They come to 140 clotters from the port of mario to key west, florida in nearly 2,000 boats. Why do they come . Why are there so many . During the spring through fall of 1980, approximately 125,000 cuban refugees arrived in florida from the port of mariel, cuba. Hear interviews from the new arrivals to america and find out why they left, sunday morning at 10 00 on road to the white house rewind. The 1992 democratic and republican conventions. Bill clinton accepts his partys president ial nomination in new york city. In the name of the hardworking americans who make up our forgotten middle class, i proudly accept your nomination for president of the United States. And incumbent president george h. W. Bush accepts his parties a nomination in houston. And i proud to receive and im honored to accept your nomination for president of the United States. At 4 45, architectural historian barry lewis on the evolution and creation of new york citys greenwich village. When the l opened on sixth avenue, it gave us what we already understood. East of sixth was Washington Square. West of sixth avenue was the lower west side. Nobody ever crossed that line. Now the people from west of sixth avenue might cross the line to work as a servant in Washington Square. But believe me, the people in Washington Square went on the other side of west avenue. Every time i look at washington, its unanimous. Unanimously commander in chief. Unanimously president of the constitutional. Unanimously president of the United States. Unanimously reelect president of the United States. Unanimously appointed as the Lieutenant General and commander of all the armys to be raised. What a record. George washington scholar Peter Enriquez explores that even know washington was officially retired, he continued to meet with political figures from the new capital, and was often called upon to craft policy. For the complete American History tv weekend schedule, go to cspan. Org. Welcome to real america cspan threes american tv. 40 years ago the United States senate created a special committee to look into the activities of u. S. Intelligence services. The committee had a long official title. Wiz the Senate Select committee to study governmental operations with respect to intelligence activities, and it quickly took on the nickname of its chairman, frank church. And it was best known to history as the Church Committee. The committee met for 16 months. It reviewed more than 10,000 documents. It called 800 witnesses before the committee and its staff. Its legacy includes the creation of the Senate Permanent select Intelligence Committee, providing ongoing oversight of the intelligence agencies. And the creation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which we know as fisa. Two former staffers of the Church Committee are with us and will be with us to help provide some Historical Context and understand the significance of the 40yearold video that you are about to see. From new york city, Frederick Fritz schwarz who was the chief council is with us. Here in our studio in washington, d. C. Is elliot maxwell, who was a council to the committee as Pennsylvania Republican senator Richard Schweikers designee. Thank you to both of you for joining us. Thank you. Lets start with the basics, mr. Maxwell. Would you explain really how the Church Committee got constituted . What was the impetus . I guess my view is that most of it came about because of a series of articles about activities by the Intelligence Community in the United States written by cy hirsh and followed up by many other people was in the context of the post watergate hearing, resignation of president nixon. I still continuing concern about the vietnam war, and the thought that the intelligence agencies were being being directed against u. S. Citizens led to some public concern and a response from both the senate and the house to establish special committees to look at the intelligence activities overall. It was in that context that i think you need to place the activities of the committee and the response to things that happened during the vietnam war, the civil rights movement, and other Political Activities led to the creation of these two committees. Mr. Schwarz, what was the committees mandate or mission as it was constituted . Well, it was to look into the facts and develop the facts and expose them to the American Public. You know, you mentioned this was in the aftermath of watergate. Some people thought maybe we would just expose more bad things about the nixon administration. But our single most important finding was to say that every one of six president s starting with Franklin Roosevelt and running through nixon, four democrats and two republicans, every one of them had abused their secret powers. And by making that broad finding, which i think was our most important, it helped with the internal cohesion of the committee, and it helped with its national reputation. How were frank church and john tower selected as the chairman and republican vice chair of the committee . Mansfield selected frank church. The story is that he had asked phil hart to do it. But phil hart was will and died of cancer not too long afterwards, although he served on the committee. And the minority leader scott selected tower. Interestingly, of the 11, none of them had been