Helms was appointed DCI by
Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966. He was the first homegrown DCI, having risen through the ranks from the agency's founding, and he would continue in the role through the first term of President
Richard Nixon, leaving office in 1973. During his tenure as head of the CIA, Helms oversaw the agency's involvement in the
Vietnam War and Southeast Asia, the
Six Day War,
subversive activities against the Salvador Allende presidency in Chile, and
domestic surveillance of American radicals. After the Six-Day War, Helms became one of Lyndon Johnson's top advisors on matters of foreign policy, and increasingly pessimistic CIA assessments of the Vietnam War culminated in Johnson's decision not to seek re-election to the presidency, on advice from Helms and
several foreign policy advisors relying on CIA intelligence. While he was a trusted advisor to Johnson, Helms came into conflict with the Nixon administration, particularly
National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, over the agency's authority and strategy, as well as the
Watergate scandal. Nixon eventually forced Helms to resign as DCI and accept a position as ambassador to Iran in April 1973.
Vietnam War ran the Far East and Soviet desks at the CIA under Helms and administered the
Phoenix Program under Helms.|309x309px
Conflicts within CIA and with military intelligence As the military and political situation progressed in Southeast Asia, CIA reports became more pessimistic regarding South Vietnamese prospects. By the time Helms took office as DCI, the CIA was sharply divided over the issue, with those active in the region, such as
Lucien Conein and
William Colby, remaining robustly optimistic regarding their projects. According to historian Anne Karalekas, "At no time was the institutional dichotomy between the operational and analytic components more stark." In his 2003 memoirs, Helms described the divisions:From the outset, the intelligence directorate and the
Office of National Estimates held a pessimistic view of the military developments. The operations personnel ... remained convinced the war could be won. Without this conviction, the operators could not have continued their difficult face-to-face work with the South Vietnamese, whose lives were often at risk. In Washington, I felt like a circus rider standing astride two horses, each for the best of reasons going its own way. In addition to internal conflict, the CIA had a statutory mandate to reconcile the conflicting views of various other American intelligence services, including the
Defense Intelligence Agency and
Bureau of Intelligence and Research. The
Johnson administration was resistant to negative outlooks regarding Vietnam; this resistance had eventually led to McCone's exclusion from White House strategy meetings and contributed to McCone's decision to resign in 1965. After Helms took office and Johnson increased the size and scope of American commitment to South Vietnam in 1965, CIA estimates became more optimistic. According to CIA officer
Ray S. Cline, "the pressure to give the right answer came along. I felt increasing pressure to say the war was winnable." In the following years, Helms was regularly asked for intelligence reports on military action, which military leaders resented. Over time, the American strategy relied on attrition warfare, and the CIA faced increasing pressure to conform to the military estimates of enemy casualties. Bitterness between the United States Army and the CIA became common knowledge within the administration. Accounts of Helms's influence during the Johnson administration differ. According to historian
John Ranelagh, Helms "used his influence with Lyndon Johnson to warn about the growing dangers of U.S. involvement in Vietnam." By contrast,
Stansfield Turner, who served as DCI from 1977 to 1981, described Helms as overly loyal to the office of president and suggested that Helms moderated analysts' opinions before they reached President Johnson. In 1967, one CIA analyst, Sam Adams, filed a formal complaint against Helms for deferring to the military's estimates of Viet Cong forces. A CIA review board considered the complaint, and the discrepancy later became significant to litigation between
CBS News and
William Westmoreland.
Phoenix Program A major component of the South Vietnamese
counterinsurgency policy was the establishment of
strategic hamlets to contest communist operations in the countryside. In 1967 and 1968, the CIA launched the controversial
Phoenix Program to support these efforts and eliminate the Viet Cong. Under the program, Vietnamese intelligence, military, police, and civilian forces were deployed in the field against Viet Cong support networks. Although it was officially administered by
Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS), the CIA designed and led the program, and
William Colby took a temporary leave of absence as head of the CIA Soviet Division to lead CORDS. Colby succeeded
Robert Komer at CORDS, and an increasing number of CIA personnel became involved in the Phoenix Program..|326x326pxAfter receiving training through the program, rural South Vietnamese forces sought to penetrate communist organizations and arrest, interrogate or kill their
cadres. South Vietnamese forces also utilized torture, became entangled in local and official corruption, and were responsible for many questionable killings, possibly thousands. In his memoirs, Helms noted that the early program was "successful and of serious concern to the [North Vietnamese] leadership," but recounted the program's progressive slide into corruption and violence which came to nullify its early success. By the time it was discontinued, Phoenix had become useless in the field and a notorious political liability. Helms attributed the corruption to Vietnamese forces acting against American instruction: PHOENIX was directed and staffed by Vietnamese over whom the American advisors and liaison officers did not have command or direct supervision. The American staff did its best to eliminate the abuse of authority—the settling of personal scores, rewarding of friends,
summary executions, prisoner mistreatment, false denunciation, illegal property seizure—that became the by-products of the PHOENIX counterinsurgency effort. In the blood-soaked atmosphere created by Viet Cong terrorism, the notion that regulations and directives imposed by foreign liaison officers could be expected to curb revenge and profit-making was unrealistic. Despite these faults, Colby later opined that the program did stop Viet Cong gains and compared it favorably to the "secret war" in
Laos. According to historian and journalist
Stanley Karnow, Vietnamese communist leaders and military commanders also found the program a very effective obstacle to their success, and the official North Vietnamese history of the war identified the Phoenix Program and Marine Corps as among the most effective American counterinsurgency operations.
