Transcripts For CSPAN3 James 20240706

Cspan 2024 coverage can be watched live on cspan as votes are cast. Along with candidate speeches and results beginning with the iowa caucuses. And then attention primary on january 23. Campaign 2024 on cspan. Your unfiltered view of politics as. Good evening and welcome to the National Press club. The place where news happens. I am the 2023 president of the press club and managing editor. Thank you for joining us here at the National Press club and on cspan. I want to take a quick moment to say thank you to our staff and volunteers here at the National Press club for helping to put this event together, including headliners like lori russo and Cecily Scott Martin who is a program coordinator. We have a very Exciting Program tonight with our esteemed Panel Focused on a book just out called the last honest man. Lets get started. Quotes if addict tater ever took charge in this country the technological capacity that has been given that government could allow it to impose total tyranny and there would be done way to fight back. That may sound like a statement from today but it dates back to 1975 from senator frank church, a democrat from idaho. Church served in the u. S. Senate from 1957 through 1980 and in to investigate abuses by the cia, the National Security agency, the fbi, and the irs. Tonight we are looking forward to an exciting conversation with james the risen, author of the last honest man and gary hart, who served on the Church Committee. We also have Staff Members peter fenn , Frederick Baron , carl inderfurth. These Congressional Staffers a recently found himself at the center of news when they wrote an open letter to jim jordan, a republican from ohio. Jordan chairs a newly formed House Select Committee on the weaponization of the federal government and these former staffers urged jordan to change course and pursue a bipartisan inquiry that i felt had made the Church Committee successful and effective. Senator hart is the last surviving member of the committee and wrote an oped calling the jordan subcommittee and mockery. We are privileged to have both james risen and senator hart here to discuss some of the lessons from the Church Committee and how it is relevant today. Was a reporter for the New York Times where he won the Pulitzer Prize in 2006 for stories about the National Security Agency Domestic spy program. He was also part of a team that won a 2002 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting for coverage of the september 11 attack. Senator hart represented colorado until 1987. A graduate of yale law school, he returned to private practice after leaving the senate. He earned a doctor of philosophy degree from oxford in 2001. He has stayed active in government as chair of the u. S. State department interNational Security Advisory Council. Chair of the u. S. Defense Advisory Council and chair of the American Security project. Welcome to the National Press club. I figured i would start with senator hart and james risen for questions and then broaden the topic out to others. Please feel free to pop in if you have other comments or questions. I will try to ask as many questions for the audience as possible so write them down on a card and hand them up to me. Jim, you spent decades doing investigative reporting on National Security issues and have written several other books on the kgb, the cia, abortion, and other topics. What prompted you to read about frank Church Specifically and why now . Thank you, again, for having us. The reason i wrote and tom wrote this book was, 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 the frank church and the Church Committee which had existed 20 years before uh dick cheney, in particular, as Vice President constantly complained that the problems in the Intelligence Community that had led to the intelligence failure of 9 11had been caused by frank church who by that time had been uh out of the senate for 20 years and dead for more than 15. Um and so it was a weird, a weird excuse. I began to think at the time that i shall learn more about the Church Committee. As time went on, and as a republican in the Bush Administration continue to make that refrain of saying that 9 11 was caused by frank church, i realized i should learn more about it. And then over the following years when the iraq war went so badly and bush and cheney lost popularity. A lot of americans began to listen to what cheney had been saying about the Church Committee and realized that now that they had turned against cheney, maybe they should have another Church Committee that and so the idea of a new Church Committee became something that people started talking about to investigate the bush and cheney administrations abuses of intelligence. And so that led me to begin to think about eventually writing a book about what was the truth about the Church Committee. And then as i was writing about it and about to publish the book, the the new Republican Party in the house started talking about the need for a, for a new Church Committee. So its something that i realize that has become part of the american political lexicon. The Church Committee is now a synonym for a truth and reconciliation committee. And every time there is and a big scandal or a call for investigations, everyone in washington now says we need a new Church Committee. And so i thought we needed a new history of what really happened with the Church Committee. Thats awesome. Did you find any surprises when you were digging into this . Oh, yeah, lots of surprises. I mean, it, it was the thing that amazed me the most is how much these guys investigated in a one year, a span of just one year. You gotta remember going back into that time period and its, its hard to, what was so fascinating to me was getting back into the mindset of the 19 seventies to realize there had never been any congressional oversight of the Intelligence Community prior to the Church Committee, the cia had gone for 30 years with no supervision whatsoever and there were no rules in place, no laws, no rules that really governed the cia or the fbi for that matter, or the nsa. There was no public debate or public discussion of what the Intelligence Community should do. And so everything that the Church Committee did was brand new. And that is, if you step back and you think you create a committee and then you tell them, you have to investigate 30 years of history of an agency. Its pretty awesome and i think they did a really