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 good evening. The 2023 president of the National Press club and and and editor of lips as thank you for joining us here at the National Press club and on c span for the headliner event. I want to think the National Press club. For helping put this event together, including the headliners teams cochairs, and lori and the closed membership event coordinator. We have a very Exciting Program tonight with our esteemed Panel Focused on the book just out called, the last honest man, the cia, fbi, mafia and the kennedys. One senators fight to save democracy. Lets get started. Quote. If a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the Intelligence Community has the given the government, could enable it to impose total tyranny. There would be no way to fight back. That may sound like a statement from today. It dates to 1975, from then senator, frank church. A democrat from idaho. Church served in the u. S. Senate from 1957 to 1980, and assembled a committee in 1975 to investigating the National Security agency, fbi and irs. Tonight we are looking forward to an exciting conversation with james, author of the last man, and former senator, gary hart, who served on the committee. We also have with us former Church Committee Staff Members, peter, frederick, and rick. Im happy to say we also have co author and National Press number summarizing, who will join us in answering questions. These congressional staffers recently found themselves at the center of news, when they wrote an open letter to represent jim jordan, a republican from ohio. Jordan tears the newly formed House Select Committee on the weaponization of the federal government. These former Church Committee staffers urged jordan to change course and pursue a bipartisan inquiry, which felt made the Committee 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 his subcommittee a mockery. We are privileged to have both james rison and senator hart here to discuss some of the Lessons Learned from the Church Committee and how they are rebel is relevant today. Prior to that he was a reporter for the New York Times, where he won the Pulitzer Prize in 2006 for the stories about the National Security agencys domestic and spying program. Also part of a team that won a 2002 Pulitzer Prize for reporting for coverages of the 2011 september 11th attacks. Represented the senate from 1975 to 1987. A graduate of yale law school. He returned to private practice after leaving the senate. A philosophy degree in 2001. Hart has also stayed active in government as an advisory council, the u. S. Defense Department Advisory council, and chair of the project. Welcome to the National Press club. I figured i would start with senator hart for a couple of questions, and brought the topic out to the rest of the panel. Please feel free to pop in and if you have any comments or suggestions, quotes you want to give with a different question. I will try to ask as many questions from the audience as possible. Just write them down on a card and hand them up to me. All right. Jim. You said investigating reporting and National Security issues and have written a several other books on the cia, abortion and other topics. What prompted you to write about frank specifically and why now . Thanks again for having us. The reason i wrote, tom and i wrote this book, the idea originally came to me because i covered the cia for the New York Times for many years. Especially after 9 11. After 9 11, if you remember, the Bush Administration started complaining very loudly and publicly that the 9 11 attacks had been made possible by frank church and the Church Committee, which existed 20 years before. Cheney, in particular, as Vice President , constantly complained that the problems in the Intelligence Community that led to the intelligence failure of 9 11 had been caused by frank church, who by that time had been out of the senate for 20 years, and dead for more than 15. It was a reared weird excuse , lets put it that way, that that they constantly made. I began to think of the time, that i should learn more about the Church Committee. As time went on, and as a republican in the Bush Administration as the republicans continue to make the refrain that 9 11 was caused by frank church, realized i should learn more about it. Over the following years, when the iraq war went so badly, and bush and cheney lost popularity , a lot of americans began to realize what they say about the Church Committee. Maybe they should have another Church Committee. The idea of a new Church Committee became something that people started talking about, to investigate the bush and cheney administrations abuse of intelligence. That led me to begin about eventually writing a book about what was the truth about the Church Committee . As i was writing about it and publish the book. The new Republican Party in the house started talking about the need for a new Church Committee. It is something i realized has become part of the american political lexicon. The Church Committee is now a synonym for a truth and reconciliation committee. Every time there is a big scandal or a call for investigations, everyone in washington now says, we need a new Church Committee. I thought we needed a new history of what really happened with the Church Committee. Did you find any surprises when you were digging into this . Oh yeah, lots of surprises. The thing that amazed me the most is how much these guys investigated in a span of one year. You have to remember going back into that time period, its hard to what was fascinating to me is getting in the mindset of the 1970s, that there had never been any oversight to the congressional abscess prior to the Church Committee. The cia had gone with no supervision for 30 years whatsoever. No rules in place, no laws that govern the cia or fbi for that matter, or the msa. Everything the Church Committee did was brandnew. If you step back and think, to create a committee and tell them you have to investigate 30 years of history of an agency, its pretty awesome. I think they did a really Pretty Amazing job in one year. I agree. The book details in your book you mentioned how do you think it was able to amass so much power and operate without oversight for so long. Thats a great question. I think there was a sense in the post world war era that americans didnt want to have so many questions, especially after world war ii. The era hits in the early 50s. There was a witch hunt for communists, and anyone who was a dissident. It was a, i think in the 50s, a sense that americans were taught to trust the government. I think that all began to break down with vietnam, and the civil rights movement. Watergate. Watergate open the floodgates to questioning of the intelligence committee. That really, in a lot of ways, the Church Committee was seen at the time ending up in a very different place. There was a beginning of a progressive and Reform Movement in the 1970s. Spinup what do you think made senator church begin to question the inner workings of the American Government . He really did go through a transformation, didnt he . Its fascinating to learn about his background. Frank church is from idaho. Her up in boise. In