Career of Richard Helms

Richard Helms (1913-2002) started his career as a journalist, but then entered the intelligence field. He served in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during the war, and after in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where he remained during the Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy administrations. Eventually, at the height of his career, he would lead the agency as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI).

Helms was born and raised in Pennsylvania. After attending high school in Europe, learning French and German, he returned and graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts. He then worked as a journalist in Europe, and for the Indianapolis Times. Married when America entered World War II, he joined the Navy. Then Helms was recruited by the OSS, for whom he later served in Europe. After the war Helms continued intelligence work in Washington, his preference and specialty being espionage, as part of the Office of Special Operations (OSO). When the CIA was founded in 1947, the OSO group along with Helms was incorporated into the new agency. Helms' career path seemed to correspond in large part to the institutional growth of civilian intelligence in America.

During the later years of the Truman administration the CIA, under the leadership of the fourth DCI Walter Bedell Smith, became well-established as a leading organization within the intelligence community of the United States Government (USG). Smith created the Directorate of Plans, which combined the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), which was engaged in covert operations under Frank Wisner, and the espionage-oriented OSO led by Helms (recently promoted). Wisner then was selected as the first Deputy Director for Plans. As a matter of useful results, Helms had developed policy preferences. Generally he considered the information obtained by spy networks to be more valuable to the USG than any potential political benefits which might come from high-risk, secret paramilitary operations in foreign lands.

In 1953 Allen Dulles became the fifth DCI, managing the CIA under President Eisenhower. Helms then worked as Chief of Operations under the DDP Wisner. The Directorate of Plans supervised both clandestine operations (paramilitary and political) and espionage, i.e., ran spies. Helms worked in various capacities, e.g., to protect the agency from attack by Senator Joseph McCarthy, to develop "mind control" drugs, and to secretly tunnel into East Berlin in order to tap a Soviet cable. When Wisner resigned, Helms was disappointed that his 'rival' Richard M. Bissell was chosen as the new DDP.

During the first year of the Kennedy administration, the CIA launched the disastrous invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Helms had not participated in its much-criticized planning and development. Later, Helms stepped up to the position of DDP, under the sixth DCI John McCone. In the Cuban Missile Crisis DCI McCone sat with President Kennedy in the Cabinet Room of the White House during the tense discussions on strategy, with Helms working offstage sending McCone the latest developments in the Cuban theater.

Later President Johnson would appoint Helms as the eighth DCI in 1966. He would continue to serve as DCI under President Nixon until 1973.

Life up to World War II


Helms was born in St. Davids, Pennsylvania, in 1913, to Marion (McGarrah) and Herman Helms, an executive for Alcoa. His maternal grandfather, Gates McGarrah, was a noted international banker. He grew up in South Orange, New Jersey and began high school there at Carteret Academy. Foreign language fluency was considered very important; accordingly his family, father, mother, elder sister, and two younger brothers, all moved to Lausanne on Lac Léman. His next year of high school was spent nearby at the prestigious Swiss Institut Le Rosey where he studied the French language. After a brief return to America, the family settled in Freiburg im Breisgau in southern Germany, where at the Realgymnasium he became conversant in German.

During his years at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, he served as class president and as editor of The Williams Record which encouraged his interest in journalism. Following graduation magna cum laude, in 1935 he got a job at the United Press (UP) office in London, working in the News of the World building. The economic depression in London, however, caused Helms to look for work at the UP office in Berlin. There he translated and rewrote stories from the German language press. He also met well-known journalists, e.g., William L. Shirer and H. R. Knickerbocker, as well as Bennett Cerf, a publisher at Random House. Substituting for an ill UP colleague, Helms attended the annual NSDAP Parteitag in September 1936. There Helms heard Adolf Hitler speak to a massed party formation, and later with a small group of news reporters met and questioned him inside the Nuremberg Castle. Earlier Helms had covered the Berlin Olympic Games. He talked with American gold medalist Jesse Owens. Helms left the Berlin UP office in mid-1937, to return home.

He had determined on a career in print media, and wanted eventually to become a publisher and run a metropolitan daily newspaper. Accordingly Helms sought hands-on business experience in this line. He had heard it that "in the flinty eyes of owners, reporters were easy to find and a dime a dozen". He got a job on the retail advertising staff of the Indianapolis Times where he soon rose to be its national advertising manager.

In 1939, Helms married Julia Bretzman Shields, a "divorcée with two children" so that immediately his home became a "whole family". With his wife he entered a new life in local society. Three years later his son Dennis was born. Yet by then America had already entered World War II.

War-time intelligence
Following the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Helms volunteered for the United States Navy, receiving officer training at Harvard. First stationed in New York City, he plotted the whereabouts of German submarines. Then in 1943 he received orders transferring him to the Secret Intelligence Branch of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in Washington, D.C. He was chosen for the OSS because of: his ability to speak German and French, his journalism experience, and his time in pre-war Europe. His new training included some hand-to-hand combat. Also, he was told to get hired at a civilian defense factory without showing any identification papers; this gave him "a slight, very slight, taste of the anxiety and stress that are endemic to espionage."



After a period spent writing up fruitless "secret plans", Helms was pulled away and put into a small group under Ferdinand Meyers "responsible for coordinating intelligence collection on Germany". At the OSS office in Bern, Switzerland, Allen Dulles had made working contact with Fritz Kolbe, "a disaffected member of the Nazi foreign office in Berlin". Kolbe had approached the British first but, suspicious, the British considered him a plant by Nazi counterintelligence. Under American guidance rendered by Dulles, however, Kolbe became a valuable source of quality information, e.g., regarding German secret weapons, coding, and war strategy. "Kolbe's information is now recognized as the very best produced by any Allied agent in World War II." The Meyers group facilitated Kolbe's espionage file; Helms praised him as "an authentic hero of the German resistance to Hitler." Fritz Kolbe transmitted to the OSS some 1600 documents and cables, traveling between Berlin and Bern, "slipping through a half dozen Gestapo checkpoints while carrying his death-by-torture warrant in a shabby briefcase", Helms wrote. Kolbe "who in his active days had never sought compensation" after the war retired in Switzerland on a modest CIA pension.

In January 1945, Helms was sent to the OSS German Branch in London. Housing was in short supply and Helms shared a flat with his OSS superior William J. Casey (who would later head the CIA under Reagan). In passing, Helms notes the similarity between Bill Casey and General William J. Donovan, the first and only leader of the OSS (June 1942 – September 1945). Both were charismatic, Irish Catholic lawyers, "furiouslly hardworking, impatient, demanding of everyone around them", public servants, and conservative Republicans. Both favored covert action; about "Wild Bill" Donovan an aura developed. At the time of Helms' arrival in London, talk about the recent German attack on the Ardennes front conceded that it had surprised everyone including the OSS. Bill Casey considered it an "Allied intelligence failure". Already the OSS office had been discussing whether to attempt parachuting new agents into Germany (in addition to in place agents, like Fritz Kolbe).

Casey assigned Helms to supervise the London office in preparing and dispatching OSS-trained German volunteers who were to be dropped, with false papers and portable radios (then awkward and heavy), into Nazi Germany to collect military information. They were provided with lethal pills in case of capture. Helms describes riding with one such agent at night, seeing him off at an unlit airfield. Few survived. His colleagues report that Helms reached conclusions derived from his wartime experience, and formed two general convictions: secret intelligence matters; but covert action "dering-do" seldom does.

Truman presidency
In October 1945, Allen Dulles turned the OSS 'Berlin office' over to Helms. Then in early 1946 Helms, at the age of 33, was put in charge of information gathering and counter-intelligence operations in Central Europe, i.e., Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. This new job was located in Washington, with the SSU/OSO unit of the then CIG.

In March 1951, Helms was promoted, so that he was lifted from "the Central European Division to chief of the Foreign Intelligence (FI) Staff with responsibility for intelligence collection operations worldwide". In this role he was able to increase his understanding of the various CIA stations outside Europe and get to know CIA people serving there. The new position, also in the old OSO (but since 1947 within CIA), was soon merged into the newly formed, clandestine-oriented Directorate for Plans managed by Frank Wisner as DDP.

