write a book about the Church Committee. Are you willing to talk to me . And i said, of course, long overdue. Its almost 50 years now. And i said, why are you writing the book . He stunned me by saying, i think the Church Committee was the most important Congressional Committee in the history of the republic. Let me repeat. The author said, i think the Church Committee was the most important Congressional Committee in the history of this nation and simply said, based on and he said, because the Church Committee bill the bridge from 30 years of cold war and involvement the Intelligence Community in the cold war to the postcold war and certainly this cia, the fbi and others to to deal with a world beyond the socalled well, not socalled, but to communist threat that had been the central driving principle of almost all National Security in this country for three decades. So thats why this book is important, among other things and as a caution, im giving that you have us as a caution to anybody here whos going to review this book. Let me point out one thing that i think other early reviewers have missed and that is, i know at least one review where they said frank church the committee and then made himself chairman of it or like that. That is not what happened. You want to know how this happened . Turn to. Pages 162 to 167 in the ryzen book and you will find the author and the hero is my hero, mike mansfield. He had been trying for almost 25 years to bring oversight and accountability to this burgeoning intelligence network. And so the the rapper round of the committee about my friend, senator church friend, many of us here. Was the. We were all the product beginning in early 75 of senator mansfields efforts for almost a quarter of a century. Is that correct . Yeah. So its called the Church Committee because frank was chairman. There you are. But he didnt create the committee right. We a brief biography about mansfield in the book, too. Hes a really amazing guy. Yes. Yeah, thats true. Did you have any more thoughts about mansfield . Oh, man. Read the book is history. There have been entire books written about mansfield. Hes an amazing guy. So senator church grew into a left leaning progressive by the standards of that day. How does someone so to the left create a functioning Bipartisan Committee . You want me to answer . Sure. Yeah. Think, as senator hart just said, he didnt create it on his own. Right. And. Was a key. Was the Key Driving Force behind the the committee. And, in fact, is i talk about in the book, mansfield that first mansfield, who was the Senate Majority leader in 1975. And just step back one step. You got to remember that in the midterm elections of 1974, the democrats had a landslide victory. And so in 1975, the democrats had 60 seats in the senate and i think almost 284, 295 in the house. It was an overwhelming majorities. And so mansfield had the to much create this committee as whatever he wanted it but he decided to make it as bipartisan as and only gave the democrats one seat majority on the committee. And he picked a wide range of senators from, both parties. He wanted a balance because he thought this was so important that he didnt want it to be viewed as highly partizan and so he picked he originally wanted senator phil hart of michigan, to be the. Who and hart was known as the conscience of the senate. He was a liberal, but he was Close Friends with a lot of conservatives in the senate. But hart had just found out that he had cancer. And he he told privately told mansfield that he couldnt it because he had cancer. And but he recommended church because he knew church wanted it and he thought church be good at it and mansfield old church lobbied mansfield to some degree. They i can go. You want me to explain a little bit more about that . Because it was interesting. At the same time, the church wanted this job was also thinking about running for president and he had to kind of promise to mansfield that he wouldnt run president while he was Running Committee and. Mansfield and many others thought that meant that church would not run for president in 1976. But church interpreted what he had promised to mean that he would only not run until the committees work was done, which he thought mean he could still run in 76. As soon as committee finished its work. And that led that misinterpretation by both sides of what each other thought had been promised led to a lot of problems. Church over the throughout Church Committee and to the press criticism him. But i think one of the as i said they they tried it mansfield tried to balance all of the the membership of the committee. And i think senator hart told me a story about you got picked right after you were just been elected to the senate for the very first time. So then the first 30 days. Welcome you talk a little bit or member you told me about how mansfield came to you and. Well i hope a lot of people here knew mike mansfield. He was my hero and mentor and he was to an awful lot of other younger members of congress and senators. He he was also known as. Being sparse with words. So he walked up to me on the floor of the senate. I said, mr. Leader, he said, gary. Just form this committee with frank church is going to be chairman, want you on it, investigate cia, do a good job. He turned around and walked away. Id been there weeks. Let me answer another question. You have, which is you need a better question in a month or. Two. And jim, correct me if im wrong, i found employers that throughout this book, another reason why its so important and i think every person this room by now knows were in a tight Senate Struggle between democracy and authority. Arianism in this country and authoritarianism is real and serious threat implicit in it. And if it it is explicit, give me a page page in this book is a is a use of the Church Committee to demonstrate democratic government can work democrat government can work. You know i worked for us one simple reason six democrats and five republicans put the National Interest ahead of their interest that is the simple truth. And thats why it worked. And why, again its implicit in the book is. The authors comment on john tower being selected as the watchdog over the liberals and frank church and how almost if not overnight very quickly tower came to trust frank Church Church and work with him. No, i wrote a i wrote a not an obituary but a comment on franks passing. John towers passing. He didnt speak to me for the first term in the senate, and i was there not once, never would pass in the ways, but theres a story behind this later where i learned that tower was a real human being. I wrote wrote this in the washington and his former wife wrote me and thanked me, had to do with dinner in geneva with he was there with an arms control and one or two of his daughters came to visit him. And we were i was having a solo dinner. The restaurateur across from the city hall. And they went. One of the daughters came down and invited me to join them. And i said, no, you too. Dont get to see your father very much. You spend the time with him. That was his daughter. That died with john tower, the plane crash. But back to the theme this is a dutchmans situation of how democrats and republicans can Work Together in the National