NATIONAL SECURITY, CIVIL LIBERTIES, AND THE COLLECTION OF INTELLIGENCE: A REPORT ON THE HUSTON PLAN

I. INTRODUCTION

A. The Scope of the Investigation

On January 27,1975, the United States Senate, meeting early in the 1st Session of the 94th Congress, established through Senate Resolution 21 a Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. The Select Committee on Intelligence was given a broad mandate to investigate the extent, if any, to which "illegal, improper, or unethical" activities were engaged in by the intelligence agencies of the Federal Government.

Falling within this mandate was the specific charge in Section 2(3) of the Resolution to reveal "the full facts" with respect to "the origin and disposition of the so-called Huston Plan to apply United States intelligence agency capabilities against individuals or organizations within the United States." 1 This report presents the results of the Select Committee inquiry into this controversial intelligence plan.

In June 1970 President Nixon requested a review of those intelligence collection practices which might lead to better information on domestic dissenters. In response, the intelligence community produced a 43 page Special Report on the subject. The Huston Plan, written soon thereafter by presidential assistant Tom Charles Huston, was a set of recommendations-for-action derived from the options presented in this Special Report.

The following commentary on the Special Report and the Huston Plan is organized, first, to reveal the background events which led to the presidential request for an intelligence review. It then explores in detail the views and activities of the men who wrote the Special Report, as well as the reaction of the President to its controversial spin-off, the Huston Plan. The effect of this episode upon the ongoing activities of the intelligence agencies is examined next. Pursuant to Senate Resolution 21, special attention was devoted throughout the inquiry to the question of whether illegal, improper, or unethical acts had been carried out by the President or those preparing the intelligence report for him.

The Committee investigation into the Huston Plan began in April 1975. During the course of the inquiry over 40 interviews were conducted. These included all major -- and most minor -- participants in the intelligence agencies who helped draft the intelligence report for the President. The documents relevant to an understanding of the case were obtained by the Committee, including those from the papers of President Nixon.

Plans were made early in the investigation to interview the former President regarding his views on the Huston Plan episode; but, after lengthy negotiations, the conditions set for the interview by his lawyer proved to be unacceptable to the Committee Members, who favored an examination before the full Committee and on the record. The Select Committee did decide, however, to send the former President a set of written interrogatories on the Huston Plan. His responses are included in this report.

Supplemented by this presidential retrospect, the extensive documentation now available -- as well as the existence of views from virtually every other major participant still living -- provides a reasonably full understanding of the events which transpired in the summer of 1970, now encapsulated in the phrase, "The Huston Plan." These events are summarized briefly in the following précis. 2

B. A Précis

Richard M. Nixon won his first Presidential election in 1968 by less than one percent of the total popular vote. The Presidential campaign that year had been accompanied by some of the most violent street demonstrations in the history of American elections.

His first year in office provided the President with ample further evidence of the mood of revolt in the country. In March and April 1969, student riots erupted in San Francisco, Cambridge, and Ithaca; and in Chicago, ghetto blacks battled the police in the streets. By October and November, the anti-war movement was sufficiently well organized to bring to the nation's capital the largest mass demonstrations ever witnessed in the United States. The magnitude of the unrest was immense and, just as the nation was obsessed by Vietnam, so, too, the White House grew increasingly preoccupied with the wave of domestic protest sweeping the countryside.

Presidential assistant Tom Huston and others in the White House believed that better intelligence on the plans of domestic protesters would enable the President to take more decisive action against violence-prone dissenters. In their view, serious deficiencies in intelligence collection had resulted from the decision in the mid-1960s by J. Edgar Hoover, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to curtail certain collection techniques (particularly surreptitious entry and electronic surveillance). This view was shared widely by intelligence officers throughout the Government. Hoover went so far as to sever formal liaison ties between the FBI and the CIA in March 1970 and later with the other intelligence agencies, adding further to the widespread disenchantment with his leadership in the intelligence area.

Tom Huston grew more frustrated by the inability of the White House to anticipate the plans of domestic dissenters. He was also encouraged by William C. Sullivan, Assistant Director for Domestic Intelligence, FBI, to help remove Hoover's restraints on intelligence collection. By the spring of 1970, Huston decided to urge senior White House personnel to have the President request a thorough review of intelligence collection methods. The President, himself greatly concerned about domestic unrest, agreed to the proposal.

On June 5, 1970, President Nixon held a meeting in the White House with the leaders of the intelligence community. The purpose of the meeting was to establish a special committee which would review methods for improving the quality of intelligence particularly on the New Left and its foreign connections. Specifically this Interagency Committee on Intelligence (Ad Hoc) was charged with the preparation of a report for the President on existing intelligence gaps, how to close them, and how to enhance coordination among the intelligence agencies.

Assigned a tight deadline, the Ad Hoc Committee staff prepared the study in a fortnight. The final report was entitled "Special Report Interagency Committee on Intelligence (Ad Hoc)" and, on June 25, 1970, it received the signatures of the four top intelligence directors: Hoover (FBI), Helms (CIA), Bennett (DIA) and Gayler (NSA). 3

The enterprise was unique. It pooled the resources of the foreign-oriented CIA, DIA, and NSA with those of the domestic-oriented FBI. Many of the participants endorsed the enterprise enthusiastically, not because of an interest in better data on the New Left but because they sensed an opportunity to remove various restrictions on the collection of strictly foreign intelligence. Others participated only hesitantly and briefly, fearful of breaking through the membranes of law and propriety.

Drawing upon the Special Report, Tom Huston prepared a memorandum in early July for Presidential advisor H. R. (Bob) Haldeman under the heading "Operational Restraints on Intelligence Collection." In this memorandum Huston, who had been the White House representative at the Ad Hoc Committee meetings, recommended that the President select for implementation those options in the Special Report which would have relaxed dramatically the current restrictions on intelligence collection. The set of options recommended by Huston is defined in this particular report known as the Huston Plan, although the phrase has been generally applied to the Special Report from which Huston selected his options. 3a

Presidential approval of the options recommended by Huston would have given intelligence and counterintelligence specialists within the intelligence community authority to:

(1) monitor the international communications of U.S. citizens;

(2) intensify the electronic surveillance of domestic dissenters and selected establishments;

(3) read the international mail of American citizens;

(4) break into specified establishments and into homes of domestic dissenters; and,

(5) intensify the surveillance of American college students.

Thus, in the summer of 1970, Tom Charles Huston believed the law had to be set aside in order to combat forces which seemed to be threatening the fabric of society. Apparently the President agreed, for on July 14, 1970, Haldeman wrote a memorandum back to Huston to inform him the President had approved his options to relax collection restraints. This decision later formed the core of Article 11 in the Impeachment Articles framed by the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives in 1974.

To implement the presidential decision, Huston next wrote a memorandum to each of the intelligence agency directors, dated July 23rd, informing them that certain restraints on intelligence collection were being removed. Writing under the heading "Domestic Intelligence," Huston invoked the authority of the President and outlined exactly which restrictions were to be lifted. This document is the second version of the Huston Plan and is similar to the first sent to the President for his approval via Haldeman in early July.

Four days later on July 27th, the Huston Plan sent to the intelligence directors was recalled by the White House "for reconsideration."

Most of these bare facts have been in the public domain since 1973, when the Senate Watergate investigation first brought to light the history of the Huston Plan. What is new as a result of this inquiry conducted by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is the discovery of a much more extensive degree of impropriety in the intelligence community than was initially revealed in 1973. Moreover, the Committee found instances of duplicity between the intelligence agencies and the President, and among agencies themselves.

Despite the request of the President for a complete report on intelligence problems, the Special Report of June 1970 failed to mention an ongoing CIA program that involved opening the international mail of American citizens or an on-going NSA program to select from intercepted international communications of American citizens contained on "watch lists" submitted by other agencies. The CIA mail program was clearly illegal, and the NSA program was of questionable lawfulness. Not only were laws violated, but the President was asked to consider approving the CIA mail opening program apparently without ever being told of its existence.

Furthermore, despite the ultimate decision by the President to revoke the Huston Plan, several of its provisions were implemented anyway. The intelligence agencies contributed an increasing number of names of American citizens to the NSA "watch list" so that NSA would provide the contents of any intercepted international communications of those citizens to the other intelligence agencies.

The number of Americans on this watch list expanded to a high point in 1973. The CIA continued its illegal program of mail opening. After the Huston Plan, the FBI lowered the age of campus informants, thereby expanding surveillance of American college students as sought through the Plan. In 1971, the FBI reinstated its use of mail covers 3b and continued to submit names to the CIA mail program. In December 1970, the intelligence community established -- at the request of the White House -- a permanent interagency committee for intelligence evaluation called the Intelligence Evaluation Committee (IEC), an entity highly comparable to one outlined in the Special Report. Finally, several of the principals involved in the Huston Plan episode continued to seek the full implementation of its provisions. Admiral Gayler and Richard Helms, for instance, urged Attorney General Mitchell on March 22, 1971, to relax the restrictions on key intelligence collection operations previously barred by the President in his ultimate rejection of the Huston Plan.

Placed in perspective, the Huston Plan must be viewed as but a single example of a continuous effort by counterintelligence specialists to expand collection capabilities at home and abroad often without the knowledge or approval of the President or the Attorney General, and certainly without the knowledge of Congress or the people. As a commentary on accountability, the lesson of the Huston Plan is obvious: often there was no accountability at all, beyond the intelligence agencies themselves. The result was a neglect of civil liberties by the intelligence collectors.

C. Issues

The case of the Huston Plan has been of particular significance because it raises a host of central issues about the American intelligence community that reappear throughout the broad range of the Committee investigation. Among these are the issues of accountability, authority, lawlessness, the quality of intelligence, and the problem of intelligence coordination.

Accountability and Authority. -- Did the intelligence agencies conceal operations from the President in June 1970? From the representative of the President, Tom Huston? From the Attorney General? From the Congress? From each other? What review procedures existed to evaluate and approve the various collection techniques discussed in the Special Report? Were these procedures used?

Lawlessness. -- Has the White House or the intelligence service acted in disregard for the law? Why did the intelligence community list for the President in the Special Report options which were illegal? Why did the President approve for implementation in the Huston Plan recommendations which were, in some cases, plainly illegal and, in other cases, of dubious legality? Did the intelligence professionals or Tom Huston seek legal consultation with the Justice Department, Congress, the courts, or their own legal counsel in drafting the intelligence plan?

Quality and Coordination of Intelligence. -- How justified was the dissatisfaction expressed by the Nixon Administration with the quality and coordination of intelligence on domestic dissenters in 1969 and 1970? Did the raising of barriers to intelligence collection by Hoover in the mid-1960's significantly reduce the quality of counterintelligence information? How badly were intelligence functions impaired by the severance of formal liaison ties between the FBI and the other intelligence entities in 1970?

An inquiry into the Huston Plan permits an analysis of answers to such issues found in the writings of the intelligence specialists who prepared the Special Report for the President in June 1970. Their views, reflected in the Report and subsequent memoranda, are provocative stimuli for thought, debate, and reform on the scope and method of intelligence activities within the United States.

