Archives and research center. He discusses the Committee Findings related to political assassinations. The Church Committee investigated abuses by u. S. Intelligence agencies from the 1950s through wear the gate. This was recorded in 2013 at due cane university at an International Symposium to mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of john f. Kennedy. The discussion ran 50 minutes. Hello. My talk is going to be a little bit different. I want to start with kind of a History Lesson that took hopefully will show some of the context of what were talking about. I not directly about the kennedy assassination, although ill be moving into that as well. I apologize if some of this is familiar ground. Okay. I would like to start by painting a picture of a time. Imagine this, if you will. Wiretapping and spying on americans, and even targeting a foreign adversary for assassination. Wait, im describing 2013. P not just liberal institutions and democratic leaders, but also on the other side. For example, in 1971 nixon discovered maybe yomen and Charles Bradford had been stealing documents from henry kissinger. Secretary of state. Anyway, nixons resignation in 1974 was followed by a heavily democratic socalled reform congress. Some of the names that we recognize. Henry waxman, tom hartman, and Patrick Leahy were elected in that congress. They immediately voted funding restrictions on the vietnam war which nixon had been succeeded by former Warren Commissioner gerald ford who along with his chief of staff Donald Rumsfeld feld and his aide dick cheney wasnt on quite the same page as the congress. Ford was not in a position of strength at this time, though. The freedom of information act which had been passed in 1966, but couldnt overcome agencies stonewalling was strengthened in 1974. It was over ridden by a twothirds vote of congress. This is the context in which revelations of not only the white house, but also intelligence agencies. Fbi, cia, and others began to leak out of washington into the nations newspapers. Revelations that the u. S. Army had been spying upon antiwar demonstrators was followed by the article m New York Times in december of 1947 by Seymour Hersh in which he revealed cia spying operations on americans and breakins and other activities on u. S. Soil in violation of their charter. The Ford White House at this point immediately wanted to know what other skeletons were many the cia closet, and so within days cia director colby had delivered a family jewels document to the Ford White House. Something you may know that in 2007 this document was finally released to the government. There were redactions, and the blackouts begin on the significant taur page. In any case, it included revelations of other abuses, including wiretapping reporters, opening of mail, and assassination plots. There have been rumors circulating from time to time. He was asking for their forebear answer in all these revel aings because, it would blacken the reputation of every president since truman. When quizzed about what he was talking about, he said, like assassinations, and the New York Times editor didnt publish this comment, bout butt it got leaked to daniel shore who soon did. Both houses of congress could be followed for their own investigations. Now, the Rockefeller Commission did receive evidence of the cia assassination plots, but didnt take that on as an issue. In general they conducted a pretty circumscribed probe. Former Warren CommissionDavid Bellman was the executive director. They did publish a report about cia domestic spying and mail opening, and they actually took on two questions of the kennedy assassination. One was whether or not the watergate burglar hunt and sturgis were two of the three deeley camps in disguise. Some of you may know that dr. Cyril wecht testified in that regard. The limited focused Rockefeller Commission was quickly superseeded by a lengthy name which came to be known as the Church Committee after its chairman idaho senator frank church, and they really opened it up. They took on a full review of u. S. Intelligence agencies, history and rationale as well as the excesses of abuses. The Senate Committee was much more aggressive than the Rockefeller Commission had been, although their style contrasted with the much more confrontational house of representatives. Oh, here we go. I can only imagine what dick cheney thought of morning congresswoman bella abazar taking on the new york security agency. In the end the housing report was actually suppressed by the house, and only printed in the Village Voice when daniel shore leaked in. The Church Committee went on to do a year and a half long investigation published 14 beg volumes of reports, some of them quite thick, and the bland titles here dont begin to cover the range in topics that they really took on. This includes things like the fbis Counter Intelligence program, domestic disruption, their harassment of dr. Martin luther king jr. , joint fbi and cia mail opening programs, warrantless electronic surveillance, and black bag jobs by the fbi. Cia Domestic Spying Program called chaos. Covert operations abroad and other topics. Theres a lot to get into, and im going to cover two of the reports and the investigations behind them here. The first is theyre uncovering and documenting of foreign sass nations by the cia and the second is a limited review they conducted of some aspects of the kennedy assassination. I first want to say i think its valuable work for castro and others