the 1920s and 30s, he was, you know and then when he got to the senate, when he was only 32, in 1956, he was a traditional liberal cold warrior. They were both in the senate at the same time. A typical 1950s democrat who believed in the cold war fight against communism. Vietnam radicalized him. He became one of the first opponents of the war in the senate. Largely because of his service in china in world war ii, where he had seen how corrupt the regime was. That he saw in south vietnam, something very similar. He realized very quickly how corrupt the government was. That radically eventually became radicalized by the u. S. Involvement in a war. He began to see that the United States was on the path of the coming a militaristic empire. He thought the Intelligence Community was part of the thing. Senator, you knew senator church personally. Sorry, senator hart, you knew senator church personally. What was he like . What is your fondest memory of senator church . We became very good friends out of that experience. A lot of democratic caucuses over the years. When i became a National Candidate in the 1980s, he and beth een went out of their way to encourage me and support me in their own way. He was ailing at that time. If i may, i would like to answer a question you havent asked. The first of many phone conversations that james and i had. He called and said he was going to write a bout the Church Committee. Are you willing to talk about me . Of course, long overdue. The most 50 years now. 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 that. The authors said, i think the Church Committee was the most important Congressional Committee in the history of this nation. I simply said, based on . He said , because the Church Committee built a bridge. From 30 years of cold war, and involvement of the Intelligence Community in the cold war, to a postcold war world. And forced the cia, fbi and others to begin to deal with a world beyond the socalled well, not socalled, but the communist threat that had been the driving principle of almost all National Security in this country for three decades. Thats why this book is important among other things. As a caution, i am giving answers you have and ask. As a caution, anybody here who is going to review this book, let me point out one thing i think other reviewers, early reviewers have missed. I know at least one review, created the committee, and made himself chairman of it, or Something Like that. That is not what happened. You want to know how this happened . Turn to pages 162, and 167 in the book, and you will find the author and hero, my hero, mike mansfield. He had been trying for almost 25 years to bring oversight and accountability to this burgeoning intelligence at work. The wrap around of the committee of senator church, friends of us here, was that we were all the producdnt create the commi we have a brief biography about the progressive of that how did someone so far to the left create functioning Bipartisan Committee . He didnt just created on his own. Mansfield was a Key Driving Force behind the committee. And the fact, as i talk about in the book, mansfield at first, who was the Senate Majority leader in 1975, and just to step back one step, you have to remember that in the midterm elections of 1974, the democrats had a landslide victory. In 1975, the democrats had 60 seats in the senate, and almost 294, 295 in the house. Overwhelming majorities. Mansfield had the ability to pretty much create this committee as whatever he wanted it. Only gave the democrats won the majority on the committee. He picked a wide range of senators from both parties. He wanted a balance because he thought this was so important that he did not want it to be viewed as highly partisan. He originally wanted senator phil hart of michigan to be the chairman. Who, in part, was known as the conscience of the senate. He was a liberal, but Close Friends with a lot of conservatives in the senate. Hart had just found out he had cancer. He told, privately, mansfield, he couldnt do it because he had cancer, but he recommended church because he knew church wanted it and would be good at it. Church lobbied to mansfield to some degree. Do you want me to explain a little more about that . It was interesting. At the same time church wanted this, he was thinking about running for president. He had to promise to mansfield he wouldnt run for president. While he was running the committee. He would not run until the committees work was done. , which he thought might mean he could still run in 1976 as soon as the committee finished its work. The misinterpretation by both sides of what they thought was promised and led to a lot of problems for church throughout the Church Committee and the press criticism of him. I think one of the, as i said, mansfield tried to balance out the membership of the committee. I think senator hart told me a story about how you got picked, when you got elected. You told me about how mansfield came to you. I hope a lot of people knew mike mansfield. He was my hero and mentor. He was to an awful lot of other younger members of senators. He was also known as being sparse with words. He walked up to me on the floor of the senate. I said, mr. Leader, he said, gary. I just formed this committee with frank church as the chairman, investigate the cia and do a good job. He turned around and walked away. I had been there three weeks. Let me answer another question you have. I need to ask better questions. Jim, correct me if i am wrong, i found it implicit throughout this book, another reason why its so important, and i think everybody in this room knows, we are in a titanic struggle between democracy and authoritarianism in this country. Authoritarianism is a real and serious threat. Implicit. And if its explicit, give me a page number. Demonstrate how a democratic government can work. Democratic government can work. You know why it worked for us . One simple reason. Six democrats and five republicans put the National Interest ahead of their parties in interest. Thats the simple truth. Thats why it worked. Why again it is implicit in the book. The authors comment on john tower being selected as the kind of watchdog over the liberals, and frank church. And how almost, if not overnight, very quickly, tower came to trust frank church. And work with him. I wrote, not an obituary, but a comment on franks passing. John towers passing. He didnt speak to me for the first time in the senate as i was there. Not once. There is a story behind this later, where i learned that john tower was a real human being, and i wrote this in the washington post. His former wife wrote me and thanked me. I had to do with a dinner in geneva. He was there on arms control. One of the two of his daughters came to visit him. I was having a solo dinner from the rest across from city hall. They came upstairs. One of the daughters came down and invited me to join them. I said, no, you dont get to see her father very much. You spend the time with him. That was the daughter that died with john tower in the plane crash. Back to the theme. This is a demonstration of how democrats and republicans can Work Together in the National Interest. Yes . Yes, i think that is implicit