1

Midterm Paper: The Chicago Style Template

Goorjian A. Ferrell
INTL 200: Introduction to Intelligence
04/01/2024
 2

The Church Committee, also known as the Senate Select Committee to Study

Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, was a Senate committee

established by the Senate as a bipartisan effort to inquire into illegal and improper activities by

the intelligence agencies. The reason for the existence of this committee came from accusations

that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was spying on U.S. citizens, led by Democratic

Senator Frank Church from Idaho, the committee led a series of investigations into United States

intelligence activity abuses that lasted 18 months, with over 120 hearings both closed and public

and issued 14 reports that resulted with the exposure to the American public on illegal and

unethical covert activities conducted by the CIA, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and a

number of other agencies such as the NSA. The result of their investigations led to the

establishment of the Select Committees on Intelligence within the House and Senate that exist to

this day. (Wayne Law, 2015)

The Senate Committee of Intelligence came into existence due to a number a

consequential action, the articles released on the New York Times by Seymour Hersh exposed

agency misconduct to the public that generated public mistrust to the government, and Congress

itself worried at this time about the balance of power between the executive and legislative

branches after the disaster of the Watergate scandal. However, there were three crucial factors

that allowed the Congressional inquiry come into existence. First, with the elevation of Gerald R.

Ford into the position of President after Richard Nixon’s resignation in disgrace, he was faced

with regaining public trust and appearing transparent to Congress, and consented to providing

access to classified material to the Senate committee, however the Committee still had to fight

Ford over documentation at times during its inquiry. Second, the director of the FBI, J. Edgar

Hoover would have been a formidable opponent to any inquiries and was feared by many within
 3

the government due to his deft manipulation of political and personal information accumulated

by the Bureau, however his recent death allowed Congress to move forward in its investigations

with little opposition. Third, compared to previous years, the legislative branch reached a bi-

partisan state that was unheard of that allowed a cooperative approach to tackling the mission

entrusted to the committee with little internal political strife. (Schwarz, 2007) In Frederick

Schwarz’s words, “…what the FBI was doing, was threatening democracy in America, and what

the CIA were doing, and again to simplify, injured our reputation in the world.” (Brennan Center

for Justice, 2014)

Prior to the establishment of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), there

were no serious inquiries of accountability to intelligence agencies, the Church Committee

unearthed numerous constitutional violations and a concerning indifference within the

intelligence agencies when it came to restraint. The SSCI sought to rectify the lack of oversight

and change the laws, regulations, and philosophy of legislative involvement in its review of

intelligence programs and overview, ultimately to ensure that the neglect of prior eras would

never be repeated. (Byas, 2008)

It is in thanks to the Church Committee, as well as the Pike and Rockefeller Committees

including examples such as the Hughes-Ryan Act enacted in 1974, that intelligence agencies

must be aware of lawmaker’s reactions to their programs as they come under review, (Byas,

2008) this is not meant as a veiled threat by Congress but to ensure there is no further erosion of

American liberties by intelligence agencies. In simplified terms, these Senate Intelligence

Committees established firm boundaries upon which the IC should and should not operate

within. Since the Year of Intelligence, the name given to the start of oversight committees and

inquires in 1974, there have been successive legislation passed to improve the process of
 4

accountability while ensuring it does not hinder Intelligence Agencies capabilities as they pursue

their mission statements. An example of prominent legislation is summarized below in Table 1.

Recommendat

ions and reforms have been made since 1976, many following crisis, scandals and intelligence

failures that would push forward legislative actions meant to remedy the shortcomings from past

disasters. The expansion of oversight capabilities within Congress, has meant that greater

expectation is placed on those lawmakers selected to inhabit these roles and be able to not only

fulfil the duties of as any other committee but also learn the intelligence field and the handling of

classified information. While the position of being a lawmaker in the SSCI or House Permanent

Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) is seemingly lucrative from a political standpoint, it

requires dedication to prosecute and will take lawmakers out of the public spotlight and in some
 5

cases maybe even controversy, it is a thankless but vital job to not only protect the privacy and

civil liberties of the American population but also improve the conduct and operation of the IC.

(Byas, 2008) At its heart, the SSCI and HPSCI, have been designed to rebuild trust and

confidence in the public that the intelligence activities adhere to the nations values and their

activities conducted according to the rule of law, as stated by the opening resolution that created

the SSCI;

“…Oversight by Congress is essential under our constitutional system. By its actions it

can help assure the public that the abuses of the past will not be repeated in the future. Until full

trust and confidence in our intelligence agencies is restored, the country will be unable to

conduct a fully effective intelligence program.” (Cordero, 2019)

Each generation of lawmakers and intelligence officers have in succession built upon the

works of their forebearers, the burden of maintaining and making new systems that adhere to the

U.S. Constitution and the inherent human rights as outlined within the Bill of Rights when

conducting operations abroad. The work the agencies, and the government, do is built on a

reservoir of trust and credibility, built by those who came before and by many that will never be

known to the public; it is lawmakers and agencies officers’ obligation to protect that reservoir,

and when possible, to make it fuller, and remain vigilant when there is a leak in it. To place

politics or partisanship, over the rule of law and its fundamental values will undermine that

credibility that can never truly be recovered.

Bibliography

“Church Committee.” 2016. Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy.

Brennan Center for Justice. “Frederick A. O. Schwarz Part 1: Formation of the Church

Committee.” Youtube, Dec 10, 2014. [Link]

v=TNV37Jg3Lsk&t=2s&ab_channel=BrennanCenterforJustice

Byas, Steve. 2008. “The Church Committee: The Good and the Bad: The Church Committee of

the 1970s, despite Its Partly Leftist Pedigree, Exposed Some of the Machinations of What

Is Now Called the ‘Deep State.’” The New American (Belmont, Mass.)

Cordero, Carrie. “Enhancing Congressional Intelligence Committee Effectiveness.” Center for a

New American Security. Published August 05, 2019.

[Link]

committee-effectiveness

DeVine, Michael E. 2018. “Congressional Oversight of Intelligence: Background and Selected

Options for Further Reform.” Congressional Research Service.

[Link]

Johnson, Loch K. 2008. “The Church Committee Investigation of 1975 and the Evolution of

Modern Intelligence Accountability.” Intelligence and National Security (Taylor &

Francis Group).

[Link]

Schwarz, Frederick A. O. 2007. “The Church Committee and a New Era of Intelligence

Oversight.” Intelligence and National Security 22 (2): [Link]

[Link]/doi/full/10.1080/02684520701303881
 7

Wayne Law. “Congressional Oversight of Classified Programs – 40 Years after the Church

Committee.” Youtube, Oct 27, 2015. [Link]

v=NycSZ7TAsC4&ab_channel=WayneLaw