Pretty Amazing job in one year. I agree the detail, the book really details all the work that they put into it. Its Pretty Amazing um, in your book. As you just mentioned, the cia was around three decades old when they, the committee was formed. How do you think it was able to amass so much power and operate without oversight for so long . Well, thats a great question. It was something that, maybe senator hart could talk about also. But i think there was a sense in the post war world post war era, that americans didnt want to ask too many questions, especially after World War Two. And then the mccarthy era hit in the early fifties and there was a, a witch hunt for, communists and for anyone who was a dissident. And it was, i think in the fifties there was a, a sense that, americans were taught to trust the government. And i think that all began to break down with vietnam and uh the Civil Rights Movement and then watergate and i think watergate really opened the floodgates to questioning of the Intelligence Community. And so that really, i think in a lot of ways, the Church Committee was a what it was seen at the time as kind of a sequel to what to the watergate investigation, even though it, it ended up in a very different place. But it was, it was a kind of a, there was the beginning of a progressive and Reform Movement in the 19 seventies. What do you think made senator church begin to question the inner workings of the American Government because he really did go through transformation, didnt he . Yeah, it was fascinating to learn about his background. Frank church was from idaho. He grew up in boise and in the 19 twenties and thirties, he was you know, and then when he, he got to the senate when he was only 32 in 1956 he was really a very traditional liberal cold warrior. A lot like john kennedy who he really looked up to, they were both in the senate at the same time and he was a typical 19 fifties democrat who, uh, believed in the, the cold war fight against communism. But vietnam really radicalized him and he became one of the first opponents of the, of the war in the senate. And it was largely because of his service in china in World War Two where he had seen how corrupt the regime of shang kai shek was that he saw in South Vietnam something very similar and he realized very quickly how corrupt the South Vietnamese government was. And that radical, he eventually became radicalized by the us involvement in the war. And he, he began to see that the United States was on the path of becoming a militaristic empire. And he thought that the Intelligence Community was part of that. Senator hart. You knew senator church personally . Oh, sorry. Uh senator hart, you knew senator church personally. What was he like . And what is your fondest memory of senator church . Well, um yeah, we became very good friends out of that experience and a lot of democratic caucuses over the years. And when i became a National Candidate in the eighties, he and went out of their way to um, encourage me and support me in their own way. And he was ailing at that time. But, if i may, id like to answer a question. You havent asked. The first of many phone conversations that james risen. And i had, he called and said, im gonna write a book about the Church Committee. Are you willing to talk to me . And i said, of course, its long overdue. Its almost 50 years now. And i said, why are you writing the book . He stunned me by saying, i think the Church Committee was the most important Congressional Committee in the history of the republic. Let me repeat that. The author said, i think the Church Committee was the most important Congressional Committee in the history of this nation. And i simply said, based on, and he said, because the Church Committee built the bridge from 30 years of cold war and involvement of the Intelligence Community in the cold war to the post cold war world and forced certainly this cia the fbi, nsa, and others to begin to deal with a world beyond the so called, well, not so called, but the communist threat that had been the central driving principle of almost all National Security in this country for three decades. So thats why this book is important among other things. And as a caution, im giving answers that you have on that as a caution to anybody here whos going to review this book. I mean, point out one thing that i think other reviewers, early reviewers have missed. And that is i know at least one review where they said frank church created the committee and then made himself chairman of it or Something Like that. That is not what happened. You want to know how this happened. Turn the pages 162 to 167 in the risen book and you will find the author and the hero is my hero, mike mansfield. He had been trying for almost 25 years to bring oversight and accountability to this burgeoning intelligence network. And so, so the wrap around of the committee about my friend, senator church, friend of many of us here was that we were all the product beginning in early 75 of senator mansfields efforts for almost a quarter of a century. Is that correct . So, its called the Church Committee because frank was chairman. There you are. But he didnt create the committee, right . We got a brief biography about mansfield in the book too. Hes a really amazing guy. Yes, you do. Thats true. Did you have any more thoughts about mansfield . Oh, man, read the book. Is this, they have an entire books written about mansfield. Hes an amazing guy. So, senator church grew into a left leaning progressive by the standards of that day. How does someone so far to the left create a functioning bipartisan committee. You want me to answer that . Yeah, i think as senator hart just said, he, he didnt create it on his own. Mansfield was a key, was the Key Driving Force behind the, the committee. And in fact, as i talk about in the book, he uh mansfield at first mansfield who was the Senate Majority leader in 1975. And just to get step back one step, you gotta remember that in the midterm elections of 1974 the democrats had a landslide victory. Uh and so in 1975 the democrats had 60 seats in the senate and i think almost 294 295 in the house, it was an overwhelming majorities. And so mansfield had the ability to pretty much uh create this committee as whatever he wanted it, but he decided to make it as bipartisan as possible and only gave the democrats a one seat majority on the committee. He picked a wide range of senators from both parties. He wanted a, a balance