in the book. I tried to one of the things in the narrative, i try to keep it in the time period in which it was, and that the reader draw his own conclusions about Current Events as much as possible. So it worked. You picked that up. One other sign of the wisdom of mike mansfield, and constructing a committee, bipartisan manner, giving republicans a higher proportion of members than they hold in the senate at the moment. When the boat occurred to constitute the Church Committee, the vote was 824 in the senates. That vote then had a reverb effect for the entire life of the committee. Yeah, just so people know what senator hart was mentioning, john tower was the ranking republican on the Church Committee. He had been he was widely disliked in the senate at the time. The Senate Minority leader, he had been put on there specifically because he was widely disliked. He was there to spy on frank church. In fact, he admitted that later in a memoir he wrote. As the senator just said, he very quickly got to realize he agreed with a lot of 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 turned over classified documents to the Church Committee. That is something you would just never see today. He also had a title of vice chairman, which was not a normal thing in the senates. You are a ranking member. That gave him a certain stature, which he enjoyed. He was about five foot six, i think. Which is tall, no, im just getting. Yeah, thats true. It wasnt just mansfield and church that led to the committee, right . There was a growing movement and understanding for the american public. Someone wrote a comment or question. If he had not in the family jewels story in the late 1974, with the Church Committee have been formed, do you think . It sounds like somebody has been reading my book. Yes, that is what triggered the Church Committee. In december, 1974, seymour hersh, who is legendary Investigative Reporter for the New York Times, broke a huge story in the New York Times about the domestic spying operations, especially against antiwar dissidents and civil rights leaders. That triggered the creation of the Church Committee. It led to calls for congressional investigations of the Intelligence Community, and ultimately it was what mansfield used as his predicate to create this committee he had wanted to be having created for many years. In the house, there was a house version of the same thing. It eventually became known as the pipe committee. The white house, jerry ford had just become president a few months earlier, and they tried to slow down the congressional investigations by creating their own independent commission. Known as the rockefeller commission. Very quickly became seen as something of a white wash. It didnt really slow down the efforts to have the congressional congressional investigations. Sy hersh, i think it was the most important story hersh ever wrote, even more so than the other investigations. I think it was one of the few cases i know as a reporter. One of the few cases i know where writing a story actually made a difference. I want to briefly note, you mentioned the rockefeller commission, where jerry ford tried to preempt congress by having rockefeller do a committee to investigate. Frank Church Actually spoke here in february, 1935, when it was happening. He said, the executive branch, cannot with any credibility, investigate itself. That is the legacy of the committee. Frank church in general is reasserting the checks and balances between congress and government. I really salute you on that. Senator church also said, United States must not adopt the tech pics of the enemy means as an end. What do you think he meant by that . Could you repeat that . Sure. Senator said, the United States must not adopt the tech pics of the enemy. Means are as important as the end. I can talk about that. The church became, as i mentioned earlier, he became radicalized by vietnam. He began writing and speaking in the late 60s and early 70s about how the United States was on its way to becoming no different than the soviet union. If you read some of the text of his speeches from the late 1960s or 1970s, they read like things that would be considered wildly radical today, things that Bernie Sanders wouldnt dare to say. Things like, you know, he said, the vietnam war, the american war role was no different than the soviet invasion of czechoslovakia. The United States was trying to create an empire just like the soviet union, and we were no better than moscow. Its amazing to me that they didnt get more political blowback for some of the things he said at the time, especially in idaho. But he would repeat those things in idaho, and they still got reelected. I thought, maybe, you could talk may be a little bit about the thinking among the democrats of that time about what was the what did you hope to accomplish with the committee . You are probably asking the wrong person, because [ inaudible ] i always supported the agency. I believed in the charter of collection. How does a great power exist in the postworld war ii World Without that capability . Theres a branch of the democratic run down the agency along with the fbi and others. Mr. Hoover had given a lot of ammunition for happiness. I have a theory, the only person around has this theory. The Church Committee made the Central Intelligence agency stronger. The reason for that is, what we discovered, and cy hurst, and others have discovered, is that almost, well, all. Heres another study. How many of the covert operations that went bad , starting with overthrowing governments, up to and including assassination of leaders happen because of pressure from the white house of one party or another . The image of the liberals is the at least back in the day is out of control. Making up things to do. The more bizarre the better. Back then, i find a lot more culpability in various administrations, president s, and those around the president and know the spies, if you will, what they want done, and dont tell us how you are going to do it. By bringing accountability and oversight into the system, we protected the cia because the director of the cia could come before the Oversight Committee and say, ladies and gentlemen, we have received a finding. One of our reforms, that instructs us to do x, y, z. Are you okay with that . That is called oversight. And accountability. Further i find it ironic because , jim mentioned it earlier, about how very conservative people in the Church Committee went after, not only frank church, but the whole committee. Colorado back in the day wasnt just a skiers paradise, it was a pretty conservative state. I was 37 years old. I was fair game for the far right. But now, they want to emulate the Church Committee. Setting the children of those people now want to create their own Church Committee. Very ironic. Those of us who have covered Congress Know that much of the real work of government happens not in the hearing chamber, but behind the scenes. Tell us, the four of you maybe, can tell us about how republican and democrat staffers perceive the committee at the time of its inception. How did that thinking involved as the research deepened and the whistleblowers came forward. He is the expert. There