The Info Web

#ChurchCommittee

16 entries

People (7)

  • Edward Korry United States ambassador to Chile from 1967 to 1971 who planned the covert campaign against Salvador Allende, was kept ignorant of the CIA's coup plot, was blamed for it, and accused the Church Committee of a cover-up.
  • Frank Church Frank Church was a Democratic senator from Idaho who chaired the 1975-1976 Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities that documented COINTELPRO, Operation CHAOS, assassination plots against foreign leaders, and illegal domestic surveillance by the CIA, FBI, and NSA.
  • James Jesus Angleton James Jesus Angleton served as the CIA's chief of counterintelligence from 1954 to 1974, running the illegal HT/LINGUAL mail opening program, overseeing Operation CHAOS domestic surveillance, opening a 201 file on Lee Harvey Oswald in 1960 under a deliberately wrong name, maintaining the CIA's Israeli intelligence liaison under KK MOUNTAIN, and conducting a mole hunt triggered by his betrayal by Kim Philby that destroyed dozens of CIA officers' careers while the actual Soviet penetrations - Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen - operated undetected for years after his 1974 firing.
  • Ngo Dinh Diem Premier of Vietnam from July 1954 and president of South Vietnam until his killing on November 2, 1963, in a generals' coup that Washington encouraged, after a decade of CIA subsidy and American lobbying.
  • Richard Helms Richard Helms served as Director of Central Intelligence from 1966 to 1973, authorizing Operation CHAOS domestic surveillance and ordering destruction of CHAOS and MKULTRA records before congressional investigation.
  • Sam Giancana Sam Giancana was the boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1957 who was recruited by the CIA through Robert Maheu and Johnny Roselli in 1960 to plan the assassination of Fidel Castro under ZR/RIFLE, and who was shot seven times in his Oak Park, Illinois home on June 19, 1975, days before he was scheduled to testify before the Church Committee.
  • William Colby Director of central intelligence from 1973 to 1976 who removed James Angleton, gave the Family Jewels to the Church Committee, and had earlier run the Phoenix program in Vietnam.

Organizations (1)

  • Domestic Contact Service Overt CIA office that interviewed American businessmen, academics, and travellers for foreign intelligence from 1946, moved in 1973 into the clandestine directorate, where its contacts served to open doors for recruitment operations.

Programs (6)

  • COINTELPRO COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) was a covert FBI domestic operations program (1956-1971) targeting political organizations through infiltration, psychological warfare, fabricated mail, wrongful prosecution, and coordination with local law enforcement, exposed by the 1971 Media FBI office break-in.
  • HTLINGUAL HTLINGUAL was the CIA's covert mail-opening program that operated from 1952 to 1973, intercepting and photographing approximately 215,000 pieces of first-class mail between the United States and the Soviet Union at the New York international mail facility without judicial authorization, in violation of federal postal statutes.
  • Operation CHAOS Operation CHAOS (MHCHAOS) was a CIA domestic counterintelligence program (August 1967-March 1974) that infiltrated antiwar and counterculture organizations, maintaining files on approximately 7,200 Americans and a 300,000-name index before exposure by the Church Committee.
  • Project FUBELT CIA operation ordered by President Nixon on September 15, 1970, to provoke a military coup before Salvador Allende could take office, in the course of which the agency armed and paid officers plotting to kidnap General Rene Schneider.
  • Project MERRIMAC Project MERRIMAC was a CIA Office of Security program (approximately 1967-1974) that infiltrated antiwar and civil rights organizations in Washington D.C., feeding intelligence to Operation CHAOS through the CACTUS pipeline before exposure by Seymour Hersh and the Church Committee.
  • Project RESISTANCE CIA Office of Security program of 1967 to 1973 that began as protection for campus recruiters and grew into an index of 12,000 to 16,000 names drawn from campus officials, police, and the underground press.

Events (2)

  • Church Committee The Church Committee (1975-1976) was the Senate investigation that documented systematic CIA, FBI, NSA, and IRS abuses including Operation CHAOS, COINTELPRO, assassination plots, and HTLINGUAL illegal mail opening, producing S. Rept. 94-755, the foundational primary source for post-WWII U.S. intelligence oversight.
  • CIA Family Jewels The CIA 'Family Jewels' was a 693-page internal compilation of potentially illegal activities assembled in May 1973 at Director James Schlesinger's direction, partly declassified in 2007, documenting assassination plots, domestic surveillance, illegal mail interception, and drug testing programs.