WHY MR. HELMS LEFT CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84-00161R000400210022-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 20, 2014
• Sequence Number: 22
• Publication Date: February 27, 1973
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 50-Yr 2014/02/21 : CIA-RDP84-00161R000400210022-3
MOICITOR
Why Mr. Hehns
left CIA
By Benjamin Welles
The Central Intelligence Agency bell-
wether of the six federal agencies comprising
the intelligence "community" ? is changing
the guard.
Richard M. Helms, director for the past six
years and the first career intelligence officer
to reach the top, has been named United
States Ambassador to Iran. James R. Schle-
singer, a Nixon protege who has been head of
the Atomic Energy Commission for the past
18 months, will soon replace Mr. Helms.
? The ouster of Helms reflects President
Nixon's determination to reorganize the vast,
costly federal bureaucracy. No single fief-
dom has been more 'elusive than the in-
? tellIgence commurpty ?not only because of
the entrenched power of its barons but
because of their skill in hiding their size,
budgets, and activities from the public
behind a veil of "national security."
The ever-smiling Helms, for example, has
' long been viewed by veteran Washington
' bureaucrats as a peer. Named director a
Central Intelligence in 196 by Lyndon John-
son, -Helms quietly set to work consolidating
his own power and repairing the damage
done the CIA's image by the Bay of Pigs and
other fiascos.
He began trimming "fringe" activities,
cultivating columnists and newsmen, and
? developing a power-base in Congress ?
notably among the aging hawks in control of
appropriations and armed services. He even
won praise from a frequent critic of the CIA
? Chairman Fulbright of the Senate Foreign
- Relations Committee.
Such adroit maneuverings might, in the
Kennedy-Johnson era, have won White House
approval and, simultaneously, a measure of
? autonomy. In the hypersuspicious Nixon
, entourage, however; they merely aroused
. suspicion.' A A A
"In this administration," remarked a vet-
eran intelligence expert, "the guy who works
for Nixon and who gets on well with Fulbright
is rare."
There were other signs that Helms was not
regarded, and possibly did not wish to be
regarded, as a member of the Nixon "team."
When he and his socially active wife began
appearing frequently in the society columns
there were grumbles that the President's
chief intelligence adviser was hobnobbing
with the "Georgetown cocktail set." In
contrast to the Johnson days when Helms was
virtually always invited to the policy-setting
.. White House Tuesday. lunches along with
Rusk, McNamara, Rostow, and Gen. Earl
"Buzz" Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs
27 FEB 1973
Al! this has gradually confirmed President
Nixon's suspicions that what was needed was
a tough-minded "manager" to pull together
the huge, sprawling intelligence community.
Besides the CIA with its $600 million budget
and its 15,000 employees the community
includes the Defense Department's Defense
Intelligence Agency; the code-cracking Na-
tional Security Agency; the State Depart-
ment's Bureau of Intelligence and Research;
the Atomic Energy Commission and the
Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Pentagon spending on intelligence ? which
includes electronic intercepts and spy satel-
lites ? approximates $3 billion yearly. Add to
this $2 billion more spent every year by
overseas commanders who insist on aerial
reconnaissance, local code-cracking and
even some "spy running to ascertain what's
"over the hill" in front of their forces.
Meager intelligence before the 1970 irruption
into Cambodia, before the abortive Sontay
raid, and especially before Hanoi's offensive
last March, has led the administration to
charge that the intelligence mountain too
often labors and brings forth a mouse.
A A
Soon after taking office President Nixon
had his OMB assign one of its key officials,
James Schlesinger ? a former Rand systems
analyst ? to survey the whole field of
intelligence and propose reforms. His key
recommendation was to separate the director
of central intelligence (DCI) from day-to-day
operations and move him into, or near, the
White House as an intelligence "czar."
However, Henry Kissinger saw this as a
threat to his position; while Helms, a veteran
of clandestine operations, saw it as a maneu-
ver to cut him off from his "troops" and turn
him into a senior paper shuffler.
The upshot, announced by the White House
Nov. 5, 1271, in a communique so opaque as to
defy comprehension, was a characteristic
bureaucratic compromise. Helms was given
"enhanced" authority ? but no greater
control over resources.
"Presidential authority means nothing in
government without control of resources,"
Helms once told an interviewer. "The CIA
spends 10 percent out of every intelligence
dollar and the Pentagon 80 cents. I can't
order the rest of the intelligence agencies
how to spend their funds. I can only lead by
persuasion." ?
Evidently Mr. Nixon disagrees. He has
already shown that he means business by
naming "managers" to trouble spots: Elliot
Richardson as Secretary of Defense; Ken-
neth Rush as Deputy Secretary of State; Rby
Ash as director of OMB; Caspar Weinberger
Secretary of HEW.
By naming Schlesinger, the man who
drafted the reforms, as head of the CIA ? and
by implication of the entire community ?
Mr. Nixon appears to .be implying that he
wants action.
Mr. Welles, for many years on the staff
of the New York Times, is now an
independent commentator on what goes
on in Washington.
under Nixon, Helms has been reporting
The next article will discuss some of the
? through Kissinger. Moreover, there has been major problems facing Mr. Schlesinger,
criticism of Helms's "perfunctory" handling -
of major intelligence problems in White
House meetings. . HS/HC- 2
? Declassified and Approved For Release @50-Yr 2014/02/21 : CIA-RDP84-00161R000400210022-3