OSS, SSU/OSO, CIG/CIA


In the aftermath of the war, in September/October 1945, President Truman terminated the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). "[T]hose of us in Germany were taken completely by surprise," Helms later wrote. Over the next few years, the entire intelligence activity of the United States government (USG) would be reformed. During this period many competing government departments (War, and State), agencies (FBI), and political alignments struggled to have their notions established in the regulations of the new intelligence institutions and to see their partisans in positions of influence. After the demise of the OSS, "Truman immediately commenced building a new intelligence system". In early 1946 the Central Intelligence Group (CIG) was created, reporting directly to the National Intelligence Authority (NIA).

While this complicated process of institutional infighting unfolded, the group within the old OSS where Helms had labored was rescued from extinction. Instead it continued as the newly formed Strategic Services Unit (SSU), located initially in the War Department. Later this working group (with Helms in it), in the meantime renamed the Office of Special Operations (OSO), was then taken from the War Department and incorporated into the Central Intelligence Group (CIG). The CIG soon became transformed into the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) p. CIG, General Hoyt Vandenberg had played an effective role in reassembling the pieces of the old OSS.

Thus the OSS transitioned, via the War Department and the CIG, into the CIA. The SSU/OSO component which handled intelligence gathering and covert operations, of course, formed only a part of the CIA's sphere of activity. Other agency duties included, e.g., analysis of information gathered and its dissemination. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was created by Truman's National Security Act of 1947, an act which also created the Department of Defense (DOD) with its Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), as well as the National Security Council (NSC) to which the CIA's Director (DCI) reported.

Helms and his colleagues labored during these sweeping organizational changes, which directly affected the institutional structures and chain of command under which they reported. In these early years, Helms had heard the different perspectives voiced, and observed the high-level maneuvering, concerning the political decisions about responsibility limits and administrative contours of the emerging intelligence agency. Yet at this point in his career, Helms "hadn't played much role in the battle" over various strategies and choices; he had then considered himself "below the salt".

Enhanced CIA powers
Although the new CIA was set up to coordinate the USG's different intelligence divisions (i.e., military, diplomatic, domestic), it was often left dependent and without sufficient discretionary authority. It started out hemmed in, e.g., the State Department's ambassador to a foreign country could veto the CIA's ability to use information collected there. Yet soon the CIA's independence was greatly increased. The 1948 National Security Council Directive (NSCD) 10/2 empowered the Agency to perform covert operations, and also provided that the USG be able to "plausibly disclaim any responsibility for them".

Later, the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949 provided a permanent and apparently legal method whereby the CIA could regularly exercise its newly enhanced covert operations power in the field. It was hurriedly passed by Congress, a supporter remarking at the time, "The less we say about this bill, the better off all of us will be".



"Congress gave the agency the widest conceivable powers. ... [T]he CIA was barred only from behaving like a secret police force inside the United States. The act gave the agency the ability to do almost anything it wanted, as long as Congress provide the money in an annual package. Approval of the secret budget by a small armed services subcommittee was understood by those in the know to constitute a legal authorization for all secret operations. ... If it's secret, it's legal, Richard M. Nixon [later] said.

The CIA now had free rein: unvouchered funds—untraceable money buried under falsified items in the Pentagon's budget—meant unlimited license."

Nonetheless, Helms later wrote of his experience and understanding: it was the elected President of the United States who ultimately made the decision about CIA operations, which specific activity the agency undertook. The role of the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) was to inform the President about the actual situation as it was understood, however imperfectly, and to advise the President about the known capabilities of the CIA as an instrument of USG policy. Helms states: "The fact that significant areas of the Agency's activity must remain cloaked from public view magnifies the DCI's responsibility for keeping the President and appropriate congressional committees fully informed ..." In practice the decision whether or not to embark on a course of action was then for the President to make, according to Helms. Thereafter, it became the DCI's duty to diligently carry out the President's instructions. Yet serious problems may arise, e.g., if a President orders that the DCI direct the CIA to perform acts outside the scope of its jurisdiction, i.e., forbidden to it.

Cold War in Europe
Helms had been sent to Europe in early 1945. From Washington, he shipped to war-time London, where he roomed with William Casey. Helms then landed in newly liberated Paris, and by May when Germany surrendered he was in Rheims at Eisenhower's headquarters with Gen. Bedell Smith and Allen Dulles of OSS, both future DCIs. After crossing into defeated Germany, Helms shared a house in Wiesbaden with his new boss Allen Dulles, and Frank Wisner. Dulles and Helms then traveled to Berlin, in which the Soviet Red Army was positioned having recently taken the city. In Berlin he worked in espionage as deputy chief of the OSS Secret Intelligence Branch under Dulles. The Soviets often aggressively overreached in the ruined city; the focus of American intelligence shifted to target the Red Army. In the Europe of December 1945, after Truman's order terminating the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), Helms discussed at length with Wisner the future of American intelligence. Although they differed markedly (Helms favored espionage, Wisner covert action) they became long-standing "uneasy allies". They continued their discussion during an 18-hour flight back to Washington. Helms returned to continue his intelligence work, now for the War Department's SSU.

The post-war occupation of central and eastern Europe by the Soviet Red Army had led to the formation of a half-dozen satellite states each run by a national Communist Party under general direction from Moscow. During the early years of the Cold War the optimal strategy of the NATO countries would have been to seek a "rollback" of such Soviet control. In fact, starting September 1948 the OPC, directed by Helms' 'ally' Frank Wisner, made a major effort "to roll the Soviets back to Russia's old boundaries and free Europe from communist control". Later Eisenhower's 1952 campaign for President called for "the free world to liberate the Soviet satellites". Allen Dulles, Eisenhower's pick to head the CIA, advocated efforts "to restore freedom of choice" to captive nations.

During the war, the traumatized peoples of central Europe got direct experience of horrific violence wrought by the military and political struggle. Afterwards, in economies destroyed by war, their existence remained precarious; formidable, post-war reconstruction projects were required. They also faced a Soviet occupying army both hardened and victorious. Moreover, the studied and thorough, ruthless and on occasion deadly, methods employed by the communist regimes (under Soviet guidance) to control the exhausted, subject populations at first proved very effective. "CIA officers came to realize that the communist intelligence and security services were far bigger and markedly more sophisticated than the agency." Both DCI Dulles and Helms (later DCI) write about how the Soviets had studied the Czarist secret police. The CIA's early attempts (Helms participated here) to recruit agents-in-place in the Soviet-controlled satellite countries were generally fruitless. Difficult to relinquish for some in CIA, roll-back then proved an unworkable illusion.

America's Marshall Plan, begun in 1948, consisting of massive economic investments in western Europe, was a major response to the Soviet occupation in central Europe. This bi-partisan plan at first avoided anti-Soviet rhetoric, and instead sought to energize positive social values, to spur commercial growth and renewal in Europe. Helms called the Marshall Plan "a uniquely generous offer to fund the reconstruction of the European economies of both victors and vanquished". Under Truman, the successful Marshall Plan had accompanied a containment policy (often credited to George Kennan) as a Cold War strategy, meant to temporarily replace roll-back. Some Marshall money went to the CIA.

Helms had direct experience in managing CIG/CIA activity in central Europe, especially from 1945 to 1951. Consequently, Helms acquired close familiarity not only with clandestine intelligence in the field, but with how such activities were affected by issues of foreign policy. His mentor Frank Wisner's OPC led aggressive covert operations in Europe associated with rollback strategy,  and also with containment policy. In the early 1950s, the CIA managed to set up Radio Free Europe and other media to broadcast or disseminate information to 'captured Europe'.

Helms' assignments
Immediately following the war, Helms worked in Germany under Allen Dulles at the Berlin station of the OSS. Helms describes his duties as management of OSS efforts "tracking down die-hard Nazis ... searching for hundreds of war criminals ... seeking evidence of stolen treasures and looted artworks ... monitor[ing] Russian military depredation ... [and finding] German scientists."

Back in Washington in 1946, Helms managed "228 overseas personnel" as head of the SSU's information gathering and counterintelligence group for central Europe. He quickly purged officers corrupted by the Berlin black market. He also directed the search for German scientists to send west. Helms' duties involved significant liaison activity with foreign intelligence services, especially the British, regarding covert information gathering in Europe. Later the CIA would regularly participate in USG agreements to share such data.