um because he, he thought this was so important that he didnt want it to be viewed as highly partisan. He originally wanted senator phil hart of michigan to be the chairman. Who and hart had was known as the conscience of the senate. He was a liberal, but he was Close Friends with a lot of, uh, conservatives in the senate. But hart had just found out that he had cancer and he, he told, privately told, uh, mansfield that he couldnt do it because he had cancer. And so, but he recommended church because he knew church wanted it and he thought church would be good at it. Mansfield, church lobbied mansfield to some degree. And, they, i can go, you want me to explain a little bit more about that because it was interesting because at the same time, the church wanted this job. He was also thinking about running for president. And he had to kind of promise to mansfield that he wouldnt run for president while he was running the committee and mansfield and many others thought that meant that church would not run for president in 1976. But church interpreted what he had promised to mean that he would only not run until the committees work was done, which he thought might mean he could still run in 76 as soon as the committee finished its work. And that led that misinterpretation by both sides of what each other thought that had been promised, led to a lot of problems for church over the throughout the Church Committee and to the press criticism of him. But i think one of the, as i said, they, they tried, mansfield tried to balance out all of the member, the membership of the committee. And i think senator hart told me a story about how you got picked right after you were just been elected to the senate for the very first time. So in the 1st 30 days, did you talk a little bit . Remember about, you told me about how mansfield uh came to you. Well, i hope a lot of people here knew my mansfield. He was my hero and mentor and he was to an awful lot of other younger members of congress and senators. He was also known as being sparse with words. So he walked up to me on the floor of the senate. I said mr leader, he said, gary just formed this committee with frank church is gonna be chairman. I want you on it. Investigate, do a good job. He turned around and walked away. Ive been there three weeks. Let me answer another question. Ive been a month or two and jim correct me if im wrong. I found implicit throughout this book. Implicit in it. And if implicit in it. T page in this book is a is a use of the Church Committee to demonstrate democratic government can work democrat government can work. You know i Church Committee to demonstrate atcan work. Democratic government can work. You know why it works for us . One simple reason. Six democrats and five republicans with a national interest, ahead of their partys interest. That is why it worked and why again, its implicit. The authors comment on john power being selected as the watchdog over the liberals at frank church, and how almost, if not overnight, very quickly, they came to trust fred church and work with him. I wrote, not an obituary, but a comment on freds passing, john towers passing. He did not speak to me for the first time in the senate, not once. We would pass in the doorways, but, there is a story behind this where i learned, and i wrote this to the Washington Post and his wife wrote me and thanked me. He was there, with one or two of his daughters who came to visit and we were, i was having solo dinner and they went upstairs and invited me to join them. You spend the time with him, that was the daughter that died 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 . I think that is implicit in the book, right . I tried, in the narrative, i tried to keep it in the time in which it was and let the reader draw their own conclusions about Current Events as much as possible and i think it worked. You picked that up. One other sign, in constructing committee, bipartisan, to give a higher proportion than they actually held proportionately in the senate was when, if the vote occurred, teto constitute the Church Committee and that had a reverb effect and gave them gravitas right out of the gate. Just so that people know what senator hart was mentioning,e john tower was the ranking republican in the Church Committee and he had been, although, he was widely disliked in the senate at the time, and the Senate Minority leader had put him on there specifically because he was widely disliked and he was there, his job was to spy on frank church and he admitted that later war he wrote but eventually, as the senator just said, he very quickly got to realize that he agreed and they actually formed a Team Together and went to the white house and jointly demanded that president ford turn over classified documents to the Church Committee and that is something that you would just never see today. He also had the title of vice chair and that gave him a certain statute he enjoyed. He was about five foot six grade tall. Just kidding. Yeah, thats great. But it wasnt just mansfield and church, right . There is Great Movement and understanding amongst the american public, with comments and questions, if they had not broken that story, with the Church Committee have been informed, do you think . It sounds like someone has been reading my book. Yes, that triggered the Church Committee in december, 1974, seymour hersh, who is a legendary investigator for the New York Times broke a huge story in the New York Times about the domestics my domestic spying operations especially against antiwar dissidents and leaders and that triggered the creation of the Church Committee that led to calls from congressional investigations and the Intelligence Committee and ultimately, it was what mansfield use used as is predicate to create this committee he been wanting to create for many years, and in the house, there was a house version of the same thing that eventually became known in this committee, and the white house, ford had just become president and they tried to slow down thea congressional resolutions by creating a nonindependent commission but it quickly became seen as something of a white wash and so it did not really slow down those efforts to have congressional investigations and so, i think it was the most important story, and so that i think it was one of the few cases i know as a reporter, one of the few i know where writing a story actually made a difference. I want to briefly note, the rockefeller commission, trying