Interest. Yes. Yeah, i think that is that is implicit in the book. I, i tried i tried to. One of the things that in the narrative i tried to keep it in the time period in which it was and let the reader draw his own conclusions about the Current Events to much as possible. And i think so it worked. You picked up. One other sign of the wisdom and the savvy of mike mansfield, right constructing a committee in a bipartisan manner. Giving the republicans a higher proportion of members than than they held proportionately in the senate at moment. Was that when the vote occurred to constitute the committee, the vote was 82 to 4 in the senate and. That vote then had a had reverb effect for the entire life of the committee. It gave the committee a certain gravitas right out of the gate, you know, just so that people know what senator hart was mentioning, john was the ranking republican on the Church Committee, and he had been he although he he was widely disliked in the senate at the time. And the Senate Minority leader, hugh scott, had put him on there specifically because he was widely disliked and he was there to his job was to spy on frank church. In fact, he admitted that later a memoir that he wrote, but that eventually but as the senator just said, very quickly, got to realize that he agreed with a lot the Things Church was doing and the two of them actually formed a team together. And went to the white house, and jointly demanded that president ford turn, over classified documents to the Church Committee. And thats something that you would just never today know. He also the title of vice chairman which was not a normal thing in the senate you were Ranking Member but that him a certain stature which he enjoyed because he was about five foot six and but anyway which is how. You know thats but it wasnt just mans field and church that kind of led to the committee right. There was a growing movement and understanding amongst the american public. So when he wrote a comment or question if sy had not broken the family jewels in the late 1974 with the church have been formed, do you think it sounds like somebody has been reading book . Yes. That was what triggered the committee in 1974. Seymour, who is legendary Investigative Reporter for New York Times, broke a huge story in the New York Times about the cias domestic spying operations, especially against antiwar dissidents, civil rights leaders. And that triggered creation of the church. It led to calls for congressional investigations of the Intelligence Community and ultimately it was what mansfield used as kind of predicate to create committee that he had been wanting to create many years. And in the there was a house version of the same thing that eventually became known as the Pike Committee and the white house. The jerry had just become president a few months earlier, and they tried to slow down the congressional investigation by creating their own independent commission that was known as the Rockefeller Commission. But it very quickly became seen as something a whitewash. And so it didnt really slow down the efforts to have congressional investigations. And so sy is i think, was the most important story. Hersh ever wrote. Even more so than his my lai. And so i think it was its one of the few cases i know as a reporter. Its one of the few cases i know where writing a story made a difference. So i want to briefly note you mentioned the Rockefeller Commission where some of jerry ford tried to get preempts by having Vice President rockefeller, a committee to investigate frank Church Actually spoke here, the National Press club in february 1975, when the Rockefeller Commission was happening. And he said the executive branch cannot, with any credibility, investigate itself. And that is really legacy of the committee and frank Church General is reasserting the checks balances between congress and government. So i really salute you on that and very true. Um, senator church also said the United States must not adopt the tactics of enemy means or as important as and what do you think he meant by that . And how does that relevant today. Could you repeat that . Oh, sure. Senator church said the United States must not adopt the tactics of the enemy means are as important as the as the ends. I can talk about that. I think the church became, as i mentioned earlier, it became radicalize by vietnam. He began writing and speaking the late sixties in the early 70 is about how United States was on its way to becoming no different from the soviet union and. He wrote some if you read the text of his speeches from the late sixties and early seventies, they read like things that are would be considered wildly radical today. I mean, things that Bernie Sanders dare to say, things like, you know that he said that the vietnam war, the american role, vietnam was no different at all from soviet invasion of czechoslovakia and that the United States was trying to create an empire just like the soviet union, and that we were no better than moscow. And its amazing to me that he didnt get more blowback for some of the things he said at the time, especially in idaho. But he would repeat those same things in, idaho and, it didnt. And he still got reelected. So but i thought you could talk a little bit about kind of the thinking among the democrats at that time. What what was the what did you hope to accomplish with the committee . Well, you probably asking the wrong person, because i ironically have having worked for George Mcgovern and things like that, i always supported the agency i always believed in its original charter of collection and analysis of information. How how does great power exist in . The post World War Two World Without that capability and there of theres a branch of Democratic Party that just kind of majored in trying to run down the agency along with. Yeah, the fbi and others. Mr. Hoover had given a lot of ammunition and unhappiness unhappiness, but i have a theory that i think the only person around and has this theory, the Church Committee made the Central Intelligence agency stronger. And the reason for that is what we discovered and sy hersh, others have discovered is that almost, well, not all. Heres another study that could be done, how many of the covert operations that went bad started with overthrew a Foreign Government up to and including assassination of foreign leaders happened because of pressure from the house of one party or another. The image that liberals this country have had is the agency is at least back in the day, is out of control, making up things do and the more bizarre, the better. Thats not the way i read the agency back then. I. I find a lot culpability in various and president s and. Those around the president s. I dont know the spies if you will, what they want done. And dont tell us how youre going to do it. And so we by bringing accountability and oversight into the system, we, the cia because the director of the cia could come before the Oversight Committee and say ladies, gentlemen, ive we have received a finding one of our reforms that instructs us to do x, y and z. Are you okay with that . Well thats thats called oversight and accountability. And further i find it ironic because jim mentioned earlier about how very conservative in the Church Committee. Do