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and thanks for joining us for the american history tv series congress in investigates. this is where we look at significant congressional investigation since over the years. this week, it's the work of a committee led by idaho democratic senator frank church. in the mid 1970s, which uncovered information about covert government programs. our guest is kate scott u.s. senate historian kate scott the senate select committee to study governmental operations with respect to intel agents activities, a.k.a. the church committee. why frank church?

why. 1975 1975? because in december of 1974, the new york times published a front page above the fold blockbuster article authored by pulitzer prize winning journalist seymour hersh. and that article alleged that the cia had operated a domestic intel agents collection program nationwide, wide, in clear violation of its 1947 charter. frank church was chosen to lead this investigate mission because he wanted the job. he lobbied senator mike mansfield, who was the democratic majority leader in 1975. he lobbied mike mansfield for the position. he saw it as a continuation of some of the earlier work that he had been doing on some special investigatory committees. and importantly, he had been an 18 year at that point member of the senate foreign relations committee. he had been one of the first

public voices of dissent in the united states senate about us vietnam war policy. and he was someone who really wanted to take on these issues. the issues related to national intel, the national intelligence commune ity and the ways in which it may have the ways in which it may have violated american's constitutional liberties. what was uncovered by these hearings? well, the hearings uncovered a few important things. they were meant in some ways to be a second watergate investigation. in that the watergate committee had revealed that national intelligence agencies, specifically the cia and the fbi, had been used by the nixon administration for political purposes. and so church was interested in

investigating those prior allegations in addition to now digging into these questions of, well, what was the intelligence community really doing? what the committee confronted was a kind of black box because congress had never provided effective and ongoing oversight of the national intelligence agencies, especially the cia. but even some agencies, the nsa, for example, the national security agency, most members of congress didn't even know that that agency existed in 1975. and so the purpose of the public portion of the church committee hearings was to educate the american public and members of congress about what these intelligence agencies were doing in the name of national security and in the name of american citizens. now, kate scott, you mentioned that this was, in a sense, a second series of watergate hearings. were americans, as enthralled with the church committee

hearings as they were watergate the year before? i think much, much too, senator, churches chagrin. they were not as interested as they had been in the watergate committees the year and a half before. and i think there are a couple reasons for that. one is that americans were a little fatigued. the watergate hearings had consumed a lot of national political energy and i think that americans in some of some americans, anyway, were ready to move on. now, that's not to say that there wasn't a great deal of interest. the senate watergate committee, like other committees that held televised hearings in the era, received plenty of attention, and their public hearings were were televised. and people watch them. and the there were thousands of people, tens of thousands of people who wrote letters to the committee expressing their support for the investigation or telling them what they were doing wrong. americans are never afraid to express their opinions to their lawmakers. so that kind of the committee

did garner that kind of attention. but if you just look at something like the access to seating in these hearings, for example, in the watergate case, every single day of senate watergate committee hearings, every single seat in that in that large caucus room was packed. and there were people lined up out the doors to get seats when those seats were vacated by someone that just didn't happen in the in the in the case of the church committee investigation, for example, the first investigation that was held as a public hearing in september of 1975. there were plenty of empty seats in that same caucus room. so it just gives you an indication that there was less public interest. well, recently, james risen of the new york times wrote a book about frank church. it was called the last honest man. here's a little bit of mr. risen. frank church was a man who i think is really out of out of

his time. at that time, he was it was a classic american liberal who became radicalized throughout his career. and it's very rare in american politics to see someone who is transform armed throughout their career and changes drastically. and and is willing to evolve as a politician. and that, to me, was fascinating thing to to understand and to write about. and i think it led ultimately to for a unique young man from the mountain west to go from a small conservative town in idaho to lead the first major investigation of the cia in the mid 1970s is an amazing transformation. if you think about it. and that's what we tried to

document, was how he how he got to where he ended up. he started out in boise. he was born in boise in 1924. and was always considered the smartest kid in class. and. became one of the it became probably the class pet, if you will. all the kids sort of resented the fact that the teachers all loved him, but then they also realized he was smarter than them. and so they there wasn't much they could they had to kind of respect his intelligence when he was in middle school, he got a letter to the editor in the boise newspaper, published on the front page because he wanted to defend senator william borah of idaho, who was being criticized for his isolationism. and then a couple of years