to preempt congress by having Vice President rockefeller do a committee to investigate, but they actually spoke here, in february of 1975 and said the executive branch cannot with any credibility, investigate itself and that is the legacy of the committee and they are reasserting the checks and balances between congress and government so i salute you in that. Very true. Senator church also said United States must adapt to these means. What do you think he meant and how is that relevant today . Could you repeat that . Senator church said they must not adopt the tactics of the enemy, means are as important as the ends. I think that the church became, as i mentioned, radicalize but 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 from the soviet union and if you read the text in his speeches from the late 60s and early 70s, the read like things that would be considered wildly radical today and things that Bernie Sanders would not dare to say, he said that the vietnam war, the american role in vietnam is no different for the invasion of czechoslovakia, and that the United States was trying to create an empire and that we were no better than moscow, and its amazing to me that he did not get more political blowback for some of the things he said at the time, especially in idaho. He would repeat the same things in idaho and it did not, he still got reelected. I thought that maybe you could talk about the thinking among democrats at that time. What was, what did you hope it would accomplish with the committee . Youre probably asking the wrong person. Always supported the agency, always believed in collection and analysis and how does the great power resist in a postworld war ii World Without that capability . There is a branch of the Democratic Party that just kind of majored , along with the fbi and others, and there was a lot of ammunition, but, i think that the only person around it, this Church Committee made it stronger and the reason for that is what we discovered. Almost, well, not all, how manya of these operations that went bad, up to and including assessment of foreign leaders met because of pressure from the white house at one time or another . The image that liberals in this country have had is that at least back in the day, its out of control, thinking of things to do, and the more bizarre the better. I find a lot more culpability go in that presence and those around, who dont know what they want done and dont tell us how you are going to do it and so, by bringing accountability and oversight into the system, we protected the cia. The director of the cia could come before the Oversight Committee and say ladies and gentlemen, we have received a finding on one of our forms that instructs us, are you okay with that . Thats called oversight and jim mentioned that earlier, about how very conservative people, for the whole committee, colorado back in the day was not just a skiers paradise and i was 37 years old, so i was fair game to qualify but now, they want to emulate the Church Committee , they now want to create their own Church Committee as they were deriding, 50 years ago. Very ironic. So those of us know that much of the work of government happens behind the scenes. Tell us if the four of you can, about how republican and democrat staffers perceive the committee, how did that thinking involves as your research deepened and whistleblowers came forward. Hes the expert. There is no question at all, that the committee and staff involved. I remember one incident when i had just come to committee and they said, find out what kind of oversight is happening where john stennis is the chair, and so i said to them, can i see these documents . So i get very very thin file, and the briefings, it came from the cia, to the committee. With nothing on it. Basically, john and most of the Committee Said that they really dont want to know, you know . That made it impossible for us, initially, to get the information that we needed. E the rest of the folks can speak, also, that it was pulling teeth, all the way along. We were amazed, i think, that we were able to incorporate as much as we did and not all of us were on that floor every night. Some of us went home, but we did work seven days a week, honestly, and the committee did, too. We were able to pull together a lot of information. Well, someone told me to come down here and bake for five minutes so if i may, that is what i will do. Let me begin by saying, good evening, everyone. I feel like its one of those college reunions. Good to see you all. Congratulations on that book. They mustve gone back in a time machine. May i also know what a pleasure it is to meet with senator hart again in these proceedings where there was some squabbling going on. His common influence always sort of straightened things out and we have these discussions, at times which was greatly appreciated, i think that we i were blessed as a committee to have so many talented senators on that panel, so much legal expertise, so much experience, and an abundance of civility. We proceeded in the determination to follow the facts about where they lead. They worked in a bipartisan manner and i can define that later if you dont know what that means and we kept what john adams liked to emphasize, that we are a nation of laws. We know how effective they were , after a bumpy beginning, we smooth things out and they worked well together to bring us concern about the historical and policy questions that we needed to know, coupled with attention to the horrendous legal violations. We needed to cover both areas in our work and we did. Our task force played an enormously Important Role in guiding us and those leadership skills were selfevident and we remember very well, that he led us. Last but not least, the staff, as we mentioned worked like mad. We didnt all stay overnight every night, frederick did, but we often worked around the clock and on weekends as well and it was an impressive demonstration ovof dedication a seriousness and what about the practicalities . Its a span of 189 years. Our government benefited from checks and balances, ambition countering ambition, with one exception. Intelligence. We operated under exceptionalismab where some of these agencies were involved, or so the argument went. The abuse of power that resulted was predictable, operation chaos , shamrock. Hq lingual, shamrock. Hq lingual, eroded our claim to be a free and open society. In 1975, with these findings about cia domestics, it was