Vietnamization period (196973) Under
Richard Nixon, the United States pursued a policy of
Vietnamization, emphasizing peace negotiations with the North and turning greater responsibility for military and intelligence operations over to the South Vietnamese, permitting the United States to secure, in Nixon's words, "peace with honor." While withdrawing American ground troops, Nixon simultaneously sought to increase bargaining power by escalating airstrikes and
heavy bombing of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, and widened the scope of the conflict by covertly
invading Cambodia. The Nixon administration posited the conflict as a critically important theater of the broader
Cold War and directed Helms to focus on Vietnam. The new strategy clashed with the advice of Helms and CIA analysts, whom national security advisor
Henry Kissinger referred to as representing "the most liberal school of thought in the government." As a result of Vietnamization, Helms was forced to wind down many CIA operations in the region, including civic projects and paramilitary operations. The Phoenix Program was turned over to Vietnamese direction and control. The war in Laos, which was becoming difficult to maintain secret, was transferred to the
Department of Defense. Although Nixon also relied on Helms to produce reports on China, as the administration sought to open relations with Mao Zedong to foster
conflict within the communist world, he shut the CIA out of his diplomatic plans to
travel to China in 1972. Shortly before his visit, Kissinger ordered Helms to halt all CIA operations in China, including Tibet.
Israel and Six-Day War (1967) As DCI, Helms was a proponent of cooperation and coordination with
Israeli intelligence under the management of counterintelligence head
James Jesus Angleton, who had led CIA-Mossad liaisons since 1953. At the time, Israel was
non-aligned between the United States and Soviet Union, but the nation moved significantly closer to the United States during Helms's tenure. In August 1966,
Mossad acquired a Soviet
MiG-21 from a disaffected
Iraqi pilot, and
Meir Amit visited Washington loan the plane to the United States for inspection. At a May 1967
National Security Council meeting, Helms praised Israeli military preparedness and argued that the MiG-21 demonstrated that the Israelis "had learned their lessons well.". In 1967, CIA analysis by
Sherman Kent predicted that in the event of an armed conflict between Israel and neighboring Arab states, "the Israelis would win a war within a week to ten days," The analysis was challenged by
U.N. ambassador Arthur Goldberg and the Israeli government under
Levi Eshkol, which appealed to Lyndon B. Johnson for additional American support. Unbeknownst to the Americans and Israelis, Soviet intelligence also expected an Arab victory. Helms and other top Johnson advisors stood by the CIA prediction, which ultimately proved correct. Helms later reflected that Israel sought to minimize their strength to control international expectations prior to the outbreak of war. Four days before the sudden launch of the
Six-Day War in June 1967, a senior Israeli official visited Helms privately and hinted that a
preemptive war was imminent. Helms passed the information on to the president. In the afternoon of the third day of the war, the American
signals intelligence spy ship
USS Liberty was attacked by Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats in international waters north of the
Sinai Peninsula, resulting in
severe damage and massive casualties. Israel notified the United States and claimed that they had mistaken the
Liberty for the Egyptian coastal steamer
El Quseir, despite the
Liberty being much longer than the
El Quseir (455 feet versus 275 feet). The United States government formally accepted the apology and the explanation. In a 1984 CIA interview, Helms said, "I don't think there can be any doubt that the Israelis knew exactly what they were doing. Why they wanted to attack the
Liberty, whose bright idea this was, I can't possibly know. But any statement to the effect that they didn't know that it was an American ship and so forth is nonsense." In his memoirs, Helms expressed his continued shock:"[Few] in Washington could believe that the ship had not been identified as an American naval vessel. Later, an interim intelligence memorandum concluded the attack was a mistake and 'not made in malice against the U.S.' When additional evidence was available, more doubt was raised. ... I have yet to understand why it was felt necessary to attack this ship or who ordered the attack." , Helms became a trusted advisor and participant in weekly lunch meetings.|285x285pxOn the morning of the sixth day of the war, Johnson summoned Helms to advise on the prospect of Soviet intervention in the war following threats from
Alexei Kosygin. In the event, Israel decisively defeated the combined Arab army with no direct Soviet intervention.