later, he won the national oratory contest of the american legion by presenting a speech that was radically different from the letter to the editor. he had just written a couple of years earlier, and his speech was a essentially like the four freedoms speech of franklin roosevelt defending american democracy and the need for regulation of american capitalism and to fight against fascism in the world. and it was a remarkable transformation in just a couple of years. and then he he that the win in that competition got him a scholarship that he was used to go to stanford and leave boise, but then with world war two, he ended up in the army as an army intelligence officer in china. he's one of the youngest

officers in america in the army at the time. and became the briefer for the commanding general in china by 1945. and the he had such a precise, nice way of speaking at such a young age. he was only 21. he was a army intelligence officer in china that his commanding general of the chinese combat command for the u.s. army would have him put him basically on display and have him talk at dinner parties of american officers. and because any said that you have the best diction in the army and people he began to resent it. he felt like he was just a plaything of this general. and that's one of the early signs of his radicalization, is that he resented and turned

against being, you know, part of this hierarchy that he felt was supporting a corrupt part chinese nationalist regime of chiang kai shek and he turned against the american military power very early on. he saw he wrote letters back home that are at the frank church papers in boise, where he talked. he was he was felt revolted by the american atomic bombing of japan. even though everyone else in the army in china was elated by it. and he came back to the u.s. he turned down an opportunity to stay in intelligence after the war, which might have led him to join the cia if he had stayed in and he ended up going back to

boise. and after he had suffered cancer, he went to law school and ran for senate. when he was only 32 and got elected and when he was first elected, he was a he was a very he was a very traditional, conventional, uh, cold warrior. a democratic cold warrior of the 1950s. and it really wasn't until vietnam that he was radically ized and were rejoined by us senate historian kate scott kate scott. would you describe frank church as politically ambitious? yes, i would. yes i would. and there was some trepidation, frankly, about choosing frank church to lead this sensitive investigation. but the trepidation came from mainly people within the democratic party who were concerned that frank church

harbored presidential ambitions, that he might use his position as the chairman of this committee to gain national spotlight and therefore to sort of get a foothold in this in this in a in a in a presidential campaign. in fact, mike mansfield, who selected frank church for this position, really had some of those very same concerns. and he expressed them to frank church at the time. now there's some debate about whether or not frank church told mike mansfield that he would not run for president if he was chosen to run this committee. but in the end, he did decide to run for president. he declared his candidacy in the spring of 1976 as the committee, as the committee's work was winding down and that his presidential ambitions were always one of the thorns in the side of the committee. well, let's look at the

committee. it's a 6 to 5 committee. democrats were still in control of the senate. and some of the other democratic members, phil hart, michigan, walter mondale, minnesota. walter huddleston, kentucky. robert morgan of north carolina. and gary hart of colorado. couple of democrats there who did run for president. in fact, one became vice president. that's right. that's right. and walter mondale, contribue portions to this church committee investigate and i think are unfortunately often overlooked. it was he made extraordinary contributions to the committee. he really led the fbi, the section of the committee that explored fbi abuses. and he was intensely involved and engaged in that investigatory endeavor. in fact, i think that a lot of his work on the committee helped to raise it, helped to lead him to that vice presidential

nomination in 1976, because he really came out as a proponent for legislative reform to protect america and citizens from being violated, but from having their constitutional rights violated in the future by intelligence overreach, the republicans, john tower of texas was the vice chair of the committee. howard baker, tennessee. barry goldwater, arizona. charles mac, mathias maryland and richard schweiker of pennsylvania. all very well known as well. yes, absolutely. john tower was a really important figure in this investigation, not only because he was vice chairman, of course, but also because he was placed on the committee by republican senate leader hugh scott and told that he should try to rein in some of the investigation, that he should be there to protect the national intelligence community. but john tower did work very