went after not only but the whole committee. You know i was colorado back in the day wasnt a skiers paradise was a pretty conservative state and i was 37 years old. So i was game for the far right. But now. They want to they want to emulate the Church Committee. Same same as the children of those people now want to create their own church, which they were deriding 50 years ago, very ironic. So those of us who have covered Congress Know that of the real work of government happens, not in the hearing chamber, but behind the scenes. Tell us if the four of you maybe can tell us a little bit about how republican and democrat perceive the committee at the time its inception. How did that evolve as your research deepened and whistleblowers came forward. Is the expert . There is no question at all that the evolved and the staff. I remember one incident when i had just joined the committee and they said, well find out what kind of oversight is in the Armed Services where john stennis is the chairman and. So i said to them, well can i see these documents . So i get a very file and about the briefings that came from the cia in this case to the committee. One page with nothing on it because basically stennis and most of the committees said as senator hart said we really dont want to know you know you can talk to us in general terms but we really dont want to know. So that made it an impasse for us initially to get kind of information we needed. But the rest of the folks can speak also to that it was pulling teeth all the way along and it was it you know, we were amazed, think that we were able to uncover as much 15 months as we did. Now, not all of us like frederick slept on floor of the 308 every night to do its work and some us went home, but we did both us work seven days a week. Honestly, and the committee did to. The staff is meeting all the time and so we were to to to pull together heck of a lot of information rather. You guys. Well, someone told me to come down here and speak for 5 minutes, so if i may, thats what ill do. And i know i wont be any longer. But let me begin by saying good evening to everyone. This is a marvelous to have so many Church Committee colleagues all in the same together. I feel like all those College Reunions i miss being made up for tonight, so its good to see of you. Id like to congratulate jim on his excellent book, he and have really been i told earlier they must have gone back on a time machine because they really captured the essence of what we. Now, i also know what a pleasure it is to be with senator hart again. You know, there are often times our Committee Proceedings where there was some squabbling going on and his influence always sort of straightened down and moved us in the right direction again. And also, we had a lot of tangled ethical discussions at times, and gary hart always had him a moral compass was greatly appreciated. I think. In fact, we were blessed as a committee to have many talented senators. That panel so much legal, so much government experience and an abiding sense of among people, which is a lost art. We proceeded with a determination to follow the facts, no matter where they led. We worked, in a bipartisan manner. I can define that word if you dont know what that means. But you and we kept foremost mind what john adams liked to emphasize, that we were nation of laws. All of us remember as how effective bill miller and fritz were for its thoughts were in guiding, you know, after a bumpy beginning up between the two we smooth things out and they really worked well together i think to to bring us a blend of concern about the historical and policy questions we needed to know coupled with. And this is where fritz came in attention to the really legal violations perpetrated by these secret agencies. We needed to cover areas in our work and thanks to them we did. And our Task Force Leaders or four of them played enormously Important Role in guiding us. There leadership skills were just selfevident and david aaron over here was the Task Force Leader of the White House Task force. And and rick and i will remember well how adroitly he led us. Last but not least, staff has been mentioned already. Worked like mad. I mean, we didnt all stay overnight every night like frederick did. We often worked around the clock on weekends as well. It was an impressive demence duration of dedication and of intent. Now what about the practical results, this investigation, the period. 1787 to 1976 covers a span of 189 years. During that time, our government benefited from an system of checks and balances. Ambition, calendaring as as madison prescribe. With one exception, an intelligence. We operated under a doctrine intelligence. Exceptional design. The notion was that a secret agencies were in work that was just too sensitive be dealt with. The standard practices or so the argument went the abuse of power that resulted was, i suppose, predictable operation chaos. Cohen tell pro shamrock minaret. Hq lingual orwellian nightmares that severely eroded our claimed to be a free and open society. In 1975, when the newspapers across this country carried sy findings about cia domestic spying, it was evident that the time had come for us to bring the intelligence agencies into the American Government. The Church Committee led that dramatic change. Henceforth, there would be senate and house intelligence, along with new laws to back up our expectations, a new tone was set in washington, d. C. , bill colby wrote soon after an investigation, and im quoting him the Church Committee made clear that the rule law applies to all parts of the American Government in cluding intelligence. And then he added, and this is very soon, well, this will strengthen american intelligence. The single naysayer among these intelligence chiefs ive known over the years was william casey, an architect of the irancontra affair. Once when i sat next him at a dinner out at the agency, what he said to me in his mumbling way, the business of congress is to stay the f out of my business. So happily, his distorted of democracy has not prevail, or at least so far. I agree with you. And perilous times the moment Fritz Schwarz once observed that before the Church Committee, congress no oversight, was and embarrassed meant he recalled the cia general counsel admitting to him that agency, and im quoting, had become a little cocky. What we did around the world in the wake of our investigation. And fritz and frank church often the very first recommendation of our committee reports, and im quoting that there is inherent Constitutional Authority for the president or any Intelligence Agency to violate the law. Most members of our committee and staff understood that intelligence, accountability could play an Important Role in protecting human reducing the risk of foolish policies and enhancing efficiency that is what we were all about. Thank you you. Can i. Can i ask a question. Of course. Yeah. Were having a dialog. So. One of the things that i. That you that i wrote about in the book and that i think is really important was there was a moment pretty early on when it wasnt whether the Church Committee was really to do an aggressive investigation of the cia and the community or not. It was there was a divide within the staff and especially