evidentom that the time had com for us to bring the intelligence agencies into the American Government. There would be senate and house Intelligence Committees along with new laws to back up our expectations, a new tone was set in washington, d. C. Bill kobe wrote soon after that the Church Committee made clear that the rule of law applies to all parts of the American Government, including intelligence and that this will strengthen american intelligence , the single naysayer was William Casey and was when i sat next to him at the agency, heres what he said, the business of congress is to stay out of my business with this distorted view of democracy, i agree that we are in perilous times. He once observed that before the Church Committee, congressional oversight was an embarrassment. He recalled a cia general that the agency had become cocky and what we did around the world and in the wake of our investigation, they often quoted our First Committee reports, that there is no inherent omconstitutional authority for the president of any Intelligence Agency to violate the law. Members of our committee and staff understood that intelligence accountability could play an Important Role in protecting human liberty, reducing the risk of foolish policies and enhancing efficiency. That is what we were all about. Thank you. Can i ask a question . One of the things that i wrote about in the book and that i think is really important was that there was a moment early on when it was not clear whether the Church Committee was really going to do an impressive investigation or not. Co there was a divide within the staff and especially between chief counsel and the staff director, over weather, miller wanted to do a Lessons Learned push and Fred Schwartz wanted a more aggressive approach. I was wondering if some of the staffers to talk about how that divide played out and how it got resolved in Fred Schwartzs favor. I work hand in glove with i work hand in glove with that you are right. Fritz was cutting edge and that generated the facts and pinned down the witnesses to entertain the documents and know how to do that and understood that if the Church Committee was to fully take advantage of the opportunity it had to do a rethinking of where they had gone and why, first you had to dramatize. He advocated to senator church, who agreed with him that the allegations of assassination plot was the most dramatic issue to put up front during that reporting and the stories that came out and that we put First Priority on it. That would be unheard of, at the time. Then, he had the wisdom to frame it, there could be debates about who remembers what , but the documents will tell e you what was actually happening. With that support and that critical work with john towers, joining and going to see nelson rockefeller. The Ford Administration was ambivalent. Many did not want full disclosures and you pointed out that president ford did not want tarnished, in the watergate fashion, were nixon refused to turn over certain documents and lost in the u. S. Supreme court and was forced to do so. He ultimately was supportive and it was a critical moment where the signals were being sent and senator church joined hands with john tower for a visit to rockefeller and schwartz, as chief counsel, again, sent a very important signal. The republican counsel was also there. I was there when the door closed for the meeting. What happened was that we got a memo saying okay, there will be documentsce in the situation ro at the white house, investigating this famous space and you can come over and see if there are some things you might need. You just tell us what you want to know. Fred schwartz asked me to look at the five and it was a large guard standing over me, were the cuban missile crisis would r have been discussed and i was alone in the room. The idea was, i started flipping through and this turned out to be determined with the minutes of the National Security council in this special group, the he seniormost level in the cabinet level abwith the chairman and t secretary of defense, the cia making decisions. None of us had ever seen that, so as i flipped through, and reading the minutes of these meetings and a lot of it was in cold but it became apparent during my rapid use of my 90 minute that operation mongoose appears to be a secret being conducted by the cia in southern florida. So, something is up. There were minutes, showing discussions, with the president of the National Security council and others felt the need to remove castro and there were 30 other discussions. President eisenhower was totally vexed about it, as a threat to align with the soviet union. Im so, after reading this, i told the guard but im not going to request any specific documents because i knew that this was the holy grail and i reported to Fred Schwartz that we had to have everything and it could not have been more obvious that it would lead to 500 requests for more documents and then bring in all the witnesses. E thats what happened because he knew how to direct all of that and the rest of us did not, on the secret sauce was the power maker, and john tower did not take long to be included, as well. Amazing. As you were diving into all of these, that mustve been eye opening. How did that feel and what are your thoughts at that time . I will try to limit myself to the five minutes. Let me add the postscript about his exchange with senator mansfield. Immediately after that, he came back to his office and called for all the staff to come to his office and he asked a do simple question. Does anyone here know anything about the cia . There was silence. I raise my hand and said i dont, but i would like to learn and he said, youve got a job, so we started off on the ground floor in this investigation and it was a steep learning curve and i think that it still is. N with respect to the cia. Thats how it all began. With myself and committee staff. Youve heard a lot of serious comments about the importance of the committee and the issues with respect to National Security, civil rights, and the rest, but there was, with that committee, some humor. The political cartoonists of the day had a field day with doing cartoons about the work of the committee. I brought three to share with you and you cannot see them all, but the first has the church before the tv camera and the guy, titled herman, covert cia agent and he is saying good evening, welcome to i have a secret. There is another one weve heard about