II. BACKGROUND: A TIME OF TURBULENCE

A. Frustrations in the White House

The antiwar protests and the incidents of violence and civil disobedience which occurred throughout the country in 1969 and 1970 greatly concerned the Nixon Administration, much as it had the Johnson Administration before it. Among the responses of both administrations was the belief that hostile foreign powers must somehow be responsible for, or at least influencing, the domestic unrest. President Johnson often asked the intelligence agencies to probe the possibility of linkages between the antiwar movement and foreign influence. 4 Not long after entering the White House, President Nixon took up the refrain.

In April 1960 the President asked his aide, John Ehrlichman, to have the intelligence community help him prepare a report on foreign Communist support of campus disorders. Evidence of a foreign connection was insubstantial; but the President and Ehrlichman were dissatisfied with the intelligence provided by the agencies, believing it to be inconclusive. 5

Two months later, Ehrlichman assigned a young White House Counsel on Pat Buchanan's Research and Speech Writing staff to prepare a second and more thorough report on foreign support of campus disturbances. Tom Charles Huston, lawyer and recently discharged Army intelligence officer, drew the assignment chiefly because he was interested in the subject and seemed to know more about New Left politics than anyone else on the White House staff. 6

On June 19,1969, Huston paid his first visit to William C. Sullivan of the FBI. 7 Sullivan had served as the FBI's Assistant Director for Domestic Intelligence since 1961. In this position, he was responsible for counterintelligence, that aspect of intelligence activity designed to discover and destroy the effectiveness of hostile foreign intelligence services. Huston related to Sullivan the substance of a recent meeting he had with the President. Concerned about revolutionary activities by the New Left, the President wanted to know the details on the radical movement -- "especially," Sullivan remembers Huston emphasizing, "all information possible relating to foreign influences and the financing of the New Left." 8 (To at least one intelligence official the line seemed extremely thin between the interest of President Nixon in this kind of information for the purposes of national security, on the one hand, and his interest for strictly political purposes, on the other hand.) 9

Sullivan, replying to the White House inquiry for assistance from the FBI, told Huston that his request would have to be put in writing to Mr. Hoover, the FBI Director. 10 On the next day, June 20, 1969, Huston prepared the request to be sent to Hoover. With the earlier report which the FBI had prepared for Ehrlichman in mind, Huston told the Director that the available intelligence data on Communist influence over radicals was "inadequate." 11 On behalf of the President, Huston wanted to know what gaps existed in intelligence on radicals and what steps could be taken to provide maximum possible coverage of their activities. Unwilling to accept earlier intelligence results which did not fit their preconceptions, the White House policy-makers began to apply increased pressure on the FBI to try additional collection techniques.

Huston also gave this same assignment to the CIA, NSA, and DIA. Each of the agencies submitted its report to Huston on a June 30th deadline, with the NSA feeding its contribution through the DIA presentation. The FBI report showed a "strong reliance upon the use of electronic coverage", according to C. D. Brennan, an assistant to William Sullivan who helped prepare the response to the White House request. 12 Brennan concluded that increased coverage would be necessary "as it appears there will be increasingly closer links between [the New Left and black extremist movements] and foreign communists in the future."

The quality of the intelligence supporting these reports apparently failed to satisfy Ehrlichman and others in the White House, especially the FBI data, and the disenchantment with the intelligence agencies continued. 13

B. The Huston-Sullivan Alliance

Throughout the rest of 1969, Huston was assigned to receive and disseminate FBI intelligence estimates sent to the White House. Contempt for these estimates was voiced by Ehrlichman, Haldeman, and Huston's colleague, Egil Krough. 14 Huston himself adopted more moderate views on the quality of Bureau intelligence reports, especially after he became more acquainted with Sullivan. Listening to the counterintelligence specialists made Huston sympathetic to the difficulties of intelligence collection under the restraints imposed upon the FBI by its Director. Sullivan often complained to Huston about the "question of coordination, the lack of manpower, the inability to get the necessary resources, the problems of the various restraints that were existing." 15

From June 1969 to June 1970, the important relationship between Huston and Sullivan deepened into a working alliance devoted to the lowering of intelligence collection barriers. As a Central Intelligence Agency officer wrote in a memorandum for the record, "By way of background, it should be noted that Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Huston had been in frequent contact on these matters before [June 1970], because Mr. Sullivan was extremely displeased by the number of restrictions which had been placed on the FBI by Mr. Hoover." 16 The two had numerous meetings and telephone conversations during this period, beginning with dialogues on the report prepared for the President in June 1966 and followed by preparations to deal with protest activity in the Washington, D.C., area.

As Huston recalls, it was during this period that he became close to Sullivan and his assistant, Brennan. "I think I had their confidence, in that I think they thought I understood a little bit about who the players were and what was going on in the country in internal security matters," Huston has testified. "And they certainly had my confidence. In fact, I do not think there was anyone in the government who I respected more than Mr. Sullivan." 17

Though far different in temperament, age, and experience, Huston and Sullivan found themselves in agreement on several points. Both viewed the spiraling unrest in the country with alarm; both believed in the need for greater interagency coordination among the intelligence agencies; both thought the quality of data on domestic radicals could be vastly improved; and both agreed that most of the intelligence deficiencies could be remedied if the intelligence agencies -- and particularly the FBI -- would reinstate collection methods common "in the good old days," such as the use of electronic surveillance, to obtain intelligence data. 18

C. The "New" Hoover

Counterintelligence specialists throughout the government were dismayed when undercover FBI operations important to them, and carried out for several years, were suddenly suspended by Hoover in the 1960s. 19 The new emphasis in the Kennedy Administration on investigations into organized crime and civil rights had already drained manpower from security and intelligence operations, according to an experienced FBI counterintelligence specialist. 20

Then by the mid-1960s, Hoover began to terminate specific security programs. In July 1966, for example, Hoover wrote on a memorandum that henceforth all FBI break-ins -- or "black-bag" jobs -- were to be cut off. 21 By its refusal to use rigorously a full array of intelligence collection methods, Huston strongly believed the FBI was failing to do its job. This belief was shared widely among intelligence professionals. Helms, Bennett, and Gayler all expressed this view, as did -- privately -- key intelligence officers within the FBI itself. 22

Intelligence professionals were dismayed by Hoover's reluctance now to order what he had allowed before on a regular basis. Some suggested that the wiretap hearings held by Senator Edward V. Long in 1965 had turned public opinion against the use of certain intelligence-gathering techniques, 23 and that the Director was merely reading the writing on the wall. One seasoned CIA intelligence officer recalls:

Mr. Hoover's real concern was that during the Johnson Administration, where the Congress was delving into matters pertaining to FBI activities, Mr. Hoover looked to the President to give him support in terms of conducting those operations. And when that support was lacking, Mr. Hoover had no recourse but to gradually eliminate activities which were unfavorable to the Bureau and which in turn risked public confidence in the number one law enforcement agency. 24

Others pointed to the increased risks involved in break-ins because of new and sophisticated security precautions taken by various Bureau targets. Hoover, according to this theory, was unwilling to engage in past practices when faced with the new dangers of being caught. 25

The fact that Hoover reached age 70 in 1965 was also significant in the view of still others, since he then came within the law which required mandatory retirement. Henceforth, he served each year in a somewhat vulnerable position, as his Directorship was now reviewed for renewal on an annual basis. So he became, according to an FBI official, "very conscious of the fact that any incident which, within his understanding might prove an embarrassment to the Bureau, could reflect questionably on his leadership of the Bureau." 26

Several highly-placed observers in the intelligence community also believed the Director was simply growing old and more wary about preserving his established reputation -- a wariness nurtured by the protective instincts of his close friend and professional colleague, Clyde Tolson, who held the second highest position in the FBI. Dr. Louis Tordella, the long-time top civilian at NSA, speculated in conversations with William C. Sullivan in 1969 that Tolson probably had told Hoover something to the effect: "If these techniques ever backfire, your image and the reputation of the Bureau will be badly damaged." 27

Tordella, Sullivan, and others in the intelligence world grew increasingly impatient with the "new" Hoover and with what they considered to be his obstinance on the question of intelligence collection. If they were to expand their collection capabilities, as they and the White House wished, the new restrictions would have to be eased. Yet no one was willing to challenge Hoover's policy directly.

Tordella and General Marshall Carter, when he was Director of NSA, tried in 1967 and failed. 28 Their 15-minute appointment with Mr. Hoover in the spring of that year stretched into two-and-a-half hours. The communications experts first heard more than they wanted to about John Dillinger, "Ma" Barker, and the "Communist Threat." Finally, they were able to explain to Hoover their arguments for reinstating certain collection practices valuable to the National Security Agency. Hoover seemed to yield, telling the NSA spokesmen their reasoning was persuasive and he would consider reestablishing the earlier policies.

The news came a few days later that Hoover would allow FBI agents to resume the collection methods desired by NSA. Tordella and Carter were surprised, and gratified. Then three more days passed and the FBI liaison to NSA brought the word that Hoover had changed his mind; his new stringency would be maintained after all. William Sullivan called to tell Tordella that "someone got to the old man. It's dead." That someone, Sullivan surmised, was Tolson.

Hoover added a note to his message for Carter and Tordella, indicating that he would assist the National Security Agency in its collection requirements only if so ordered by the President or the Attorney General. Tordella, however, was reluctant to approach either. "I couldn't go to the chief law enforcement figure in the country and ask him to approve something that was illegal," he recently explained (despite the fact that he and General Carter had already asked the Director of the FBI to approve an identical policy). As for the President, this was "not a topic with which he should soil his hands." For the time being, Tordella would let the NSA case rest.

Nor was Richard Helms going to be the man to urge Hoover to relax the newly imposed restrictions. He and Hoover had little patience for one another for several years. Hoover distrusted the "Ivy League'' style of CIA personnel in general; according to Sullivan "Ph.D. intelligence" was a term of derision Hoover liked to use against the Agency. 29 Gayler and Bennett, newcomers to the intelligence community, were warned immediately by their assistants not to challenge the Director of the Bureau directly on matters relating to domestic intelligence. 30

It would take the pressure of events, skillful maneuvering by a group of FBI counterintelligence specialists, and Huston's strategic position on the White House staff to focus the attention of the President on the problem of intelligence collection.

D. The Pressure of Events

Events encouraged action. Riots and bombings escalated throughout the country in the spring of 1970. In his official statement on the Huston Plan, issued while he was still in the White House, President Nixon recalled that "in March a wave of bombings and explosions struck college campuses and cities. There were 400 bomb threats in one 24-hour period in New York City." 31 The explosion of a Weatherman "bomb factory" in a Greenwich Village townhouse in March particularly shocked Tom Huston and other White House staffers. 32 The response of the President was to send anti-bombing legislation to the Congress.

Moreover, in the spring of 1970 the FBI severed its formal liaison to the CIA in reaction to a CIA-FBI dispute over confidential sources in Colorado. 33 Though hostility between the two agencies had surfaced before with some frequency over matters such as disagreement regarding the bona fides of communist defectors, this particular dispute was "the one straw that broke the camel's back." 34 The incident in Colorado, now known as the Riha Case, involved a CIA officer who received information concerning the disappearance of a foreign national on the faculty of the University of Colorado, a Czechoslovak by the name of Thomas Riha.