people who were responsible for the prior generation of inadequate oversight by the congress of the cia and the fbi and the other intelligence agencies. So you had a group of 11 people who came at this without any bias from having had supposed responsibility earlier and having failed as the congress did to exercise really any oversight of the Intelligence Community before we did our work. Mr. Maxwell, i want to read for our audience the name of the 11 committee members. Because these are some very famous wellknown names from the days of the towering names in the United States senate. They will be recognized. Besides frank church and john tower, phil hart of michigan, walter mondale, ultimately Vice President of the United States. Walter huddleston of kentucky. Robert morgan of north carolina, and gary hart, president ial aspirant himself of colorado. And on the republican side howard baker who went on to be the majority leader. Barry goldwater, president ial candidate. Charles mathias of maryland, and Dick Schweiker whom you worked for of pennsylvania. So how did these 11 big figures get chosen by their respective leaders . What was the thinking in constituting these particular individuals . What would they expect the outcome to be with these people on the panel . Well, i wasnt privy to those discussions. But my sense is that they chose people who had stature within the institution and within the nation. So that this would be considered a product of the senate and have the associated stature of the members. For me, it was really extraordinary in the sense that it represented a very Broad Spectrum of views from the most conservative to the most liberal in the senate at the time. And i think the task of the chair and the vice chair was to make sure that they could move together. And what fritz said earlier about the desire to make this a unified finding about these activities probably drove the leadership in both the choice of the chair and the choice of the members. Mr. Schwarz, our program in American History tv is all going to center around video, of course, as it must. But i wanted to talk to you about the television aspect of these hearings. Mention at the outset that the subcommittee and full committees met for 16 months. And over the course of time, according to senate documents, they had 126 full Committee Hearings and 40 subCommittee Hearings. But only a portion of those were before television cameras. What was the strategy regarding television of the hearings . Well, the first choice we made, well, obviously, the committees own discussions, at least at the start were going to be confidential. But the first choice we made was when we investigated the plots to assassina foreign leaders like fidel castro and other people, there was a discussion about whether those hearings should be public or not. And actually, howard baker, who was a very Effective Member of the committee pushed for public hearings. And frank church said no i think were wiser not to have public hearings. This will be our first hearings. And you dont want to inadvertently put out stuff that should be kept confential. We should put it all out in our report on assassinations, which we did, which was the most exhaustive coverage of covert action there has ever been in this country or anywhere else. Then when we got to the domestic hearings, those were all public. The fbi was by far the most important of our domestic hearing. And i frankly think overall our most important work was exposing the illegal and Improper Conduct that the fbi under j. Edgar hoover had engaged in for decades. Those were all public. The public, and of course, our reports were public. And the in the domestic report, which was called book 2, everything we wanted to put out was put out. In the foreign report, there were some things which were not included in the final report, but were available to all 100 senators. But in general, we had by far the most disclosure of any committee that there has ever been dealing with intelligence, either in this country, and thats still true to date, or in the rest of the world. As a side note on television and the decision, senator baker, when he became the majority leader in 1981 after the election of ronald reagan, the first measure he put into the senate was television of the senate. So he is consistent, yes, on his interest in having proceedings televised. Let me ask you, mr. Maxwell, because were to be start showing video. We live in an age of cspan. But this was prior to that. And the decision for Committee Hearings to be on Network Television was a big deal. What was the sense of the country and the news reporting and the interest level about all of these hearing as a they were happening . I think there was a considerable amount of interest because the subject matter was themselves. The relationship between the citizens and the Intelligence Community. And little was known about it when we began the meetings of the committee, at least on the foreign intelligence side, nobody knew what to request. Nobody knew what was there. Nobody knew how to ask the right questions. And so when the hearings took place, it was in the context of this was this was new. This was new to the public. What these agencies were doing, how they were doing them, what the impact was on themselves and on their friends or