because no doubt that the Church Committee did the whole idea of the cia would be one of these conspiracy theories we hear about all the reminiscent of some other matter thats before us. Its also striking how much i think things have changed in america since 1975. Nowadays the u. S. Openly conducts drone strikes against foreign adversaries. Senior officialed call bad guys. Along with the classral damage farjs member, associates may or may not call themselves bad guys in the occasional wedding party. In 1975 by contrast it was a National Scandal of the very idea that the executive branch of the u. S. Government would contemplate targeted killings abroad. Over 100 intuz were pieced together to tell the story of executive action, and they focused on these five foreign leaders. This is fidel castro of cuba, lamumba of the congo, and dominican republic, south vietnam, and Renee Schneider of chilli. They had received evidence about a couple of other plots. Indonesia and haiti, but they didnt take those on. To its credit, unlike many other congressional investigations, they were dogged in pursuit of the fact of these five cases. We learned a great deal about the genesis of the plots, who was involved with them, and the command and patrol or lack thereof many some cases. The Church Committee reached in some areas and solid conclusions in other areas the full truth was quite elusive, and they were willing to admit that in their report. They fought deadly poisons and four or five people on this list are dead. Only castro survived. The committee itself ab solved the cia and u. S. Authorities of direct responsibility in all four of those deaths. The cia did dispatch poifbs to congo, and he was killed instead by congolese rivals. The dominican enemies were supplied with pistols and car bombs by diplomatic, but the Committee Said theres conflicting evidence concerning whether the weapons were knowingly supplied for the assassination or whether they were seen. General rin yea snyder wasnt the leader of chili, but he was a general refusing to block the election of the leader. He was killed in a kidnapping attempt by enemies of his. But the Committee Said it doesnt appear that any of the equipment supplied by the cia, the plotters in chili was used in the kidnapping. Theres no evidence of a plan to kill schneider or u. S. Officials specifically anticipated schneider would be stopped during the abduction. Okay. So on the one handy thi its important that the Committee Try to get into the details and try to get the details right and not just say u. S. Tried to kill these people. Theyre dead. End of story. The leaders did have multiple enemies, although as well see, tlaz bit more to the story in a few cases. Try using that defense in a court of law. Im not a lawyer. In fact, some of you may be, but accessory to murder is what comes to mind, i think. The committee did something also, so try to answer the question of who authorized them. That was not an easy one, and also the command and control down to lower levels is how they were executed. Here they ran mac against what we call plausible denial. The committee wrote they find that the system of executive command and control was so ambiguous it was difficult to be certain at what levels assassination activity was known and authorized. So maybe plots were taken without them really being explicitly authorized and maybe theres plausible denial and the Committee Just wasnt able to pen thait trait that. They basically in the end this was in large part their answer to that question. The paper trail was somewhat thin, which may be one of the difficulties. One of the they rely mostly upon interviews with various people. One of the few contemporaneous documents is this one from william havsh where i who ran some of the assassination plots at cia under the code name zrrifle executive action program. This document is fascinating to read. It includes some choice quotes such as never mention word assassination in a document he left behind. Should have phony tool one file to backstop this. All documents therein forged and backdated. Should look like a counter espionage file. So there are some files that are now public, but back when this was written, the idea that anything seized would even become known to Congress Never mind the public was a little far fetched. Its fascinating within the cias own filing system the idea of backdating in order to cover tracks was part of the initial planning of the operation. This is one of the things people trying on to use cia records in order to get to the bottom of things have makes it tough. So importantly, the Committee Also had access to one very key document, which is a 1967 Inspector General report that the cia itself had undertaken when pressure to do so by Lyndon Johnson about the plots to kel castro. Much of tl one of their problems was many of the important people who were dead, john and Robert Kennedy were dead. As well as Desmond Fitzgerald and edmond dulles from cia. During the investigation itself, more people showed up dead. Sam giancono who was part of the castro plots was shot in the mouth five times before being interviewed by the Church Committee. And Johnny Roselli also major part of the plots did testify before the committee a few times, but then disappeared and his body was found in a 55gallon oil drum floating off the coast of florida. So the basic question of whether u. S. President s, specifically eisenhower and kennedy for the most part, was the focus authorize these plots, the