cooperatively with church. over time, they became a surprisingly cooperative duo, even though they had decidedly different people. they came from different parts of the political spectrum and they worked really quite well together. john tower even later wrote in his memoir that he realized that over the course of the investigation that change needed to happen and that congress did need to exercise better oversight over this national intelligence apparatus. a couple of the other members there, i mean, barry goldwater being on the committee was important. he was largely protective of the national intelligence community, but also he was a civil liberties alien. so he was concerned about the ways in which these agencies may be violating america's civil liberties. howard baker, with his experience on the watergate committee, he was happy to join the church committee's investigation because he did see the connections between watergate and some of the issues that weren't completely resolved over the course of that investigation and some of the

things that the committee would tackle during the course of the church committee investigation, then cia director william colby testified in front of the church committee kate scott did a little background about his testimony. yeah, william colby's such an interesting figure in the sense of how he relates to the committee. he's the he's the chief of the cia at the time. and the church committee owes him a couple of favors, frankly, during one of their first closed door sessions, they held a number of hearings initially in executive session or closed door session. and during one of the hearings with william colby as their witness, the chief, the committee's chief counsel, really says that colby kept referring when asked questions. colby kept referring to this thick sheaf of papers in front of him on the table, and eventually the chief counsel asked, well, what is it that you keep referring to?

what's on the table there? and william colby described to him that he had a report that had been compiled under the direction of one of colby's predecessors at the cia. and the report was basically a compendium of all of the cia transgressions going all the way back to the administration of president dwight eisenhower and the chief counsel asked for a copy of that report. the report is known as the family jewels and the committee staff. the investigate matters on the church committee. use this. they use the family jewels as a roadmap to further explore national the national intelligence community and its programs. well, here's a little bit of then cia director william colby's testimony from september of 1975. cia is retention of an amount of shellfish toxin and cia is used in investigation of various chemicals and drugs. the relationship between the cia and the army biological

laboratory at fort detrick as an activity requiring further investigations surfaced in late april of this year. it resulted from information provided by a cia cia officer not directly associated with the project. in response to my repeated directive that all past activities, which might now be considered questionable, they brought to the attention of agency management information provided by him and by two other officers aware of the project indicated that the project at fort dietrich involved the development of bacteriological warfare agents, some lethal and associated delivery systems suitable for clandestine use. a search was made for any records or other information available on the project. this search produced information about the basic agreement between the army and the cia relating to the project and some limited records covering its activities from its beginning in 1952 to a determination in 1970. in the course of the investigation from cia's laboratory storage facility for

research and about 11 grams a little less than half an ounce of shellfish toxin and eight milligrams of cobra venom were discovered. and a little used vaulted storeroom in an agency building, a major early requirement of the agency was to find a replacement for the standard cyanide pill issued to agents in hazardous situations. during world war two. this was the basis on which eventually we discovered the target shellfish toxin. the only application of this toxin was in the u-2 flight over the ussr in may 1960, during which gary powers carried such a device. you concealed in a silver dollar. in the powers case, the grooves of the the drill were filled with shellfish toxin. he obviously did not use it and was not instructed to do so. it was offered to him to provide him with an option. the powers flight was the only time we are aware that the toxin was provided for operational

use, although the pill was made available for earlier flights, the primary agency interest was in the development of dissemination devices to be used with standard chemicals of the cell shell various the dissemination devices such as a fountain pen, dart launcher and an engine head, both designed to release when he appeared to be particularly suited for agents for clandestine use, available records do not indicate that all specific items were developed exclusively for the cia, as work on similar devices was also done for the army. at the time the toxin was found, the officer responsible for the project in 1970 stated that he had no regular action as to how it got there. on the 30th of june, discussions were held with the retired agency officer who had provided the additional lead. this man, who had been the gs 15 branch chief in 1970, stated that the toxin had in fact been moved from fort dietrich and stored in the laboratory. this was done on the basis of

the loan, determined after conversations with the responsible project officer, he further stated that he made this decision based on the fact that the cost and difficulty of isolating the shellfish toxin were so great that it simply made no sense to destroy it, particularly when there would be no future source of such toxin. the current chief believes this explanation is correct, but still does not recall the actual act of receiving the material from fort dietrich. both of these middle grade officers agree that no, no one, including their immediate superior, was told of the retention of the shellfish toxin. if that amount of shellfish toxin were administered orally, which is one of the least efficient ways for administering it, it in terms of its lethality. that quantity was sufficient to kill at least the. 14,000 people.

