Church Committee

Church Committee   (Congressional hearing)
Formation	1975
Extinction	1976
Interests	Project MKULTRA, Mind Control research, CIA/Assassinations
Interest of	Pike Committee, Senate Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations
Membership	•  Frank Church •  Philip Hart •  Walter Mondale •  Walter Huddleston •  Robert Morgan •  Gary Hart •  John Tower •  Howard Baker •  Barry Goldwater •  Charles Mathias •  Richard Schweiker •  William G. Miller •  Frederick A. O. Schwartz •  Curtis Smothers •  Audrey Hatey

The Church Committee was the informal name of the US Senate's Select Committee To Study Governmental Operations With Respect To Intelligence Activities. It was set up as a result of growing concern about the activities of the CIA, and "led to revelations about many of the dark secrets within the CIA." As a result, it contributed impetus to the offshoring of the US deep state.

Staffing

The Church Committee contained lawyer Charles Mathias, who was well known to the Bilderberg group, having gone there already in 1967, 1968, 1970, 1972 and 1974.

Conclusions

The Church Committee warned that covert operations had developed a dangerous "bureaucratic momentum." Numbering some 900 between 1960 and 1975, such operations were becoming "increasingly costly to America's interest and reputation," the committee concluded. But instead of proposing truly meaningful reforms-other than the creation of permanent oversight committees-the panel merely implored that covert operations be reserved for "grave threats to American security" and be "consistent with publicly defined U.S. foreign policy goals." New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis called its recommendations "a gamble that the American system of checks and balances can work even in the powerful secret world of intelligence."

The Church Committee recommended (like the Rockefeller Commission and the Pike Committee) strengthening the CIA Office of Inspector General. This was not followed.

 

Documents by Church Committee

Title	Document type	Publication date	Subject(s)	Description
Document:Covert Action in Chile, 1963-73	report	1976	CIA Operation Mockingbird Chile/1973 coup	A Church committee report of the hearings before them to study governmental operations with respect to intelligence activities of the United States Senate. A very thorough, but lengthy, investigation into CIA activity in Chile. Includes numerous instances of media manipulation and propaganda in the millions of dollars.
File:Church Committee - Congo.pdf	report	1975	Patrice Lumumba/Assassination	An investigation into CIA involvement in the murder of Patrice Lumumba.

 

A Quote by Church Committee

Page

Quote

Foundation

“"During the 1950s and 1960s, the CIA turned increasingly to covert action in the area of student and labor matters, cultural affairs, and community developments. ... The CIA subsidized, advised, and even helped develop "private" organizations that would compete with the communists around the world. ... [Many] were U.S.-based student, labor, cultural, or philanthropic organizations whose international activities the CIA subsidized. ... "The philanthropic [CIA] fronts used prior to 1967 funded a seemingly limitless range of covert action programs affecting youth groups, labor unions, universities, publishing houses, and other private institutions in the United States and abroad. ... Support [was provided to, for instance] an international organization of veterans and an international foundation for developing countries [as well as] an organization of journalists and an international women's association. ... Agency funds were used to host foreign visitors [and] provide scholarships to an international cooperative training center at a United States university... The CIA assisted in the establishment in 1951 and the funding for over a decade of a research institute at a major American university. ... "By 1967, when public disclosure of NSA [National Student Association]'s funding ... caused a major curtailment of these activities, interest in the major covert action efforts in these areas was already waning. "There appear to be two reasons for this. First, there was considerable skepticism within the CIA as to the effectiveness of this approach. ... Richard Helms [explained], "The clandestine operator ... is trained to believe that you really can't count on the honesty of your agent to do exactly what you want or to report accurately unless you own him body and soul." "Second, it became increasingly difficult to conceal the CIA funds that supported these activities as the scale of the operations grew. By fiscal year 1967, for example, over $3 million [$22.5 million in 2018] was budgeted for youth and student programs and $6 million [$45 million in 2018] for labor. Most of the funds were transmitted through legitimate or "devised" foundations — that is, fictitious entities established by the CIA. "The use of philanthropic organizations was a convenient way to pass funds, in that large amounts could be transferred rapidly, and in a form that need not alert unwitting officers of the recipient organizations to their source. In addition, foundation grants bestowed upon the recipient the apparent "blessing" of the foundation. The funding pattern involved a mixture of bona fide charitable foundations, devised foundations and funds, [CIA] "front men" drawn from a list of America's most prominent citizens, and lawyers representing undisclosed clients. "The CIA's intrusion into the foundation field in the 1960s can only be described as massive. Excluding grants from the "Big Three" — Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie — of the 700 grants over $10,000 given by 164 other foundations during the period 1963-1966, at least 108 involved partial or complete CIA funding. More importantly, CIA funding was involved in nearly half the grants the non-"Big Three" foundations made during this period in the field of international activities. In the same period more than one-third of the grants awarded by non-"Big Three" in the physical, life and social sciences also involved CIA funds. "Bona fide foundations, rather than those controlled by the CIA, were considered the best and most plausible kind of funding cover for certain kinds of operations. A 1966 CIA study explained the use of legitimate foundations was the most effective way of concealing the CIA's hand as well as reassuring members of funded organizations that the organization was in fact supported by private funds."”