The "iron curtain" soon made the issue of Soviet political-military strength in Europe the dominant intelligence question (as American armed forces in Europe were being withdrawn). Rumors circulated that agile Soviet intelligence services already had infiltrated their western counterparts, including the OSS and the SSU. "By war's end, the NKVD and GRU had established a baker's dozen agents and a fistful of enthusiastic contacts in the OSS Washington offices." The DCI General Hoyt Vandenberg asked Helms to find out 'everything' about Soviet activity and occupying forces. In chaotic, uprooted Europe, many refugees negotiated their way without papers, while Soviet counterintelligence agents were also circulating undercover. Helms' dangerous task would be difficult; the USG was largely without eyes and ears in the Soviet camp. In his memoirs Helms wrote that in 1946 at the SSU he had "felt like an apprentice juggler trying to keep an inflated beach ball, an open milk bottle, and a loaded submachine gun in the air."

On May 22, 1945, a German Major General named Reinhard Gehlen surrendered to the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) of the U.S. Army. Gehlen had for the previous three years been in charge of the German military's espionage on the eastern front. Consequently he had acquired a large number of agents and files on the character and deployment of the Soviet Red Army. He offered to negotiate for their use by the Americans. OSS officer Frank Wisner interviewed him. Investigation and evaluation of the character of Gen. Gehlen, and of the provenience of the information he possessed, took over a year. Whether he was part of a sting operation by Soviet counterintelligence was a question to be addressed. In 1947 the Pentagon requested the CIA to take over the case. Although DCI Vandenberg made the overall decisions on Gehlen and his organization, wrote Helms later, "the ongoing responsibility was very much mine".

Gehlen reestablished the prior network of contacts, and developed new agents. Helms states that significant amounts of substantive, quality information on the Soviets was brought in. Yet troubles followed. The SSU/CIA itself, according to Helms, faced a shortage of people suitable for field work, its candidates being of a great variety of background and inclinations, e.g., some anti-fascists being suspected pro-communists. In the Gehlen group many were suspect because of service in the Nazi regime. Too, Soviet agents eventually managed to penetrate the Gehlen organization. Due to the unsettled nature of late-1940s Europe, sorting out who was who involved careful scrutiny. The care was not always sufficient, and in some cases the anti-Nazi policy was overruled. Regarding Gehlen's sources and information, the quality of the work product began to deteriorate. Helms learned how some opportunists would fabricate the information provided to stay on the payroll. There were reforms and prunings. A constant risk was inclusion of Soviet-planted disinformation. Helms notes that in 1956 the Gehlen organization became the basis of the intelligence service BND of the new Federal Republic of Germany.

When the Soviets exploded an atomic bomb in September 1949, the USG augmented funding for espionage information, which thus increased its effective demand and hence the price paid for its supply. Soon "a legion of political exiles, former intelligence officers, ex-agents, and sundry entrepreneurs" became brokers of "fabricated-to-order information". Some émigré organizations, with former high-level politicians, began to make an industry of fabrication, which peaked in 1952. The same phoney data might be packaged and sold to different intelligence services. In an effort to detect such fraud, the CIA found that study of the process used to create the offered information was more effective than attempting to evaluate the actual information itself. Experienced agents, however, were in short supply. At last the CIA, with Helms playing a major role, managed to construct anti-fraud procedures and educate other USG intelligence services, which checked the problem. General Walter Bedell Smith, the new DCI (1950–1953), provided Helms with the institutional access to other USG agencies and thus with the opportunity to finish his assignment against the 'fabrication factories'.

Gen. Bedell Smith brought to the CIA substantial bureaucratic clout and force of will. Accordingly, Smith was able for the first time to achieve some degree of coordination under the CIA direction of other intelligence services, e.g., State and Defense. Among Smith's other fundamental institutional changes was creation of the Office of National Estimates (ONE), associated with the NIE. The CIA now employed fifteen thousand people and managed more than fifty overseas stations. Smith was able to shape the CIA "into an organization that looked much the way it would for the next fifty years". Helms wrote about Smith's background before coming to the CIA, that the General "had earned his stars by furiously hard work, an iron self-discipline, and relentless attention to business". Under Bedell Smith the CIA gained focus and direction.

Elephant and gorilla


Another of DCI Bedell Smith's institutional actions concerned the merger of the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) and the Office of Special Operations (OSO), a CIA successor to the SSU. OPC was a covert outfit which undertook paramilitary operations and other covert activities in foreign lands; although within CIA it had been somewhat autonomous. The CIA's OSO was covert and overt; it ran spies abroad, and did other information gathering. Helms worked in the OSO. Gen. Smith's reputation allowed him to exert complete control of all CIA covert operations, so that he took over direct supervision of OPC, which had been run semi-independently by Helms' mentor Frank Wisner. Until then, OPC had followed State more than CIA. As for Helms, he was a member of the espionage-oriented OSO, an institutional rival of OPC; Helms then naturally favored OSO interests over those of OPC.

A veteran CIA counterespionage officer later published in the CIA house journal a remarkable yet controversial article, in which analysts of information were termed elephants and operatives in the field were called gorillas, in order to dramatize their different occupational proclivities toward similar clandestine tradecraft. In short, the analyst's habit is to discover principles and causes in evidence, while the field officer searches for motive and objective. This CIA article also draws attention to the natural symbiosis between 'analysts of information' and 'collectors of information', the latter including clandestine collection through espionage. These zoological metaphors work to contrast the spy-runners at OSO and the field operatives of OPC. Yet these two groups were joined in a far-reaching, intra-CIA merger under Bedell Smith. The merged entities were together directed by a newly created office, the Deputy Director for Plans (DDP). Allen Dulles was to serve as the first DDP in 1951, but soon Wisner (the former head at OPC) became the DDP. By 1952 the two organizations were becoming integrated. Helms led his OSO group into this initially uneasy merger, serving as chief of operations under the DDP. The new Directorate of Plans also became known as the Clandestine Service.

Helms recalled that when first located in offices adjacent to each other an unpleasant, intramural "antagonism" had developed between OPC and OSO. Started in 1948, Wisner had recruited OPC officers from among graduates of "Ivy League" universities, among them "lawyers and bankers" and the "independently wealthy". The rapidly growing OPC acquired a reputation for adventure and "derring-do". Wisner managed a budget allowing for handsome compensation. Au contraire, OSO members considered themselves as sober practitioners of a difficult and demanding profession, yet their longer service (often begun in war-time) did not entitle them to comparable salaries. Moreover, the two CIA groups pursued separate activities that often led to competition and conflict. Hence a stubborn "antagonism" had resulted. "The worse feature [of the rivalry] was that we were often competing for the same [in place] agents," commented Helms. Yet Helms, a career CIA officer in his training and experience, the product and personification of this new American institution of intelligence, managed to combine aspects of both rivals within his professional compass. He served for six years as DDP Wisner's chief of operations, second in command. "It took some doing... but the merger was achieved," wrote Helms. The new Directorate of Plans would soon control 80% of the CIA budget, and contain 60% of its people.

Formation of Helms
As a result of his earlier experience in clandestine service (noted above), Helms usually disfavored for pragmatic reasons the CIA's involvement in covert operations. Not only did he think such efforts seldom fruitful in the long run, covert action usually was not performed as planned, jeopardized in-place agents, and too often got into the newspaper. "But the 1950s were the CIA's great age of clandestine operations" and thus Helms became known as something of an "anomaly at Dulles' CIA". Helms nonetheless established an enduring work relationship in the 1950s with Frank Wisner, generally a strong advocate for CIA covert action.

"'Helms's attitude toward political violence was one of lucid caution. He did not so much argue that violence was wrong—he was, after all, something in the nature of a soldier—as that it was often crude, disruptive, and inefficient. His arguments against assassination were of the same sort."

Professionally, he was described as a "good soldier", one who may protest a policy under discussion, but once made would support a decision loyally. William Colby. DCI 1973–1976, quotes Helms as saying, "The nation must to a degree take it on faith that we too are honorable men devoted to her service." Yet critics of the Agency pointedly challenge such self-serving platitudes. Throughout his career Helms generally favored secret intelligence gathering, trending against suggested covert operations.