between Fritz Schwarz, who was the chief counsel, and bill miller, who was the staffer over whether miller wanted to do kind of a Lessons Learned type approach. And Fritz Schwarz, who was a new york lawyer, wanted to do a more aggressive investigative approach. So as wondering if some of the staffers, maybe senator hart, could talk a little bit about how that divide played itself out and how it ultimately got resolved an inch for schwartzs favor of a more aggressive. I can address that because i worked so handinglove with Fritz Schwarz all of that time. And and i think youre youre right that fritz was the cutting edge that generated the the facts that made the Church Committee and dramatic and and pinned down the witnesses and obtained and obtained the documents and knew how to do that because he was a master litigator. And he understood that if if the Church Committee to fully take advantage of the historic opportunity it had to a rethinking of where the intelligence agencies had gone and why theyd gone, and what kind of new checks and balances might be necessary. First, you had to dramatize the problem with the facts in this. He advocated senator church, who agreed him that the the allegations of assassination plots against foreign leaders by the cia was the most dramatic issue to put up front. It had been leaked out during the period of sy hirschs reporting and some subsequent stories that came out and and fritz advocated that. We put First Priority on that issue. Do in depth, do it dramatically, end up with public airings which would be unheard of at time on a subject like like classified cia covert operation. And and then he had the wisdom to, uh, to frame it the way you would litigation, meaning first start with the documents. The documents dont lie. There can be debates later about who remembers what, whos willing to fess up to what. But the documents will tell you what was actually happening. So with senator churchs support and critically with john support, who joined the senator church in going to see Nelson Rockefeller, who was referred to earlier the ford was ambivalent about whether to fully cooperate with the Church Committee. On the one hand, rockefeller and gerald ford and others in the white house like cheney did not want to make full disclosures and thought this could be injurious to the agencies. On the other hand, as you out, jim, in the book, ford did not want to be back tarnished in the watergate fashion where nixon refused to turn over certain documents and ultimately tapes and lost in the u. S. Supreme and was embarrassingly forced to do so. So he was supportive of, more cooperation and and at the critical moment, where where signals were being sent. But we werent getting documents then. Senator church was briefed by Fritz Schwarz, joined hands with john for a visit to Nelson Rockefeller and Fritz Schwarz as the chief counsel was there. But again, to send a very important signal to the Ford Administration not only was tower there as a conservative republican vice chair, but kurts mother, the republican counsel, was also there. I was there . But when the door closed for the meeting, i was on the outside it in the anteroom. Okay. What happened as a result, in short, was that. Within about three weeks we got note saying, okay will be five boxes of document, that we will let you look at. They will be in the situation room at the white house in the west wing, subterranean, windowless, famous space. And somebody can come over and see if there are a few things you might need, because in the attitude was you dont to worry because you just tell us what you want to know and then well tell you the answers the way wed like to. So, so fritz wirtz asked me at a very tender age, go over to the white house situation room to look at the five boxes. There was a large guard there standing over me the entire time. This was the situation room where, you know, a Nuclear Nuclear well that say the cuban missile crisis would have been discussed but i was alone in the room with the guards standing over me and idea was just just tell us if you think might be any one or two pieces of paper in here that you would like. I started flipping through the pieces of paper and this turned out to be the turning because what was in front of me, the minutes of the National Council and what was called the special, which was the senior level in the government cabinet, like the chairman of, the joint chiefs and the the secretary of defense and the head of the cia making decisions about covert actions on behalf of the government. So none of this had ever been seen by the legislative branch before. As i flipped through, im reading the minutes, these meetings and a lot it was in code. And at first blush, greek to me, but it became apparent during my rapid, you know, sweating it like use of my 90 minutes to i realize operation mongoose appears to be a secret war against cuba being conducted by the cia. Out of station jm wave, which is an installation of the cia in southern florida when the cias not not under the 1947 National Security act. Theyre not supposed to operate within the United States. So so somethings here and and there were minutes showing discussions of how much the president sitting at the National Security Council Meeting and his brother the attorney general and others felt there was a need to do something about castro, remove change the administrator in cuba. There were also earlier from 1960 in the Eisenhower Administration and where president eisenhower totally vexed about patrice role in the congo which had been a belgian colony and he viewed Patrice Lumumba as a threat to align with the soviet union. So there was language along the lines of we need to get rid of the mumbai. So after reading this, i told the guard, sorry, but im not going to. Im not going to request any specific document i dont want to limit the request. I have to go back and talk with the chief counsel because i knew this was this was the the kind of the holy grail. And i reported to fritz wards that that we had to have everything in the five boxes and it was couldnt have been more obvious that the five boxes would then lead to 500 requests for more documents down every trail to get all of the details, then bring in all of the witnesses. Thats what happened. Be a because Fritz Schwarz knew how to direct all of that and the rest of us did it. B because frank church it and john on on the republican side, the secret sauce was howard baker, richard schweiker, charles mathias. They were moderate republicans who were deeply committed to and john tower didnt long to be committed. Well, to the general notion that that legislative branch needed to have the facts and thats what happened. And it opened really. Thats amazing. I was hoping to hear from rick maybe as you were diving into all these boxes and all knowledge that must have been very eye opening and how did that feel . And what were your thoughts at that time . Well, i will try to limit myself as professor did to the 5 minutes. Let me add a post to what sort of heart h testing testing testing. Testing testing testing. Testing testing testing. Testing testing testing. Testing testing testing. Testing testing testing. Testing testing testing. Testing testing testing. Questn does anyone here know