The information apparently came from an unnamed FBI officer stationed in Denver. Hoover demanded to know the identity of the FBI agent; but, as a matter of personal integrity, the CIA officer refused to divulge the name of his source. Hoover was furious with Helms for not providing the FBI with this information and, "in a fit of pique," 35 he broke formal Bureau ties with the Agency. 36 To many observers, including Huston and Sullivan, the severance of these ties contributed to the perceived inability of the Bureau's intelligence division to perform their task adequately.

In this context, a special meeting was called on April 22, 1970, in Haldeman's office. In attendance were Haldeman, Krogh, Huston Alexander Butterfield (who had responsibility for White House liaison' with the Secret Service), and Ehrlichman. The purpose of this gathering was to improve coordination among the White House staff for contact with intelligence agencies in the government and, more importantly, as Huston remembers, to decide "whether -- because of the escalating level of the violence -- something within the government further needed to be done." 37

A decision was made. The President would be asked to meet with the directors of the four intelligence agencies to take some action that might curb the growing violence. The intelligence agencies would be asked by the President to write a report on what could be done. The meeting was planned for May. In addition, Tom Huston was given a high staff position in the White House; henceforth, he would have responsibilities for internal security affairs. 38 He was now in a strategic position to help Sullivan reverse existing Bureau policies.

The meeting between President Nixon and the intelligence directors was not held in May, because plans for, and the reaction to, the April 29 invasion of Cambodia in Southeast Asia disrupted the entire White House schedule. In the aftermath of this event, the meeting "became even more important," recalls Huston. 39 The expansion of the Indochina war into Cambodia and the shootings at Kent State and Jackson State had focused the actions on antiwar movement and civil rights activists.

As soon as the reaction to the Cambodian incursion had stabilized somewhat, the meeting between President Nixon and the intelligence directors was rescheduled for June 5th. It was to start a chain of events that would culminate in the Huston Plan.

III. THE MEETINGS: THE WRITING OF THE SPECIAL REPORT

A. Who, What, When and Where

Throughout June 1970 a series of seven important meetings on intelligence were held in Washington. They began on June 5th in the Oval Office with a conference between the Chief Executive and the intelligence directors, at which President Nixon requested the preparation of an intelligence report; and they ended twenty days later in Hoover's office where the directors gathered to officially sign the report for the President. In between these two meetings came a preliminary planning session in Hoover's office on June 8, and four subsequent staff meetings held at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. It was at these staff meetings that the intelligence report was formulated. (See Table 1.)

TABLE 1. SUMMARY OF THE MEETINGS FOR THE PREPARATION OF AN INTELLIGENCE REPORT FOR THE PRESIDENT, JUNE 1970

B. At the White House, June 5th: The President Requests an Intelligence Report

Huston was responsible for arranging the conference between President Nixon and the intelligence leaders, and had briefed the President in advance. The briefing was based on a two-page working paper that Huston prepared, relying on his conversations with the considerably more experienced Sullivan. As Sullivan's assistant, C. D. Brennan, recalls: "Mr. Huston did not have that sufficient in-depth background concerning intelligence matters to be able to give that strong direction and guidance," and therefore Sullivan was the "principal figure" behind the preparations leading to the Huston Plan. 40 Sullivan's role seemed to be to tell Huston what were desirable changes in the intelligence services; Huston was to try to make what was desirable possible, through his position as the White House man charged with responsibility for domestic intelligence.

The two-page working paper outlined for the President items he might discuss with the intelligence directors: the increase in domestic violence; the need for better intelligence collection; a report to be prepared for the President on radical threats to the national security and gaps in current intelligence on radicals; and the use of an interagency staff to write the report. 41

Before the meeting, the President telephoned Huston to say he wanted Hoover to be the chairman of the committee responsible for the intelligence report. (The President had met privately with the FBI Director the day before. 42) Huston took the opportunity to urge the President to appoint Sullivan as the chairman of the staff subcommittee. 43

The June 5th meeting in the Oval Office lasted less than an hour. Reading from a talking-paper prepared for the session by Huston, the President first emphasized the magnitude of the internal security problem facing the United States. The paper read:

We are now confronted with a new and grave crisis in our country -- one which we know too little about. Certainly hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Americans -- mostly under 30 -- are determined to destroy our society. They find in many of the legitimate grievances of our citizenry opportunities for exploitation which never escape the attention of demagogues. They are reaching out for the support -- ideological and otherwise -- of foreign powers and they are developing their own brand of indigenous revolutionary activism which is as dangerous as anything which they could import from Cuba, China, or the Soviet Union. 44

Among the chief factors complicating the internal security problem, according to the paper, were the people of the United States: "Our people -- perhaps as a reaction to the excesses of the McCarthy era -- are unwilling to admit the possibility that 'their children' could wish to destroy their country.... This is particularly true of the media and the academic community." The solution to the problem of domestic instability could be found in better intelligence: "The Government must know more about the activities of these groups, and we must develop a plan which will enable us to curtail the illegal activities of those who are determined to destroy our society."

The President then expressed his dissatisfaction with the quality of intelligence he had been receiving on the protest movement. 45 "Based on my review of the information which we have been receiving at the White House," read his prepared notes, "I am convinced that we are not currently allocating sufficient resources within the intelligence community to the collection of intelligence data on the activities of these revolutionary groups." 46 To obtain the "hard information" he wanted, the President told the directors they were to serve on a special committee to review the collection efforts of the intelligence agencies in the internal security area. Based on this review, they were expected to recommend steps which would strengthen the capabilities of the government to collect intelligence on radicals. 47

Departing from his prepared notes, the President next mentioned a meeting he had had with President Calder of Venezuela earlier that morning. 48 President Calder had complained to him about the high degree of violence and unrest in the Caribbean, noting that some Latin American nation believes U.S. nationals -- specifically black radicals -- were fomenting this unrest. President Nixon asked Helms if he had any information on the relationship between black militancy in the United States and unrest in the Caribbean. Helms said he did not, but that he would investigate the matter for the President. (The CIA gave the President a report on this subject, via Huston, on July 6, 1970. 49)

The President paused at this point in the meeting to ask Hoover and Helms if there were any problems in coordination between their respective agencies. Both assured him there were not. 50 Neither, apparently, wished to discuss the Riha Case with other disagreements.

President Nixon concluded the meeting by directing the intelligence directors to work with Tom Huston on the report they were to prepare. Huston would "provide the subcommittee with detailed information on the scope of the review which I have in mind," said the President. 51 He also asked Hoover to serve as chairman of the committee, which was to be known as the Interagency Committee on Intelligence (Ad Hoc). Finally, he recommended that Hoover name his Assistant Director for Domestic Intelligence, William Sullivan, to be responsible for the staff workgroup for the actual drafting of the Special Report. Hoover agreed to be chairman and to place Sullivan in charge of the interagency committee staff. 52

The meeting in the Oval Office took place on a Friday. Sullivan's first assignment from Hoover was to set up a preliminary planning session to be held in Hoover's office the following Monday.

C. In Hoover's Office, June 8th: A Premonitory Disagreement

At the Monday meeting, Hoover reminded the other intelligence directors that the President was dissatisfied with the current state of intelligence on domestic radicals, and stressed his own alarm at links between protestors in this country and Cuba, China, and the Iron Curtain countries. 53 He said that President Nixon wanted an historical summary of unrest in the country up to the present, and he spoke of the establishment of an interagency staff committee to meet the President's objectives. Sullivan would be chairman of the staff group, and its first meeting would occur the next afternoon, Tuesday, June 9th, at the Central Intelligence Agency.

Hoover asked Richard Helms first, and then the others, if they had anything to add; none of the intelligence directors did. Then came Tom Huston's turn to respond. The Director had misunderstood the intent of the President, said the White House aide. The report was not to be an historical summary at all. It was to be a current and future threat assessment, a review of intelligence gaps, and a summary of options for operational changes. 54

Admiral Gayler of NSA then spoke up: it was his understanding, too, that the committee was to concentrate on the shortcomings of current intelligence collection. General Bennett, Gayler, Helms, and Huston proceeded to discuss their impressions of what the President really meant. 55 President Nixon wanted the pros and cons of various collection methods spelled out clearly in the form of an options paper, emphasized the young White House staffer. The President preferred reports presented in this form to assure that decisions were not made at a lower level, with the President merely the recipient of a fait accompli. All the intelligence directors, except Hoover, supported the objectives articulated by Huston.

Hoover -- who was apparently irritated by this turn of events 56 finally agreed and the meeting ended abruptly. He asked the other directors to give this matter the highest priority and to assign their top experts to the project. After the meeting, Hoover confided to William Sullivan that he believed Huston was a "hippie intellectual." 57 Sullivan's own views on the importance of this undertaking were reflected in a statement which he prepared for Hoover as background information for this meeting. "Individually, those of us in the intelligence community are relatively small and limited," he wrote. "Unified our own combined potential is magnified and limitless. It is through unity of action that we can tremendously increase our intelligence gathering potential, and, I am certain, obtain the answers the President wants." 58

D. The Langley Meetings: Drafting the Intelligence Report

The Ad Hoc Committee staff met the next day at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, for the first of four drafting discussions. 59

The First Langley Meeting: Setting the Agenda

At the first staff meeting Huston summed up for the participants the objectives of the President, using a "Top Secret" outline he had prepared. 60 Under "Purposes," the outline noted that the Committee was to prepare an analysis on the internal security threat; identify gaps in the present collection efforts; recommend steps to close these gaps; and review the status of interagency coordination. Under "Procedures," Huston had written: "Operational details will be the responsibility of the chairman. However, the scope and direction of the review will be determined by the White House member." In other words, Sullivan would provide the guiding expertise to lay out what collection barriers the counterintelligence experts wanted removed; Huston would make sure the Committee did not stray from the goal of suggesting options to remove these barriers. The "Objectives" of the Committee included "maximum use of all special investigative techniques. . .."

After the staff members had read the outline, Huston stressed to the group the President's deep concern about New Left anarchism and whether the intelligence agencies were doing all they could to cope with the problem. He said, as he had in Hoover's office the day before, the President wanted to see the pros and cons of any restraints so that he could decide what action to take.

Following the presentation by Huston on the President's requirements for the Committee, Sullivan asked for comments regarding the level of classification for papers or reports prepared by the Committee. The classification "Top Secret" was adopted. Helms also recommended the maintenance of a "Bigot List" reflecting the names of all persons who would have knowledge of the work of the Committee.

The Committee turned next to the heart of the matter: the methodology of intelligence collection. Going around the table, the various representatives discussed restraints upon the ability of their agencies to develop the intelligence necessary to satisfy the concern of the President over "New Left" dissent and its possible foreign support. It was agreed that members would bring to the next session a list of those restrictions which hampered their intelligence collection activities. Again Huston urged them to remember the President's interest in the pros and cons of each restriction.

Buffham of NSA called attention to the outline circulated by Huston. In its first paragraph the outline called upon the Committee "to define and assess the existing internal security threat." The NSA representative said that such a study would require immediate attention from the counterintelligence specialists from each member organization. Huston suggested the FBI prepare a threat assessment from the domestic point of view and CIA from the foreign point of view. All members concurred, and Sullivan asked the FBI and CIA to have the papers ready for distribution at the next meeting to allow consideration by the full committee as soon as possible.

Thus, the agenda was set. The work-group would begin by examining restraints on intelligence collection and preparing a threat assessment. Members were cautioned to maintain tight security to conceal the existence and activities of the Committee. To assist this objective, the group agreed to continue meeting at CIA Headquarters. The Committee adjourned until the following Thursday, June 12th. (See the Chronology in the Appendix.)

