1 The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign ...

tens of billions of dollars in the budget.
Q: Where would the money go?
MILLER: Well, the figures are generally classified.
Q: I’m talking about on the Senate side. What would be the expenses?
MILLER: The expenses for the committee? I was talking about the expenses for the
nation’s intelligence activities. The expenses for the committees were, I’d say, regular not
extraordinary, like any committee, mainly the costs of staff and office expenses.
Q: You were talking about the oversight of the…
MILLER: No, I was talking about the expenditure of the United States government for
purposes of intelligence, and there the amounts were enormous, and the role of the
senators was very important, because here’s a Senate committee – most of whose work is
in secret, so the public never sees it. This is a committee that has no benefits for a
politician. On the other hand it’s a committee that’s regarded with great respect because
it’s a significant form of power. Senators know what’s going on to the extent that
intelligence can provide that. It’s a bonding of an even smaller group than the 100
senators, who work under very high pressure and disciplined circumstances – far higher
presence than anything else they do. So it was forming an organization with a new way of
conducting government business.
Q: Who were the minority and majority Senate leaders in this, for starters?
MILLER: The initial – the first chairman was Dan Inouye.
Q: From Hawaii.
MILLER: From Hawaii, and for the minority, Barry Goldwater from Arizona, Howard
Baker of Tennessee and John Tower of Texas. They were chosen by their respective
conferences, so the parties chose, in fact, the leaders. This is a very important point, that
the leadership of the parties took it very seriously and appointed the best people they
could possibly …
Q: I would think in the natural political process – was this a committee to which senators
would aspire or were they picked because someone said, “You really should do this type
thing.”
MILLER: Well, I can discuss the differences between both committees, the investigative
committee and the oversight committee. In the investigative committee, senators were
fighting with one another to get on the committee because many of them saw political
advantage to being in a high profile, investigative committee. I would say, almost without
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