anythingtn about the cia . And there was silence and i ran. I raised my hand and i said, i dont. But like to learn. And he said, got a job. So how we off on the ground floor in this investigation . And it was a steep learning curve. I think it still is a steep learning curve with respect to the cia and slippery, but thats how it all began with myself as sort of harts designee on the committee staff. Youve heard a lot of serious comments being made about importance of the committee and the issues, the fundamental issues facing the country with respect to National Security and private. Rights, civil rights and the rest. But there was also with that committee, some humor and the political cartoonists of day had a field with doing cartoons about the work the Church Committee and brought just three to share with you. You cant see them all, but the first one has senator church. Before the tv and, a guy next to him entitled herman cover art cia agent and senator church is saying good evening, ladies and gentlemen. And to i had a secret. There was another one that weve youve heard about the assassination plots and castro i think there were nine different plots to get castro, including an exploding cigar and the rest. So wrote he did this cartoon in which you see castro here and a cia there with a sort of a and arrow and he is shot an arrow with a suction cup that hits castro right in the forehead. And the agent says, ah, its supposed to suck your brains out. And then i take back to washington and and castro is just and then the little person and oliphant cartoon says the cigar isnt working either. And then this is this is my favorite. There is one you know the committee into an james risen covers all of this in his great book got into the whole question all fact the title of the subtitle the cia the fbi the mafia and the kennedys. I mean this got into areas that we never expected to find in terms of our investigation and this cartoon because Frank Sinatra was also tied to the mob and also tied the mob to the. This one has Frank Sinatra coming into the committee room. A small Frank Sinatra surrounded by thugs, his bodyguards. And you see the the members, the committee ducking under the dais scattering. And the chairman says, the Church Committee calls Frank Sinatra. On the other hand, if mr. Sinatra would rather scattering and the chairman says , the Church Committee calls Frank Sinatra, or, on the other hand, if mr. Sinatra would rather not, so, there was humor amongst all of the serious work being done. Like we just did with this. The bipartisanship shown by the committee and fritz words mentioned this about democracy of the dark, was demonstrated, by the fact, as fritz says republican senators Barry Goldwater dissented quite often but there was no vote that divided the committee on a party basis. Not a single vote was partyline, there was always a bipartisanship. I would like to see those days again. All of the Committee Members signed the assassination report, which it was senator hart, senator church, senator tower, and staff that worked on that report. And, all senators on the committee, Barry Goldwater and howard baker, and fritz mondale, i mean, this was an allstar committee. They all signed this epilogue to the assassination report, and im going to read two paragraphs. They said the committee does not believe that the acts, which it has examined, represent the real american character. They do not reflect the ideals, which had given the people of this country and of the world hope for a better, fuller, fairer life. We regard the assassination plots as aberrations. Despite our distaste for what we have seen, we have great faith in this country and the story is sad, but this country has the strength to hear the story and to learn from it. We must remain a people who could front our mistakes and resolve not to repeat them. If we do not, we will decline. But if we do, our future will be worthy of the best of the past. I think all Committee Members and all staff on the Church Committee subscribe to that, and i think we obviously still do. So, it was a remarkable experience. Thank you, senator hart, for allowing me to raise my hand to join you in this, in this experience of a lifetime. I think most of us appear, and a great many out of this audience consider this to be one of the most important privileges of our lives. And one of the reasons is we came up with recommendations that stuck. We worked most extreme republicans, most extreme democrats that you can have an ideology, they worked together, and we had what these Jordan Committee does not have peered we had both sides interviewing witnesses. We had sharing of information. We had something that was not a sham or a witchhunt, or an outrageous political stunt. To be perfectly honest, was politics involved . Of course it was, but all of us had a mission, and as locke said, we were following the facts. And that is what we ended up doing. I would say that. I dont think there were any extreme democrats in those days. Can i ask, i wanted to ask, you talked about a couple of things that i talk in the book if thats okay. Sure. Related to this, the first one was related to the assassination plots, that it was suggested earlier, mentioned earlier, the first thing that the Church Committee focused on was the cias plots to assassinate foreign leaders, including fidel castro and others, and senator hart was one of three members of the committee who were part of that smaller, wasnt really a subcommittee, it was a small, it was a unit that was investigating that. And you told me a great story about how you had found out that the cia had a hitman and you wanted to meet him. And how you what happened then and i thought that is a great story. Pardon my freelancing. Could you just describe what happened, that story . It is a great story. Well, when we found out that the agency had been involved in the assassination plots, including against fidel castro, almost on a demented pattern, it opened up a not a lot of new doors, and those and the major one was that the cia used mafia figures to try to help in the plots against castro, why . Well, because the mafia had owned and run both havana, and most of cuba for quite a number of decades. So, when bill colby, then director of the cia, opened up the socalled family jewels, that led to an awful lot of our investigations. Here were three named mafia figures, so, the first thing we discovered was that a former cia director, alan dallas, a member of the Warren Commission , had not revealed to chief justice, earl warren, and members of the Warren Commission, those plots and the use of mafia figures. Well, you dont have to be a genius to understand the implications of that. So, we set out, with the help of some people at this table, to try to bring these three mafia figures in. We brought one in, johnny, and ended up bringing in him twice. We had subpoenaed or prepared a subpoena, sam, chicago, and heres what happened. Before we could subpoena jim connor, he was killed in his basement, with six bullet holes in the throat. Or thereabouts. And the murder never solved. After the second appearance of johnny roselli, he disappeared, and was found two or three months later, it is in the book. Floating in a 50 gallon drum, or some such thing. In dumb