the assassination plot anything there were nine different plots to kill castro including exploding cigars. He did this with castro, cia agent with the bow and arrow and he has shot an arrow with the suction cup and it hits castro in the four head and the agency says, it is supposed to suck your brains out and then we will take it back to hi washington and castro, the person in the cartoon says, this isnt working, either. Theres one, the committee got into, and to the fact of the titles, the subtitle, the cia, c the fbi, the mafia. This got into areas we never expected in terms of our investigation. This cartoon, because Frank Sinatra was also tied to the mob and tied to the cia, this one has Frank Sinatra coming into the committee room. Surrounded by thugs, his bodyguards, you see the members of the committee ducking under the dais, scattering, and the Church Committee calls Frank Sinatra, if mr. Sinatra would rather not. So there was humor. Fred schwartz mentions that, democracy in the dark and was demonstrated by the fact, descending quite often. There was no vote that divided the committee on a single basis, not a single vote. There was always a bipartisanship and we would like to see those days again. All the Committee Members signed the assassination report, senator hart, senator church, senator tower. Fritz mondale, this was an all star committee. We will read two paragraphs. The committee does not believe that these acts, which they have examined, represent the real american character. They do not reflect the ideas as the world hopes for a better, fairer life. Despite our distaste for what weve seen, we have great faith in this country and the story is sad but this country has the strength to hear the story and learn from it. We must remain a people who confront our mistakes and resolve to complete them. If we dont, we will decline, if we do, our future will be the best of the past. I think that we all still ascribe to that. It was a remarkable experience. Thank you, senator hart for allowing us to join you in this experience of a lifetime. We have a great many, considering this. We came up with recommendations. We worked most extreme republicans, most extreme democrats, they were together. We had with this committee does not have, we have both sides interviewing, sharing of information, something that was not ashamed, and outrageous political stunt, to be perfectly honest. Was it imperfect . Of course. We all had a mission and we were following the facts and thats what we ended up doing. I dont think there were extreme democrats in those days. We wanted to have you talk about a couple of things, if thats okay. Related to the assassination plots, it was suggested earlier , the first thing that the Church Committee focused on was the cias plots, including the assassination of fidel castro ng and others with three members of the committee who were part of that, it wasnt really a subcommittee, it was a small unit, and you told me a great story about how you found out about this, and thats a great story. Could you just describe that . When we found out the agency had been involved, on almost a demented pattern, it opened up new doors and the major one was that the cia tried to help in the plots against castro, why . Because the mafia had run havana and most of cuba through quite a number of decades, so the opened up the socalled family jewels. Here were three, named figures, so the first thing we discovered was that the former cia director, a member of the Warren Commission had not revealed to chief Justice Warren and the members those plots and the use of mafia figures. T 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 figures in. We brought in one, and ended up bringing in that person twice. We had subpoenaed, or were prepared to subpoena sam in chicago, and heres what happened. The four that we could subpoena, one was killed in his basement. Murder was never solved. After the second appearance, he disappeared and was found a few months later, thats in the book , floating in a 50 gallon drum or some such thing in foundling bay off the miami coast. Rick came with me, and two other staffers, with the approval of frank church to interview the county sheriff, and the miami police department. They did not show us pictures. Its the worst thing you can imagine. He was killed about anyway you can kill a human being, i wont go into the terrible details. Somebody wanted them dead at a time when the committee wanted to talk to them about plots against fidel castro, which the commission did not know. It led me to be curious and i am still curious because neither murder has been solved, so i still think about who did and why they were both silenced and not to talk about that plot or those implications against kennedy. Well, we ran across professional assassin, code name unknown and i think that came up in that testimony, if i recall. I was headed, in the first parliamentary delegation with a dozen other senators and i talked to them and said, it wasnt just me. It was back, from moscow, overnight in amsterdam and i had no evidence, and they might be somewhere nearby, that there was an indication that he was also implicated in one or more of those plots so i wanted to find him and talk to him and asking him if he had anything to add about all of this. They said, i will do my best and were sent off to moscow and spent a week there and did transit back there amsterdam with their spouses and my dear late wife, lee, and i got a message from a man, a young man in moscow, im sure he was with the agency, there that said one of our people will contact you in amsterdam, so we flew to amsterdam, went out to dinner, i was contacted at the dinner, came back and i was told to go down to the hotel and wait until after 11 00, go down to the hotel bar and the cia man from washington was identified and met me, pulled me into a corner and said, we contact did him, he did in fact live nearby, i knew that or felt that, so he came and we had a drink, a glorious evening, and this man said, we have a friend that would like to talk to you, will you talk to our friend . This code name guy said, does it have anything to do with the investigations in the United States and the man, the agency man, said, whether you should have or not, you can reach your own conclusion but predictably, he was on his way home. I never got to see him. Ut back if i could just add one thing to that, in our memoir, he has not let this go and his memoir, he says, if you are out