Helms became proficient in the more subtle, quiet work of espionage, e.g., the clandestine cultivation of in-place foreign agents. Such discreet efforts seldom left telltale traces to the outside observer, yet the accumulation of information gathered could greatly illuminate an obscure political landscape. On occasion such quiet undercover work yielded key, crucial insights, of high value to the political decision maker, ultimately the President. On the other hand, covert operations were inherently more risky. The unknowns and uncertainties required making a gamble on actions that might fail to achieve intended results and instead backfire, acquiring unwanted publicity and alienating nearby friends and neutrals. Accordingly, Helms preferred the Agency to focus on information gathering, covert and overt, while protecting itself against double agents and other enemy intelligence schemes through counterintelligence.

Raised in a business oriented family, Helms had developed his managerial sense. He drew on his years as a journalist, and other newspaper work as director of advertising, when evaluating the worth of incoming information. Skeptical of proposals for covert operations, he scrutinized its likelihood of success and figured the odds of avoiding media interest. Later when DCI, his reporter's instincts assisted Helms in finding the best approach to convey the frequent briefings for the President.

Manifestly, Helms took pride in his intelligence work. Later, more than a decade after the end of his CIA career and years as DCI, he described his view of reasons for the Agency's existence. Helms started with the pedestrian proposition that because we humans are not angels, societies require those services provided by the military and police. He continued, noting his commonplace, personal observation that:

"'[M]any nations of the world are governed by non-angels. While this state of affairs continues—and it appears unlikely it will change much in our lifetimes—we must have a CIA. ... [I]ntelligence is necessary to the public good and, by being necessary, becomes honorable.'"

Eisenhower presidency
At the start of the Eisenhower Administration, the intelligence veteran Allen Dulles was appointed to the Agency's top position, Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). Helms had known Dulles through work starting in World War II. Dulles would serve as DCI until 1961. Also, in January 1953, Helms was promoted as Chief of Operations (COPS). He replaced Lyman Kirkpatrick who was sidelined due to illness. In this post Helms' duties included "responsibility for both intelligence collection and covert action operations" at the Agency. Accordingly Helms came to serve directly under his admired colleague Frank Wisner, who was the Deputy Director for Plans (DDP).

McCarthy era
When between former allies the Cold War became earnest and the hot Korean War raged, in America suspicions were aroused about Communist infiltration of domestic institutions. Later with hindsight it became a national consensus that some politicians, notably the eponymous Senator Joseph McCarthy, seized on this issue as an opportunity to draw public attention and, inappropriately, to defame opponents with false accusations of treason. Then the CIA had "always insisted on its liberal credentials". In origin, the CIA had evolved from the earlier Office of Strategic Services (OSS) which, however, in the early 1940s had been compromised by Soviet intelligence. In the early years of the Eisenhower administration, the CIA and its agents were put on the list of those being targeted by McCarthy.

The CIA had earlier undergone an internal security check conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which resulted in significant purges. Yet in fact the Agency was vulnerable, e.g., already it had been duped by a more-experienced Soviet intelligence in post-war Europe. McCarthy privately told Allen Dulles the DCI "that CIA was neither sacrosanct nor immune from investigation".

Dulles appointed Helms to head the CIA team working to counter McCarthy's apparent attempts at clandestine penetration of the Agency. Helms conducted internal searches for undercover approaches to CIA personnel. Targeted CIA were saved from being isolated and compromised by McCarthy's investigators; instead they received aid and comfort from colleagues. Helms' job was to plug any leaks in security. Dulles announced to the CIA that none of its officers would need to testify before McCarthy's notorious committee, nor was any CIA to speak privately to McCarthy or his agents.

Dulles "also ran a down-and-dirty covert operation on McCarthy... to penetrate the Senator's office with a spy or a bug". Dulles told the James Angleton of CIA counterintelligence "to feed disinformation" to McCarthy. Phony reports were planted. However it happened the CIA managed to elude McCarthy, and hence also to avoid the establishment of rigorous Congressional oversight.

Mind control, drugs


The notorious Moscow show trials of 1937 indicated to some that the Soviets possessed nefarious techniques used to manipulate human behavior from a distance over time. Also, the recent experience of American POWs taken prisoner by Communist forces during the Korean War resulted in a phenomena termed brain washing. Such episodes caused the CIA beginning in 1953 to undertake various development projects which were initially called MKUltra. Helms, now working under DDP Frank Wisner, proposed to DCI Dulles experiments to develop "a program for the covert use of biological and chemical materials". For 23 years the CIA investigated "ways of controlling human behavior". Project Bluebird involved research into drugs, e.g., a truth serum. Project Artichoke likewise involved the effect of drugs. Toxins were also the object of CIA testing. An experiment where the psychoactive substance LSD was given to colleagues without their prior knowledge led to the suicide of Frank Olson, an Army civilian. Yet Helms later defended such "unwitting" experimentation as the only context that was field-realistic, but he urged "maximum safeguards". Once these activities were started, operations were not properly supervised and "excesses" resulted. "Those responsible for the drug testing programs were exempt from routine Agency procedures of accountability and approval."

The MKUltra projects "arose from CIA's growing frustration at its inability to penetrate the iron curtain with agents, and its fear of enemies within." Author Tim Weiner traces the CIA's involvement in such techniques to its difficulty in the detection of Soviet double agents in post-war Europe, a problem that Helms had encountered by 1948. In the Panama Canal Zone the CIA then "set up clandestine prisons to wring confessions out of suspected double agents." These prisons were comparable to those at Guantánamo a half century later following the September 11, 2001 attacks on America. According to retired CIA officer Tom Polgar, in both, "It was anything goes." In the earlier Panama prison cells, the CIA had conducted "secret experiments in harsh interrogation, using techniques on the edge of torture, drug-induced mind control, and brainwashing." Weiner concluded that here personal responsibility lay in Dulles, Wisner, and Helms. "The drive to penetrate the iron curtain had led the CIA to adopt the tactics of its enemies." During the Eisenhower years, "there was still a national consensus that the CIA was justified in taking almost any action in that 'back alley' struggle against communism... ."

In 1972, Helms as DCI ordered the destruction of most records from the sprawling Project MKUltra. Included were over 150 CIA-funded research projects, many illegal, designed to explore possibilities of mind control. Project MKUltra became public knowledge two years later, after a report in The New York Times disclosed other CIA domestic operations. The celebrated front-page story of December 1974, "Huge CIA Operation reported in U.S. against Anti-War Forces, other Dissidents in Nixon Years", was written by Seymour Hersh. Public and Congressional reaction to this newspaper article and similar publications eventually led to disclosure of the 1950s-era MKUltra and other formerly clandestine CIA projects.

Iran: Mossadegh


In August 1953, the secular Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddeq (1882–1967), was forced out of power. The coup d'etat was considered for the most part a joint venture by American and British intelligence services. Largely engineered by the CIA's regional operation chief, Kermit 'Kim' Roosevelt (grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt), the coup seemed to involve trashing political party headquarters, burning newspaper offices, hired thugs and street demonstrators, bribed politicians and army officers, and one difficult-to-persuade Shah. The previously nationalized (with "just compensation" to be negotiated) Anglo Iranian Oil Company (an oil monopoly) was returned to its former British owners and other western oil companies. The Shah was returned to his throne, and the struggles of the fledgling representative democracy under the historic Constitution were replaced by his authoritarian rule. To the CIA the operation's code-name was Ajax, to the British it was Boot. Fear of communist influence was mentioned as a rationale.

This action was viewed at the time by many in the west as an efficient and deft stroke of good fortune. Yet soon there were American critics of the CIA's interventionism. Robert Lovett, a former Secretary of Defense (1951–1953) under Truman, and long an influential voice in USG affairs, sat on the President's Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities. A 1956 report to President Eisenhower, written by Lovett and David Bruce, an American diplomat, criticized covert operations by the CIA under DCI Allen Dulles and called for the establishment of outside supervision.

"The report 'sharply denounc[ed] 'King Making' by the CIA. It warned that all those bright young men being recruited by the CIA out of Yale were becoming freewheeling, well-financed buccaneers. Lovett and Bruce cautioned Eisenhower that the agency was out of control, that it needed formal oversight ...'"