foundling day and off of the miami coast. He had been killed, rick came with me and two other staff members, from the republican side, we went down, with the approval of frank church, to interview the day county sheriff, and the miami police department. The first thing i did was show us pictures of roselli in the barrel. I still havent gotten over it. It is the worst thing you can imagine. He was killed about anyway you can kill a human being. I wont go into the terrible details. So, somebody wanted jim dead and wanted roselli dead, at a time, when the Church Committee wanted to talk to them about the plots against fidel castro, which the Warren Commission didnt know. Well, maybe i did freelance, whatever that means it led me to be curious and im still curious, because neither murder has been solved. So, i still think about who did it and why. But somebody wanted both of them silenced, and not to talk about the offense against castro or the implications against john kennedy. And you also, i was going to say you also trying to meet q jaylinn. He was in a plot to kill patrice, right . Well, we ran across a guy, professional assassin, location unknown, with the codename q. J. Wynn. That came up in the testimony, i recall. I was headed on the first parliamentary delegation to russia. With a dozen other senators. And i talked to colby. And i said, when we come back, it wasnt just me, it was the whole delegation, transported back to moscow, through overnight in amsterdam. And i dont know, i have no evidence, but i somehow, intuited, that q. J. Wynn was a european, and they might be somewhere nearby, and that he, there was indication that he was also implicated in one or more of the cuban plots. So i simply wanted to try to find him and talk to him and ask him if he had anything to add about all of this. So, bill colby said i will do my best, and we will set off to moscow and spend almost a week there, and did transit back through amsterdam with our spouses, my dear late wife, lee. And i got a message from a man, a young man in moscow, at our last press conference, note, im sure he was with the agency there. The station. And said one of our people will meet, will contact you in amsterdam. So, we flew to amsterdam, went out to dinner, i was contacted at the dinner, came back to the hotel and i was told to go down to the hotel, wait till after 11 00, go down to the hotel bar, and the cia man, from washington, who colby sent over there, jim identified him. Met me, pulled me in a corner and said we contacted tj win, he did, in fact, live nearby. I dont know why i knew that, or thought that. So, he came and we had a drink earlier this evening, and this man said we have a friend who wants would like to talk to you, will you talk to our friend . And this codename guy, said, does it have anything to do with the investigations into the United States . And the man, the agency man told him the truth. Whether he should have or not, i dont know. You can reach your own conclusion. But predictably, q. J. Wynn was out of the bar and on his way home. I never got to see him. Can i just add one thing to that . In senator harts memoir, he hasnt let this go. In his memoir, he says q. J. Wynn, if you are out there, i still want to talk to you. You can contact me through the publisher of the book. So, i mean you you know, his name is he may still be out here, who knows. You never know. He has been. There is some evidence of who he really was now, but it has never been proven. Wow. So fascinating. Do you know, could i add something . Jim, in passing, mentioned a few minutes ago, about getting started, and this was, this was a bigger issue than i think today, we now think about it, because this has never been done before. And there were no ground rules. We were ad hoc, we were a select committee, not a permanent committee, and i dont think that the word subpoena was used in the whole 15 months. We were relying on people to cooperate. And by people, i mean leaders of the Intelligence Community, and though colby had already testified, pretty openly to us, about what he knew, and some pretty deep secrets, so, chairman Church Called a meeting of just the Committee Members, correct me if there was anyone else in the room, but i dont think so. This was in the first 30 days of the beginning, and the question on the table was what, if the agencies refuse to deal with this . What if we ask for documents and they just dont give them . Well, what if we ask them to come testify and they dont come . What do we do . So, we went around the table, and there was kind of confusion and no one quite new how to crack this walnut, and get started. So, i, being junior in the committee, was the last. So i said, mr. Chairman, i have an idea. Why dont you give us ask the cia and the fbi for our own personal files . The room got deathly silent. So, you had 11 senators thinking , it was quiet, quiet, quiet. This bill was broken by Barry Goldwater, said a course of and said i dont want to know what theyve got on me. Put two or three of us did ask for our files, it was kind of interesting. You and Barry Goldwater kind of had rapport right . We developed. He wasnt campaigning for you, he should up in colorado, said some nice things when asked about you. I told too many stories already, but okay. Barry and i served for 12 years from the Armed Services committee, and a year and half on the Church Committee. So we got to know each other pretty well and we were pretty much geographical neighbors. And i found out that, you know, the liberal democrats all, he was mr. Demon of his age. And, but he was hilariously funny. And he was invited by the Republican Party of colorado to come give their Lincoln Day Campaign speech, the theme of which was defeats gary hart. Now, if you look at the roster of the election, i think we lost 10 or 11 democratic senators, including frank church, and george and a host of others. So, i was targeted. The coke brother of that day was the beer guy, cores . Cores. Coors. But barry was beginning to have his terrible problems with arthritis. He was on keynes, ultimately on crutches. So, you should up from phoenix about 5 00 that evening to go to the airport and give a dinner. So, the Republican Party sent a press corps out to the airport to interview, to try to get stories in the sunday papers. Because otherwise, if they just covered the speech, it would be monday morning page 8, below the fold. So, barry was cranky and all of the questions were, are you here to defeat gary hart . Oh, no, im going to talk to the republicans, and we are going to get together blah blah blah. And question after question repeated, he said okay, im just going to say one thing, gary hart is the most honest and moral man i have ever met in politics. Game set and match. Monday we had 250,000 copies of that story. All over colorado. That was it. I just keep coming back to that, because you are a young, liberal democrat. He was the older conservative granddaddy of america. But you, that is a great case example of the bipartisanship of the Church Committee. Absolutely. And barry ended up not being a doctor or conservative, he was a libertarian. And late in life, to the embarrassment of this party, he endorsed marriage, and abortions and all kinds of other stuff , and of course, his