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diagnosed with serious cancer, so he couldn't do it, though he stayed on the committee.
Senator Frank Church wanted to be chairman. Mansfield said to him, "If you do this, your
chance for the presidency is much diminished." He said, "I understand, I want to be
chairman." This was an extraordinarily, extremely difficult decision for Mansfield,
because he had to put together a committee fully reflecting the spectrum of political views
in the Senate. He and Hugh Scott knew they had to choose a committee that could work
together on very delicate, even explosive issues, so they carefully chose every member
from left to right taking account of the major relevant standing committees, seniority,
youth, experience and expertise. It was a true consensus committee. The co-chairmen
church and Goldwater certainly was a liberal-conservative balance. As it turned out, on
most matters they worked well together.
Q: Let me stop here.
[END TAPE]
Q: This is tape five, side one, with Bill Miller.
MILLER: The "family jewels" had been the primary impetus that led to the decision to
create an investigative committee, and some of the charges that came out in repeated,
multiple forms, was assassination of foreign leaders, and among other things, the lesser
violence, the reading of the mail of Americans, the illegal unwarranted wiretaps, the
intercept of telephone calls, so on and so forth, as well as covert actions that were
undertaken contrary to declared foreign policy objectives. It was a whole mélange of
secret, in some cases secret high technology, often violent and illegal activities that had
been engaged in since the end of the Second World War and it all needed to be looked at.
The Ford White House moved first and appointed the Rockefeller Commission to look
into the issue of assassinations. The Ford White House thought that that would answer the
question, and it would lessen the necessity to have any extensive congressional inquiries
into such secretive areas as intelligence. At first, Ford, particularly, and many senior
committee chairmen in the establishment of Congress, both House and the Senate, and
the senior executive branch, felt that intelligence was too delicate to withstand rigorous
investigation by the legislature.
The Rockefeller Commission, a Presidentially appointed commission, it was believed by
Ford would probe the issue carefully, protect national security secrets, do the right thing
and lance the boil. The Rockefeller Commission was a failure. It was seen as a whitewash
in the view of almost everyone involved. As a result, both the House and Senate
established Select Committees, separate committees. The Senate had had the recent
successful experience of setting up a bipartisan committee on emergency powers, so the
Senate set up a similar bipartisan committee. I think it was to have an equal number. The
chairman would be from the majority party, but there would be a co-chairman, and no
meetings or votes could be held without the co-chairman in agreement. All staff had to be
approved by the full committee. The rules of the Senate required that the creation of a
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