The Second Langley Meeting: Early Discussions

At the next gathering of the work-group at CIA Headquarters on Friday of the same week, agreement was reached to follow an outline prepared by Huston and the FBI to guide the writing of the report for the President. 61 The report would cover three specific areas: (1) an assessment of the current internal security threat and the likelihood of future violence; (2) a listing of the current restraints on intelligence collection; and (3) an evaluation of interagency coordination within the intelligence community.

Just as he had reminded Hoover that Monday in the Director's office, Huston again made the point that the threat assessment was not to be merely an exercise in history writing. The President wanted an up-to-date analysis of the "New Left" threat and an estimate on future problems posed by the radicals.

For the meeting each agency had prepared a paper on intelligence collection restraints. Huston found the preliminary drafts "totally unacceptable," according to CIA representative James Angleton, and said that the group "was not being responsive to the President's needs." 62 As exemplified by toe FBI submission, Huston wanted the restraints clearly identified, the pros and cons listed, and a format provided whereby the President could indicate whether he wished the restraints to be maintained, relaxed, or that he required more information to make a decision. The entire range of collection options were to be listed, whether the Committee thought they were preposterous or desirable. The representatives were asked by Huston to follow the FBI model for their subsequent drafts.

As for the third portion of the report, opinion among the participants was generally in favor of the establishment of a permanent interagency committee on intelligence. It would evaluate intelligence, coordinate operations, prepare ongoing threat assessments on domestic protest, and develop new policies.

The idea of a permanent committee was strongly endorsed by Huston, who said the President would probably favor its creation. Privately, Huston thought this was "the most important recommendation." 63 Among the participating agencies only the CIA questioned the need for a permanent committee, recommending instead the establishment of a temporary group first to see if it would work. 64 The Agency's hesitancy may have reflected a reluctance to confront Hoover with such a blatant entry into the domestic intelligence area, largely the private preserve of the FBI in the past.

The FBI threat-assessment paper, entitled "Defining and Assessing the Existing Internal Security Threat -- Domestic," was circulated at this second meeting and, at Huston's suggestion, was tabled to allow each member time to review its contents carefully for discussion at the third session. The CIA paper, captioned exactly like the Bureau's except for the substitution of "Foreign" for "Domestic," was not yet ready; but Richard Ober, the primary CIA drafter, said it would be circulated in time for review by everyone before the third meeting. 65

The Committee agreed to have the FBI prepare a first draft of the entire report to be circulated on June 16th. T. J. Smith and Richard Cotter of the Bureau Research Division were assigned by Sullivan to write the drafts; 66 everyone was to provide the, Bureau with inputs on or before June 15th. The third meeting of the Committee was set for Wednesday, June 17th.

The Third Langley Meeting: Reviewing the First Draft

This third session of the Ad Hoc Committee staff was the most important. From it emerged the specific options which the group would lay before the President. The first two sessions had been preparatory; now the Committee was ready to examine thoroughly a first draft of the report. 67 The members dissected the draft in minute detail, spending all afternoon and part of the evening going over it. The FBI and CIA reports on "Defining and Assessing the Existing Internal Security Threat" had been incorporated into the draft, as had the pros and cons of various restraints inhibiting intelligence collection.

Starting at the beginning of the draft, the Committee first went step-by-step through the section on the internal security threat facing the United States. The military representatives criticized the CIA and FBI data and interpretations on militant "New Left" groups, black extremists, the intelligence services of Communist countries, and other revolutionary groups (like the Puerto Rican nationalist extremists). Eventually, however, virtually unanimous agreement was reached on this threat assessment section.

The next section of the report on restraints was much more complex and open to controversy. Huston made it clear early in the review of this "Restraints" section that no individual agency would be allowed to make a separate recommendation, conclusion, opinion, or observation. The report had to be a joint effort, and only options were to be listed for the President. The sole exception would be the possibility of recommending to the President the establishment of a permanent interagency group or committee to evaluate intelligence problems related to internal security. While the discussion on the options was lengthy and punctuated by disagreements, the end result was a first draft of the intelligence report which had the support of all the participating agencies.

The Fourth Langley Meeting: The Final Draft

The fourth and final meeting of the ICI staff was held on June 23rd and was devoted to improving the first draft and polishing it into a final report. 68 Between the third and fourth sessions, Sullivan and the other representatives from the various agencies showed the first draft to their superiors. While the other directors saw no significant problems with the draft, Hoover balked. He would not sign the report, he informed Sullivan. It would have to be completely rewritten to eliminate the extreme options in the "Restraints" section and the recommendation for the permanent interagency committee would have to be removed also. 69

Hoover explained his objections, as Sullivan recalls, in this way:

For years and years and years I have approved opening mail and other similar operations, but no. It is becoming more and more dangerous and we are apt to get caught. I am not opposed to doing this. I'm not opposed to continuing the burglaries and the opening of mail and other similar activities, providing somebody higher than myself approves of it. . . . I no longer want to accept the sole responsibility -- the Attorney General or some high ranking person in the White House -- then I will carry out their decision. But I'm not going to accept the responsibility myself anymore, even though I've done it for many years.

Number two, I cannot look to the Attorney General to approve these because the Attorney General was not asked to be a member of the ad hoc committee. I cannot turn to the ad hoc committee to approve of these burglaries and opening mail as recommended here. The ad hoc committee, by its very nature, will go out of business when this report has been approved.

That leaves me alone as the man who made the decision. I am not going to do that any more . . . I want you to prepare a detailed memorandum and set forth these views . . . . 70

Sullivan pointed out to Hoover that it would not be entirely fair or reasonable to rewrite completely a report which had been approved already by everyone else. Instead the Director might wish to note his objections in the form of footnotes to the report, if he felt he needed to as was commonly done on interagency intelligence papers. Hoover finally agreed. Sullivan personally added the footnotes to the draft, as requested by Hoover, and had his secretary type up the new version to be presented at the fourth Langley meeting. 71

Sullivan distributed this second draft of the report at the final Langley meeting. It bore Hoover's footnotes conspicuously, and the participants realized that Hoover had intervened. 72 (The first draft had been written in the Bureau Research Section and brought to the third Langley meeting without being shown to Hoover. 73) Col. Downie, the Army representative, remembers smiling as he read the second draft; he found it amusing that Sullivan had "eaten humble pie." Hoover had "put the brakes on," Downie figured, and now the Committee was "back to square one." 74

Only one day separated the last meeting at Langley from the official signing of the Special Report, which was to take place in Hoover's office on June 25th. It left little time for the directors of CIA, DIA, and NSA to react to the footnotes. 75 Certainly, Hoover did not call to forewarn them of his action. When their representatives brought news of what the FBI Director had done, Gayler and Bennett were furious. Both called Huston immediately. 76

They were "mad as the dickens," Huston recalls. The White House aide tried to calm them and urged them to "live with" Director Hoover's additions to the Report.

The military intelligence director persisted. Hoover had no right to add his own personal observations; and if he could do it, so could they. Bennett and Gayler were particularly annoyed that Hoover had objected to specific operations, when what was listed were options for the President, not recommendations. Hoover's critical footnotes made the options appear to be recommendations which the other directors automatically supported. "They either wanted another meeting among the Directors [to] demand that the footnotes be withdrawn, or else they wanted to insert their own footnotes saying they favored certain things," recalls Huston .77 The White House staffer was:

. . . very much interested in not creating any difficulties with Mr. Hoover that could, at all, be avoided, and I told both General Bennett and Admiral Gayler that I thought it was unnecessary for them to take such action; that in my cover memorandum to the President, I would set forth their views as they had expressed them to me, and that I would appreciate it if they would not raise the question with the Director. 78

Helms has testified that he does recall the episode. 79

At the time, Huston appeared unconcerned about Hoover's notations. One participant at the final session thought Huston would achieve his ends anyway. "He seemed to exude the attitude that 'What the White House wanted, the White House would get,"' recalls a Navy observer. "If Hoover didn't want to play, it would be played some other way." 80

Tordella of NSA, too, remembers that Sullivan was not particularly upset by Hoover's move. With Helms, Bennett, and Gayler still in support of the Special Report, Sullivan believed President Nixon would accept the options on relaxing restraints anyway. 81

The final meeting at Langley was thus spent in the review of this second draft. In addition to the footnotes, some changes were made. Diction which Hoover had found perjorative was removed ("procedures" replaced "restrictions" in one segment, for instance) ; and references to CIA-FBI liaison difficulties was excised, as was the concept of a full time working staff for the recommended permanent interagency committee. The essential alteration, however, was the addition of Hoover's footnotes. 82 The next step was to have the intelligence directors sign the report.

E. The Signing Ceremony

The meeting to review and sign the Special Report began at 3:00 promptly on the afternoon of June 25th. 83 The Director of the FBI opened the meeting by commending the members for their outstanding effort and cooperative spirit displayed in preparing the Special Report. Hoover went through his normal routine on such occasions. He started with page one of the Report and said "Does anyone have any comment on Page 1?" He then proceeded to go through the 43-page document, page by page, in this fashion.

For each page, Hoover addressed his question to each Director and to Tom Huston. Hoover displayed his contempt for Huston by addressing him with different names: "Any comments, Mr. Hoffman? Any comments, Mr. Hutchinson?" and so on, getting the name wrong six or seven different ways. 84

Huston hoped the meeting would end before Gayler or Bennett raised the subject of the footnotes. "We got down to about 'X' number of pages and, finally, it was just too much for Admiral Gayler," Huston recalls, "and so, sure enough, there he goes. He started in about a footnote, I think." 85 Bennett joined Gayler in querying the Director about the footnotes. 86

Hoover was surprised. It was not customary to respond critically during the FBI Director's pro forma readings. Huston looked toward Helms, who spoke up and managed to smooth the waters to some degree. 87 However, Hoover was clearly upset, 88 and hurried through the rest of the Report. The four directors then signed the document. Hoover reminded them to have all working copies of the Report destroyed, thanked them for their participation, and dismissed the Committee. The Interagency Committee on Intelligence (Ad Hoc) had completed its assignment.

IV. AN INTELLIGENCE REPORT FOR THE PRESIDENT: THE OPTIONS

The next day, June 26th, the Special Report was delivered to Huston at the White House for the President. For each of the intelligence collection methods, the President was presented the option of (1) continuing the present restrictions, (2) asking for more information, or (3) accepting one of the relaxations listed below. 89 Hoover's notes were typed in beneath the options for each collection technique.

The first category of options written into the report dealt with communications intelligence.

A. Category One: Communications Intelligence 90

-- Present interpretation should be broadened to permit and program for coverage by NSA of the communications of U.S. citizens using international facilities.

-- Present interpretation should be broadened to permit and program for coverage by NSA at the request of the FBI of the communications of U.S. citizens using international facilities. [Original emphasis. No footnotes were added to this section.]