if it were administered with the sophisticated equipment that was found in the laboratory, that quantity would be sufficient to kill a great many more estimates vary upwards into the hundreds of now. my first question is why. did the agency prepare a shellfish toxin. for which there is no practical antidote. which attacks the nervous system and brings on death very quickly, why did the agency prepare toxins of this character in quantities sufficient to kill

many thousands of people? what was the need for that in the first place? long before the presidential order came down to destroy this material? i think the first part of the answer to that question, mr. chairman, is the the the fact that the pill, which was developed and during world war two, does take some time to work and is a particularly agonizing to the subject to use in the some of the people who would be natural requesters of such a capability for their own protection and the protection of their fellow agents really would not want to face that kind of a fate. but if they could be given an instantaneous one, they would accept that. and that was the thought process behind developing the capability. now, i cannot explain why that quantity was developed except that this was a collaboration

that we were engaged in with the united states army, and we did develop this particular weapon, you might say, as a possible for possible use when the cia retained the amount that it did, it obviously did it improperly. this quantity. and the various devices or administering the part that were found in the laboratory, certainly make it clear that. purely defensive uses were not. what the agency had had. it was limited to in any way. there were definite offensive uses. in fact, there were dark ones. you mentioned suicide. well, i don't think the suicide

is usually accomplished with a dart, particularly a gun that can in place the dart in the human target in such a way that he doesn't even know that he's been hit. there's no question about it. it was also for offensive reasons. no question. have you brought with you some of those devices which would have enabled the cia to use this poison for we have indeed more killing people. don't don't point it at. i wonder if it's it's because you know that. no, it does then does this

pistol fire the dart? yes, it does. mr. chairman. the that the round thing at the top is obviously the side. the rest of it is what is practically a normal 45, although it's a special kit, however it works by electricity, there's a battery in the handle and it fires a small dart so that when it fires it fired violently, almost silently. yes. how very little. what range does it have. 100 meters, i believe about about 100 yards. 100 meters. about 100 meters range. and the dart itself, when it strikes the target. does the target know that he's been hit and about to die? that depends, mr. chairman, on the particular dart used. there are different kinds of these warships that were used

and in various weapons system, and a special one was developed would potentially would be able to enter the target without perception. without perception. right. and did you find such and such dart in the library? in the laboratory, we did. not, yes. no, no. isn't it true to that. the the effort. not only involved designing a gun, but striking a human target without knowledge of the person who had been struck. but also the toxin itself would not appear in the autopsy. well, there was an item for the dart. yes. so that there was no no way of perceiving that the target was

him as a murder instrument. that's about as efficient as you can get, isn't it? it it is a weapon, a very serious weapon. kate scott. once the family jewels were given to the committee, what happened then? hmm? well, investigate matters. got to work. one of the things that's really about what the church committee accomplished is, is how much they investigated, how much they were able to uncover it. throughout the national intelligence community in such a short period of time, the committee has a mandate to investigate a broad mandate to investigate the ways in which the national intelligence community may be violating the rights of americans. now that with that broad mandate can come a couple of complications. first of all, where do you get where do you start, particularly when you're talking about a community that had never really had any effective congressional oversight? and second, how do you choose

and make selections among the many types of examples that you could use and bring before the american public and members of congress as evidence of abuses by the national intelligence community. so what the family jewels does is it does present to the senate investigator with a kind of roadmap, and then they just get to work the committee hires more than 100 people to work on this investigation. originally, it has a mandate of 12 months. it eventually has is that it gets an extension so that it can meet for about 16 months. it issues its final report in april of 1976 and just when you speak to the the members, the staff on this special investigation, they'll tell you about the sleepless nights they had. they'll tell you about the long hours some of them slept in their offices. there was just an increase, a sense of urgency to get this work done and also a sense that what they were doing had a lot of importance and a lot of significance and would be really