former colleagues were all saying barry has gone senile. Well, everyone we talked to on the committee, when you mentioned Barry Goldwater, they all had nice things to say about him. They would say i didnt agree with him, but he was very nice to me. And i have a question for the rest of you. You were talking about, well, you were talking about wanting to investigate the murders of the witnesses and, you have always been curious about that. I think it is really impressive everything you did, because this is predigital 1975. They had to comb through lots and lots and lots of paperwork, the government produces lots of that already. You had to get the documents. Once you get the documents you only had a year. So you spent months getting the documents, so when you finally had them, you had to work fast without the internet. I was born i am not yeah, i cant imagine that. So, did you develop a shorthand to find what you needed in the time that you had . And, if you was there anything you really wanted to dig into more, when people were coming around, saying hey, we have to finish up, we have to do hearings, you get to research anymore, what did you want to dig into more . I would go to the library and got the card catalog. No, the interesting thing about this is that the word digital was not in the lexicon back then. There was no such thing. You had tapes and so much more impressive. It was the old gumshoe thing, right . It was interviewing people, knowing the right questions to ask, staying on them, and you know, hoping to god that they told the truth to you. And sometimes they did and sometimes they didnt. The nsa gave us a list of 1200 americans that were on the watch list that they were surveilling, right . All of the international communications. There were two names, about 10 years ago we discovered this, two names that were not on that list. Howard baker, senator on the committee, and frank church. Had they told us that, then, what you think, senator . I mean, it would have long things sky high. But, you know, we got what we got, and it was, you know, perseverance i guess. Locke wrote a very fine book about the committee. You see some of those cartoons in his book that rick brought. What the faint Frank Sinatra one is my favorite. So, you really describe what the auditorium was like with all of these very cramped cubicles, everyone is on top of each other. You can hear the conversations. It was like a bedlam. That so impressive what you did. Have you ever been in a small kitchen when the teakettle is going off . Thats how that was. I want to take a couple of minutes until gary harts story, and say in a preface, that one of the saddest parts for me was that an assassination plot actually happened. And one of the people i interviewed was william sullivan, number three at the fbi and i said why did you blow the whistle on this . Why did you let it go that way . And he looked at me rather sadly and he said i had three kids in college. I had a mortgage on my house. What was i supposed to do . Which gets me to the gary hart story that is i remember early on, fred church and friends, fabulous people in my view, heroes of to speak out in public about what the committee was doing and it was really wreaking havoc in the community, and you said in a meeting, a closed meeting, if this continues i will resign from this committee. And that was a sobering moment. You had the courage to say that i think. I told it to mike mentioned, i dont remember bringing it up in the committee but i thought, what was at stake here was the credibility of our committee, and the potential for permanent oversight. That was what was at stake, not immediate political agendas. And i love both frank and fritz, and i ended up being a competitor of fritzs later on. They were great senators and great human beings, but they theres just always that urge for the microphone. That was one of the turning points in the early history. And it was a tough call, because you needed to get the public behind you. You needed to get some publicity and some attention. You need to get people in the postwatergate world saying whoa, whoa, whoa, this is a very serious problem, but it was, you know, it was a fine line to walk between keeping your mouth shut. But we had no leaks on that committee. No leaks out of that whole committee in 15 months. Now, i dont think that happens today much does it . What you think . I think there were some leaks. Well, we never admitted to them. Rick, frederick, was there anything you wanted to dig into more . The answer is yes, and one, an area was i was on the assassination investigation from start to finish. Doesnt get enough attention. And senator hart had birddog the International Assassin should surface. There was another one. This is on a trail where we there was something left over to investigate in the end, and major policy issues we confronted. But on the International Assassin story there was also agent wi little rogue in addition to q. J. Wynn, and they were known as people who knew how to get anything done, and there is a cable i discovered, using the technology of microfiche at the cia, where we made a breakthrough, we negotiated for months to gain access to actual cables at ca headquarters, sent to the cia station at the time surrounding the lumumba assassination. It took them forever to get the okay to say you can show up, and i did, and i was in a booth with curtains next to me looking in a monitor, turning microfiche on a spindle, and seeing the cia cable after cable after cable, talking about thousands of cables, looking for you know, the jewels that were there, and secretly scribbling notes on a yellow pad, because i had to have some way to request those documents when i left, because there was no such thing as pressing a button and making a copy. One of those cables talked about what these guys might have a chance to do, when they went to the congo, where Patrice Lumumba was being held under house arrest in the jungle at that point, by the united nations, but there were many people after him, and the cable that was sent back to headquarters from the station chief in the congo that said recommend pouch soonest, high powered rifle with telescopic scope, hunting good here when the light is right. So and that was in addition to the poison toxins, which were developed by a cia scientist, who went down to the congo to deliver the syringe and the toxins, and the cia station chief himself testified, or discussed later in life clumsy had about what he was asked to do. He said who authorized you to tell me to in fact assassinate this guy . And he said the answer he got from the cia doctor was the highest authority, and he says does that mean the president of the United States . And the answer was yes. Now, unclear whether that cia doctor actually knew that at that point i think it was eisenhower, had given the order , but the larger point here from a policy point was frank church, early on, raise the hypothesis that we need to understand the cia was a rogue elephant out operating, doing all of these radical covert things, without proper legal constraints or president ial authorization, and that stirred a furor. Later, at the end process, after looking at all document and listening to all witnesses, the committee essentially concluded