The National Security Agency pressed for the inclusion of these options in an effort to obtain a clarification of their role in targeting against communications traffic involving U.S. revolutionary readers and organizations. 91 At the time, NSA believed that its authority precluded production and dissemination of intelligence from international communications between U.S. citizens and barred specific targeting against the communications of U.S. nationals. 92

At the heart of this option lay the NSA "Watch List." In 1967, the NSA began to receive from the FBI, the CIA, and the Secret Service the names of individuals whom these agencies viewed as threats to American security. The NSA was supposed to select, from international communications, messages which were sent to or from these individuals -- approximately 1,650 of whom were U.S. citizens. 93 (The present director of the NSA does not know whether or not the President knew about the NSA Watch List. 94) Unsure about the legality of the practice, the June meetings were viewed by NSA as a chance to obtain more explicit approval to do what, in fact, they were already doing; that is, selecting the international messages of specified U.S. nationals for transcription and dissemination to other intelligence agencies. Explicit approval from the President for this practice would have permitted an expansion of the American names on the Watch List.

B. Category Two: Electronic Surveillances and Penetrations

-- Present procedures should be changed to permit intensification of coverage of individuals and groups in the United States who pose a major threat to the internal security.

-- Present procedures should be changed to permit intensification of coverage of foreign nationals [classified] of interest to the intelligence community.

Note: The FBI does not wish to change its present procedure of selective coverage on major internal security threats as it believes this coverage is adequate at this time. The FBI would not oppose other agencies seeking authority of the Attorney General for coverage required by them and thereafter instituting such coverage themselves.

As the Special Report stated: "NSA has been particularly hard-hit by this limitation." 95

The CIA had a strong interest in this option, too. In the mid-1960s, Helms had approached Hoover to increase the number of telephone taps to assist the CIA in its Missions. 96 For similar reasons, the CIA now joined the NSA in its quest for increased electronic coverage. As a former high-level CIA counterintelligence officer has noted, "Thousands of man-hours would have been saved if the Bureau had been willing to place taps on [selected] telephones." 97

Among the arguments presented in the Special Report in favor of the increased use of this technique was that "every major intelligence service in the world, including those of the Communist bloc, use such techniques as an essential part of their operations; and it is believed the general public would support their use by the United States for the same purpose." 98 Yet, five years earlier, Hoover had cut back on these forms of surveillance in large part for the very reason that he believed the American public would no longer tolerate their broad use. 99

C. Category Three: Mail Coverage

-- Restrictions on legal coverage should be removed.

-- Present restrictions on covert coverage should be relaxed on selected targets of priority foreign intelligence and internal security interest.

Note: The FBI is opposed to implementing any covert mail coverage because it is clearly illegal and it is likely that, if done, information would leak out of the Post Office to the press and serious damage would be done to the intelligence community. The FBI has no objection to legal mail coverage providing it is done on a carefully controlled and selective basis in both criminal and security matters. 100

As the draft explained, two types of mail coverage exist: routine coverage, which involves recording information from the face of envelopes, and covert (or "sophisticated") coverage which entails the examination of contents within a sealed envelope. The former is legal, the latter is not. "Covert coverage has been discontinued," the President was told in the Report, and one option placed before him read: "Present restrictions on covert coverage should be relaxed on selected targets of priority foreign intelligence and internal security interest." [Emphasis added.] 101

In fact, "covert coverage" had not been discontinued. The CIA had used covert mail programs to examine mail sent between the United States and Communist countries since 1953. It was the judgment of some Agency officials that, although warrantless mail opening was illegal, the good that flowed from them in terms of anticipating threats to the United States made it worthwhile. 102 The objective was "to try to uncover foreign involvement in this country," 103 but, in the retrospective view of the CIA officer in charge of the program, the covert mail programs were "very much an error." 104 Since 1958, the FBI had also known of these programs and, in fact, had contributed names to the CIA's "Watch List". 105

D. Category Four: Surreptitious Entry

-- Present restrictions should be modified to permit procurement of vitally needed foreign [classified] material.

-- Present restrictions should also be modified to permit selective use of this technique against other urgent and high priority internal security targets.

Note: The FBI is opposed to surreptitious entry . . . [classified].

This option reflected the use of breaking and entering, and burglary, by Government agents. Of all the agencies involved in these meetings, NSA was the most interested in removing the restraints on surreptitious entries. 107 Millions of dollars could be saved by such operations, Buffham argued at the Langley meetings. 108

One option for the President proposed that "present restrictions should also be modified to permit selective use of this technique against other urgent and high-priority internal security targets." 109 In short, entries were to be made against the "New Left" subversives discussed in the Special Report -- if the President gave his approval to this option.

E. Category Five: Development of Campus Sources

-- Present restrictions should be relaxed to permit expanded coverage of violence-prone campus and student-related groups.

-- CIA coverage of American students (and others) traveling abroad or living abroad should be increased.

Note: The FBI is opposed to removing any present controls and restrictions relating to the development of campus sources. To do so would severely jeopardize its investigations and could result in charges that investigative agencies are interfering with academic freedom. 110

The intelligence professionals complained at the drafting sessions that it was difficult to gather data on student subversives when no secondary school students and no one below the legal age in colleges and universities were allowed to work for the intelligence agencies as sources."' Among other reasons for relaxing these restraints was the argument that campus violence occurs quickly and with little planning. To anticipate this kind of disorder, the intelligence community had to have youthful informants. Hoover had taken the position, however, that using informants below age twenty-one was too risky; they were less reliable, and legal complications could arise with their parents and the school administration. 112

According to Huston, the FBI members of the ICI ad hoc staff hoped to reduce the age level of informants to eighteen through the Special Report; but, if they said so directly and explicitly, "it would make Mr. Hoover mad." Therefore, they "couched this recommendations in terms that 'campus informant coverage shall be expanded'" 113 The Special Report noted that, in this area, "the military services have capabilities which could be of value to the FBI." 114

F. Category Six: Use of Military Undercover Agents

-- The counterintelligence mission of the military services should be expanded to include the active collection of intelligence concerning student-related dissident activities, with provisions for a close coordination with the FBI.

-- No change should be made in the current mission of the military counterintelligence services; however, present restrictions should be relaxed to permit the use of trusted military personnel as FBI assets in the collection of intelligence regarding student-related activities.

Note: The FBI is opposed to the use of any military undercover agents to develop domestic intelligence information because this would be in violation of the Delimitations Agreement. The military services, joined by the FBI, oppose any modification of the Delimitations Agreement which would extend their jurisdiction beyond matters of interest to the Department of Defense.

The only specific views on intelligence operations which Huston's superiors at the White House discussed with him before the June meetings had to do with the military. Haldeman expressed to Huston the President's belief that "we should use the military services in collection of domestic intelligence." 115 The vast resources of the military, it was felt, could effectively supplement the intelligence gathering capabilities of the other agencies.

At the third Langley meeting, Huston therefore told the group that the President wanted a list of options on the use of the military for domestic intelligence collection. The military voiced its opposition to the idea, however, and the FBI was also against it. 116 The Committee wanted to eliminate the option from the report. Huston himself thought the proposal was inappropriate, but he insisted the option be included, since Haldeman and the President had explicitly requested it. 117

The response of the Committee, in Huston's opinion, was to write a set of options in favor of using the military which were "very flimsy and they would not convince anyone." In the Report, six "Advantages of Maintaining Restrictions" were listed, compared to just three "Advantages of Relaxing Restrictions." 118 The military representatives stressed, in their discussion of these options, that disclosure of military involvement in this kind of counterintelligence work "would certainly result in considerable adverse publicity." 119

In fact, at that time Army officials were preparing for their appearance before the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, 120 which was then investigating the question of military surveillance of civilians in the United States. This investigation serves as an important backdrop for understanding the marked caution of the military intelligence representatives during the sessions at Langley.

The Special Report included two more sets of options for the President's consideration:

G. Category Seven: Budget and Manpower

-- Each agency should submit a detailed estimate as to projected manpower needs and other costs in the event the various investigative restraints herein are lifted.

-Each agency must operate within its current budgetary or manpower limitations, irrespective of action required as result of this report.

H. Category Eight: Permanent Interagency Committee

-- An ad hoc group consisting of the FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA, and the military counterintelligence agencies should be appointed and should serve as long as the President deems necessary, to provide evaluations of domestic intelligence, prepare periodic domestic intelligence estimates, and carry out the other objectives indicated above.

-- A permanent committee consisting of the FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA, and the military counterintelligence agencies should be appointed to provide evaluations of domestic intelligence, prepare periodic domestic intelligence estimates, and carry out the other objectives indicated above.

Note: The FBI is opposed to the creation of a permanent committee for the purpose of providing evaluations of domestic intelligence, however the FBI would approve of preparing periodic domestic intelligence estimates.

In the first draft of the Report, the following options were also included, though both were removed in the writing of the final draft: 121

I. Category Nine (Removed) : Surreptitious Optical Surveillance

According to intelligence specialists, this phrase simply refers to taking photographs of people without their knowledge. The discussion of options under this heading was finally discarded from the report, evidently because the members knew it was already being done and saw no point in asking the President for his views on the subject. 122

J. Category Ten (Removed): Investigations of Diplomatic Personnel

When conducting "investigations" of foreign diplomats (often a euphemism for recruiting an agent) within the United States, the FBI traditionally clears the probe with the State Department before proceeding. This is done to make sure the Bureau is not entering into a case that, for some reason, might be peculiarly sensitive, and disclosure could have international repercussions detrimental to U.S. interests.

On occasion, some members of the Bureau have had investigations blocked or delayed by the State Department for reasons which they viewed as unsatisfactory. The question was consequently raised at the Langley meetings as to whether these clearances from State were really useful, or merely represented a further obstacle to intelligence work. This was a subject of great interest to many of the counterintelligence specialists who viewed the State Department skeptically. As one remarked candidly, "Our roles are often conflictual: they're always trying to 'build bridges' -- detente and all that stuff -- while we're trying to catch spies." 123 On balance, though, opinion within the group favored keeping the clearance procedure and avoiding a dispute with State.

These first eight categories of options, then, constituted the vital core of the special intelligence report for the President, from which the Huston Plan would be extracted. Behind them lay a variety of forces and pressures which had preceded and shaped the Report, but which were nowhere revealed in its formal language. (These hidden dimensions are explored in Section VII below.)

In the weeks that followed the official signing of the Special Report, Tom Charles Huston recommended to the President those options from the Report which promised to eliminate most thoroughly the existing restrictions on intelligence collection. These recommendations became known as the Huston Plan.

V. THE HUSTON PLAN

A. Huston Plan, Phase One: Advice for the President

For several weeks after the signing of the Special Report on June 25th, it appeared to the intelligence agencies that their efforts had come to nothing. No response had come from the White House, and Sullivan began to believe the whole idea had "died aborning." 124

Yet, in the White House, Huston was working toward the next step. He had succeeded in obtaining the four signatures from the chiefs of the intelligence community, even Hoover's. Now he wanted to get the President to approve the strongest options in the Special Report designed to remove the existing restrictions on intelligence collection. If he were successful here, the intelligence collectors would then have all the authority they desired.

Soon after the June 26th delivery of the Special Report to the White House, Huston began to prepare carefully a memorandum addressed to Haldeman on what the President ought to do with the Report. The memo, dated simply "July 1970" but written in the early days of July, was entitled "Domestic Intelligence Review." It was a synopsis of the Ad Hoc meetings held during the month of June. Huston began with a sharp diatribe against Hoover, the "only stumbling block" in the proceedings (in contrast, Helms had been "most cooperative and helpful"). 125 The FBI Director "refused to go along with a single conclusion drawn or support a single recommendation made," until Huston successfully opposed Hoover's attempt to rewrite the Report. (In this description of the confrontation with Hoover, Sullivan was never mentioned.)