important to document these abuses at the present moment so that down the road, americans could could understand and and rest assured that these types of abuses weren't happening again. and the church committee. activities, 126 meetings, 40 subcommittee meetings, 150 staff members, 800 witnesses were interviewed. a couple more of those witnesses interviewed included tom charles, houston and mary jo cook. who were they and why were they significant? tom charles huston was had worked during the nixon administration for the white house. he had been tasked with exploring a robust government response to nationwide protest and dissident, particularly in opposition to the nixon administration since vietnam war policies. but more broadly construed

across the spectrum, you know how to oppose, how to combat any kind of dissent that was happening in the united states at that time. and houston came up with a plan that basically would have had all the national intelligence community sort of working to to squash dissent in the united states. those capacities that had been developed for law enforcement purposes, in the case of the fbi, for example, or for national intelligence and covert operations, in the case of the cia, those those capacities would be turned inward domestically on the american population, who were just voicing their right to dissent the government's policies and houston claimed later that he was just proposing something, that the intelligence communities were, in many cases, already doing. the us army was already spying on american citizens. the cia was spying on american citizens. the fbi was certainly spying on american citizens. so he would talk over the course

of his testimony to the church committee that what he was proposing in in the early 1970s was really not something new. mary jo cook was an fbi informant who had worked closely with vietnam veterans, a association's in her native buffalo, new york, and she had become an fbi informant, in part because she knew someone who was an fbi informant and in part because she understood that maybe she could help the government in some way monitor sort of and prevent violent activity among vietnam vets. but what she found is that these vietnam vets that she was working with were peacefully adverse, waiting on their own behalf for vietnam veterans who had returned home, who were having problems reintegrating into society, some of them needed additional health care services that they weren't receiving some of them needed asce, finding homes and an

apartment to rent. and so she was helping them. and as she got to know them for there, she realized that what the fbi wanted her to report on was really not the activity that these vietnam vets were engaged in. they were engaged in peaceful protests and peaceful advocacy on their own behalf. and the fbi was trying to find evidence that there was there were communists among them. she just, in the end, didn't believe that she could continue to serve as an fbi informant because it was wrong. and here is tom charles houston and mary jo cook, a little bit of their testimony. you submit to the president certain recommendations with respect to, the restraints on intelligence collection. yes and have you got in front of you the document, which is a tab, two of our books? yes. and is that the document which you did submit to the president, which i submitted to mr. hall?

you submitted halderman for transmission to the president. is that right now in that document, you make certain recommendations with respect to changing restraints, which you thought had been placed upon intelligence collection. is that right? yes. in making those recommendations, did you believe you were representing the consensus of the entire working group that had worked on the study for yourself and for the president? yes. so that whatever recommendation you made with respect to illegal opening of the mail or burglary or surreptitious entry were ones which you believed represented the views of the entire intelligence community. with the exception of the footnotes of mr. hoover himself. is that right? yes. and you did recommend did you not, that.

the united states should commence, in your view, commence as you understood it, commence or recommence. the illegal opening of mail is that correct? you? yes, i'm i understanding from my contacts with the bureau and through the working committee was that in the past that this had been a technique that had been employed, particularly in matters relating to espionage and, uh, the professional intelligence community indicated that they thought that it was a necessary technique to be undertaken under extreme circumstance. uh, and that they felt that they should be authorized to do so. and similarly, you also basing your views on the recommendations of the entire intelligence community, except for mr. hoover's footnotes, advocated that the united states should commence or recommence to commit burglaries, to acquire

valuable intelligence information. is that right? yes. uh, i was told that the bureau had undertaken a black bag jobs over a number a number of years up until 1966. that it had been, uh, successful and valuable again, particularly in matters involving espionage and that, uh, they felt this again was something that given the revolutionary climate, they thought they needed to have the authority to do. and in both cases your position and their position was in effect, that the end justifies the means. no, i'm not. i'm not going to speak for what their position is, but i don't think that fairly summarizes what my position was or i'm sure some of the other members, some of the the other persons here are going to question you on that issue. did president nixon, through mr. haldeman, approve of the recommendations for change, which you would made on behalf of the entire intelligence community? yes. what happened after that?