there, i still want to talk to you. Contact me to the publisher of the book. Who knows. You never know. There is some evidence of that but its never been proven. Fascinating. Could i add something . They mentioned about Getting Started , this was a bigger issue than i think we now think because this has never been done before and there were no ground rules. We were ad hoc in the select committee and i dont think that the word subpoena is used in the whole 15 months. We were relying on people to cooperate, leaders of the Intelligence Committee and coby had already testified pretty openly to us about some pretty deep secrets, so they called that meeting and correct me if there was anyone else in the room, i dont inc. So. This was in the first 30 days th and the question on the table was, if the agencies refuse, what if we asked for documents and they dont give them . What if we ask them to come testify and they dont . What do we do . So we went around the table and there was confusion. No one quite knew how to crack this walnut and get started, so i said mr. Chairman, i have an idea. Why dont each of us ask the cia for our own personal files . The room got deathly silent. You had 11 or 10 others thinking, it was quiet and the spell was broken by barrett goldwater who said the oath and then, i dont know what theyve got on me. I asked, a few of us did ask and it was kind of interesting. You and Barry Goldwater had a report, you he was not campaigning for you, he shut up in colorado and said some nice things. I told too many stories already. Barry and i served 12 , with the Armed Services d 12 committee so we got to know each other pretty well and we were pretty much geographical neighbors. I found out, you know, he was mr. Demon of his age but he was hilarious and he was invited by the Republican Party of colorado to give their Campaign Speech which i think was, defeat gary hart and if you look at the roster, i think that we lost 10 or 11 senators including frank church and a host of others. So, i was targeted. You have that guy. Chorus. Anyway. Barry was beginning to have his terrible problems and was using canes, ultimately, crushes crutches and the Republican Party sent the press corps out r to the airport to get stories in the sunday papers because otherwise, it would be monday morning, page eight below the fold. Barry was cranky and all the questions, you know, whatever. Question after question repeated and he said okay, im just going to say one thing. Gary hart is the most honest and moral guy i have ever met in politics. Game, set, match. Monday we had 250,000 copies of that story, all over colorado and that was it. You were a young liberal democrat, hes the elder conservative granddaddy, but thats a great case example of bipartisanship. Absolutely. He ended up not being a conservative, he was libertarian. Late in life, to the embarrassment of his party, he endorsed samesex marriage and abortion and all kinds of stuff. His former colleagues were all saying that he had gone senile. Everyone that we talked to had nice things to say and said i didnt agree with him but he was very nice me and, i have a question for the rest of you, talking about wanting to investigate the murders of the witnesses and youve always been curious about that. I think its impressive because this is a predigital 1975. You had to comb through a lot of paperwork, you had to get the documents and when you finally got them, you only had a year, so you spent several months getting documents so once you finally had them, you had to work fast and without the internet. I can imagine that. Did you develop a shorthand to find what you needed and was there anything you really wanted to dig into more when people were coming around saying hey, there to finish up, we have to do hearings, what did you want to dig into . You know, the interesting thing about this is the word digital was not in that lexicon. There was no such thing. It was a instance of knowing and hoping they told the truth. Sometimes they did and sometimes they didnt. We had a list of 1200 americans who were on that watch list and there were two names t, we discovered, howard , and frank church. Ed, howard had they told us that . What do you think . That would have blown things sky high, but we got what we got. Perseverance, i guess. We had a very fine book about the committee and you can see some of those cartoons in his book. You had these cramped conversations. If i may take a couple minutes, its a hard story and i want to preference preface this by saying, i interviewed William Sullivan and said, why did you blow the whistle . I had three kids in college. I can remember, early on, fabulous people. You said in a closed meeting, if this continues, i will resign and you had the courage to say that. The potential for oversight. I love frank, later on. That was a turning point, i think. In it was a tough call, because you need to get the public behind you and you need to get some publicity and attention. In a post watergate world, this is a very serious problem and its a fine line to walk. We had no leaks out of that whole committee. What you think . We never admitted to that. Lub n 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. There was something left over to investigate the end and major policy issues that we confronted. But on the International Assassin story, there was also agent y rogue addition to qj win and they were going to team up and they were both known as who knew how to get anything done and there was a cable 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, okay, 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 in a monitor, you know, turning microfiche on the spindle and seeing cia cable after cable. After cable. And were talking about thousands of looking for that. You know, the jewels that were there and secretly notes on a yellow pad because had to have some way to request those documents. I left because there was no such 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 and said recommend pouch soonest high powered rifle with telescopic hunting good here when lights right so the and that was in addition 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 had about what he was asked to do. He said who authorized you to tell me to, in effect, this this guy . And he said, and answer he got from the cia doctor was highest authority. And he said, does that mean the president , 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 but the larger point here