Hoover then "entered his objections as footnotes to the report," Huston wrote further. These objections were "generally inconsistent and frivolous." 126 To avoid "a nasty scene" between the military directors and Hoover over the footnotes, Huston assured Admiral Gayler and General Bennett that their objections "would be brought to the attention of the President." Turning to the substantive work of the Ad Hoc group, Huston emphasized to Haldeman that everyone who participated was dissatisfied with current intelligence collection procedures except Hoover. Even the FBI participants, according to Huston, "believe that it is imperative that changes in operating procedures be initiated at once." Furthermore, all members felt it "imperative" to establish a permanent interagency committee for intelligence evaluation -- again with the exception of the FBI Director.

Should the President decide to lift the current restrictions, Huston recommended a face-to-face "stroking session" with Hoover in which the President explained his decision and indicated "he is counting on Edgar's cooperation...." In this way, Huston continued, "We can get what we want without putting Edgar's nose out of joint." Though the Director was "bullheaded as hell" and "getting old and worried about his legend," he would "not hesitate to accede to any decision the President makes," predicted Huston. Attached to this optimistic appraisal were Huston's specific recommendations on the decisions Nixon should make concerning the lifting of operational restraints.

The Recommendations

The recommendations in this first version of the so-called Huston Plan were written under the heading "Operational Restraints on Intelligence Collection." 127 Huston offered advice on each operational section of the Report, and each recommendation was buttressed by a one-to-several paragraph rationale. The recommendations comprising Huston's plan, as presented to the President, are outlined below with the exception of the rationales which concluded chiefly that (1) coverage was inadequate, and (2) all the methods had been used before with great productivity.

Communications Intelligence. Recommendation: 128

Present interpretation should be broadened to permit and program for coverage by NSA of the communications of U.S. citizens using international facilities.

Electronic Surveillances and Penetrations. Recommendation:

Present procedures should be changed to permit intensification of coverage of individuals and groups in the United States who pose a major threat to the internal security.

ALSO, present procedures should be changed to permit intensification of coverage of foreign nationals [classified].

Mail Coverage. Recommendation:

Restrictions on legal coverage should be removed.

ALSO, present restrictions on covert coverage should be relaxed on selected targets of priority foreign intelligence and internal security interest.

Surreptitious Entry. Recommendation:

Present restrictions should be modified to permit procurement of vitally needed foreign [classified] material.

ALSO, present restrictions should be modified to permit selective use of this technique against other urgent and high priority internal security targets.

Development of Campus Sources. Recommendation:

Present restrictions should be relaxed to permit expanded coverage of violence-prone campus and student-related groups.

ALSO, CIA coverage of American students (and others) traveling or living abroad should be increased.

Use of Military Undercover Agents. Recommendation:

Present restrictions should be retained.

Beyond the lowering of specific operational restraints, Huston made two further recommendations.

Manpower and Budget. Recommendation:

Each agency should submit a detailed estimate as to projected manpower needs and other costs in the event the various investigative restraints herein are lifted.

Measures to Improve Domestic Intelligence Operations. Recommendation:

A permanent committee, consisting of the FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA, and the military counterintelligence agencies should be appointed to provide evaluations of domestic intelligence, prepare periodic domestic intelligence estimates, and carry out the other objectives specified in the report.

In his discussion of these methods, Huston raised -- and quickly dismissed -- questions about the legality of two collection techniques in particular: covert mail cover and surreptitious entry. "Covert [mail] coverage is illegal, and there are serious risks involved," he wrote. "However, the advantages to be derived from, its use outweigh the risks." 129

As for surreptitious entry, Huston advised: "Use of this technique is clearly illegal: it amounts to burglary. It is also highly risky and could result in great embarrassment if exposed. However," he concluded, "it is also the most fruitful tool and can produce the type of intelligence which cannot be obtained in any other fashion." 130

In brief, the President's aid was asking the highest political figure in the nation to sanction lawlessness within the intelligence community. This attitude toward the law was not his alone; it was shared by certain representatives of the intelligence community as well. The recommendations made to the President, says Huston, reflected what I understood to be the consensus of the working group." 131 Huston agreed with this consensus.

Sullivan has explained his view -- not necessarily shared by others -- that he and the rest of the intelligence officers attending the Langley meetings "had grown up 'topsy-turvy' during the War -- a time when legal aspects were far less important than getting a job done against the enemy." Moreover, they shared the belief that intelligence work is "something different," somehow falling outside the normal realm of the law. The business required one to engage sometimes in activities that would not always be acceptable to others. That many of the men had served in the agencies operating overseas, unfettered by the legal system of the United States, may have contributed to a disregard for the "niceties of the law" in discussions of intelligence collection against alleged subversives. Besides, the KGB did not play by a legal rulebook. 132

For Huston, the only Ad Hoc Committee member too young to have grown up "topsy-turvy" during the War, the reasons for government lawlessness were different. Viewed as a conservative intellectual of sorts among his colleagues in the White House, he had spun a theory on the New Left which led him inexorably toward helping to unbridle the intelligence collectors. Huston believed that the real threat to internal security was repression. The New Left was capable of producing a climate of fear that would bring forth every repressive demagogue in the United States. These demagogues were not in the government, but out in the country; the intelligence professionals, if given the chance, could protect the American people from these latent forces of repression by monitoring the New Left and providing information to stop the violence before it began. The Huston Plan would halt repression on the Right by stopping violence on the Left.

Huston saw his own role as the Administration's coordinator of all internal security matters. After writing his recommendations for the President, he sent a memorandum to Richard Helms, dated July 9. All future matters relating to domestic intelligence or internal security were to be sent to the "exclusive attention" of Tom Huston, since "the President is anxious to centralize the coordination at the White House of all information of this type. . . ." Huston ended: "Dr. Kissinger is aware of this new procedure." 134

Huston then waited expectantly for the decision of the President. It came via Haldeman on July 14: The President had approved the recommendations. 135 Former President Nixon has since stated, "My approval was based largely on the fact that the procedures were consistent with those employed by prior administrations and had been found to be effective by the intelligence agencies." 136

Huston was pleased. There was only one problem: President Nixon had told Haldeman he was too busy to meet again with Hoover and the other intelligence directors on this subject, as Huston had recommended. He preferred "that the thing simply be put into motion on the basis of this approval." Huston felt a certain uneasiness. He particularly wanted the President to invite Hoover in to give him the decision directly, "because it seemed to me it would be easier maybe to get him to accept it." 137 Nevertheless, Huston proceeded to draw up the official memorandum which would carry the news to the intelligence directors. The "Huston Plan" was now presidential policy.

B. Huston Plan, Phase Two: The President's Policy

Just over a week later, on July 23, 1970, Huston finished the official version of this presidentially-ratified plan and sent it on its way via courier to Hoover, Helms, Bennett and Gayler. 138 With only minor changes, this official intelligence plan repeated the recommendations made by Huston to the President earlier in the month. Now it began with the preface: "The President has carefully studied the special report of the Interagency Committee on Intelligence ... and made the following decisions." Huston had selected the most extreme options posed by the counterintelligence experts and the President of the United States had agreed with those recommendations.

Henceforth, with presidential authority, the intelligence community could at will intercept and transcribe the communications of Americans using international communications facilities; eavesdrop from near or afar on anyone deemed to be a "threat to the internal security;" read the mail of American citizens; break into the homes of anyone tagged as a security threat; and monitor in various ways the activities of suspicious student groups. Only the restraints on military intelligence collection were preserved, no doubt because the military was dead set against further involvement in the face of pending Congressional hearings on military surveillance of civilians.

The official memorandum to the intelligence directors further noted that on August 1, 1970, the permanent inter-agency committee on intelligence evaluation would be established, with the FBI Director as chairman (a palliative, according to Huston, to the defeated Hoover, meaning little, since he could easily be outvoted in the Committee). Huston would be the "personal representative to the President," with complete White House staff responsibility for domestic intelligence and internal security affairs. By September 1, 1970, just before the reconvening of students on campuses across the country, the agencies were expected to report on the steps they had taken to implement these decisions.

Reaction to the Huston Plan was mixed among the intelligence directors, ranging from surprise to shock and rage. Admiral Gayler was "surprised" that the President had selected the most extreme options. 139 General Bennett was pleased to hear about approval of a permanent committee for intelligence evaluation (he thought the FBI needed help in this area), but thought everything else in the memorandum was largely irrelevant to the mission of the Defense Intelligence Agency. 140 According to his assistant, James Stilwell, the two joked about Huston's signature on the plan. "They passed that one down about as low as it could go," they agreed, concluding that President Nixon and Haldeman "didn't have the guts" to sign it themselves. To them, the use of Huston as a possible scapegoat indicated "what a hot potato it was." 141

The Director of the FBI "went through the ceiling," Sullivan recalls. 142 Hoover and his assistant, Cartha DeLoach, walked immediately to Attorney General Mitchell's office nearby. Mitchell was totally surprised. It was the first time he had heard of the Ad Hoc Committee, let alone the Special Report or Huston's memorandum. His immediate reaction was to agree with Hoover: the illegalities spelled out in the memorandum could not be presidential policy. As Mitchell noted in Select Committee public hearings, individual items in the Huston Plan had been suggested to him before July 1970, and had been turned down. With the Huston Plan, "the aggregate was worse than the individual parts that had been suggested." 143 Moreover, he was "very much opposed to the thought of surreptitious "entry, the mail covers, and all of the other aspects of it that were involved at the particular time." 144 Hoover later told Sullivan that the Attorney General was angry he had been by-passed by Huston and others in the White House on this whole affair. 145

Mitchell told the Director to "sit tight" until President Nixon returned from San Clemente, the Attorney General would then discuss the whole affair with the President. 146 Hoover returned to his office and wrote a memorandum to Mitchell, re-emphasizing his strong opposition to the recommendations in this Huston Plan. In the memo, the FBI Director said he would implement the Plan but only with the explicit approval of the Attorney General or the President.

Despite my clear-cut and specific opposition to the lifting of the various investigative restraints referred to above and to the creation of a permanent interagency committee on domestic intelligence, the FBI is prepared to implement the instructions of the White House at your direction. Of course, we would continue to seek your specific authorization, where appropriate, to utilize the various sensitive investigative techniques involved in individual cases. 147

Richard Helms eventually went to see the Attorney General about the matter on July 27, 1970. The Director of Central Intelligence was greatly surprised to discover the Attorney General had heard of the Special Report and the Huston Plan only in the last couple of days from Hoover. "We had put our backs into this exercise," Helms told Mitchell, "because we had thought [the Attorney General] knew all about it and was behind it," 148 As Mitchell had advised Hoover, so too he told Helms to sit tight. 149

VI. RECISION OF THE HUSTON PLAN: A TIME FOR RECONSIDERATION

A. The President Takes a Second Look

When President Nixon returned from the Western White House, one of his first conversations on July 27 was with the Attorney General. The message Mitchell delivered was, according to his testimony, that "the proposals contained in the [Huston] Plan, in toto, were, inimical to the best interests of the country and certainly should not be something that the President of the United States should be approving." 150

As former President Nixon now recalls, "Mr. Mitchell informed me that Mr. Hoover, Director of the FBI and Chairman of the Interagency Committee on Intelligence, disagreed with my approval of the Committee's special report." 151 President Nixon was surprised by Hoover's objections because he had not voiced any reservations to the President when the Committee met "a few days earlier." 152 The Attorney General told the President that Hoover believed "initiating a program which would permit several government intelligence agencies to utilize the investigative techniques outlined in the Committee's report would significantly increase the possibility of their public disclosure," former President Nixon recalls. "Mr. Mitchell explained to me that Mr. Hoover believed that although each of the intelligence gathering methods outlined in the Committee's recommendations had been utilized by one or more previous administrations, their sensitivity would likely generate media criticism if they were employed." 153

Mitchell also indicated, according to the former President, it was his opinion that "the risk of disclosure of the possible illegal actions, such as unauthorized entry into foreign embassies to install a microphone transmitter, was greater than the possible benefit to be derived." 154 Based on his conversation with Mitchell, President Nixon decided to revoke his approval originally extended to the Committee's recommendations.

