Watergate the United States senate created a special committee. They had a long official title. The Senate Select committee to sfud di governmental operations with respect to intelligence activities and took on the nickname of the chairman, frank church and it was known as the Church Committee. The committee met for 16 months, reviewed 10,000 documents, called 800 witnesses before the committee and the staff. The legacy includes it creation of the Senate SelectIntelligence Committee providing ongoing oversight of the intelligence agencies and the creation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 which we know as fisa. They were held in the Historic Senate caucus room scene of the hearings two years earlier. We go to meet kate scott, who explains how and why the Church Committee came about and sets the stage for september 16, 1975 hearing with cia director, William Colby. The Church Committee was created in january of 1975 by the senate. In response to a series of revelations and allegations about Domestic Intelligence abuses in the United States, and the senate created this committee by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, a vote of 824, to establish a committee that would examine just this specific issue of intelligence abuses and maybe how they were violating constitutional protections. The Church Committee, to understand the context of the Church Committee, you have to go back to 1970. That was really the first big revelation of Domestic Intelligence. A whistle blower, a former Army Counter Intelligence captain, provided details in 1970 in a published account, published by the Washington Monthly of a nationwide army Domestic Intelligence program, members of congress didnt know anything about it. It had been secret running for about a decade. The whole purpose was to monitor political decent to the United States. Those who voiced opposition to the u. S. Domestic and foreign policies. So, senator sam irvin of North Carolina chaired a committee to look into those allegations in 1971. Then two years after that, sam irvin, again, chaired another committee, the Senate Watergate committee for allegations of impropriety during the 1972 president ial campaign. Over the course of that investigation, there were new allegations made about the political uses of the fbi and cia during that campaign. Then, finally, in december of 1974, Pulitzer Prize winner journalist had the front page in the New York Times alleging that the cia had developed a domestic surveillance program, which would have been in complete violation of its charter. It was to have no Domestic Intelligence applications. And, that allegation came about a month after the midterm elections in 1974, when a large group of socalled watergate babies were elected to congress and they, many of them, had run on a Campaign Pledge to clean up the executive branch and come into congress to provide better oversight over the executive branch. Something like the abuses revealed in watergate couldnt happen again. So you have a large class of watergate babies coming in saying you need to change the way the government is operating. Then you have another revelation, a third one to say there are intelligence abuses out there and congress doesnt seem to know much about them. So, in january of 1975, with the swearing in of these, shortly after the swearing in of the new class, the senate agrees to create this new, special committee. Senator frank church is the chairman, thats why its the Church Committee. He was, at that time, an 18 year member. He served on the committee 18 years. He was a senate veteran. He had been a prominent outspoken critic of the vietnam war. He was deeply involved in issues related to u. S. , the use of intelligence abroad. He was, himself, a former Intelligence Officer during world war ii. He served as an Intelligence Officer. He has respect for the intelligence gathering, he was skeptical about the applications, particularly domestic applications. The vice chair was john tower of texas. He was a fiery member of the republican party. He was a ten year member of the Armed Services committee, knew a lot about u. S. Intelligence operations and was a little bit skeptical, a little concerned about how the senate could investigate these Sensitive NationalSecurity Issues without revealing National Security secrets. So, he later boasted that he was put on the committee to make sure that this didnt become a media extravagant, didnt become a sensational event, and in some ways to protect the intelligence agencies. Thats really the origins of the Church Committee. Could you tell us a little bit about some of the other members . Were these well known people at the time . Yeah, they were. Some of them were, some of them werent. The two senate leaders, Mike Mansfield of montana was the majority leader. And pennsylvania it was minority leader. They wanted to create a committee comprised of members with a good deal of experience with issues like frank church and john tower. They also wanted to acknowledge that the watergate babies were particularly interested in approaching some of these topics in new ways. So, they tried to balance the committee, the membership on the committee with older members like frank church. Howard goldwater, with newer members, richard sweitkert of pennsylvania was a new member. Gary hart of colorado was newly elected. They had an interest in these