Church went from hero to zero between 1976 and 1979. He exposed the fact that the CIA had acted on its own, without Presidential consultation and approval, in the 1954 Iranian Revolution that restored Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to the throne, and paralyzed the CIA from acting when the Carter State Dept and the Soviet Union acted together to bring the Ayatollah Khomeini to power. This led to Church's defeat in 1980, and a GOP Senate for the first time since 1954. RobSFree Kyle! 03:13, July 9, 2021 (EDT)
This citation here demonstrates the extent of Marxist infiltration into the intelligence community and Deep State. In the upper right-hand corner is a sensational headline about William Colby referencing something about Nixon, etc. (liberal media bias in 1975). In fact, Colby was the hero of the Church hearings for ratting-out the misdeeds of the CIA in 1963 trying to kill Fidel Castro, for which he paid dearly 20 years later while investigating the Clinton's role with the CIA at Mena airport.
IOWS, by 2007 when this citation was published, it was fairly obvious Marxists had taken over the National Security Archives. RobSFree Kyle! 00:31, July 12, 2021 (EDT)
- Let's do the math now: The National Security Archive says, "Agency Violated Charter for 25 Years, Wiretapped Journalists and Dissidents" (horror! you mean like Tucker Carlson?) 25 years would be from 1947 to 1972. Richard Helms was an LBJ appointee who served throughout Nixon's first term. Colby took office in 1973 when Nixon felt he had a mandate to "drain the swamp" and was forced out in August 1974. But Colby survived long enough to tell the story in an open committee hearing, how the CIA had violated its charter for 25 years. RobSFree Kyle! 00:49, July 12, 2021 (EDT)
Clearing up loose ends
I think I covered most of the policy issues here, with one lingering gap. The question is, Why did Nixon keep on Lyndon Johnson's appointee as CIA director? The answer, while seemingly naive, is quite simple. In those days, based on inexperience in the intelligence business and the longterm record of J.Edgar Hoover, there was no set term for either the FBI director or the CIA head. Hoover had served since 1927, and JFK kept on Ike's CIA director up to the Bay of Pigs. While everyone agreed these two positions "served at the pleasure of the president", neither had a fixed term prescribed by law. Presidents were intimidated to fire them (as Trump found out in the case of Comey). After the death of Hoover, a 10 year term was written into law for the FBI director. As for the CIA director, since Jimmy Carter, the position is now treated like any other cabinet post, the president is given the right to choose his own CIA director.
But In 1969 when Nixon came into office, he didn't feel he had the power to choose his own CIA director. Not until he won a 62% popular majority and 49 state landslide in 1972 did he feel he had the power to drain the swamp of New Deal and Great Society Washington bureaucrats. As we all know, even that was not enough. RobSFree Kyle! 02:23, July 12, 2021 (EDT)
- Oliver Stones' Nixon movie, outside the efforts to make Nixon look like a paranoid bumbling fool, comes close to portraying the actual relationship between Nixon and Helms, beginning with Helms keeping him waiting, calling him "Dick", and trying to blackmail Nixon. RobSFree Kyle! 02:38, July 12, 2021 (EDT)