is no question at all that the committee evolved, and the staff evolved. I remember one incident when i just joined the committee. They said, we will find out what kind of oversight is happening in the Armed Services committee, where john is the chairman. I said to them, well, can i see these documents . So i get a very thin file. About the briefings that came from the cia in this case to the committee. One page. With nothing on it. Because basically john stamos, and most of the committee, said, we dont really want to know. You can talk to us, but we dont really want to know. That made it impossible for us initially to get the kind of information we needed. But the rest of the folks can speak also to that it was pulling teeth all the way along. We were amazed, i think, that we were able to uncover as much in 15 months as we did. Not all of us, like frederick, slept on the floor every night to do his work. Some of us went home. But most of us worked seven days a week, honestly. The committee did, too. The staff is meeting all the time. We were able to pull together a heck of a lot of information rather quickly. Someone told me to come down here and speak for five minutes. So if i may, thats what i will do. I wont be any longer. Let me begin by saying, good evening to everyone. It is marvelous to have so many Church Committee colleagues together. I feel like all those reunions i missed are being made up tonight. Its good to see all of you. I would like to congratulate him on his excellent book. I told them earlier. They must have come back in a time machine. They really captured the essence of what we did. They also know what a pleasure it is to be with senator hart again. There are often times during our Committee Proceedings where there was squabbling going on. His calming influence moved us in the right direction again. We also had a lot of tangles and ethical discussions at time. And he always had with him a moral compass, which was greatly appreciated, i think. We were blessed as a committee to have so many challenges on that panel. So much legal expertise, government experience, and an abiding sense of civility among people, which is a lost art. We proceeded with the determination to follow the facts, no matter where they lead. We worked in a bipartisan manner. I can define that word later, if you dont know what it means. We kept foremost in mind what john adams liked to emphasize. We were a nation of laws. All of us remember, as well, how effective bill miller and were in guiding us. After a bumpy beginning between the two, we smoothed things out. They really worked well together. To bring us a marvelous blend of concern about the historical and policy questions we needed to know, coupled with this is where fritz came in, attention to the really horrendous legal violations perpetrated by the secret agencies. We needed to cover both areas in our work. Things to them we did. Our Task Force Leaders before them played an enormously Important Role in guiding us. Their leadership skills were selfevident. David aaron over here was the Task Force Leader of the White House Task force. Rick and i remember very well how he led us. Last but not least, staff mentioned already, words like mad. We didnt all stay overnight every night like frederick did, but we often worked around the clock and on weekends as well. It was an impressive demonstration of dedication and seriousness of intent. What about the practical results from this investigation . The period from 1787 to 1976 covers a spend of 189 years. During that time, our government benefited from and innovated system of checks and balances. Ambition countering ambition as medicine described. With one exception. Intelligence. We operated under a doctrine of intelligence, exceptionalism. The notion was the secret agencies were involved in work that was too sensitive to be dealt with with standard practices, or sore the argument went. The abuse of power the resulted was predictable. Operation chaos. Shamrock. Hq lingual. Orwellian nightmares. Severely eroded our claim to be a free and open society. In 1975, when the newspapers across this country carried findings about cia domestic spying, it was evident that the time had come for us to bring that intelligence agencies into the American Government. The Church Committee led that change. Henceforth, there would be senate and house intelligence committees. Along with new laws to back up our expectations. A new town was set in washington, d. C. Bill colby wrote soon after an investigation, and i am quoting him. The rule of law applies to all parts of the American Government. Including intelligence. And then he added, and this is the point as well. This will strengthen including intelligence. Then he added, this will strengthen american intelligence. The single naysayer among these intelligence chiefs over the years was william casey. An architect of the iran contra affair. Once i sat next to him in this is what he said to me. The business of congress is to stay out of my business. So his distorted view has not prevailed so far. Fritz schwartz once observed that before the Church Committee, congressional oversight was an embarrassment. He recalled cia general counsel had become a little cocky in what we did around the world. In the wake of our investigation, frank church often quoted the very first recommendation of our committee reports. There is no inherent Constitutional Authority for the president or any Intelligence Agency to violate the law. Most members of the committee and staff understood that intelligence accountability could play an porten role in attracting human liberty, reducing foolish policies, and enhancing efficiency. That is what we were all about. Thank you. May i ask a question . Of course. One of the things that i wrote about in the book and that i think is really important is that there was a moment pretty early on when it was not clear whether the Church Committee was really going to do an and aggressive investigation of the cia and the Intelligence Community or not. There was a divide within the staff and between schwartz, the chief counsel, and bill miller over whether miller wanted to do a Lessons Learned type of approach and Fritz Schwartz, who was an lawyer wanted to do a more investigative approach. I was wondering if somebody could talk about how the divide played itself out and how it got resolved. I can address that because i work so hand in hand with Fitz Schwartz at the time. I think you are right that he was the cutting edge that generated the facts that made the Church Committee dramatic and pinned down the witnesses and the documents and he knew how to do that because he was a master litigator. And he understood that if the Church Committee was to fully take advantage of the historic opportunity it had to do do a rethinking over the intelligence agencies had gone and why they had gone there and what kind of new checks and balances might be necessary. First, you had to dramatize the problem with the facts. In this case, he advocated to senator church who agreed with him, that 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 psy hirschs reporting and some subsequent news stories that came out and fritz advocated that we put