issues and very much wanted to look into them. They were also new members of congress. It was a recognition that maybe we needed a fresh approach to the challenging issues the country was confronted with. We are going to see the testimony of cia director William Colby from september 16, 1975. At that time, was it unusual for the cia director to testify in a public hearing . It was. It was unusual in part because for decades the house and senate had provided oversight of the Intelligence Community, but primarily they had ton that in closed executive hearings. That was for a number of reasons. The primary reason was they believed they didnt want to provide opportunities in a public hearing where information that was classified might be revealed and therefore undermine the security of intelligence methods or practices. But, there was increasingly a sense that the people who were supposed to provide oversight in congress of these Intelligence Community in particular the cia, had not been doing it rigorously or effectively. That, in the senate, for example, there were two subcommittees, two Senate Subcommittees tasked with oversight of the cia. One was within the Appropriations Committee and the other was the Armed Services committee. The Armed Services subcommittee was chaired by john stenis. He was a conservative democrat from mississippi who very much supported the national Intelligence Community and did not think that congress had a responsibility to look too closely at how it operated. He famously said, if you are going to have a national Intelligence Community, you have to close your eyes and take whats coming. You have to take whats coming. Another senator expressed it another way. We dont know whats going on at the cia and we dont want to know. That had, for since the early years of the cold war, that was the prevailing sentiment among members of congress. Because of the global threat of communism, the United States needed to develop these capabilities within the national Intelligence Community that could and the methods of that intelligence collection shouldnt be second guessed. So, for decades, particularly in the senate, the oversight that had been provided had been done in closed, executive sessions. The transcripts hadnt been made public or disseminated among members of the senate. A few numbers of the senate were increasingly unsettled by the lack of oversight, and one of them was Mike Mansfield, the majority leader. He was actually the first senator to propose a permanent cia intelligence oversight in the senate in the 1950s. He continued every congress to resubmit his proposal to establish this permanent cia intelligence oversight committee. While he gained, at some point 20 cosponsors to get this committee created, he was never able to get what he wanted until the intelligence scandal, Domestic Intelligence allegations in late 1974. He was actually the one who drafted the resolution that created the Church Committee in 1975. It was unusual for William Colby to be there in open session for the reasons i just explained. William colby himself is an interesting character. Its interesting that he is the one that was called to testify in a public session. William colby had spent the majority of his professional career in the cia. He actually had worked during world war ii for the office of strategic services. The o. S. S. , the cias precursor. He had gone into private law practice, then in 1949, two years after the cia was established, he joined. He worked abroad in europe. He had been deeply involved in cia operations, cold war related cia operations for 30 years before he came back to washington and was nominated by president Richard Nixon and, approved, importantly, by the senate and confirmed by the senate to serve as the new cia director in 1973. So, he comes to this position as director while the cia is in a bit of turmoil. There have the former director, james sles sing schlessinger, had ordered a report, an internal report to be produced and asked cia officers to come forward and report on programs they believe the agency had been involved in, which may have been constitutionally questionable, which may have been, perhaps if not illegal, at least unethical, immoral, improper. And this report, this internal report became known as the cias family jewel. The family jewels. At the start of the Church Committee investigation, they did a lot the staff did a lot of work behind the scenes. They had to investigate the agencies and the Intelligence Community more broadly, in some ways for the first time. They didnt know where to start. Well, luckily, fortunately for them, William Colby provided them with a copy of this internal report, the family jewels. It provided them, basically, with a road map. They could begin to map out what the cia had been doing and begin to look deeply into some of these cases of improper behavior. William colby, of course, was firmly committed to the cia and its intelligence operations. He was concerned about the activity that the agency had been involved in. He was concerned about political pressure coming from the white house during the watergate era. He wanted to ensure the strength of the cia moving forward. So, while he faced a goods deal of criticism both from within the cia and from outside the cia, even from former Intelligence Officers for cooperating with the Church Committee investigation, he thought that