Stansfield Turner later wrote that Helms claimed the accurate provision of CIA intelligence relating to the Six-Day War was "the high point of his career," and Helms believed it had kept America out of the conflict. The accurate intelligence concerning the duration, logistics, and outcome of the war also led to Helms's entry into Johnson's inner circle and regular attendance at Tuesday lunch with the President. The conflict also increased American sympathy for Israel. Following the war, America moved toward decisive support for Israel, eventually supplanting France as Israel's chief military supplier. In a 1984 interview with a CIA historian, Helms recalled: And I think at that time he'd made up his mind that it would be a good idea to tie intelligence into the inner circle of his policy-making and decision-making process. So starting from that time he began to invite me to the Tuesday lunches, and I remained a member of that group until the end of his administration. For the remainder of the Johnson administration, Helms functioned in proximity to high-level policymaking, with continuous access to top political leadership. [W]e gathered for a sherry in the family living room on the second floor of the White House. If the President, who normally kept to a tight schedule, was a few minutes late, he would literally bound into the room, pause long enough to acknowledge our presence, and herd us into the family dining room, overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue. Seating followed protocol, with the secretary of state (
Dean Rusk) at the President's right, and the secretary of defense (
Robert McNamara, later
Clark Clifford) at his left. General
Bus Wheeler (the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) sat beside the secretary of defense. I sat beside Dean Rusk.
Walt Rostow (the
Special Assistant for National Security Affairs),
George Christian (the White House Press Secretary), and Tom Johnson (the deputy press secretary) made up the rest of the table. As a neutral party within the meetings, Helms supplied the others with facts applicable to the issue at hand. Helms later commented he used this position to steer the conversation. was the investigation of alleged foreign infiltration of the
anti-war movement via tactics which were dubiously legal under the CIA charter.|361x361px
Operation CHAOS From 1967 to 1974, under both the Johnson and Nixon administrations, Helms and the CIA were tasked with domestic surveillance of protest movements, particularly anti-war protestors and activists. These surveillance operations were referred to as
Operation CHAOS. The investigations were based on the theory that these movements were funded or influenced by foreign actors, especially the
Soviet Union and other communist states, amid a sudden rise in anti-war activism. As part of CHAOS, the CIA counterintelligence office under James Jesus Angleton clandestinely gathered extensive information on many anti-war groups,
Ramparts magazine, and others, eventually building thousands of clandestine files on American citizens as a prerequisite to foreign espionage. CIA agents sought to use the information to acquire credibility to use as
cover when overseas. On that rationale, the operation continued for almost seven years, hidden from nearly all agency personnel outside of the counterintelligence office. The operation initially found no substantial foreign sources of money or influence, but when Helms reported these findings to the Johnson, his reaction was hostile. Helms later wrote that Johnson "simply could not believe that American youth would on their own be moved to riot in protest against U. S. foreign policy." Accordingly, Johnson escalated the program. Richard Nixon later extended the reach and scope of CHAOS and other domestic surveillance activity, convinced that domestic dissent was initiated and nurtured by Soviet agents. In 1969, intra-agency opposition to CHAOS arose, and CIA
general counsel Lawrence R. Houston advised Helms on an official memorandum to justify the operation to officers and agents. Nixon planned to subsume the operation under the
Huston Plan, a broader multi-agency investigative effort involving the CIA, FBI,
Defense Intelligence Agency, and
National Security Agency, but the plan was never adopted. CIA critics have long derided Operation CHAOS as outright illegal or on the fringes of legality, as the CIA was ostensibly forbidden from operating on U.S. soil. Helms later claimed that he pointed this out to President Johnson, who responded, "I'm quite aware of that," and instructed Helms to maintain focus on foreign involvement. Later, both the
Rockefeller Commission and the
Church Committee found the initial investigation to be within the margins of the CIA's legislative charter. Critics have also noted that the operation made no clear distinction between extreme and mainstream opposition to American involvement in the Vietnam War. Operation CHAOS was also opposed by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under
J. Edgar Hoover, who viewed surveillance of subversive activity as the FBI's jurisdiction. Although the FBI did conduct such operations within the U.S., the bureau refused to provide any context or analysis.