the question then arose as to how the decisions were to be implemented. i had recommended to mr. haldeman that i felt that the president ought to call the director's back into his office and inform them personally. these decisions seemed to me that that was the proper course to take, particularly in view of the sensitivity of the, uh, the decisions relative to mr. hoover. however, the president and mr. haldeman didn't think that that was necessary. uh, so then the question became how should a decision memorandum go out? mr. haldeman seemed to think that it was not necessary for either he or the president to do that. and so i was nominated and you sent it out? yes, i did. over my signature on this document, represented your proposal to the president or lifting or relaxed certain

restraints on the intelligence community with respect to gathering information on what you called the revolutionary climate. i would suppose that had reference to the antiwar demonstration as an antiwar protest group. senator, i really was peripherally interested in the anti-war demonstrations, but i was concerned about was the 40,000 bombings that took place in one year. what i was concerned about was the 39 police officers who were killed and sniping incidents. yeah, and everything connected with that. well, that's what i found when i was talking about revolutionary violence as opposed to antiwar demonstrators. and sclc, if you will. i'd like to begin by. starting with your first affiliation with the federal bureau of investiga nation. well, it's my understanding your

contact began in the summer of 1973. if you could just briefly for the committee, explain how that contact came about. yes, excuse me. i was living with a man who. i was living with a man who was working for the bureau and who been working for the bureau for about a couple of months as an informant. he asked me, i observed his activities, we discussed his activities, and then he asked me if i would consider becoming an informant. he took me. which group was he informing for? informing for the fbi and who was he informing about? he was informing on the vietnam veterans against the war winter soldier organization. i see. okay. he took me to a meeting after we returned from the meeting, we discussed in more detail how he felt being an informant, what he did, why he did it, and when i

said that i would be open to talking about being an informant with the fbi, he set up a meeting and then the fbi came to my house to discuss it with me. an agent came to visit you for the purpose of discussing your becoming informant. yes. so what was the nature of that discussion? what were you asked? anything to do by the major understanding that i got from the meeting was that dea w wwi. so was an organization primarily of veterans who were possible victims of manipulation. they had been through the vietnam war, they had legitimate readjustment needs and the bureau was afraid that they could become violent. who could become manipulated in a cause or social concern and wanted me to go in there, participate in the organization, and make sure that the veterans didn't get, you know, quote unquote, ripped off. so i was to be you know, they used words like the voice of

reason be a big sister. b sort of a guiding force in the organization and keep things calm, cool and collected that sounded like a legitimate thing to do. so i agreed to work for the for the fbi in addition to maintaining reason and keeping things calm and cold, what other functions? anywhere you were assigned by the fbi? well, this whole scenario that was presented was called what it was being an informant. so i was to go to meetings. um write up reports, or call phone in reports on what happened, who was there? um, told in some to try to totally identify the background of every person there, what their, what their relationships were, who they were living with or sleeping with. um, to try to get some, some sense of the local structure and the local relations groups among the people in this organization. and so i would to a meeting

identify the people who were present, identify them as individuals, and then identify the substance of the meeting. what system, if any, was communicated to you regarding the importance of certain kinds of information? was it determined on the basis of some guidance by the bureau, or was it determined based on the amount of pay received for information? was there any system designed to communicate to you what was important? okay, i'm general guidelines. you know, identifying people who were present and being aware of people with a propensity for violence. there were no guidelines as to what information was was important or wasn't important. my financial arrangement with them was on the basis that i would turn over all information gathered. they would look it over. they would decide what was a value to them and what wasn't a value to them. pay me accordingly without necessarily identifying what they considered essential. they rarely gave me information. they rarely they didn't define

