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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 94
new Select Committee had to go through the gauntlet of review by all the other relevant committees. The resulting approval was extraordinary: Armed Services, Appropriations, Foreign Relations and Rules, all reluctantly gave up tremendous power, under pressure because the majority leader insisted a Select Committee investigating intelligence had to be created. Mansfield made the difference. He said to his leading committee chairmen, "You haven't done your jobs, but it's not your fault. The system of oversight hasn't worked. We've got to do it right. You will have membership on the committee." This was the art of constructing a consensus, and it's much to the credit of Mike Mansfield. He was perhaps the only one who could have done this. Mansfield and the Senate leadership chose left wing, right wing, age, youth, intelligence background, no background, every possible point of view and faction. The result was a mirror of the body. The rules that set up the committee also provided that any member of the Senate had a right to know anything produced by the investigation. For example, a Senator could come to the committee and say, "I want to know if my file that's in the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation)," and the committee would say, "Here's your file," but these are the rules under which you can have access to your file. The rules provided for clearances, security, and the process for disclosure of secret information. The mandate and regulations for the committee were drawn up not only by the Senate, but also with advice of the executive branch, with particular attention to the security need to protect intelligence sources and personnel. The most difficult issue was the extent of access to information that would be permitted. There was a huge fight on the question, which was decided by referring to precedents, meaning in particular an earlier power contained in the Atomic Energy Act of 1945 in which the Atomic Energy Committee had in 1945 inserted the following phrase all departments and agencies had the obligation, "to keep the committee fully and currently informed of all matters pertaining to the jurisdiction of the committee." The language was clear: all information had to be given to the committee. There was no information in the intelligence world that could be denied to the committee. Whatever the president got, the committee would get. There were to be no exceptions. That was the most difficult issue. It was contested repeatedly, but in the end, the committee prevailed. Q: I mean, the one place where it really would hurt would be the divulging of sources of information who were at risk, like Penkovsky and others ... MILLER: Who were alive. Q: Yes, so how was that treated, because this was a big committee? MILLER: Well, it was treated very carefully. For example, the clearances of all the staff. The committee in the end decided on all staff appointments, but the security clearances were made by the FBI and the intelligence agencies. The intelligence agencies, on their part, were very astute, probably to the credit of Bill Colby and Dick Helms, is my understanding, and the people who were assigned the task of dealing with us. And, in 95
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The Association for Diplomatic Stud
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Investigative committee Oversight C
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Q: Could you tell me when and where
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in Europe and the explosion of New
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of 98. He was my English teacher ju
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MILLER: He was a monster. He was se
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Q: Well, you graduated in ’53. Ho
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structure. Oxford and Cambridge was
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situation, particularly, attitudes
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vacations in between semesters, eig
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student. I was returning from a tra
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Q: Did you go on to get your PhD? M
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Q: I would think so. *** Okay, toda
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us in his car and lent us some mone
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its history and was a patriot in th
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MILLER: The Shah was never accepted
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Q: Well, now let’s talk about the
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Young and his archaeologist son, T.
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Q: Great opener isn’t it … MILL
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“What have you got in the village
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highly cultured city with a thousan
Page 43 and 44: MILLER: The hierarchy of power was
Page 45 and 46: and along the Persian Gulf there we
Page 47 and 48: and its independence despite the 19
Page 49 and 50: MILLER: Very ephemeral. It’s only
Page 51 and 52: Q: Well, then maybe we should move
Page 53 and 54: he had been chief of protocol, amon
Page 55 and 56: show that they were … MILLER: No,
Page 57 and 58: sustain his absolutism. That was my
Page 59 and 60: technical assistance and the secret
Page 61 and 62: streets. This astounded the nationa
Page 63 and 64: were the most important, and Bob Ko
Page 65 and 66: Symington was one of the key people
Page 67 and 68: a modern state. One could see some
Page 69 and 70: the difficulties arose was in the n
Page 71 and 72: That was the policy when I arrived.
Page 73 and 74: Q: Was the question of authority he
Page 75 and 76: no policy role, I thought that I re
Page 77 and 78: fierce guardian secretary, Martha,
Page 79 and 80: It is a mark of the Senate of this
Page 81 and 82: Today is the 12 th of December, 200
Page 83 and 84: smaller than they are now. Everyone
Page 85 and 86: of everyone. These views were on th
Page 87 and 88: danger. Cutting people down to size
Page 89 and 90: very carefully, and with great plea
Page 91 and 92: Cooper retires and I go as Chief of
Page 93: MILLER: Some, say they're taking it
Page 97 and 98: MILLER: The Hoover people were stil
Page 99 and 100: Q: Who? MILLER: Sam Giancana, a mob
Page 101 and 102: whole, the CIA did its duty. In any
Page 103 and 104: was doing to me and I set the rules
Page 105 and 106: MILLER: They were a right-wing terr
Page 107 and 108: tens of billions of dollars in the
Page 109 and 110: very difficult then and, of course,
Page 111 and 112: problems with senators or the staff
Page 113 and 114: MILLER: The most important informat
Page 115 and 116: But now, that gap has disappeared f
Page 117 and 118: national security changed. National
Page 119 and 120: That's the value of Fletcher, and,
Page 121 and 122: know this June the Diplomatic Acade
Page 123 and 124: went to the American Committee on U
Page 125 and 126: The board was very attractive to me
Page 127 and 128: President of the American Committee
Page 129 and 130: survived that, and was now the tuto
Page 131 and 132: great essay for me, which I treasur
Page 133 and 134: then. Sakharov wrote a draft of the
Page 135 and 136: House. This was Reagan - up to ’8
Page 137 and 138: social revolutionary change. The ch
Page 139 and 140: MILLER: No. The forces of change ha
Page 141 and 142: MILLER: Yes. The encouragement of h
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Q: Well, why don't we talk about '9
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peculiar sense of stasis even in th
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members on the International Founda
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MILLER: Yes, but he would have won
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Q: This is tape eight, side one, wi
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Q: Was this an American movement mo
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doing, it was a pretty good paralle
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no one stopped them. They had to do
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MILLER: They sided with the people.
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A very good case in point is how th
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Quartet, from St. Petersburg. They
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MILLER: More or less. In all of the
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Q: Well, then, when did you leave M
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no one did very well; neither the R
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laws explicitly said you can’t ha
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policy going to be, and the articul
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people who had worked with him, lik
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Ridgeway. During the time between t
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My instructions were, number one, g
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(Communist bureaucracy). Q: Who was
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MILLER: The attitude in Washington
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Kravchuk and the Ukrainian leadersh
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that message and saw this policy by
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was surrounded by gorgeous gardens.
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When Meshkov asked about U.S. assis
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Ukraine, a longstanding one, which
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language issue really didn't cause
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most dramatic and most destructive
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now running the new system and were
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are now a part of the political age
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MILLER: Yes, that’s more or less
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utility of setting up FBI liaison w
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Q: This is tape 11, side one, with
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Q: Well, now, when you were there,
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invention, was created to provide a
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that would damage the good relation
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sense. There are Ukrainian national
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Ukrainian language nationalist, whe
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north German plain and so on is a f
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toadies and miscreants of one kind
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ase for me to go back to Ukraine an
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art of the country from the earlies
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only because I'm an example of it,
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Q: Absolutely. There's a little bit
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