Helms, in his memoirs, offers a subtler picture of the motivation and reasoning of 'Kim' Roosevelt, i.e., words of explanation and in his defense. The situation in Iran, Roosevelt argued, was suitable for this particular intervention because its result proved acceptable to the Iranian people and the army. Roosevelt reasoned that if such covert action had produced an unpopular government, then the resulting social tension, malfunctions, instability, unrest, and revolt, would have nullified any positive objectives and hence indicate that the CIA had misjudged the political situation, that its actions had been mistaken. Roosevelt explained his position thus to State's John Foster Dulles, who seemed unimpressed. Later, Helms observes, when Roosevelt was asked by the CIA to repeat the procedure in another country (Guatemala), Roosevelt out of principle declined for the above reasons. Helms refers to Roosevelt's 1979 book on the 1953 Iran coup.

Yet, other observers find such explanations of the coup d'etat against Mosaddeq unacceptable. To many Iranians, in 1953 and now, their own inability then to themselves make the choices that determine their political-economic future is galling enough; more so, a foreigner's self-interested appraisal of their post-coup status appears irrelevant and may be objectively challenged, presumptively.

"'A crucial turning point in the history of modern Iran, the coup had a stifling impact on Iranian civic-nationalist and democratic aspirations and derailed the constitutional development of the country. By restoring foreign domination over Iran and its oil resources, the coup also dealt a blow to Iranian national sovereignty. It adversely affected the Iranian political culture. ... The coup would be ingrained in the collective memory of most politically discerning Iranians as ... a stark reminder that Iranians were not in control of their own fortunes. [¶] The coup irrevocably alterred the character of ... the Shah, driving him in an increasingly autocratic direction and toward greater dependence on foreign support.'"

Helms in his memoirs and elsewhere, from time to time, gave his respect to the wider scope and deeper layers encountered by the CIA, and pondered the more inscrutable nuances of the intelligence craft. He mentions "unintended consequences" in terms of CIA covert operations. Here he offers his thoughts about how to understand the results of Operation Ajax according to multiple values over the long run, and on the difficult probabilities of even a merely utilitarian evaluation, as well as on the institutional limitations of the CIA as an instrument of USG policy.



"'Some observers consider Operation AJAX to have been a mistake. Had Mossadegh remained in office, they reason, he might have created an Iranian political system which would have headed off the revolution against the monarchy without bringing about the oppressive rule of the mullahs. ... [¶] However one may evaluate these speculations, it must be remembered that the Agency's role in Operation AJAX, as directed by the President, was to depose Mossadegh. ... After any such successful operation, the continuing responsibility for establishing and nurturing a sound new government is not, and should never be, the ongoing task of an intelligence agency. This sort of nation building is the proper province of the State Department and other government and aid agencies. In some situations, the Department of Defense must lend a hand.'"

After the coup, the Shah declared three years of martial law. At the Shah's request, the CIA and the American military assisted him in creating a new intelligence service, known as Savak. This new and feared Iranian secret police, "trained and equipped by the CIA, enforced his rule for more than twenty years." "The short-term success of the coup, however, was heavily outweighed... . It was easy for the KGB [Soviet intelligence] to encourage the widespread Iranian belief that the CIA and SIS [British intelligence] continued to engage in sinister conspiracies behind the scenes."

Long after his term as Ambassador to Iran (1973–1977), and after the rise to power of Khomeini in 1979, Helms "reflected on how so many things went wrong in the latter years of the Shah's rule". No political system developed to improve the "well-being of the largely illiterate and impoverished general population" and the gap "widened" between rich and poor. "Corruption was rife, foreign businesses flourished" but few foreigners knew anything of Iran, and profits "never trickled down to the working class". The [CIA-trained] Iranian security service Savak, wrote Helms, "inflicted its power ruthlessly" and with "brutality".

Guatemala: Árbenz
Jacobo Árbenz, President of the Republic of Guatemala, in June, 1954, by a series of CIA maneuvers, was pressured out of office. Several causes convinced the President Eisenhower to order the operation: (a) Árbenz promoted social reforms which alienated the country's wealthy oligarchy; (b) though Árbenz was democratically elected, his opponent had been killed by unknown assassins; (c) Árbenz expropriated idle plantation lands of the United Fruit Company; (d) Árbenz legalized the Communist Party; (e) a Swedish ship Alfhem docked in Guatemala with 2000 tons of Czech firearms and artillery; (f) American diplomatic suasion had failed. CIA operation PBsuccess then commenced. An American-trained military officer of Guatemala formed a small rebel army. A pirate radio began broadcasting alarming reports about fictitious battles and poisoned wells. Fear and social tensions mounted. Árbenz considered his own military unreliable, but when he started arming civilian militias, the Guatemalan Army forced him to resign.

American author and critic Tim Weiner notes that in 1954 "Guatemala was at the beginning of forty years of military rulers, death squads, and armed repression." The 'coup' against Árbenz created a "powerful myth" of American meddling among Latin leftists, which tended to drive some into the communist camp.

At the CIA, "Helms played only a tangential supporting role." Yet, according to author Thomas Powers, Helms thought the coup's price had been too high, that a covert operation of such size could not maintain its cover, and that as a result "the CIA was more notorious than ever". Even though "the American press had been deceived", a traveling CIA agent reported that among many in Latin America the Agency had become more resented than the prior USG instrument of foreign regime change: the Marines.

East Berlin tunnel


In 1955, Helms engaged in a large clandesine operation to gather intelligence in central Europe. From Washington he oversaw "the secret digging of a 500-yard tunnel from West Berlin to East Berlin" dug in order to tap "the main Soviet telephone lines between Moscow and East Berlin." Such covert activity was undoubtedly considered illegal by local communist authorities. As a consequence of the wire tap, for more that eleven months the CIA was able to listen to the Soviet government's telephone conversations with its army commanders, e.g., concerning the occupied satellite regimes of the DDR and Poland. A successful operation, Helms was reportedly given ample credit. Eventually, however, the tunnel was "detected".

The tunnel started in Altglienecke, a remote section of West Berlin containing a "squattersville" of shacks built by refugees from the east. It ran "under the feet of Soviet troops and East Berlin guards." The target telephone cables were buried 18" below the Schoenefelder Chaussee, a highway to Karlshorst, site of the Soviet Military Administration and intelligence residency in communist Germany. The wire tap technology applied included significant CIA innovations. An engineering challenge, the tunnel required ventilation from the opening alone (managing heat coming off electronic gear), accuracy, and secrecy. Helms recalls that once as dawn broke "a dusting of snow was melting on the warm ground above the tunnel." The CIA's on-site chief William Harvey quickly stopped operations and soon commandeered air conditioning units from the Army to cool down the tunnel air. The volume of information collected was enormous; major facilities and resources were specially devoted to its analysis which took over three years. The translated recordings yielded valuable information on Soviet affairs: military preparedness, including order of battle; intelligence agents; and decisionmaking.

The Berlin tunnel's code name was Operation Gold, it being similar to a previous Operation Silver in Vienna. In each British MI6 agents from the start creatively participated, including analysis of information. One of the items picked up indicated a Soviet spy located in the British intelligence station at Berlin. George Blake, then an unknown double agent, informed the Soviet KGB about the tunnel. KGB then, it is speculated, could have doctored some telephone conversations to deceive the CIA eavesdroppers. Yet apparently the intercepted phone calls were not "contaminated" by KGB. In his memoirs Helms wrote, "When Blake was arrested in 1961 a retrospective examination of the tunnel material was initiated. ... Again, no indication of deception was found."

On April 22, 1956, the secret tunnel was exposed to the world by the Soviets. Yet in the west, it was celebrated by several major press publications. The "Wonderful Tunnel" it was called, evidence of its inventor's skill and daring. The Agency's covert accessing of a major telephone cable in the Soviet zone turned out to be "one of the biggest CIA intelligence gathering achievements" of the early Cold War era. "The tunnel was regarded at the time as the CIA's greatest public triumph."

Hungary and Suez


Following Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956, the CIA was not prescient enough to be able to forewarn about the subsequent allied military attack. Indeed Allen Dulles the DCI, despite several warnings, had previously called the idea of such an attack "absurd". Allen Dulles, however, wrote that an "advance warning" had been quietly given by CIA. The ensuing conflict and diplomacy constituted the Suez Crisis.