First Priority on that issue. Do it in depth, do it dramatically end up with public hearings which would be unheard of at that time on a subject like like classified cia covert operations and and then he had the wisdom to frame it the way you would in litigation. Meaning first start with the documents. The documents dont lie. There can be debates later about who remembers what or 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 towers support who joined senator church in going to see Nelson Rockefeller, who was referred to earlier. The Ford Administration 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 dick cheney, did not want to make full measures and thought this could be injurious to the agencies. On the other hand, as you pointed out, jim in the book, president ford did not want to be back tarnished in the watergate fashion where nixon refused to turn over certain documents and ultimately, the tapes and lost in the Us Supreme Court and was embarrassingly forced to do so. So he ultimately was supportive of more cooperation and at the critical moment where those signals were being sent, but we werent getting any documents. Then senator church was briefed by Fred Schwartz, joined hands with john tower for a visit to Nelson Rockefeller and Fred Schwartz 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 kurt smothers, the republican counsel was also there. I was there. But when the door closed for the meeting, i was on the outside in the ante room. Ok. What happened as a result in short was that within about three weeks, we got a note saying, ok, there will be five boxes of documents 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 general, the attitude was you dont have to worry because you just tell us what you want to know and then well tell you the answers of the way wed like to. So Fritz Schwartz asked me at a very tender age to go over to the white house situation room to look at the five boxes. There was a large marine guard there standing over me the entire time. This was the situation room where you know, a nuclear, nuclear, well say the cuban missile crisis would have been discussed, but i was alone in the room with the guards standing over me. And the idea was just, just tell us if you think there 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 point because what was in front of me was the minutes of the National Security council and what was called the special group, which was the senior most level in the government cabinet level, like the chairman of the joint chiefs and 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. And as i flipped through, im reading the minutes of these meetings and a lot of it was in code and at first blush greek to me, but it became apparent during my rapid, you know, sweating like use of my 90 minutes. I realized 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 cia is not, not under the 1947 National Security act, theyre not supposed to operate within the United States. So, so something is up 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 castro. Change the administration in cuba. There were also earlier discussions from 1960 in the Eisenhower Administration where president eisenhower was totally vexed about Patrice Lumumbas 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 lumumba. So after reading this, i told the guard sorry, but im not going, 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 kind of the holy grail. And i reported to Fred Schwartz that, that we had to have everything in the five boxes and it 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 and then bring in all of the witnesses. Thats what happened. A, because Fritz Schwartz new how to direct all of that and the rest of us did it. B, because frank church supported it. And john on the republican side, the secret sauce was howard baker, richard schweiker, charles mathias. They were moderate republicans who were deeply committed to this. And john tower didnt take long to be committed as well to the general notion that the legislative branch needed to have the facts and thats what happened and it opened the lid. Thats amazing. I was hoping to hear from rick. It mustve been very eye opening. How did that feel and what were your thoughts at that time . I will try to limit myself as professor johnson did to the five minutes. Let me add a postscript to what he had to say about his exchange with senator mansfield. When he was notified that he was appointed to the committee and, to do a good job. What senator hart did not mention was that immediately after that he came back to his office in the dirksen building and called for all of the staff to come to his office and he asked a simple question. Does anyone here know anything about the cia clock there was silence. And then, i raised my hand and i said, i dont but i would like to learn and he said, you have got a job started off on the ground floor in this investigation. It was a steep learning curve and i think it still is with respect to the cia. But that is how it all began. With myself as the designee for senator hart. You have heard a lot of serious comments being made about the importance of the committee and the issues, the fundamental issues facing the country with respect to National Security and private rights, civil rights. But there was also, with that committee, some humor. And the political cartoonists of the day had a field day with doing cartoons about the work of the Church Committee. I brought just three to share with you. The first one has senator church before the tv camera. And a guy next to him called senator covert and senator church is saying, good evening and welcome to i had a secret. There was another one that we have heard about the assassination plots and castro, i think there were nine different plots to get castro, including exploding cigars and the rest. So oli wrote, he did this cartoon in which you see castro here and a cia agent there with a sort of a bow and arrow and he has shot an arrow with a suction cup that hits castro right in the forehead. And the agent says, er, its supposed to your brains out and then i take them back to washington and, and castro is just, and then the little person in oliphants cartoon says, uh the cigar isnt working either and then this is, this is actually my favorite. Uh, there is one, you know, the committee got into and jim risen covers all of this in his great book, uh, got into the whole question. Well, in fact, the title of the subtitle, uh, the cia, the fbi, the mafia and the kennedys. Uh i mean, this got into areas that we never expected to find, uh, in terms of our investigation and this cartoon, because Frank Sinatra was also tied to the mob and also tied the mob to the cia. This one has Frank Sinatra coming into the committee room, a small Frank Sinatra, surrounded by thugs, his bodyguards. And you see the, the uh, members of the committee ducking under the dias scattering. And the chairman says the Church Committee calls Frank Sinatra. Er on the other hand, if mr. Sinatra would rather not. So there there was humor amongst all the serious work being done. Um let me just end with this. The bipartisanship shown by the committee and fritz swartz mentioned this in his book about democracy in the dark was demonstrated by the fact as frit says, republican senators, Barry Goldwater and john tower dissented quite often, but there was no vote that divided the committee on a party basis. Not a single vote was party line. There was always a bipartisanship there. We would like to see those days again. The all 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, this was an all star 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 have 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. 