my context, then asked me to go into it. they just said, we want you to go in there. we're not going to tell you anything about it. you figure it out. i figured that was fair. and your pay was based on the bureau's assessment of the value of the information which you turned out. yes. how long were you involved in the effort in informing against the veterans against the war? from june of 73 through november 74, this approximately a year and a half. did there come a time when you were either dissatisfied with or raised? question about your activities as an informant? yes. when did this occur? this occurred very, very much so. after july of 1974, i'd come here to washington and then in the only large demonstration that i've ever been in the bureau had asked me not to go and advise me not to go. i came and i saw people, people

that i'd met in the course of my activities with blood running down their heads. i came back from washington very upset. i started talking with the fbi. i about all of the contradictions that i was starting to see. i didn't understand what my involvement was anymore. so i just i started saying to them, i don't see the reason for my continued saying, it seems to me that you don't understand what i'm telling you. these people don't need me functioning in their midst. and if you can't give me assurances that the information that i'm giving you, which would you seem to strip of context away from, isn't going to be used against. these people. then, then i cannot continue. and they couldn't. they tried to give me assurances. they brought someone from washington to talk to me and he talked in humanist, philosophical about why i should continue to and how everything was, was, was all fine and good. but i was very with with those conversations and i insisted on quitting. i gave them a month's notice and

i quit. and you're watching congress investigates a special american history tv series that looked at significant congressional investigations over the years. this week, it's the church committee investigations from the mid 1970s. our guest, u.s. senate historian kate scott. so kate scott, we're learning about watch list. we're learning about foreign assassinations. we're learning about mk ultra. what was the american public's reaction? and were these hearings fully televised like watergate? they weren't fully televised like watergate. they didn't attract that kind of national attention and public attention. but they were they're there were many, many, many hours of testimony that was that was televised for the american public to tune into. and some people were riveted by these revelations like they had been with the watergate era. i think what they learned was that the national intelligence

community needed greater oversight that some times the intelligence community's had created programs without direction by the white house, that they had responded to unrest ithe united states in ways that seemed to violate constitutional protect and that someone needed to be these folks on an ongoing basis. did the church committee issue a final report, and were any legislative actions taken because the church because of the committee's work? yes. yes. so the church committee did issue a final report in april of 1976. it was voluminous. it included dozens of legisla tive recommendations, some of which were immediately adopted. one of which had a great impact on the united states senate. senate resolution 400 was approved by the senate, creating a permanent intelligence

oversight committee, the senate select committee on an intelligence and that committee was tasked in its mandate and its jurisdiction to offer ongoing and continuous oversight right of the national intelligence community. the first time that a single committee in the united states senate had ever been tasked with such a responsibility, that's one of the major contributions. the house also adopts a similar measure and creates a permanent intelligence committee on that side of congress. those are long lasting changes. internal changes. on the senate side, there were other internal reforms, for example, reforms adopted by the fbi. but those reforms because were internal rather than legislative they could be adjusted by by successive attorneys general. and they have been tweaked over time.

other reforms that were suggested by the church committee include the foreign intelligence surveillance act, which created a special court of judges that would review requests for foreign surveillance and that's another legacy that that still exists today. what were some of the critiques and who were some of the critics of the church committees findings? yes, well, there were always critics of the church committee and some of those critics were genuinely concerned that a congressional committee, any congressional committee, but perhaps also especially a congressional committee with a leader like frank church who had ambitions to run for president, could not be trusted to. carefully examine these intelligence operations and not weaken the nation's national

security posture. i think the committee now speaking that particular criticism, i think the committee an outstanding job. it it had full time, four hour a day security operations in the committee's staffing space so that people could not enter or exit without the proper credentials. that was a new operation in the united states senate. no senate had ever had that kind of security operation before. they also when there were there were two incidents on senate staff where people were thought to have shared some information with outside individus. and those people were immediately dismissed, promptly dismissed. so the word among staff the staff who i've talked to was we absolutely will not tolerate leaks. this is very sensitive. we're going to deal with it with the utmost care and respect and sense of responsibility. so i think that for the people