 

Related Quotation

Page	Quote	Author
Foundation	“"During the 1950s and 1960s, the CIA turned increasingly to covert action in the area of student and labor matters, cultural affairs, and community developments. ... The CIA subsidized, advised, and even helped develop "private" organizations that would compete with the communists around the world. ... [Many] were U.S.-based student, labor, cultural, or philanthropic organizations whose international activities the CIA subsidized. ... "The philanthropic [CIA] fronts used prior to 1967 funded a seemingly limitless range of covert action programs affecting youth groups, labor unions, universities, publishing houses, and other private institutions in the United States and abroad. ... Support [was provided to, for instance] an international organization of veterans and an international foundation for developing countries [as well as] an organization of journalists and an international women's association. ... Agency funds were used to host foreign visitors [and] provide scholarships to an international cooperative training center at a United States university... The CIA assisted in the establishment in 1951 and the funding for over a decade of a research institute at a major American university. ... "By 1967, when public disclosure of NSA [National Student Association]'s funding ... caused a major curtailment of these activities, interest in the major covert action efforts in these areas was already waning. "There appear to be two reasons for this. First, there was considerable skepticism within the CIA as to the effectiveness of this approach. ... Richard Helms [explained], "The clandestine operator ... is trained to believe that you really can't count on the honesty of your agent to do exactly what you want or to report accurately unless you own him body and soul." "Second, it became increasingly difficult to conceal the CIA funds that supported these activities as the scale of the operations grew. By fiscal year 1967, for example, over $3 million [$22.5 million in 2018] was budgeted for youth and student programs and $6 million [$45 million in 2018] for labor. Most of the funds were transmitted through legitimate or "devised" foundations — that is, fictitious entities established by the CIA. "The use of philanthropic organizations was a convenient way to pass funds, in that large amounts could be transferred rapidly, and in a form that need not alert unwitting officers of the recipient organizations to their source. In addition, foundation grants bestowed upon the recipient the apparent "blessing" of the foundation. The funding pattern involved a mixture of bona fide charitable foundations, devised foundations and funds, [CIA] "front men" drawn from a list of America's most prominent citizens, and lawyers representing undisclosed clients. "The CIA's intrusion into the foundation field in the 1960s can only be described as massive. Excluding grants from the "Big Three" — Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie — of the 700 grants over $10,000 given by 164 other foundations during the period 1963-1966, at least 108 involved partial or complete CIA funding. More importantly, CIA funding was involved in nearly half the grants the non-"Big Three" foundations made during this period in the field of international activities. In the same period more than one-third of the grants awarded by non-"Big Three" in the physical, life and social sciences also involved CIA funds. "Bona fide foundations, rather than those controlled by the CIA, were considered the best and most plausible kind of funding cover for certain kinds of operations. A 1966 CIA study explained the use of legitimate foundations was the most effective way of concealing the CIA's hand as well as reassuring members of funded organizations that the organization was in fact supported by private funds."”	Church Committee

 

Known members

10 of the 15 of the members already have pages here:

Member	Description
Howard Baker	Suspected deep state operative assisted for many years by Cercle attendee George Montgomery
Frank Church	Leader of the Church Committee, which probably did more than any other organisation to expose the activities of the US intelligence agencies.
Barry Goldwater
Gary Hart	Democrat presidential candidate exposed in extramarital scandal after calling for reopening of JFK assassination investigation. "And I think that I signed my death warrant when I did that. I didn't realize at the time...but I think what happened to me in 1987 was a pure setup."
Philip Hart	US Senator who was strong supporter of civil rights, anti-trust legislation and consumer and environmental protection. Member of Church Committee. Died of cancer soon after.
Walter Huddleston	Member of the Church Committee, lost Senate seat in 1985 election.
Charles Mathias	Church Committee member, Bilderberg/Steering committee, 17 Bilderbergs
Frederick A. O. Schwartz
Richard Schweiker
Curtis Smothers

 

Related Document

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:The Hammarskjöld Commission – Witness Statement of Lisa Pease	Statement	9 December 2012	Lisa Pease	Bud Culligan claims that he intercepted and shot down Hammarskjöld’s plane on orders from his CIA case officer. From my own study of the Hammarskjöld case, I believed then and continue to believe, especially in the light of the new evidence reported by Susan Williams in her excellent volume "Who Killed Hammarskjöld?", that the best evidence indicates Hammarskjöld’s plane was indeed shot out of the sky.

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