Warned by Sullivan of the chain of events between Hoover and Mitchell an the impending visit to the President by the Attorney General, Huston was expecting a call from Haldeman, which came later that day. 155 The Attorney General had come to the White House to talk about Huston's decision memorandum, Haldeman said. The President had decided to revoke the memorandum immediately, so that he, Haldeman, Mitchell, and Hoover could "reconsider" the recommendations.

The Attorney General did not take it upon himself to investigate the past illegalities referred to in the Huston Plan memorandum brought to his attention by Hoover. The following exchange ensued on this point during public hearings:

Q. You do agree, do you not, that looking at the document, dated June 1970, it does reveal that in the past, at least, mail had been opened, does it not?

Mr. Mitchell. I believe that is the implication, yes.

Q. And it does state in the document that the opening of mail is illegal, does it not?

Mr. Mitchell. I believe that with reference to a number of subjects were illegal and I think opening of mail was one of them.

Q. All right. Then based upon your knowledge from an examination of the document, that in the past at least illegal actions involving the opening of mail that had taken place, did you convene a grand jury to look into the admitted acts of illegality on behalf of some intelligence services?

Mr. Mitchell. I did not.

Q. And why not?

Mr. Mitchell. I had no consideration of that subject matter at the time. I did not focus on it and I was very happy that the plan was thrown out the window, without pursuing any of its provisions further.

Q. Are you now of the opinion that if you had had time to focus on the matter then it would have been wise to convene some investigation within the Department to determine what had happened in the past?

Mr. Mitchell. I believe that that would be one of the normal processes where you would give it initial consideration and see where it led to, what the statute of limitations might have been and all of the other factors you consider before you jump into a grand jury investigation.

Q. Excepting those point, do you agree that you should have at least considered the matter?

Mr. Mitchell. I think if I had focused on it I might have considered it more than I did. 156

Upset, angered, and embarrassed about having to recall his memorandum, Tom Huston walked to the White House Situation Room. 157 The Sit Room, "mailbox" of the White House, was the location where, among other things, couriers came and went. Huston went directly to the Chief of the White House Situation Room with the presidential order to rescind the decision memorandum of July 23, which had gone through there on its way to the intelligence directors. Huston was intense and agitated, the manager of the Sit Room recalls, and mentioned something about Hoover having "pulled the rug out" from under him. 158 The Sit Room Chief contacted the CIA, NSA, DIA, and the FBI to have the memoranda returned. By the close of business on the next day, July 28, each agency had complied. From markings on the memoranda, it was clear the agencies had removed the staples and photocopied the document for their records. 159

Though Huston had suffered a major setback, he was not going to yield easily. On August 3, he went to Haldeman's office and tried to persuade him to convince the President that the objections raised by Hoover had to be overridden. He urged a meeting between Haldeman, Mitchell, and Hoover. 160 Two days later in anticipation of this meeting, Huston put his views down on paper for Haldeman.

The memorandum, written under the title "Domestic Intelligence," ran five pages and was extremely critical of the FBI Director. 161 Huston first reminded Haldeman that all the agencies and all of Hoover's own staff on the ICI (Ad Hoc) supported the options selected by the President. Only Hoover dissented. "At some point, Hoover has to be told who is President," Huston wrote. "He has become totally unreasonable and his conduct is detrimental to our domestic intelligence operations.... If he gets his way it is going to look like he is more powerful than the President."

Huston further warned that "all of us are going to look damn silly in the eyes of Helms, Gayler, Bennett, and the military chiefs if Hoover can unilaterally reverse a presidential decision based on a report that many people worked their asses off to prepare and which, on its merits, was a first-rate, objective job." Tom Charles Huston was "fighting mad," for "what Hoover is doing here is putting himself above the President."

Two more days elapsed and, on August 7, 1970, Huston sent a second, terser note to Haldeman. 162 The FBI Director had left for the West Coast on vacation just as the new school year was about to open; across the country student violence loomed as a real possibility. Huston again urged Haldeman to act: "I recommend that you meet with the Attorney General and secure his support for the President's decision that the Director be informed that the decisions will stand, and that all intelligence agencies are to proceed to implement them at once." However, by this time, Huston recalls, "I was, for all intents and purposes, writing memos to myself." 163 Haldeman took no action. Hoover had won the battle.

The reasons for Hoover's victory were many but, Huston believes, having the support of the Attorney General was a large plus. 164 The President had a high regard for John Mitchell. When both Mitchell and Hoover agreed in their strong objections to the Plan, Nixon no doubt saw little point in continuing the effort.

Looking back, Sullivan sees other factors which worked in Hoover's favor as well. He believes the Chief Executive buckled under the pressure of the FBI Director partly because President Nixon and Hoover went back a long way, considered themselves old friends, and still socialized together frequently; and partly because the President owed his 1950s reputation as a staunch anti-Communist to Hoover. "Of course," Sullivan adds, "Hoover had his files, too." 165 The Director had another ace in the hole: he could always have had the Huston recommendations leaked, bringing the enterprise to a sudden halt.

Moreover, Huston notes that the opinions of Helms, Gayler, and Bennett were far less weighty than Hoover's. 166 Neither President Nixon nor Haldeman were well acquainted with Gayler or Bennett; and Helms' relationship with the White House tended to be precarious, Huston believes, "in view of the problems that be had with Mr. Kissinger on foreign intelligence estimates." Finally, Huston recalls, "neither the President nor Mr. Haldeman had, in my judgment, any sensitivity to the operational aspects of intelligence collection." 167

B. Huston Leaves the White House

The memoranda written by Huston went unanswered throughout the month of August. Shortly after writing his August 7th memorandum, Huston was informed by Haldeman that John Dean was taking over his responsibilities at the White House for domestic intelligence. Huston would be on Dean's staff. As Dean recalls, "Huston was livid." 168

John Dean had come to the White House on July 27th from the Justice Department, where he had worked with and impressed Mitchell for his skillful handling of negotiations with demonstrators for parade permits and other matters. He had no intelligence experience.

Dean realized that Huston was in an awkward situation. He asked Huston on August 10, 1970, what he wished to do while on Dean's staff. "Well, I'm a speechwriter," Huston replied. 169 In the following months, Huston would do practically whatever he felt like doing: 170 sending an occasional memo to the President or Haldeman on intelligence matters; 171 writing speeches for Pat Buchanan; continuing to circulate the daily FBI intelligence reports in the White House; reviewing conflict-of-interest clearances; prodding the Internal Revenue Service to investigate New Left organizations and their supporters; 172 and writing a lengthy history of Vietnam bombing negotiations.

Huston often spoke to his counterintelligence associates on a special scrambler phone which he kept hidden in his office in a safe. 173 Not until February 2, 1971, did Dean inform the CIA that, henceforth, he would be the White House contact on domestic intelligence matters, rather than Huston. 174

Huston occasionally sent further memoranda to Haldeman, again urging him to encourage the President to relax intelligence collection restraints. On August 17, 1970, for example, Huston complained that Hoover "has made no effort to remove the restrictions on development of informant coverage which currently exist," despite the President's oral request to Hoover on August 16 175 to intensify the investigation of extremist organizations. "We need changes at the operating level, not merely at the FBI," concluded Huston, "but throughout the intelligence community." 176 Finally, Huston found time to relate briefly to his new supervisor the saga of the Huston Plan. Dean had the distinct impression that Huston wanted to become the domestic equivalent of Henry Kissinger. 177

Growing ever more disenchanted with his position and with Nixon's policies, Huston resigned from the White House staff on June 13, 1971, and returned to Indiana to practice law. 178 He continued to serve as a consultant to the White House, finishing his study of Vietnam negotiations. On October 7,1972, he was named a member of a Census Bureau Advisory Committee on privacy and confidentiality.

Huston's original ally, William Sullivan, managed to remain on good terms with J. Edgar Hoover, at least for a few months -- he was reprimanded by the Director for letting the Ad Hoc staff get out of hand, 179 but nonetheless was promoted to Number 3 man in the FBI.

Sullivan's fall from power began several months after the Huston Plan, with his October 12, 1970 speech at Williamsburg, Virginia, where his answers to questions were critical of Hoover's ability to understand the changing nature of the U.S. internal security threat. Sullivan told his audience that the race riots and student upheaval had nothing to do with the Communist Party. Rather, they were attributable to problems within the American social order and to the Vietnam War. When he returned to Washington, Sullivan remembers, "all hell broke loose." 180 Hoover told him he had given "the wrong answers.... How do you expect me to get my appropriations," said the Director of the FBI, "if you keep downgrading the [Communist] Party." The breached widened, and finally, a year later on October 1, 1971, Hoover had Sullivan literally locked out of his office for good.

VII. THE HIDDEN DIMENSIONS OF THE HUSTON PLAN

A. Duplicity

Looking back on the summer of 1970, Tom Huston observes that the atmosphere of duplicity was the most astonishing aspect of the meetings at Langley. On June 5, the President had sat across the table from the directors of the major intelligence agencies and asked them for a comprehensive report on intelligence collection methods against domestic radicals. Instead, President Nixon and his representative were victims of deception. "I didn't know about the CIA mail openings, I didn't know about the COINTELPRO Program [an FBI internal security operation]," Huston says. "These people were conducting all of these things on their own that the President of the United States didn't know about.... In retrospect, we look like damned fools." 181 In interrogatory answers, the former President stated that he had no knowledge the CIA mail-opening program was already in existence before June 1970; he was aware, however, that the intelligence community read the outside of envelopes of selected mail. 182

Huston believes that part of the problem was bureaucratic gameplaying: ". . . the Bureau had its own game going over there. They didn't want us to know; they didn't want the [Justice] Department to know; they didn't want the CIA to know." And, across the Potomac, "the CIA had its own game going. They didn't want the Bureau to know." 183

Agencies concealed programs from one another partly out of "interagency jealousies and rivalries," Huston speculated. 184 They did not want to have revealed the fact that they were working on each other's "turf." For example, "Mr. Hoover would have had an absolute stroke if he had known that the CIA had an Operations CHAOS going on." 185 Huston has suggested another possible motivation for concealment:

I think the second thing is that if you have got a program going and you are perfectly happy with its results, why take the risks that it might be turned off if the President of the United States decides he does not want to do it; because they had no way of knowing in advance what decision the President might make. So, why should the CIA ... the President may say hell no, I don't want you guys opening any mail. Then if they had admitted it, they would have had to close the thing down. 186

The unfortunate end result of these concealments between agencies was the fact that the President did not know what his intelligence services were doing either.