who worried that congress couldn't do this safely and effectively, i think that that the church committee investigation proved them wrong. they really did a very good job of maintaining that sense of need to protect information and resources and also help the american public understand some of the egregious abuses that the national intelligence community had committed on their behalf over the course of four or five decades. there were other critics who, you know, politically didn't agree with with this, with the need for the investigation. there were members of the united states senate who didn't agree with the need for the investigation. some of that was based on their concerns about national security interests, in protecting sources. there were other people who just could never look past the fact that frank church had presidential ambitions and so therefore were always tended to view the church committee investigation as merely a vehicle for launching his

presidential bid. i really don't think that that's fair or accurate. frank church was deeply committed to the work that the committee did and hear from the c-span archives or some of the voices of people who covered the church committee or worked on it. the church committee is now a synonym for a truth and reconcile creation committee. and every time there is 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. that's how some. did you find any surprises when you were digging into this? oh, yeah, lots of surprises. i mean, it was the thing that amazed the most is how much these guys investigated in one year. a span of just one year.

you got to remember going back into that time period. and it's it's hard to watch is so fascinating to me was getting back into the mindset of the 1970s to realize there were 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 or for that matter, or the nsa and 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 invest 30 years of history of an agency, it's pretty awesome. and i think they did a really pretty amazing job in one year.

we're in a titanic struggle between democracy and authoritarianism in this country and authoritarian ism is a real and serious threat. implicit. and if it is explicit, give me a page number in in this book is a -- is a use of the church committee to demonstrate democratic government can work. democratic government can work. you know i worked for us one simple reason six democrats and five republicans put the national interest ahead of party's interest that is the simple truth. it was an impressive, massive demonstration of dedication and

seriousness, of intent. now, what about the practical results from this investigation? the period from 1787 to 1976 covers a span of 189 years. during that time, our government benefited from an innovative system of checks and balances. ambition. countering ambition as. as medicine prescribed with one exception. intelligence. we operated under a doctrine of intelligence. exceptionalism. and the notion was that a secret agencies were involved in work that was just too sensitive be dealt with. the standard practices or so the argument went. the abuse of power that resulted was, i suppose, predictable. operation chaos cohen tell probe shamrock minaret hq lingual orwellian nightmares that

severely eroded our claimed to be a free and open society. in 1975, when the newspapers this country carried hearses findings about cia domestic spying, it was evident that the time had come for us to bring the intelligence agency into the american government. the church committee led that dramatic change. henceforth, there would be senate and house intelligence committees, along with new laws, to back up our expectations. a new tone was set in washington, dc and u.s. senate historian kate scott final word on the church committee. nearly 50 years later. well, i think that we the the government has been structured in such a way after the church

committee investigation, so as to prevent those types of government wide abuses in the future. but i think as with any as with any program in the government, that congressional oversight is always important and always ongoing. and we may not something may not raise rise to the level of a church committee investigation or a watergate investigation. but that doesn't mean that that congressional oversight isn't happening quietly behind the scenes. kate scott finally, what what was your path to becoming the senate historian? hmm. well, i i'm a politics and history geek. i a ph.d. in us political history. and when i finished my ph.d., i began teaching. i had a visiting teaching gig out in wisconsin, and i loved the work. i love teaching. i love educating people about what congress does and why and how the way congress works has changed over time.

and then the opposition came open in the senate historical office. i applied, and i was lucky enough to be selected for the job and i've been there since i've been with the senate historical office since 2010. it's really interesting and engaging work, and i can't think of any place i'd rather be. and what exactly is the role of the senate historian office? yeah, the senate historical office was created in 1975 after the watergate investigation, in part because of some of the issues came up during the senate. watergate investigation, issues related to constitutional crises and clash between two co-equal branches of government and the senate party leaders looked around and sai wl, who serves as the the memory of this institution going all the way back to 1789? we need some experts here who can advise us when we have these really important historical questions. so they created the senate historical office. they hired a senate historian, and our office since 1975 has provided nonpartisan and fact

based information to the entire senate community. all of the senate staff and anyone else who has an interest in the senate and the way that it operates. kate scott us senate historian we appreciate your being on. congress investigates. oh, th