that, while we cant find a piece of paper that is signed dwight d. Eisenhower hour or john f. Kennedy or fidel castro, that, in fact, the cia was operating within the realm of authority that was clearly single to them, under the rules of the time, which were plausible deniability for the president , it shall never be put in writing, but i am unmistakably sending you a message that we want this to happen and nobody will ask any questions if it does. Then, finally back to senator hers example of how, we were all getting into issues we never expected to see, they didnt teach assassination in law school, and so, what was the ultimate policy issue we had surfaced here . It wasnt clear was this against the law . Should it be against the law . Maybe assassination is simply equivalent to a declaration of war or authorization of some other covert action that could save thousands or millions of lives. So, what the committee came to on this issue, and there were similar grapplings with 100 other issues was that, at the very least this needs to be considered by the congress in the light of constitutional checks and balances, setting a process that means that it will be considered not just for its propriety, but also the effectiveness of the operation. Are we doing something that will end up disgracing the United States, and creating more problems for than problems that were solved, and then, later, as a result of the committees recommendations, president president s of both parties before carter, created a series of president ial executive orders directly in response to the recommendations of the Church Agency to set a regulatory scheme, and the attorneys general, griffin bell, under carter and lee, under ford, did the same thing under the attorney general, they were regulating what the agencies could do that might have an impact on the rights of american citizens. So, these bizarre episodes that we were investigating led to important rethinking of the rules of the game for those agencies, going forward. Yes, as you can also, this book is very packed full of lots of stories, and really interesting details. I was hoping we would do one more question, but spin things forward to present day, and, you know, what are the takeaways that, can you each tell me one take away from what you learned from that era that we should apply to america now . Starting with you, rick . The need for congressional oversight of intelligence, arguably could never be more important than today. We have seen on the Intelligence Committee very in depth looks at a number of abuses that continue to take place. Within the Intelligence Community, often directed by the white house. The torture report that came out under the senate committee, looking at drones, looking at targeted killings, looking at the world of surveillance in a world of now artificial intelligence, which makes everything fair game. In terms of what are the guardrails for privacy and civil liberties. So, what comes out of, for me, the lesson from the Church Committee is that it established a basis for oversight, but oversight has never been more important. And we will see where that heads in the future. I can bring it up to the present as recently as this afternoon. Yes. I had, by happenstance, the chance to talk with congressman, dan goldman, was the lead counsel on one of the impeachments and is now in the house judiciary committee, and he is in the minority, the democratic minority on the weaponization of Government Subcommittee where jim jordan claimed at the outset, dont worry about us, because we are the new Church Committee and that prompted 28 of us to sign a letter saying if you are the new Church Committee you would adhere to the following many bipartisan processes and principles and place emphasis on factbased conclusions not political conclusions. What he said was we are using that as the measuring pod and we know that the Church Committee is the model. That should be followed on a committee level, and he and his colleagues have tried to do everything they can to restore that form of congressional oversight and investigation at the earliest possible opportunity. In 1975, frank church. On meet the press, and he said that if the president was wrong minded and wanted to misuse these intelligence agencies, that the possibilities for tyranny would be immense. And in his words, there would be no place to hide. Now, we are all these years later, technology has greatly increased, and the danger is Even Stronger i think. So, i would agree with my colleagues on this panel that oversight is more important than it ever was. I would also add that a lot of it depends on who is in the right places. If you go back and read plato and aristotle, they say a Good Government depends on picking good people to be in high office, and that will always be the case. You have got gary hart on one of these Oversight Committees. It is going to work. Youve got some of the other people who have been on these committees and the committees fail completely. So it has been up and down in the bottom line is we have to work hard to elect good people to high office. So, you are turning this into the political consult . This is what got you elected right here. Not anymore. Im an old gray guy, old gray horse. You know, if democracy is going to survive and thrive in the 21st century, we have to consider that one question that someone started with, which is, if you adopt the techniques of your opponents, the last line that church put after talking about that was, you will become more like them. And we have over, over the world now, an attack on democracy, and you know, we have to have, again, people look up to us as the purveyors of a real democratic order, and its going to take a lot of work. And electing some good people. Tom . Nice work on helping to create open secret store, by the way. Good stuff. I think yeah, the bipartisanship is really, i dont want to say it is a bygone era, or whatever, but there has been much talk about that. That really drove the story of you and Barry Goldwater, because everyone talks about Barry Goldwater is like, you know, mr. Conservative, this is such a great example of how people can Work Together in the greater National Interest. My title of this book is 11 honest men, and one of the best congressional staffs ever assembled. Thank you. I guess i would just say that i think it is really important to remember when things actually work right and when there are good people involved in government, just so we can compare and contrast against today. And it is important to remember that it doesnt always have to be like it is now. All good points. Thank you so much for speaking tonight. Everyones perspectives and experiences has been really important for all of us to learn from, and the book itself is very interesting if you have a chance to read it. I want to say thank you to our audience as well. We look forward to seeing you at future National Press coverage events, and if you havent gotten the book yet i highly recommend it. They will have some signings outside, and thank you for taking the time. Eekends on cspan 2, every saturday, American History tv documents americas story, and on sundays, book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. Funding for cspan 2 including comcast. L