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 confront 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. Um, i think all Committee Members and all staff on the Church Committee ascribe 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. Uh, in this, uh, in this experience of a lifetime, i think most of us up here and a great many out in 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. If youre going to do ideology, they Work Together. And we had, we had what this Jordan Committee does not have. We had both sides interviewing witnesses. We had sharing of information. We had something that was not a sham or a witch hunt or an outrageous political stunt. To be perfectly honest, was politics involved . Of course it was. But all of us had a mission and, and as locke said, we were following the facts and thats what we ended up doing. I would say that i dont think there were any extreme democrats in those days. , and i ask, i wanted to talk about a couple of things that i talk about in the book, if thats okay. Sure. The first one is related to the assassination plots that this as it was suggested earlier, as mentioned earlier. Uh the first thing that the Church Committee focused on was the cis plots toassinate foreign leaders including fidel castro and others. And uh senator hart was one of three members of the committee who were part of that smaller wasnt really a subcommittee, but it was a smaller unit that was investigating that. And you told me a great story about how you had found out that the cia had a hit man and you wanted to meet him and uh how you, what happened then . And i thought its a great story. Part of my freelancing. Could you just describe what that, that story is a great story. When we found out that the agency had been involved in assassination plots including against fidel castro almost on a demented pattern. It opened up a lot of new doors and the major one was that the cia usedmafia figures to try to help in the plots against castro. Why . Well, because the, 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 so called family jewels that led to an awful lot of our investigations. Uh, here were three named mafia figures. So, um, the first thing we discovered was that the former cia director alan dulles, a member of the Warren Commission had not revealed to chief Justice Earl Warren and the 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 roselliand ended up bringing him in in twice. We had subpoenaed or prepared a subpoena, um sam g and connor in chicago. And heres what happened. Before we could subpoena giancona, he was killed in his basement with six bullet holes in the throat or thereabouts and murder never solved. After the second appearance of johnny roselli, he disappeared and was found two or three months later. Its in the book. Floating in a 50 gallon drum or some such thing in dumbfounding bay in off the miami coast. He had been killed. Rick. 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 dade county sheriff and the um miami police department. They showed the first thing they did was show us pictures of roselli in the barrel. I still havent gotten over it. Its the worst thing you can imagine. He was killed about any, any way you can kill a human being. I wont go into the terrible details. So somebody wanted giancana dead at a timewhen the Church Committee wanted to talk to them about plots against fidel castro, which the Warren Commission didnt know. Well, i, maybe i did freelance, whatever that means. It, 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 who wanted both of them silenced and not to talk about the events against castro or the implications against john kennedy. And you also, i was gonna say, but you also tried to meet qj wynn. Yeah, he was, he was in the plot to kill Patrice Lumumba. Right . Well, we ran across a guy professional assassin location unknown with the codename qj wynn. I think that came up in colby is testimony. I recall. And um i was headed on the first parliamentary delegation to russia with a dozen other senators and i talked to colby and i said when, when we come back, it wasnt just me. It was the whole delegation transited back from moscow through overnight in amsterdam. And i dont know, i had no evidence, but i somehow intuited that qj wynn was european and that he might be somewhere nearby and that he, there was indication that he was also implicated in one or more of the, 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 this. So bill colby said ill do my best and we set off to moscow, spent almost a week there and did transit back through amsterdam with our spouses, my dear late wife, lee. Uh, and, uh, i got a message from a man, a young man in moscow at our last press conference. Um, note, im sure he was with the agency there. This, the station that said, uh, one of our people well meet, well 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 oclock, 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, uh, we contacted qj wynn. He did in fact live nearby. I dont know why i knew that, but i thought that, um, so he came and we had a drink earlier this evening and, uh, this man said, we, we have a friend who who would like to talk to you. Will you talk to our friend . This code name guy said, does it had anything to do with the investigations in the United States . And the man, the agency man said, told him the truth, whether he should have or not, i dont know, you can reach your own conclusion. But predictably, qj wynn was out ofthe 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, he, he hasnt let this go in his memoir. He says qj wynn if you are out there, i still want to talk to you. You can contact me through the publisher of the book. There has been someevidence of who, who really was now, but its never been proven. 