their neighbors or their people in the rest of the world. This was the first time that the curtain had been drawn at all about these agencies. And so i think it was inherently interesting for the public. In todays installment of our series on the Church Committee, were going to focus on the committees investigation of something that was called the huston plan. Were going to begin by showing you a clip from the hearing. Of Fredrick Schwarz questioning witness tom charles hust in 1975 in the Senate Caucus room. Lets watch. You did recommend, did you not, that the United States should commence in your view commence as you understood it commence, or recommence the illegal opening of mail. That correct . Yes. My understanding from my contacts with the bureau and through the working committee was that in the past that this had been a technique that had been employed, particularly in matters relating to espionage, and that the professional intelligence communicated that they thought it was a necessary technique to be undertaken under extreme circumstances. And that they felt that they should be authorized to do so. And similarly, you also based on your views on the recommendations of the entire Intelligence Community except for mr. Hoovers footnotes advocated that the United States should commence or recommence to commit burglaries to acquire valuable intelligence information. Is that right . Yes. I was told that the bureau had undertaken black bag jobs for a number of years up until 1966 that had been successful and valuable, again, particularly in matters involving espionage. And that they felt this, again, was something that given the revolutionary climate, they thought they needed to have the authority to do. And there you see Fritz Schwarz at work, questioning tom huston in 1975. So mr. Schwarz, who was tom huston, and what was the huston plan . Well, the huston plan was something that was devised in the white house. And with the most of the Intelligence Community to get president ial blessing for the illegal things that had been done for years and years and years. It eventually fizzled out. But the intent was to legalize what had been done and which was illegal. Huston gave us an absolutely fantastic quote. And i assume somewhat later in that examination of him i used it. But he said when you start these programs, you always have Mission Creep. And his language was you go from the kid with the bomb to the kid with the picket sign to the kid with the Bumper Sticker of the opposing candidate. And you go from looking at dangerous activity to migrating to looking at the political views of people in this country, of americans. And nsa did the same thing. They got every single telegram that left the country for 30 years was given to nsa. At the beginning, their objective was only to look at encrypted cables from foreign embassies back to, like, from the Russian Embassy back to moscow. But then there was Mission Creep, the very thing that huston admitted to me in that colorful language. There was Mission Creep so they started looking at the cables of antivietnam war protesters in the United States and of civil rights leaders in the United States. Something which the government had absolutely no business looking at, and certainly not looking at in an illegal way. Elliot maxwell, telegrams are an ancient thing for many of our younger viewers. So can you put into context what it would mean today to read every single telegram that is leaving the United States . Well, its easy enough to do that given whats happened over the last two or three years after Edward Snowdens revelations, because the Intelligence Community access to the metadata about telephone calls and the like so that it would tell who was communicating with whom. Thats extraordinary thing to have if you want to be able to look at the activities of people. And it was the same kind of notion that fritz was talking about. People thought, well, if i scoop up enough of this material, then somewhere im going to find important things. And having all the material is really tempting. To go beyond what the original thought was. And so its not its not the kind of technology that is employed. Its the notion that you can sweep everything in and then work from that. In a little while, we are going to see 40 minutes of Charles Huston testifying about the huston plan. But first we would like to show another short clip. This is Arizona Republican senator Barry Goldwater. And he is talking about the Internal Revenue service in this clip. Lets watch. Senator goldwater . Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to speak first about the Internal Revenue service. And im very happy that the chairman has mentioned this subject. Somebody on this committee has likened the cia to a bull elephant rung rampant. I liken the irs to a rattlesnake, sliding along in the glass. Probably the greatest threat to American Freedom and of anything we have. And yet this morning is the first public indication ive heard that the Internal Revenue service is going to be investigated. And i think its time. You sat on the republican side, mr. Maxwell. What was the intent in bringing the irs into the investigation . Well, i think that the republican siden compassed the entire range of the political spectrum of the republican party, from matt mathias and Dick S