committee ran headlong into an inpet traitable fog. One National Security staffer named robert swron son did say that he was at an nsc meeting when eisenhower ordered the assassination, and he was shocked at the time that this had occurred, but he couldnt remember for the committee the exact words used. The committee pinpointed the particular meeting in which this had to be, august 18th, 1960 meeting, and its within a month of that meeting, a man named sidly gottley, the Technical Services had been to fort detrick, and was off to the congo. But the minutes of the meeting, of course, dont reflect any of this, and even participants, of course, said the minutes wouldnt. And his account was also disputed by others or for the most part people said had he just couldnt recall such a thing. He wasnt disputed quite so directly. Participants in the plot like Deputy Director of plans Richard Bissell swore that they had authorization from the top, but, of course, they no proof to offer the committee of that. So in the end the Church Committee said theres basically a few possibilities here. Eisenhower ordered the assassination, but its not in the written record. Maybe he used a euphemism like getting ready of lamumba with a wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Maybe he said Something Like that, but i didnt really mean assassination. Oops, he was misinterpreted. In other words, they failed to resolve the issue completely. Bissell and edwards who contacted the cia agent robert mahew who got in touch well ronny moselli. And the rest of the cia mafia plots that became history from there. The Church Committee also wrote about some of the sfwlanyer plots that i mentioned, exploding sea shells and so forth. Theres a famous incident that was ostensibly in summer of 1963 about trying to get supposed military soviet military personnel out of cuba, but which many people think was a cover from an assassination team. The Church Committee took their word on that, and they had not gotten the full story on what was going on there. The castro plot discussed in the report, the operation, is intriguing, and is perhaps the poster child for the dilemma that the committee faced on the issue of authorization. I want to give a little background first. In 1963, of course, its the aftermath of the cuban missile crisis, and kennedys no invasion pledge, and cuba policy changed again. 1962s operation mongoose of overthrow from within was disbanded. William harvey, who was, i believe, involved in that, and ran a followup in the missile crisis for dispatching sabotage agents into cuba during the crisis itself. Its interesting the Church Committee didnt get the full story in the second half of 1963. Fair amount more, but some of it remains mysterious. Ill discuss a little of that later. For assassinating the head of batistas security fortsdz in cuba, and by the early 1960s was an official in cubas government. Importantly some Double Agents reported back to castro, just being offered for that purpose. But strangely since september of 1963 after a year of no contact, a cia officer met with him in brazil, and there were discussions about overthrowing castro, which turned into assassination discussions. Cube elia attempted an inside job, and fidel castro showed up with the Brazilian Embassy in cuba, and it gives an interview with an a. P. Reporter and says, u. S. Leaders think they are aiding terrorist plots to they themselves will not be safe. Coded message perhaps . In any case, what happens next is extraordinary. Special Affairs StaffDesmond Fitzgerald in october met personally with cube elia and represented himself as a personal emissary of Robert Kennedy. Cubella told fitzgerald he wanted a highpowered rifle, but instead he got a poisoned pen that was delivered to him on october 1963. According to the Inspector General report, they had a meeting, and hoelz decided it wasnt necessary to talk to r. F. K. Or seek his approval, and when questioned by the committee, hem said he didnt recall the discussion, but he believed he had preexisting authority for all this sort of thing. He wouldnt need to. The kennedys and cia might have talked about this off the record, et cetera, et cetera, but its also true that cubella reactivation occurred right at the time when john kennedy had begun opening back channels to castro, and this is not what emissaries could seek of some kind. Its interesting that fitzgerald would use r. F. K. s name in and the possibility of this getting back to castro, which was quite real and indeed may have. The story of cuba policy is fairly complex. It wasnt really fully known to the Church Committee. There is the mchlt trunk project, which was a kennedy initiated project, which the people in cia hated because the the left wing side of the anticastro forces. Theres also a project am world which included the off shoring to nicaragua for an eventual overthrow of castro from outside, and the Church Committee seems basically unaware of all of that. Its interesting. We know a lot more today. In the interest of time, im going to have to skip a little bit. Theres a bit more on the whole issue of authorization. Theres a famous media wrote about where mcnamara himself brought up. The concept, and had gotten written down in memos and people through fits over that. But im going to move on. Does this green button work . Okay. The Church Committee reports were published 38 years ago. What have we learned since then . Regarding the lamumba assassination, there had been new developments