Relationship with Richard Nixon (196873) Following Richard Nixon's victory in the
1968 presidential election, Johnson invited Nixon to
his ranch in Texas, where he was introduced
Dean Rusk,
Clark Clifford,
Earle Wheeler, and Helms. Johnson privately told Helms that he had represented him to Nixon as a political neutral, "a merit appointment", and a career federal official who was good at his job. Nixon invited Helms to his headquarters in New York City, where Nixon told Helms that he and
J. Edgar Hoover would be retained as "appointments out of the political arena."
Diminishing role of CIA ,
Henry Kissinger supplanted Helms as chief intelligence advisor to the president.|356x356pxNixon dramatically limited the role of the CIA in his administration and interacted very little with Helms directly. Kissinger conveyed Nixon's instructions to the CIA and other intelligence services, and all intelligence briefings were delivered through Kissinger. Nixon and Kissinger understood that they alone would "conceive, command, and control clandestine operations" through the
National Security Council. Under Nixon's initial intention, Helms was even excluded from the policy discussions at NSC meetings. Nixon found Helms pedantic and tiresome because of his practice of reading directly from CIA reports at meetings. In his memoirs,
Stansfield Turner described Nixon as hostile to the CIA, questioning its utility, practical value, and politics, which he viewed as liberal and elitist and having aided his political enemies. In a 1988 interview, Helms agreed, "Nixon never trusted anybody." Despite this, Helms later wrote that Nixon was "the best prepared to be President of any of those under whom I served" and "had the best grasp of foreign affairs and domestic politics." When Nixon attended NSC meetings, he would often direct his personal animosity and ire toward the CIA directly at Helms, and Helms found it difficult to establish a cordial working relationship with the new president. In addition to the change in policy direction, Kissinger later wrote that Nixon "felt ill at ease with Helms personally."
Ray Cline wrote that Nixon used Helms and the CIA "primarily as an instrument for the execution of White House wishes" and did not "understand or care about the carefully structured functions of central intelligence as a whole. ... I doubt that anyone could have done better than Helms in these circumstances." One incident exemplifying tensions between the CIA and the Nixon administration was the revelation of Soviet long-range missiles, code-named the
SS-9 Scarp. The CIA reported that these missiles lacked
multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) capability, but the
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reported that they did have MIRV capability, suggesting Soviet intent to achieve
first strike nuclear capacity. The Nixon administration, seeking to justify a new American
anti-ballistic missile system, publicly endorsed the DIA position. Kissinger asked Helms to review the CIA finding, which Helms initially stood by. Eventually, however, Helms compromised under pressure from
Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, who told Helms that the CIA was outside its authority and "subverted administration policy." Helms later remembered: I realized that there was no convincing evidence in the Agency or at
the Pentagon which would prove either position. Both positions were estimates—speculation—based on identical fragments of data. My decision to remove [the language contested by the Nixon administration] was based on the fact that the Agency's estimate—that the USSR was not attempting to create a first-strike capability – as originally stated in the earlier detailed National Estimate would remain the Agency position. According to author
John Ranelagh, at least one analyst involved in the report viewed Helms's reversal as not only "a cave-in on a matter of high principle ... but also as a public slap in the face from his director, a vote of no confidence in his work." A few years later, the nature of the Soviet SS-9 missiles became better understood, and the CIA analysis was vindicated. According to Ranelagh, "The consensus among agency analysts was that Dick Helms had not covered himself with glory this time."
Watergate After first learning of the
break-in at the Watergate Office Building on June 17, 1972, in which those arrested included former CIA agent
E. Howard Hunt and other former CIA assets, Helms developed a general strategy to distance the CIA from the break-in altogether, including subsequent third-party investigations of Nixon's role. Helms and DDCI
Vernon Walters became convinced that top CIA officials had no role in the break-in, but it soon became apparent that it was "impossible to prove anything to an inflamed national press corps already in full cry" and "daily leaks to the press kept pointing at CIA." Later, Helms argued that "the leaks were coming directly from the White House," and that Nixon was personally directing them. On June 23, 1972, Nixon and Haldeman discussed asking Helms for his assistance to deter the FBI investigation of the Watergate break-in. During the discussion, Nixon said "well, we protected Helms from one hell of a lot of things". Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and
John Dean asked Helms to assert a national security reason for the break-in and, under that rationale, interfere with the ongoing FBI investigation on the grounds of
state secrecy and
post bail for the arrested suspects. Helms initially made stalled the FBI's progress for several weeks. At several meetings attended by Helms and Walters, Nixon's team referred to the Cuban
Bay of Pigs fiasco as an implied threat against the integrity of CIA. Helms reacted sharply against this gambit.