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, 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 im being my people, leaders of the Intelligence Community and bill 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, i dont think so. This was in the 1st 30 days of our beginning. And the question on the table what if the agencies refuse to deal with this . What if we ask for documents and they just dont give them or 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 knew 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 each of us ask the cia and the fbi for our own personal files . The room got deathly silent. So you had 11, 10 others thinking. It was quiet, quiet, quiet. The spell was broken by Barry Goldwater who set a course oath and then said, i dont want to know what theyve got on me. But, i also asked two or three of us did ask for our files. It was kind of interesting. You and Barry Goldwater had kind of a rapport, right . You were very liberal. He got me, he wasnt campaigning for you. He showed up in colorado said some nice things when someone asked about, you said you had, i told too many stories already. But is this ok, barry and i served for uh 12 years on the Armed Services committee and the, and a year and a half on the Church Committee. So we got to know each other pretty well and we were pretty much geographical neighbors and i found that, you know, the liberal democrats, all he was mr. Demon of his age and, but he, 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 defeat gary hart. Now, if you, if you look at the roster of the 80 election, i think we lost 10 or 11 Democratic Senators including frank church and George Mcgovern and a host of others. The brother of the day was the beer guy. What was it . Coors. So anyway, barry was beginning to have his terrible problems with arthritis and so on. He was on canes, ultimately on crutches. So he showed up from phoenix about 5 00 that eveningat the airport to go to the dinner and give a speech to the Republican Party, sent the press corps out to the airport to interview him to try to get stories in the sunday papers because otherwise they just covered the speech. It would be monday morning page eight below the fold. So barry was cranky. And all the questions were youre here to defeat gary hart. Well, no, im gonna talk to the republicans and were gonna, uh, get together, blah, blah. And the question after question repeated, he finally got fed up. He said, ok, im just gonna say one thing. Gary hart is the most honest and moral man i have ever met in politics game, set match. And monday, we had 250,000 copies of that story all over colorado. That was it. I, i just keep coming back to that because you are a young liberal democrat. He is the conservative granddaddy of modern america. And, but you, thats a great case example of the bipartisanship of the Church Committee. Yeah, absolutely. And barry barry ended up not being a doctrine or conservative. He was, he was a libertarian. He and late in life to the embarrassment of his party, he endorsed gay marriage and abortions and all kinds of other stuff. And of course, his former colleagues were all saying barrys gone senile. Well, everyone we talked to on the committee when they mentioned Barry Goldwater, they all had nice things to say about him. They said, oh, i didnt agree with him, but he was very nice to me. Everyone has and i, i have a question for the rest of you you were talking about, well, you were talking about, you want to investigate the murders of the witnesses and you know, thats, youve never, youve always been curious about that. I think its really impressive everything you did because this is pre digital 1975. They had to comb through lots and lots and lots of paperwork. Government produces lots of that already. You had to get the documents. Once you finally got the documents, you only had a year. So you spent several months of that already getting the documents. So once you finally had them, you had to work fast with without the internet. I was born. I i am not. Yeah, i cant imagine that. So how, how did you develop, how did you develop a short hand to find what you needed in the time that you had . And if you was there anything that 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 cant research anymore. Like what did you want to dig into more . You go to the library and go to the card catalog. You know, 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. It makes so much more impressive, but it was done. It was a whole gum shoe thing, right . I mean, 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 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 do you think, senator . I mean, it would have blown things sky high. But, you know, we got what we got and it was, you know, uh, perseverance i guess. Locke wrote a very fine book about the committee of inquiry. You can see some of those cartoons in his book that rick brought like the frank Frank Sinatra ones my favorite. So you really, you really describe what the dirksen auditorium was like. It was, you had these very cramped cubicles and everyones on top of each other and you can hear everyones conversations. It was like a bedlam and just, thats just so impressive. What you did . Have you ever been in a small kitchen when the tea kettle is blowing off . Thats sort of how it was. If i may just take a couple of minutes, i want to tell a gary hart story. But i want to preface by saying that one of the saddest moments in the committee for me was to realize the assassination plots really occurred and cointelpro the fbi trying to destroy the lives of american citizens and one of the people i interviewed was William Sullivan number three at the fbi. And i said, why didnt you blow the whistle on this cointelpro, 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. And that is, i remember early on where frank church and Fritz Mondale fabulous people in my view, heroes of mine were beginning to speak out in public about what the committee was doing and it was really wreaking havoc in the committee. And you said in a meeting, closed meeting, if this continues, i will resign from this committee. And that was a sobering moment and you had the courage to say that i think. Well, i told it to mike mansfield. I dont remember bringing it up in the committee, but i thought that 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, i love both frank and, and fritz and end 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. Well, that was one of the turning points in the early committee history, i think, 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, uh, uh, uh, people in, in the post watergate world saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is a very serious problem. But its, it was a, you know, it was a fine line to walk, uh, between keeping your mouth shut. But we had no leaks out of that committee, no leaks out of that whole committee in 15 months now. I, i dont think that happens today much. Does it . What do you think . I think there were some leaks. Well, we never admitted to the man rick frederick. Was there anything you want to dig into more . If you had had more time . I would just, the answer is yes and one area was i was on the loma assination investigation from start to finish. Doesnt get enough attention. And senator hart had bird dogged the one of the International Assassins who had surfaced. There was another one, this is on a trail where there was something left over to investigate at the end and major policy issues that we confronted. But on the International Assassin story, there was also agent wy rogue in addition to qj wynn and they were going to team up and they were both known as people who knew how to get anything done. And there was a cable that i discovered using the technology of microfiche at the cia where we made a breakthrough. We negotiated for months to get access to the actual cables that cia headquarters sent to the cia station chief at the time surrounding the lumumba assassination plot. And it took forever to get them to say, ok, you can show up. And when i did, i was in a booth with it sounds illicit, but i was in a booth with curtains next to me looking in a monitor, turning microfiche on a spindle and seeing cia cable after cable after cable. And were talking about thousands of cables looking for, you know, the jewels that were there and secretly scribbling notes on a yellow pad. 