The surprise was bitter for some in the CIA. When the DDP Frank Wisner (Helms' immediate superior) appeared in London for a long-scheduled meeting with "Sir Patrick Dean, a senior British intelligence officer" and the Chair of Britain's Joint Intelligence Committee, Dean failed to show.

"'The British spy had another engagement: he was in a villa outside Paris, putting the final touches on a coordinated military attack on Egypt by Britain, France, and Israel. They aimed to destroy Nasser's government and take the Suez canal back by force. ... The CIA knew none of this.'"

DDP Wisner continued his European itinerary, but upon his return to Washington, Wisner fell ill and was hospitalized. From his mental collapse he never fully recovered. He took temporary leave which lost him his position. Despite later returns to work, he eventually resigned. As a result, Helms lost his immediate superior, a seasoned colleague, and a friend at work. Helms was Wisner's protégé. "Frank Wisner and I worked as a team," Helms wrote in his memoirs. According to British author John Ranelagh:

"'Eisenhower personally was furious at being misled by British and French political leaders. ... It was not surprising, therefore, that America proved itself willing to push [them] aside. ... The old empires, in their dissolute last throes, were not to be allowed to jeopardize democratic interests as they wrested desperately with their inevitable loss of empire, endangering the future for short-term advantage.'"



The attack on Egypt apparently had an adverse impact on the situation in Hungary. The Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was said to be hesitating, reluctant to order an armed assault on Budapest, and seemingly "on the verge of making important concessions". Yet the counter-example of the western attack on Egypt persuaded him to invade Hungary. All the while that Wisner was in Europe during this period, and later while Wisner was hospitalized, Helms served as the acting DDP.

Novel events of 1956, e.g., Khrushchev's Secret Speech, and labor unrest in Poland, as well as the domestic political situation in Hungary, led to the tragic popular civil uprising in Budapest. Apparently the Soviet occupation forces were initially overwhelmed and a new government set up under Imre Nagy, but 200,000 Soviet-led reinforcements with 2500 tanks re-invaded, crushing the revolt and "killing tens of thousands". The CIA could do little, and had no in-place agents. In fact, perhaps too much was done: author Tim Weiner alleges that Radio Free Europe (RFE) urged Hungarians to risk all, to commit 'sabotage' and fight 'to the death', all but promising outside help. Yet with one exception Helms denied such allegations about RFE excess in Hungary; in Poland RFE had urged caution.

Afterwards Helms, as the CIA's acting DDP, reported on the flood of over 250,000 Hungarian refugees who were crossing into Austria, in his briefing of the Vice President before Nixon's official trip to Vienna. Helms states that in late summer, before the Budapest uprising, CIA policy advisors at Radio Free Europe (RFE) in Munich had "spotted a changing mood in Eastern Europe, and gave warning of a likely confrontation". But the DCI Dulles was not convinced.

The violence in Hungary and in Suez both arose during late October and carried over into November. These events were concurrent with the last days of the American presidential campaign, and voting in the presidential election of 1956, which Eisenhower won.

The U-2 and Bissell


A major triumph of the CIA during the late 1950s, the high-altitude U-2 photo-reconnaissance planes overflew the Soviet Union from May 1956 to May 1960. Despite growing danger, Dulles and Bissell at CIA had fought for these flights to continue. Then the Russians shot one down, which increased Cold War tensions. The spy plane could not be "plausibly denied" by President Eisenhower. Thereafter, photo-reconnaissance of the Soviet Union was done by CIA satellite. Richard Bissell of the CIA had played a leading role in developing both of these new technical systems.

Allen Dulles, Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) 1953-1961, had appointed Bissell the new Deputy Director for Plans (DDP) in 1958, replacing the retired Frank Wisner. The position many thought should have gone to Richard Helms, who as Wisner's chief of operations had proved his ability to manage affairs. Bissell and Helms did always not get along. Bissell considered that the new spy technology had superseded espionage, which employed human agents. Yet Bissell as DDP turned out to be an "anarchic administrator". Then his leading role in the Bay of Pigs fiasco led to his eventual resignation as DDP in February 1962. Beforehand the new DCI McCone had offered him a 'transfer' as Deputy Director of the new Science and Technology directorate, but Bissell had declined. At the farewell dinner for the outgoing DDP given by McCone, following the toasts, Helms gave a short speech of "grace and warmth" that first "surprised and then touched" Richard Bissell.

Such turn of events at the agency then opened the way for Helms. At the time of Bissell's 1958 appointment as DDP, Helms had been "surprised and disappointed" at this "apparent vote of no confidence" by DCI Dulles. As the long-standing and trusted associate of the former DDP Wisner, who was his mentor, Helms had directly participated in the responsibilities of the DDP and often acted in Wisner's stead. Helms for years had accompanied DDP Wisner at his daily conferences with Dulles. In consequence, Helms considered resigning or taking a "step down" to a "less stressful" post as a CIA station chief overseas. Yet he reasoned that both Dulles and Bissell were well known as "covert action enthusiasts" and, if Helms left, others would figure it signaled the future direction of the CIA. Helms himself was skeptical of paramilitary operations, and instead favored espionage, less risky and more manageable, yet whose benefits slowly accumulated. Accordingly Helms had decided back in 1958 to "soldier on" as Dulles advised him.

Congo: Lumumba
Patrice Lumumba (1925–1961) was a nationalist leader in the Congo during the chaotic creation of an independent state after Belgian colonial rule (1908-1960). Lumumba, who headed a leftist political party that won a plurality in the May 1960 election, served as the new Prime Minister. A major rival was Mobutu, a Congolese career soldier who managed to acquire the support of the USG. Fears arose in the west because the young Lumumba appeared susceptible to manipulation by the Soviets. Eventually, the USG decided to insert special CIA operatives into the Congo. "The chain of events revealed by the documents and testimony is strong enough to permit a reasonable inference that the plot to assassinate Lumumba was authorized by President Eisenhower," later reported the Senate's Church Committee, although "countervailing testimony" and "ambiguity" in the records "preclude the Committee from making [such] a finding".

The Belgians had tried to continue their control of the disorganized country even after independence, but were frustrated. Yet the Belgians backed the secession of mineral-rich Katanga province led by Tshombe. Meanwhile, several Congolese army units rebelled resulting in further disorder and civilian deaths. The Belgians sent in their military. Internal discord in the new government caused an institutional rupture and increased confusion, with Lumumba heading one of the rival factions. The country seemed in chaos. Action taken at the United Nations led to the installation of its own international peacekeeping force.

Lumumba, sensing collusion of UN leader Hammarskjöld with the Belgians, broke with the United Nations and appeared to invite Soviet intervention. A CIA agent had been sent to the Congo, somewhat prepared to kill Lumumba. Instead Mobutu, who had himself led a coup and thus ruled in the western provinces, managed to capture Lumumba, who at one point had sought refuge with the United Nations. Ill-treated and moved about several times, he was flown to Katanga. There Lumumba was killed, but not by the CIA.

Helms viewed the assassination as a project approved by President Eisenhower. Helms sensed that Eisenhower's experience in commanding the allied forces in Europe during World War II certainly qualified him to understand the implications of such a decision. Accordingly, Helms signed the corresponding operations cable to the field, which had been drafted by Dulles the DCI. Yet Helms remained a pragmatic sceptic about violent activity by the Agency. Thus Helms sympathized with a young CIA agent, who had refused to go to the Congo for the operation to kill Lumumba. When this agent had come personally to Helms to protest his predicament, Helms voiced an appreciation of his views.

Thereafter, the military politician whom Dulles had favored, Mobutu, achieved complete power by 1965. He provided the CIA with a base "for American covert action throughout the continent during the cold war. He ruled for three decades as one of the world's most brutal and corrupt dictators, stealing billions of dollars ..." Soviet propaganda would "portray Lumumba as a victim of American imperialism." Khrushchev announced "the Patrice Lumumba Friendship University to provide higher education in Moscow for students from Africa, Asia, and Latin America." The KGB worked to recruit Third World agents from its student body.

Kennedy presidency
During the second year of the Kennedy administration, on February 17, 1962, Helms became Deputy Director for Plans (DDP) which office managed operations and espionage. Helms here served under Kennedy's new Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) John McCone (1961–1965). Under McCone's predecessor Allen Dulles, Richard Bissell had been appointed DDP following Frank Wisner's retirement, but then Bissell himself had resigned following his involvement in the Bay of Pigs operation.