Stansfield Turner called this "perhaps the best and most courageous decision of [Helms's] career."
White House Counsel John Dean reportedly asked for $1 million to buy the silence of the jailed Watergate burglars. In a 1988 interview, Helms stated that he believed a bribe would have been possible, but he declined because the scandal would have resulted in the end of the CIA. Although Helms ultimately succeeded in shielding the CIA from direct implication in Watergate, the scandal ultimately became a major factor in American public opinion shifting against the agency, and its political role became the subject of controversy in the following years.
Dismissal After Nixon's re-election in 1972, he called for all appointed officials to resign. Because Helms did not consider his position at CIA political, he did not resign. On November 20, Helms came to
Camp David to an interview with Nixon and chief of staff H.R. Haldeman, at which Helms was informed that his services in the new administration would not be required. William Colby later commented that Helms "paid the price" for declining the White House requests with respect to Watergate. After Nixon was reminded that Helms was a career civil servant and not a political appointee, Nixon offered him the
ambassadorship to the Soviet Union. Helms declined, wary of the potential implications of his appointment from the Soviet perspective, considering his long career in intelligence. Instead, Helms proposed being sent to Iran, where
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had studied at Le Rosey with Helms's brother, Nixon dismissed ambassador
Joseph S. Farland to create an opening for Helms. Although Helms suggested that he might voluntarily retire at the end of March, after turning 60, he was abruptly dismissed on February 2, 1973, when
James R. Schlesinger was named the new DCI. Helms later wrote, "The timing caught me by surprise. ... A few days later, I encountered Haldeman. 'What happened to our understanding that my exit would be postponed for a few weeks?' I asked. 'Oh, I guess we forgot,' he said with the faint trace of a smile. And so it was over." As one of his final acts, Helms ordered that all files pertaining to the
MKUltra program be destroyed. When the program was exposed to the public in 1975, the
Church Committee and
Rockefeller Commission investigations were both forced to rely on the sworn testimony of direct participants and a small number of documents that survived Helms's order. , CIA agents encouraged the Chilean army to disrupt the inauguration of
Salvador Allende. Rogue Chilean officers who had met with CIA agents killed Commander-in-Chief
René Schneider (1913–1970).
Project FUBELT Following the victory of
Salvador Allende in the
1970 Chilean presidential election, Richard Nixon ordered the CIA to surveil Allende and interfere with his socialist domestic policies, an operation code-named
Project FUBELT. Despite CIA efforts, Allende was successfully inaugurated as president of Chile, and Project FUBELT declined in intensity. On September 11, 1973, after Helms had left the CIA, a
military coup led by
Augusto Pinochet violently ended the democratically elected Allende regime. During the 1970 election, the United States government sent financial and other assistance to two candidates opposing Allende. According to Helms, President Nixon ordered him on September 15, 1970 to covertly support the Chilean military in preventing Allende from taking office as president. "He wanted something done and he didn't care how," Helms later characterized the order. The order was termed "Track II" to distinguish it from the CIA's covert funding of opposition to Allende, called "Track I". Accordingly, the CIA took assorted covert actions to pressure the Chilean army to seize power. CIA agents were in communication with rogue elements within the Chilean military who later assassinated General
René Schneider, the Army Commander-in-Chief, over his perceived
constitutionalism, but the CIA broke off contact before his assassination and discouraged assassination. After the assassination, the Chilean army swung firmly behind Allende, and he was inaugurated as president on November 3, 1970. Nixon and Kissinger blamed Helms for Allende's presidency. Despite this failure, the CIA continued to funnel millions of dollars to Chilean opposition groups, including political parties, media, and striking truck drivers in order to destabilize
Chile's economy and subvert the Allende administration. In Nixon's own words, the United States policy was "to make the Chilean economy
scream." Despite these efforts, Helms later wrote, "In my remaining months in office, Allende continued his determined march to the left, but there was no further effort to instigate a coup in Chile." Although he disagreed with Nixon's policy in Chile, Helms nevertheless carried out his instructions. Author
Tim Weiner contradicted Helms in 2007, arguing that the CIA worked diligently to cultivate military officers willing to commit to a coup. Helms left the CIA on February 2, 1973, seven months before the coup d'etat in Chile. Nixon continued to work directly against the Allende regime; he was ultimately deposed in a
1973 coup d'état and died under suspicious circumstances, officially ruled a suicide. The civil violence of the military coup and subsequent Pinochet regime provoked widespread international censure. ==Ambassador to Iran (197377)==