it was the best way to strengthen the agency moving forward. I would characterize his cooperation as limited. He wanted to cooperate with them in the sense he provided them with some materials they needed. He also created a liaison operation within the cia itself to manage the relationship with the Church Committee. So, the Church Committee, the staff of the Church Committee would make requests for documents that were necessary to build their story and the cia would push back. We are not sure we have that material. Why do you need that material . Always asking follow up questions. By doing so, further delaying the Church Committees ability to dig into these stories and get the big picture. So, he did receive a lot of criticism. He received a lot of criticism for working with the committee, but he did manage to restrict that cooperation in some important ways. As you speak with the staff, the former staff, you will recognize, they will speak about the frustration they experienced trying to get information from the cia. Now, from september 16th, 1975, here is paul duke of pbs introducing a 40minute portion of the cia hearing. William colby will be testifying first. After that, well get thoughts from you. Thanks. Seemed unimpressed, perhaps because they already knew too much. Each senator arriving with a orange notebook with material about the cia, all marked top secret. After five months of closed door investigation, talking in private with intelligence agents and officials, most of the senators now agree with chairman frank church, that the cia has, indeed, been a rogue elephant, out of control. The testimony of colby didnt stop the suspicions. The press was back in great numbers today. But not the public. There were, in fact, no long lines and the seats reserved for the audience were, at times, only twothirds filled. Someone said, after what has happened in this country, during the past two years, there are no more future shocks. But, whether there are shocks or not, todays open hearing did focus major attention on the way the cia has gone about its business in the United States. Subject concerning the cias involvement in warfare materials with the laboratory. Cias retention of an amount of shellfish toxin and the cias use of various chemicals and drugs. The relationship between the cia as an activity requiring further investigation surfaced in late april this year. It resulted in information presented by a cia officer, not directly associated with the project. All past activities, which might now be considered questionable, be brought to the attention of agency management. Information provided by him and two other officers aware of the project indicated the project involved development of warfare agents, some lethal and associated delivery suitable for use. A search was made for other records made available on the project. This produced information about the basic agreement between the army and the cia relating to the project and limited records covering activity from the beginning in 1952 to the termination in 1970. In the course of the investigation, cia Laboratory Storage facilities were searched d 11 grams, less than a half ounce of shellfish toxin were discovered in a little used vaulted storeroom. A major requirement of the agency was to find a replacement for the cyanide pill issued to agents in hazardous situations in world war ii. This was the basis on which they discovered the shellfish toxin. The only application of this toxin was in the flight over the ussr in may, 1960 where they carried the device, concealed in a silver dollar. In the powers case, the drill were filled with shellfish toxin. He obviously did not use it and was not instructed to do so. It was offered to him to provide an option. That flight is the only time we are aware it was provided for operational use though the pill was made available for earlier flights. The primary Agency Interest was in the development of devices to be used for standard devices. Various dissemination devices designed to release when suited for agents for clandestine use. Available records do not indicate items were developed specifically for the cia as work on similar devices was done for similar devices was also done for the army. At the time the toxin was found, the officer responsible for the project in 1970 stated he had no recollection as to how it got there. The 30th of june, a retired officer provided the leak. This man had been the gs15 branch chief in 1970 stated the toxin had been moved and stored in the laboratory. This was done on the basis of a decision after conversations with the responsible project officer. He further stated he made this decision based on the fact that the cost and difficulty of isolating the shellfish toxin were so great, it made no sense to destroy it, particularly when there would be no source of the toxin. They believe this explanation is correct but still does not recall the act of receiving the material. Both of these middle grade officers agree that no one, including their immediate superior, was told of the retention of the shellfish toxin. If that amount of shellfish toxin were administered orally, which is one of the least efficient ways for administering it, in terms of lethality. That was sufficient to kill at least 14,000 people. If it were administered with the sophisticated equipment that was found in the laboratory, that quantity would be suffic