CIA: THE CONSTANT WITNESS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000700080066-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 23, 2005
• Sequence Number: 66
• Publication Date: February 24, 1975
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

Nl~ W S=
21i FEB 1975
Approved
The Constant Witness
It is hard to break free from the
world of espionage, and no one knows
that better these days than Richard Mc-
Garrah Helms. Appointed U.S. ambassa-
dor-to Iran nearly two years ago, former
-CIA director Helms has been called
J1ome at least half a dozen times to testify
about the agency's involvement in Wa-
tergate, domestic intelligence operations
and the overthrow of Chile's Marxist
President Salvador Allende Gossens. The
simple inconvenience of this global shut-
tling now seems the least of Helm's
-problems. Last'week, sources in the De-
partment of justice confirmed that it is
picking through Helms's tangled testi-
mnony of recent years to see if the one-
time master spy had committed perjury
an the course of protecting the CIA-
-or himself.
Perjury is a hard crime to prove. Jus-
-ice officials emphasized privately that
-heir investigation of Helms has not
eached the "accusatory" stage, meaning
-tat they have yet to find sufficient evi-
3ence to seek an indictment. Moreover,
most of the testimony involved-in at
=east a dozen appearances before various
congressional committees and Washing-
on grand juries-remains highly confiden-
ial. Still, the portions that have become
Dublic often seem to undercut the candid
image that Helms has always sought to
naintain. Full of gaps and contradictions,
hey show the veteran CIA man both as
an artful dodger and, astonishingly, a
-orgetfuI naif-in his own words, "a boob."
The Helms testimony on CIA activi-
ies in Chile was confused by the fact
]gat his Congressional inquisitors were
?ften unclear about what period they
sere discussing: 1964 or 1970 or 1973,
when Allende finally fell. But Helms
F~i1~crQ14re~f}~~.1-Q~i~l~ gro
lations Committee in 1973. At that point, -
Helms seemed to flatly deny that the
CIA ever passed money to opponents of
Allende. But last month he acknowl-
edged that funds-about $11 million, ac-
cording to the CIA-did gQ to "civic ac-
tion groups ... newspapers, radios and
so forth, in order to keep alive the [de-
leted] and the sort of nationalist side of
the ... social spectrum."
That Helms did not understand these
forces to be the core of opposition to
Allende was hard to believe, and Helms
himself seemed to realize the weakness
of his position. "I should have probably
asked either to go off the record or to
have asked to discuss this matter in some
other forum," he told the Senate com-
mittee last January. "Because you will
recall at that time Allende's government
was in power and we did not need any
more diplomatic incidents."
Helms blamed a faulty memory for
his strikingly incomplete answers on
foreign associations. But as Helms ex-
concerned about denying any agency
connection with the Army intelligence
operations mentioned by Case that "the
first part of the question had simply
gone out of my mind."
Watergate seems to be the subject on
which Helms may prove most vulnera-
ble. There his testimony was contradict-
ed not only by his own subsequent
clarifications, but by other witnesses and
documentary evidence. Before the Sen-
ate Armed Services Committee in May
1973, for example, Helms said that Wa-
tergate had not been mentioned in the
crucial June 23, 1972, meeting he had
with Nixon aides John Ehrlichman and
H.R. Haldeman and CIA deputy director
Vernon Walters. In fact, according to
Walters's testimony and a supporting
memo, Watergate was the main topic and
Helms testifying before the Watergate commit-
tee in 1973: Artful dodger, forgetful `boob'?
questions about domestic intelligence-
specifically the short-lived "Huston plan"
for surveillance of antiwar dissidents. At
the 1973 Senate hearings, New Jersey
Sen. Clifford Case began the follow-
ing exchange:
CASE: "`It has been called to my atten-
tion that in 1969 or 1970 the White
House asked that all intelligence agen-
cies join in an effort to learn as much as
they could about the antiwar movement
and [that] U.S. Army intelligence be-
came involved and kept files on U.S.
citizens. Do you know anything about
any activity on the part of CIA in that
connection? Was it asked to be involved?"
HELMS: "I don't recall whether we
were asked but we were not involved
because it seemed to me that was a clear
violation of what our charter was."
Subsequently, it was confirmed by cur-
rent CIA director William Colby, among
it was agreed that Walters would try to
block further FBI inquiries. "I didn't
know what they were after," Helms told
a House subcommittee later. "I realize in
hindsight it makes me look like a boob."
"
Just how much cooperation Helms
gave the Nixon White House on this and
other matters still is not clear. Alter the
1972 election, Nixon planned to fire the
CIA boss outright. But when the Water=
gate investigations began in earnest, the
President decided to keep him on the
team in an ambassador's post. Even now,
his friends maintain, Helms is determined
to say as little as possible for as long as
possible. But he has hinted that unset-
tling disclosures will follow if the pres-
sure on him gets too heavy. "If I ever do
decide to talk," he told a friend in Wash-
ington, "there are going to be some very
embarrassed people in this town, you can
bet on that."
lid not help matters by selectively in- others, that the CIA did take part in -DAVID M. ALPERN with EVERT CLARK and
erpreting questions at his cgop jptr AekeAgdlg Mtt tl2$a!lGl) j-RDM1-0090?'RDWOD OO66t hlneton