The morale of our national security agencies is at an all time low after the conviction of former CIA Director Richard Helms, coming hard on the heels of the indictment of FBI veteran John J. Kearney. A criminal indictment is the thanks they both got for more than 25 years’ service to protect our country from enemies within and without.
Kearney was indicted because, in carrying out an assignment to track down the notorious Weatherman underground terrorist organization, he used the same investigative-intelligence techniques that the FBI and other security agencies had used for many years under five Presidents and their Attorneys General.
Helms was convicted for not telling Congress the full truth in 1973 when Senator Stuart Symington asked him if the CIA had assisted the overthrow of the pro-Communist regime of Salvador Allende in Chile.
That question posed a moral dilemma for Helms. If he had told the Senate Committee the full truth that the CIA had given some $8 million to opponents of Allende, Helms would have violated the oath he took in 1947 to keep secret all information about CIA activities. If he had refused to answer, he might have been jailed for contempt, but that would not have served any useful purpose because a non-answer would have been perceived as an affirmative reply.
Helms should have demanded a secret Congressional hearing for his testimony. However, that is Monday morning quarterbacking. The route he chose, that of denying that any assistance was given, was consistent with CIA policy under every President since the agency was born.
During the last 33 years, the Communists have seized nine countries in Eastern Europe, all of mainland China, Tibet, North Korea, Southeast Asia, Cuba, and Angola and Mozambique in Africa. In only one country was this Red tide reversed. Chile, which had turned toward Communism under Salvador Allende, underwent a bloodless revolution and installed a military, anti-Communist government.
You would think that our government would be pleased that one nation, after trying Communism, decisively rejected it. After all the blood and money that the American people have spent to oppose or contain Communism all over the world, it would seem that we should be grateful when one lone nation, acting mostly on its own, in an uprising initiated largely by the women, was able to free itself from a pro-Communist government.
Communist control of Chile, with its long coast line and borders along three other South American countries, would have given the Soviet Union valuable bases for its growing Navy and expanding influence in Latin America. Other Latin American countries might have concluded that Communist Cuba and Communist Chile were the wave of the future, and that it would be futile to resist what is inevitable.
The CIA should look back with pride on its activities in Chile, in contrast with the CIA’s shameful complicity in the overthrow of our anti-communist ally, President Diem of South Vietnam. It would have been better if Director Helms had boasted proudly that, just once, the CIA had given us a victory over Communism.
However, Helms believed his duty was to deny this, and a Federal judge in Washington, D.C., imposed a fine, a two-year suspended jail sentence, and a severe lecture on Helms for refusing to reveal that our country helped to save Chile.
Instead of being treated like a criminal, former CIA Director Richard Helms should have been decorated for helping to win our only victory over Communism.