Bay of Pigs, Mongoose


Under the Eisenhower administration the CIA was given a prominent role in what became a covert plan to invade the island nation of Cuba with a landing force of exiled anti-Castro Cubans. It had the support of the CIA Director Allen Dulles and was directed by his DDP Richard Bissell. Although the Kennedys strongly and persistently favored regime change regarding the Cuban government under Fidel Castro, when the newly elected President was first briefed on the covert CIA-led invasion plan, he only reluctantly agreed to it. Unfortunately the project's presence already during 1960 had become an 'open secret' mentioned in the press. Just before the mid-April invasion, Castro detained in makeshift camps 100,000 suspects.

Helms, who highly valued secrecy and who was generally against covert actions, early saw a disjointed operation and soon distanced himself from the plan. Helms remained extremely skeptical of its chances, an opinion widely shared among CIA not working on the project. Yet such internal CIA opposition was not made public. In the event, the 1961 CIA-assisted invasion at the Bay of Pigs turned into a costly military defeat and a bitter political failure. In addition to other casualties, the DCI Dulles was respectfully required by the Kennedy administration to soon leave his position at CIA, and the DDP Bissell later resigned.

Yet, the Kennedy Administration continued the drive to remove the Castro regime, and the new DCI John McCone received orders for action by the CIA. Not only the CIA, but also State, Defense, Treasury, Commerce, and the FBI were included, among others, all led at the top by Robert Kennedy the Attorney General and brother of the President. Its USG code name: Operation Mongoose. In his very first meeting with Helms, McCone "forcefully" told him of the Kennedys' "determination" and appointed Helms as his "man for Cuba". Helms later wrote that he quickly "established a task force under my command". The CIA component of Mongoose grew to 600 CIA agents, 4,000 to 5,000 contract personnel, and a 'secret CIA flotilla'. Orders repeatedly referenced eliminating Castro. Yet the entire multi-agency operation, Helms wrote, made little progress toward regime change.

Soviet-made forgeries
Helms testified before a Congressional committee in June 1961, presenting evidence on Soviet forgeries, according to Allen Dulles (DCI, Feb. 1953-Nov. 1961). Dulles, writing in the early 1960s, describes various falsifying and fraudulent activities of the Soviet State Security Service (KGB). A particular KGB bureau was known to specialize in disinformation. It "formulates" papers that "purport to be official documents of the United States" and other western countries, in order to "mistate and misrepresent [their] policies". In post-war Europe Helms had gained first-hand experience about how to deal with, and ferret out, forged documents.

Here Helms presented a paper prepared by Angleton's Counterintelligence Staff, before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. "My first public appearance before Congress," Helms called it, but his name was omitted from the published report. He was identified as an "Assistant Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency", a nonexistent title. Helms then was serving under DDP Richard Bissell. The Soviet forgeries were "usually prepared on official letterhead paper stolen or reproduced in Moscow" bearing the "forged signatures" of "senior American officials". "The texts were relatively well prepared but quite easily shown to have been fabricated. Errors in format, spelling, syntax, and official titles were common."

Chosen for Helms to introduce to Congress were 32 "succulent" Soviet forgeries from the period 1957 to 1960. Probably included was a fake letter purportedly from John Foster Dulles the United States Secretary of State addressed to his Ambassador in Iran, "belittling the Shah's ability and implying that the United States was plotting his overthrow". Copies of this fake, dated February 1958, were circulated to politicians and editors in Tehran, and one found its way to the Shah. Evidently "the Shah was completely taken in" and demanded an explanation from the American embassy, which "dismissed it as a forgery" but unfortunately "its denials were disbelieved". Thereafter rumors about it circulated in the Iranian elite. John Foster Dulles was the older brother of Allen Dulles.

"To avoid the appearance of coming directly from Moscow," Helms later wrote, "the forgeries were most often slipped to left-leaning or communist-owned foreign newspapers." From there such a story would circulate, perhaps later to be published by the mainstream Western press. For instance, on 23 April 1961 Paese Sera, an Italian newspaper with ties to the Italian Communist Party, ran a story that the CIA had supported the recent, failed coup d'état by French army officers per the Algerian war. Very soon the story appeared in Pravda, TASS, and on Soviet radio. Eventually, even the influential Paris newspaper Le Monde was taken in. The explosive story threatened to cancel a scheduled June meeting between President Charles de Gaulle and President Kennedy which, however, took place as planned.

DCI Allen Dulles describes Helms' testimony as conveying that the KGB seeks "to discredit the West... in the eyes of the world; to sow suspicion and discord among the Western allies; and to drive a wedge between the peoples" and their non-Communist governments. While many Soviet forgeries were said to look genuine to the untrained eye, they did not fool the experts. Instead as propaganda they were meant for mass consumption, to deceive the general public. Here, Dulles refers to Helms as a "high official" of the CIA. Former CIA officer Victor Marchetti concurs about the Soviet-made forgeries but adds that, if full disclosure was made, Helms would also mention examples of "the pervasive lying the CIA commits in the name of the United States." According to Helms' biographer Thomas Powers, exposing enemy lies, and camouflaging American secret operations, are essential to the CIA's role in the USG.

Cuban Missile Crisis
The U-2 high-altitude spy plane, operated by the CIA, was the instrument by which the USG first made its sightings of ballistic missiles being installed by Soviet forces at launch sites in Cuba. Aerial photographs were taken on Sunday, October 14, 1962, and quickly CIA analysts confirmed the missiles, which could deliver nuclear warheads. President Kennedy commenced an intense week of secret strategy sessions, followed by the President's public address. Helms called it a "gut-wrenching doomsday confrontation" with Soviet leadership. CIA sleuth thus led to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Before on August 10, the DCI John McCone had voiced to Dean Rusk at State, Robert McNamara at Defense, and Robert Kennedy the Attorney General, his opinion based on 'gut instinct' that the Soviets would install nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba. His opinion was rejected. On August 29, a U-2 fly over revealed the presence of Soviet Surface-to-air missiles (SAM) in Cuba. McCone figured these anti-aircraft batteries were in Cuba to protect something else: nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. Yet the CIA's own Special National Intelligence Estimate of September 19, stated, "The establishment on Cuban soil of Soviet nuclear striking forces which could be used against the US would be incompatible with Soviet policy." The USG considered the SAMs nothing but defensive; McCone disagreed.

When the mid-October U-2 flight eventually discovered the Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba the CIA, according to Helms, confirmed it "by agent observations on the ground". Helms relates how the Agency, in order to provide verification (here, of the missiles' identification), employed a variety of different sources in addition to in-place agents and the U-2's aerial photography, such as analysis of data culled from public media (e.g., cartography, geology, engineering, industry) and from covert information generated by espionage and counterintelligence, here especially Oleg Penkovsky of Soviet Military Intelligence (GRU).

During the crisis, the CIA's McCone acted as administration insider, measuring out selected new developments and current points of view to members of Congress and the press corps. DCI McCone sat at the head table and participated in decision making at the highest level, i.e., President Kennedy's EXCOM committee meetings in the White House. As McCone's DDP, Helms wrote in his memoirs:

"'I was fully occupied with focusing the Agency's espionage operations on every possible aspect of the confrontation. This kept me a step away from those at the EXCOM level who had the lonely responsibility for dealing firsthand with the very real possibility of nuclear war. From October 16 ... to October 28' when Khrushchev blinked."

During World War II, McCone had led a California company that built many Liberty ships, which experience of "ships at sea" educated his focus on Cuba during the EXCOM strategy sessions. The perplexity of how to counter the Soviets was troubling, as too little display would not show sufficient resolve, yet a bloody attack might provoke a nuclear exchange. It was McCone who first suggested the naval blockade of the island nation, later styled as a 'quarantine on Soviet shipping', as the appropriate manner in which to apply USG force during the tense bargaining. "McCone's central role in the Cuban missile crisis was obscrured" later, due to politics.

Khrushchev finally offered to withdraw the Soviet missiles from Cuba, if the USG withdrew its similar missiles from Turkey. Nonetheless the Joint Chiefs then "strongly recommended to EXCOM a full-scale attack on Cuba" which McNamara warned would be "damned dangerous". But McCone cried out, "Make the trade then!" which was seconded by other voices. The deal was made, "provided it was never made public. The Kennedys could not be seen making a deal with Khrushchev." "In the face of possible nuclear war," Helms wrote decades later, "the President presided over his administration with what today strikes me as considerable wisdom."