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 said, recommend pouch soonest high powered rifle with telescopic scope hunting good here when lights, 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 chief himself testified, i mean, discussed later in life, the qualms he had about what he was asked to do. He said, who authorized you to tell me to in factassassinate this guy. And he said, and the answer he got from the cia doctor was highest authority. And he said, 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 at a policy level was frank church early on raised the hypothesis that we need to understand if 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 of the process. After looking at all documents and listening to all witnesses, the committee essentially concluded that while we cant find a piece of paper that signed dwight d. Eisenhower or john f, kennedy, you know, please assassinate patti lumumba and fidel castro. That in fact, the cia was operating within the realm of authority that was clearly signaled to them under the rules of the time, which were plausible deniability for the president. It shall never be put in writing, but were unmistakably sending you the message that we want this to happen and nobody will ask any questions if it does. Then finally, back to senator harts point about how none of us we were all getting into issues. We never expected to see you. They didnt teach Assassination Law in law school. And so the, you know, what was the, 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, 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 grappling with 100 other issues, was that at the very least, this needs to be considered by the congress in the light of constitution checks and balances setting up 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 than problems that were solved . And then later, as a result of the committees recommendations, president president s of both parties, ford and carter created a series of president ial executive orders directly in response to the recommendations of the Church Committee to set a regulatory scheme. And then the attorneys general griffin bell under carter and ed levy under ford did the same thing at the attorney general level. They were regulating what the intelligence agencies could do that might have an impact on the rights of american citizens. So these these bizarre episodes that we were investigating led to important rethinking of the rules of the game for the intelligence agencies going forward. , as you can all tell this book is packed full of a lot of stories and interesting details. I was hoping we could do one more question but spin things forward to present day. Can you each tell me one take away of what you learned from that era and those investigations that we should apply to american now . Lets start with you, rick. The need for oversight of intelligence could never be more important than it is today. We have seen in depth looks at a number of abuses that continue to take place. All 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 uh in terms of what are the guard rails for uh privacy and civil liberties. So what comes out of, for me, the the lesson from the Church Committee is that it established a basis for oversight but oversight has never been more important. Um and we will see where that heads in the future. I can bring it up to the president as recently as this afternoon, um i had a by happenstance, a chance to talk with congressman dan goldman, who was the lead counsel on one of the impeachments and is now on the House Judiciary Committee and hes in the minority, the democratic minority on the weaponization of government subcommittee. And where jim jordan claimed at the outset, dont worry about us because were 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 fact based conclusions, not political conclusions. What he said was were using that as the measuring rod. And we know that the Church Committee is the model that should be followed on a Committee Like this. And he and his colleagues are dedicated to do everything they can to restore that form of congressional oversight and investigation. At the earliest possible opportunity in 1975 frank church appeared on meet the press and he saidthat 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, were 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. And ive also added a lot of it depends on whos in the right places. If you go back and read plato and aristotle, they say that Good Government depends on picking good people to be in high office and that will always be the case. Youve got a gary hart on one of these Oversight Committees, its going to work. Youve got some of the other people who have been on these committees and the committee has failed completely. So its been up and down and the bottom line is we have to work hard to elect good people to high office. So youre turning this to the political consultant. Get you elected right here. Not anymore. Im an old gray guy, old grey horse. Um you know, if uh if democracy is gonna and thrive in the 21st century, uh we have to consider that one question that someone started with, which is if you um adopt the techniques of your opponents, the last line the 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, as the purveyors of, of, of a real democratic order and thats gonna take a lot of work and liking some good people. Tom. Nice work on helping to create open secret. So by the way, oh, thank you. Great stuff. Um i think, yeah, the bipartisanship is really uh i dont want to say its a bygone era and uh or whatever, but its uh theres been that much talk about that that really drove like the story of you and Barry Goldwater is just because like everyone talks about Barry Goldwater is like, you know, mr conservative and 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. I guess i would just say that um i think its really important to remember uh when things actually work, right . And when um there are good people involved in government uh just so we can compare and contrast against today. And its 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. The book itself is very interesting if you have a chance to read it. I wanted to say thank you to our audience as well. Uh we look forward to seeing you at future natural press club events. And if you havent gotten the book yet, i, i highly recommend it. They will have some signings outside and um thank you for taking the time. Good night. Listening to programs on c span just got easier. Tell your Smart Speaker to play cspan radio. Important congressional hearings and other Public Affairs events throughout the day. Catch washington today for a fast pace report. Listen to cspan any time. Just tell your Smart Speaker to play cspan. Weekends on cspan 2 are an intellectual feast. We document americas stories and on sundays we bring you the latest on books and authors. Funding comes from these Television Come niece, and more