at a policy was frank church early on raised the hypothesis that we need to understand if the cia a rogue elephant out operating doing all of these radical covert things without proper legal constraints or president ial authorization and that that stirred a furor later at the end of the process after looking at all documents and listening to all witnesses the committee a concluded that while cant find a piece of paper that signed Dwight Eisenhower or, John F Kennedy and the police assassinate Patrice Lumumba and fidel castro. Then, in fact, the cia was operating within the realm of authority. That was clearly signaled to them under the rules of time, which were plausible deniability. The president. It shall never be put in writing, but were unmistakably sending the message that we want this to happen. Nobody will ask any questions if it then finally, back to senator harts point about how none of us we were all getting into issues we never expected to see. You know, they didnt teach Assassination Law in law school and 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 equivalent to a declaration war or 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 with with a hundred other issues was that at the very least this needs to be considered by the congress in the light of constitutional checks and balances, setting up a process that that means that it will be considered not just for its propriety but also the effectiveness of the operation. Are we doing something will end up disgracing the United States and creating more problems for than than problems that resolve it. And then later as result of the committees recommendations, president , president s, both parties, ford and carter created a series 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 levi under ford, did the same thing at the attorney general level. They were regulating the intelligence agencies could do that might have an impact on the rights american citizens. So these these bizarre episodes that we were investigate led to important rethink of the rules of the game for the intelligence going forward. Yes, as you can all tell, this book is very packed, full of lots of stories and really details. I was hoping we do one more question, but spin forward to present day and you know, what are the takeaways that i can you each me one takeaway from what you learned from that era and investigations that we apply to america now and starting with you rick. The need for congressional oversight of intelligence arguably could never be more important than today. We have seen on the Intelligence Committee. A very indepth looks at a number of abuses that continue to take place within the community, often directed by the white house. The torture report that came out under the Senate Committee looking at drones looking at targeted killings, looking at the world of surveillance in a world of now artifice intelligence, which makes everything fair game in terms of what are the guardrails for privacy civil liberties. So what comes out of me the lesson from the Church Committee is that it established a basis for oversight but oversight has never been more important and. We will see where that heads in the future i can bring it up to the president s as this afternoon 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 of government subcommittee. And where jim jordan claimed at the outset dont worry about us because the new Church Committee and that 28 of us to sign letter saying if you are the new committee you would adhere to the following many bipartisan processes and principles and 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, he and his colleagues are dedicated, do everything they can to restore that form of congressional oversight and investigation. And at the earliest possible opportunity. Next month, in 1975, frank church appeared on meet the press, and he said that if the president was wrong minded and wanted to misuse these intelligence agencies, that the possibilities for tyranny be immense and. In his words, there would be place to hide. Now were all these years later. Technology has greatly increased and the dangers even stronger. I think so. I agree with my colleagues on this panel that oversight is more important than ever was. And ive also heard that a lot of it depends on whos in the right places. If you go back and read plato and aristotle all, they say that Good Government depends on picking good people to. Be in high office and thatll always be case. Youve got to gary hart on of these Oversight Committees is going to work. Youve got some of the other people have been on these committees and the committees 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 console that you elected earlier and not anymore. Im an old gray guy. Old gray horse. You know, if if democracy is going to survive and thrive, the 21st century, we to consider that one question and someones with which is you adopt the tactics of your opponents the last the church put after talking about that was you will become more like them and we have over over the world 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 going to take a lot of work and, like some good people to, nice on helping to create open secrets. Ah, by the way. Oh, thank you. Great stuff. Now i think that bipartisanship is really i dont want to say its a bygone era and or whatever, but its theres much talk about that that really drove the story of you and Barry Goldwater just because, like everyone talks about, Barry Goldwater is like, you know, mr. Conservative. I mean, this is such a great example of how people can Work Together in the Greater National interest interest. My title of this book is honest man and one of the best Congressional Staff is ever assembled. Thank you. I guess i would just say that i think its really important to remember when things actually work right. And when there are good people involved in government, just so we can compare and contrast against and its important remember that it doesnt always have to be like it is now. All good points. Thank you so much for speech tonight. Everyones perspectives, experiences has been really important for all of us to learn from and the book itself is very interesting if you have a chance to read it. I wanted to say thank you to our audience as well. We look forward to seeing a future National Press club events and if you havent gotten the book yet, highly recommend it. They will have some signings outside and thank you for taking the time to meet