Vietnam: Diem
Following the Geneva Conference in 1954, Vietnam was divided into an established communist state in the north under Ho Chi Minh and a southern territory. The political culture of Vietnam was largely traditional and differed radically from western norms. America began to support the south as the French withdrew. Against the odds, the anti-communist nationalist Ngo Dinh Diem in a few years managed to stand-up an independent government in South Vietnam. Soon, however, a local communist insurgency associated with Hanoi emerged, gaining strength. Diem, politically a Vietnamese Confucian and of mandarin rank, favored a traditional authoritarian state; he was intolerant of rivalry even from other anti-communist politicians. In name only, "elections" were held. A distrustful Diem often favored his own fellow Vietnamese Catholics, yet Buddhists who nominally constituted over eighty percent of the population also served in his regime. When a relatively small Buddhist faction entered politics in opposition to Diem, local government forces shot nine dead at a peaceful demonstration in May 1963, and widespread manifestations of public opposition to Diem arose. The martyrdom of an elderly monk by fiery self-immolation made world headlines. Diem strongly resisted American advice to include rivals in his government. The Vietnam War had begun to draw increased participation by American forces. Angry politicians in America began to challenge Diem's status as a leader worthy of American support.

On 24 August 1963, a proposed cable originating in the United States State Department in effect advocated a military coup to overthrow the South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem. By circumstance Helms, DDP at the CIA in Washington, was available and took the telephone call made by either Roger Hilsman or Averell Harriman (both at State), who read Helms the cable and informed him that President John F. Kennedy had orally approved it. Helms then reportedly responded, "It's about time we bit this bullet." Later William Colby, former CIA chief of station at the South Vietnamese capital Saigon and a successor to Helms as DCI, wrote that although Helms cleared this cable, he did not considered it an intelligence matter, but rather as policy, hence a subject outside the Agency's formal responsibility.

This State Department cable (afterwards the subject of dispute) was sent to the newly installed ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge at the American Embassy in Saigon. Lodge early favored a coup; the CIA's Lucien Conein was his conduit to the conspiring Vietnamese military. Yet in Washington then CIA Director John McCone quickly and strongly voiced his long-held opposition to a coup d'état in South Vietnam. Nonetheless, on 1 November 1963 the controversial military coup by generals of the South Vietnamese Army resulted in the killing of President Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu.

The next day, McCone, at a meeting for deputy directors and other high officials at CIA, described the President's reaction to learning of Diem's murder, i.e., that Kennedy got up and quickly left the room in dismay. Author Thomas Powers comments with gravitas on the "emotional consequences of the murder of a national leader" especially condidering "Diem's status as an American ally and client". Helms speculated that although Kennedy "okayed the August cable" when confronted with Diem's violent death, he was shocked, having "never quite hoisted this operation aboard".

DCI McCone years later recalled that he had expressed his opinion beforehand to President Kennedy and the Attorney General Robert Kennedy, that "if Diem was removed we would have not one coup but we would have a succession of coups and political disorder in Vietnam and it might last several years and indeed it did." About accountability for Diem's death in the coup, Helms stated in 1983, "We were not responsible for Diem. He was killed by his own people for very simple political reasons." Helms added, "Any other way of having a transition of power in Vietnam without this killing would have been far better in the end."

JFK assassination
"Helms and McCone were at headquarters, sharing a lunch of sandwiches in the director's suite" when "the terrible news broke." Decades later, Helms wrote in fundamental agreement with the Warren Commission. Oswald alone assassinated President Kennedy. "I know of no information whatsoever that might have any bearing on the assassination that has been concealed from the public." Yet author Tim Weiner states that the CIA "concealed much of what it knew to be true from the [Warren] commission."

The CIA had its own dossier on the former Soviet-defector Oswald, who recently had been to the Cuban embassy in Mexico City. This raised the spectre of the CIA's highly secret and formally covert operation against Castro. The DCI McCone ordered a CIA internal investigation and Helms (head of CIA's Mongoose re Cuba) put John Whitten (CIA covert operations for Mexico) in charge of it. Quickly McCone informed the new President of this Oswald-Cuba-CIA link the next day the 23rd, then again on Sunday morning the 24th about how the CIA had been ordered to plot Castro's assassination. Oswald himself was killed that morning.



After a week, President Johnson "cajoled the reluctant chief justice of the Supreme Court, Earl Warren, to lead the investigation". President Johnson was worried about people concluding "that Khrushchev killed Kennedy, or Castro killed him." Following Robert Kennedy's suggestion, President Johnson also called upon the CIA's former DCI Allen Dulles to serve as one of its seven members. The Warren Commission, however, "posed a crushing moral dilemma" for Richard Helms at CIA.

"'Helms realized that disclosing the assassination plots would reflect very poorly on the Agency and reflect very poorly on him, and it might turn out that the Cubans had undertaken this assassination in retaliation for our operations to assassinate Castro. This would have a disastrous affect on him and the Agency."

Dulles and James Angleton, CIA chief of Counterintelligence (CI), were in close communication and, according to author Tim Weiner, "controlled the flow of information from the CIA" to the Warren Commission. Angleton was a "bitter" rival of Whitten (who led the CIA investigation). Many decades later, former President Gerald R. Ford, who served on the Warren Commission, criticized the CIA for withholding evidence. Weiner finds fault because "Angleton and Helms agreed to tell the Warren Commission and the CIA's own investigators nothing about the plots to kill Castro."

The author Thomas Powers offers a different view. "The first principle of a secret intelligence service is secrecy." Accordingly, there would be a great effort to cloak "any matter as explosive as assassination". The means of concealment could take the form of "the regular spiel" in which CIA officials, e.g., the DCIs Dulles, McCone, and Helms, categorically denied any possibility of Agency involvement in such acts. "Eisenhower and Kennedy went after two enemies in particular ... Lumumba in the Congo and Castro in Cuba—but when they gave the job to the CIA they expected secrecy, and that is what they got."

Two months after the assassination, Yuri Ivanovich Nosenko, "a mid-level KGB operative", defected to the west. Almost immediately, he claimed he had read "the entire KGB file" on Oswald, which showed the Soviets had found him too "unstable" to employ. Following CIA interrogation, some CIA, e.g., Angleton, began to doubt his bona fides. Helms then met with Earl Warren the Chief Justice and explained the inability of the CIA to vouch for Nosenko's testimony. The difference of opinion at CIA about him continued to deepen. He was subjected to "strict solitary confinement" and "hostile interrogation" (challenging his responses), but "many obvious untruths" remained in his answers. DCI Helms was baffled by this case, and writes about it in a chapter called "A Bone in the Throat". After five inconclusive years, he was released. "Nosenko received citizenship, assumed a different identity, married an American woman, and is now pursuing a new career" in America. He was retained on Agency contract. After another twenty years, a final CIA report refurbished Nosenko as a valuable source of information on Soviet intelligence.

In his memoir, Helms specifically addresses two subjects pertinent to conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination. First, in mid-October 1963, a CIA veteran officer met a Cuban dissident in Paris. Second, in early 1967 Helms received a call from a district attorney in New Orleans named Jim Garrison, who later prosecuted Clay Shaw for murder. Helms then describes "the Paese Sera, an obscure Italian newspaper with ties to the Italian Communist Party" and how it claimed that Clay Shaw was "a CIA operative". The Soviet media picked up the story and eventually there was a "press firestorm". But Shaw apparently never worked for the CIA. Oliver Stone later made the film JFK "[a]pparently intrigued by Garrison's absurd conglomeration of theories". Helms opines:

"'Somewhere along his path, Garrison realized that no matter how implausible an allegation might be, the fact that it had been made meant that every time the lies were refuted, the charges were perforce repeated. ... Rather than arguing, the demagogue ignores the points made ... and attacks the motives of his critics.'"

Helms cites articles critical of Garrison and Stone, and books by Edward Jay Epstein (1968), Patricia Lambert (1998), and Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1998). Yet he notes that "Garrison's scheming has taken on a life of its own".