Richard Helms, Director of Central Intelligence, 1966-1973
Richard McGarrah Helms (March 30, 1913 –
October 23, 2002) was the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from 1966 to 1973. He was the only director to
have been convicted of lying to Congress over Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) undercover activities. In 1977, he was sentenced to the
maximum fine and received a suspended two-year prison sentence. Despite this, Helms remained a revered figure in the intelligence
profession. CIA Historian Keith Melton describes Helms as a professional who was always
impeccably dressed and had a "low tolerance for fools."
Biography
Helms was born in Philadelphia in 1913. In 1935, after he graduated
from Williams College in Williamstown,
Massachusetts, he got a job at the United Press in London.. The
depression in London, however forced Helms to find work in Germany, where he covered the Berlin Olympic Games; he had spent two of his high school years at the prestigious Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland where he learned to speak
French and later Realgymnasium in Freiburg, where he became fluent in German. He joined the advertising department of the
Indianapolis Times; within two years he was national advertising manager.
Career in intelligence
During World War II Helms served in the United
States Navy. In 1943, he was posted to the Office of Strategic
Services (OSS) because of his ability to speak German. In the aftermath of the war, he was transferred to the newly formed
Office of Special Operations (OSO), where at the age of 33 he was put in charge of
intelligence and counter-intelligence operations in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland.
The OSO became a division of the CIA when that organization was created by the National Security Act of July 1947. Helms became Director of the OSO after the CIA's disastrous
role in the attempted invasion of Cuba in 1961. After falling out with the Kennedys, he was sent off to Vietnam where he oversaw the coup to
overthrow President Ngo Dinh Diem. Following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Helms was made Deputy Director of the CIA under Admiral
William Raborn. A year later, in 1966, he was appointed Director.
Richard Helms, in the White House Cabinet Room,
March 27,
1968.
The ease of Helm's role under President Lyndon Johnson changed with the arrival of
President Richard Nixon and Nixon's national security advisor Henry
Kissinger. After the debacle of Watergate, from which Helms succeeded in distancing the CIA as far as possible, the Agency
came under much tighter Congressional control. Nixon, however, considered Helms to be disloyal, and fired him as DCI in 1973.
Helms then served from 1973 to 1976 as US ambassador to
Iran in Tehran.
Helms' ultimate undoing was the CIA's role, at Nixon's behest, in the subversion of Chile's
socialist government, Project FUBELT. According to
Helms, Nixon had ordered the CIA to support a military coup to prevent Allende from becoming president in 1970. However,
following the assassination of Army Conmmander-in-Chief General René Schneider by
elements of the military, public support swung behind Allende, and he took office in October 1970. Subsequently, the CIA funneled
millions of dollars to opposition groups and striking truck drivers in a continuing effort to destabilize the Allende
government.
During his ambassadorial confirmation hearings before the Senate, Helms was questioned concerning the CIA's role in the
Chilean affair. Because the operations were still secret and the hearings were public events, Helms denied that the CIA had ever
aided Allende's opposition. However, later information uncovered by the Church
Committee hearings showed that Helm's statements were false, and he was prosecuted and convicted in 1977. He received a
two-year suspended sentence and a $2,000 fine. He wore the conviction as a badge of
honor, and his fine was paid by friends from the CIA.
In 1972, Helms ordered the destruction of most records from the huge MKULTRA project,
over 150 CIA-funded research projects designed to explore any possibilities of mind
control. The project became public knowledge two years later, after a New York
Times report. Its full extent may never be known.
In 1983, President Ronald Reagan awarded Helms the National Security Medal. After he died of bone cancer in
2002, Richard Helms was interred in Arlington National Cemetery in
Arlington, Virginia.
Kennedy assassination
Helms testified, under oath, in 1979, that Clay Shaw, the only man ever put on trial for
John F. Kennedy's assassination, had, from 1948 to 1956, been a part-time contact of the
Domestic Contact Division of the CIA; a claim that had remained unproven from Shaw's trial.
In 1979 the House Select Committee on
Assassinations, HSCA cited Helms for perjury in its final report. He had lied about his knowledge of the John F. Kennedy assassination. When testifying before the Warren
Commission in 1964 Helms swore he never remembered hearing the name Lee Harvey
Oswald before the assassination.
"...I had all of our records searched to see if there had been any contacts at any time prior to President Kennedy's
assassination by anyone in the Central Intelligence Agency with Lee Harvey Oswald. We checked our card files and our personnel
files and all our records. Now, this check turned out to be negative. In addition I got in touch with those officers who were in
positions of responsibility at the times in question to see if anybody had any recollection of any contact having even been
suggested with this man. This also turned out to be negative, so there is no material in the Central Intelligence Agency, either
in the records or in the mind of any of the individuals, that there was any contact had or even contemplated with him." (Warren
Report volume V page 120)
However a declassified memo written by Helms on November 25, 1963, the day after Oswald’s murder states that, "As soon as I
[blacked out] had heard Oswald's name," he recognized Oswald as a potential recruit. The name of the government agency,
recruiter, and operation had been blacked out from the memo. (HSCA Report volume XI page 64.)
See also
Further reading
- Thomas Powers. The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979
Trivia
- Helms was portrayed by actor Sam Waterston in a memorable scene in the 1994 film
Nixon, deleted from the original release but included in the director's cut
DVD.
- The character Richard Hayes, portrayed by actor Lee Pace in the 2006 film
The Good Shepherd, was loosely based on Helms.
External links
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