The language in the Special Report concerning the CIA covert mail project is a clear example of the concealment of an illegal intelligence collection operation from the President. The section of the Report dealing with mail plainly stated that "covert coverage has been discontinued." 187 In truth, however, the CIA program to read the international mail of selected American citizens and foreigners was continuing to operate at the time of the Langley meetings.

Director Helms thinks he told Attorney General Mitchell about the CIA mail program; and he is uncertain whether President Nixon knew about it -- he personally never informed the President. 188 Mitchell has denied that Helms told him of a CIA mail-opening program, 189 and has testified further that the President had no knowledge of the program either, "at least not as of the time we discussed the Huston plan." 190

Helms' suggested that Huston may not have been told about the mail-opening program at any of the working group meetings because he was the White House contact man for "domestic intelligence. We thought we were in the foreign intelligence field." Whatever the explanation, however, it is clear that the President was given a misleading document.

James Angleton, who served as Chief of the CIA Counterintelligence Staff from 1954 to 1974 and was in charge of the CIA covert mail program from 1955 to its termination in 1973, had other explanations for the misleading language on the mail program in the Special Report.

Angleton testified: "It is still my impression ... that this activity that is referred to as having been discontinued refers to the Bureau's activities in this field ... it is certainly my impression that this was the gap which the Bureau was seeking to cure." 193 The language of the Report itself, however, does not reflect such a distinction.

Angleton also stated that the CIA would never discuss such a sensitive topic as their mail program in large meetings like the ICI Ad Hoc sessions at Langley, "The possibilities for leaks were too great for one thing," he observes. 194 One of Angleton's assistants has referred to the Langley meetings as "a fish bowl." 195 Delicate matters, if they required Presidential approval, "would have been raised either by the Director of the FBI or the Director of Central Intelligence," Angleton stressed. 196 Yet, insofar as the record indicates, neither of the Directors did raise this topic with the President.

During public hearings, Angleton stated that the concealment from the President was not deliberate:

Mr. Angleton: Mr. Chairman, I don't think anyone would have hesitated to inform the President if he had at any moment asked for a review of intelligence operations.

Senator Church: That is what he did do. That is the very thing he asked Huston to do. That is the very reason that these agencies got together to make recommendations to him, and when they made their recommendations, they misrepresented the facts.

Mr. Angleton: I was referring, sir, to a much more restricted forum.

Senator Church: I am referring to the mail, and what I have said is solidly based upon the evidence. The President wanted to be informed. He wanted recommendations. He wanted to decide what should be done, and he was misinformed.

Not only was he misinformed, but when he reconsidered authorizing the opening of the mail five days later and revoked it, the CIA did not pay the slightest bit of attention to him, did it, the Commander-in-Chief, as you say?

Mr. Angleton: I have no satisfactory answer for that.

Senator Church: You have no satisfactory answer?

Mr. Angleton: No, I do not.

Senator Church: I do not think there is a satisfactory answer because having revoked the authority the CIA went ahead with the program. So that the Commander-in-Chief is not the Commander-in-Chief at all. He is just a problem. You do not want to inform him in the first place because he might say no. That is the truth of it. And when he did say no you disregard it, and then you call him the Commander-in-Chief. 197

Questioning Tom Huston on the subject of mail openings, the Chairman of the Select Committee summarized the Huston Plan exercise as follows:

Senator Church: So we have a case where the President is asked to authorize mail openings, even though they are illegal. And quite apart from whether he should have done it, and quite apart from whether or not the advice of the Attorney General should have been asked, he acceded to that request, thinking that he was authorizing these openings -- not knowing that his authority was an idle gesture, since these practices had been going on for a long time prior to the request for his authority. And after he revoked that authority, the practices continued, even though he had revoked it.

That is the state of the record, based on your testimony?

Mr. Huston: Yes, I think it is. 198

In retrospect, Huston reasons that if he and others in the White House had known these intelligence options were being exercised already and had not produced results significant enough to curb domestic unrest, "it conceivably would have changed our entire attitude toward the confidence we were willing to place in the hands of the intelligence community in dealing with this problem." 199

Huston now points to the irony in the fact that intelligence is suppossed to provide policymakers with information upon which to make decisions, but in June 1970 the top policymaker in the government was kept unaware that certain sources of information were even available. 200 Part of the problem seemed to be excessive compartmentation in the intelligence agencies.

The failure of the CIA participants to tell Tom Huston of their mail-opening program was not the only example of dissimulation during this episode. Sullivan attempted to give Hoover the impression that he was not a part of the efforts to relax the restraints on intelligence collection. He wrote in a memorandum to Cartha DeLoach -- his immediate supervisor and the Number 3 man in the FBI in June 1970 -- that Benson Buffham (the NSA representative at the Langley meetings) was taking a particularly active role in the review of the "restraints" section of the draft. "Admiral Noel Gaylor (sic) of the National Security Agency," wrote Sullivan, "may have been a moving force behind the creation of this committee.'' [Emphasis added.] 202 Sullivan was indeed in a good position to know. He and Tordella of NSA (Gaylor's deputy) had viewed these meetings since the beginning as, in Tordello's words, "nothing less than a heaven-sent opportunity for NSA . . . . " 203 Yet, Sullivan ended his memo for the FBI leadership with the admonition: "Contingent upon what the President decides, it is clear that there could be problems involved for the Bureau." 204

This was the first written example of Sullivan's apparent strategy to impress upon Hoover, Tolson, and DeLoach his disassociation with attempts to relax restraints which Hoover wanted maintained. Two days later on June 20, Sullivan took a definitely pro-Hoover position in a memorandum for the Director. He recommended that the FBI oppose "the relaxation of investigative restraints which affect the Bureau." 205 Everything he had been working for with Huston, Tordella, and the others was denied. For the Director's consumption, he portrayed himself as the arch-defender of the Bureau's image, protecting Hoover and the FBI against the excesses of Huston's committee. The memorandum was written on the same day Sullivan's rival, Cartha DeLoach, made a decision to leave the FBI to become a business executive, thereby clearing the pathway to higher office in the Bureau for Sullivan.

As for the proposed interagency committee -- an idea for which both he and Huston had expressed strong commitment and lively interest 206 -- Sullivan concluded on the eve of his promotion to the Number 3 spot in the FBI: "I do not agree with the scope of this proposed committee nor do I feel that an effort should be made at this time to engage in any combined preparations of intelligence estimates." 207

Huston suspected that the opposition of the FBI's representatives was ambivalent. "I am sure that, tactically, the people in the Bureau probably were telling Hoover that 'the other fellows are pushing this stuff,"' Huston has testified. "If I had to gamble, that would be my bet. Probably 'Huston over there with a black snake whip,' or Helms or somebody else which didn't bother me, I mean tactically, if that is the way the people figured that they had to push the Director to get done what they wanted to do. 208

There is little doubt, however, that Huston and the Sullivan group of the FBI set the agenda and shaped the format of the Special Report. Huston, Sullivan, and Brennan had discussed the direction the Committee ought to take many times over. 209 They worked closely together during the June meetings; and before formal meetings, Huston, Sullivan and the Bureau representatives were in frequent contact over the telephone or talking together directly. Members of the FBI contingent would pick up Huston at the White House on the way to Langley and bring him back after the ICI meetings. Often they lunched together.

Huston saw himself acting, in part, in the capacity of a sympathetic White House staffer passing on to the President what the professionals wanted. "And I agreed with them," he emphasizes. "I say 'agreed.' After you work with somebody and you are convinced that what they want to do is right, you agree with them." 210 There was no doubt in Huston's mind that FBI, CIA, and NSA professionals were pushing hard for expanded intelligence collection operations. They "clearly wanted me to recommend to the President that these operations be adopted," he remembers. 211 To conclude that Huston dominated and manipulated the intelligence community is an error. The r elationship was symbiotic. As Huston has explained,

... the entire intelligence community, in the summer of 1970, thought we had a serious crisis in this country. I though we had a serious crisis in this country. My attitude was that we have got to do something about it. Who knows what to do about it. The professional intelligence community? The professional intelligence community tells me, "you give us these tools; we can solve the problem." I recommended those tools. 212

The duplicity went beyond the CIA mail program and Sullivan's dissembling. A subsequent section of this commentary reveals that the intelligence agencies greatly expanded their collection programs after President Nixon revoked his authority for the Huston plan, without obtaining presidential approval for their actions.

B. Lawlessness

Several of the techniques discussed in the drafting of the Special Report were of questionable legality. For example, covert mail cover and surreptitious entry were, in Huston's words, "clearly illegal." 213 And, the legitimacy of other intelligence collection methods, such as placement of American names on the NSA watch list, was highly questionable. 214 Yet, former President Nixon does not recall "any discussion concerning the possible illegality of any of the intelligence gathering techniques described in the report during my meeting with the [ICI] Committee [on June 5, 1970]." 215

During public hearings, Senator Walter Mondale asked Huston whether any one of the ICI staff members had objected "during the course of making up these options to these recommendations which involved illegal acts":

Mr. Huston: At the working group level, I do not recall any objection.

Senator Mondale: Do you recall any of them ever saying we cannot do this because it is illegal?

Mr. Huston: No.

Senator Mondale: Can you recall any discussion whatsoever concerning the illegality of these recommendations?

Mr. Huston: No.

Senator Mondale: Does that strike you as peculiar that top public officers in the most high level and sensitive positions of government would discuss recommending to the President actions which are clearly illegal and possibly unconstitutional without ever asking themselves whether that was a proper thing for them to be doing?

Mr. Huston: Yes, I think it is, except for the fact that I think that for many of those people we were talking about something that they had been aware of, had been undertaking for a long period of time.

Senator Mondale: Is that an adequate justification?

Mr. Huston: Sir, I am not trying to justify, I am just trying to tell you what my impression is of what happened at the time.

Senator Mondale: Because if criminals could be excused on the grounds that someone had done it before, there would not be much of a population in any of the prisons today, would there?

Mr. Huston: No. 216

Legal advice was not sought, several important legal matters were involved in preparing the report for the President. The CIA General Counsel was not included or consulted, since, as Angleton had testified, "the custom and usage was not to deal with General Counsel, as a rule, until there were some troubles. He was not a part of the process of project approval." 217

Avoidance of legal and constitutional matters was, apparently, not uncommon throughout the intelligence community. William Sullivan has testified:

During the ten years that I was on the U.S. Intelligence Board, a Board that receives the cream of intelligence for this country from all over the world and inside the United States, never once did I hear any body, including myself, raise the question: "Is this course of action which we have agreed upon lawful, is it legal, is it ethical or moral?" We never gave any thought to this realm of reasoning, because we were just naturally pragmatists. The one thing we were concerned about was this: will this course of action work, will it get us what we want, will we reach the objective that we desire to reach? 218

Sullivan attributes much of this attitude concerning the law to the molding influence of World War II upon young FBI agents who have since risen to high position. In a deposition, Sullivan noted that during the 1940s there was "a war psychology. Legality was not questioned. Lawfulness was not a question; it was not an issue."