SENATE REPORT NO 94 755 94TH CONGRESS 20 Session SUPPLEMENTARY DETAILED STAFF REPORTS ON INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES AND THE RIGHTS OF AMERICANS BOOK FINAL REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE 0 STUDY GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS WITH RESPECT TO INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES UNITED STATES SENATE APRIL 23 under authority of the order of APRIL 14 1976 U S GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 6943 0 WASHINGTON 1976 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents U 3 Government Printing Of ce W ushington D C 20402- Price 65 SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE TO STUDY GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS WITH RESPECT TO INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES FRANK CHURCH Idaho Chairman JOHN G TOWER Texas Vice Chairman PHILIP A HART Michigan HOWARD H BAKER JEL Tennessee WALTER F MONDALE Minnesota BARRY GOLDWATER Arizona WAIJTER D Kentucky CHARLES MCC MATHIAS JEL Maryland ROBERT MORGAN North Carolina RICHARD S- SCHWEIKER GARY HART Colorado G MILLER Stay Director FREDERICK A 0 In Chief Counsel CURTIS R SMOTHEBS Counsel to the Hinority AUDREY HATRY Clerk 0 the Committee 113 CONTENTS Letter of COINTELPRO The Covert Action Programs Against American Citizens Dr Martin Luther King Jr Case Study The Covert Action Program To Destroy The Black Panther The Use Of Informants In FBI Intelligence Investigations Warrantiess FBI Electronic Surveillance Werrantless Surreptitious Entries FBI Black Bag Break-ins And MiCrophone Installations The Development of FBI Domestic Intelligence Investigations Domestic CIA and FBI Mail Opening CIA Intelligence Collection About Americans CHAOS Pregram And The O ice of Security National Security Agency Surveillance Affecting Americans Improper Surveillance of Private Citizens By The Military The Internal Revenue Service An Intelligence Resource and Collector u National Security Civil Liberties And The Collection of Intelligence A Report On The Huston Plan Staff List Page 1 79 185 225 271 353 373 559 679 733 785 835 921 937 NATIONAL SECURITY CIVIL LIBERTIES AND THE COLLECTION OF INTELLIGENCE A REPORT ON THE HUSTON PLAN CONTENTS I Introduction Page A The Scope of the Investigation 923 B A Preeis 924 C Issues 927 11 Back mind A Time of Turbulence Frustrations in the White House 928 B The Huston-Sullivan Alliance_-- 929 C The New 930 D The Pressure of Events 933 The Meetings The Writing of the Special Report A Who What When and Where 934 B At the White House June 5th The President Re nests an Intelligence Report 936 C In Hoover s O ice one 8th A Premonitory Disagreement 933 D The Langley Meetings Drafting the Intelligence Report 939 The First Langley Meeting Setting the Agenda 939 The Second Langley Meeting Early Discussions 940 The Third Langley Meeting Reviewing the First Draft 941 The Fourth Langley Meeting TPhe FinalIJraft 942 E The Signing Ceremony 945 IV An Intelligence Report for the President The options A Category One Communications Intelligence 945- B Category Two Electronics Surveillance and Penetrations -- 946 C Category Three Mail Coverage 947 D Category Four Surreptitious Entry 948 E Category Five Development of Campus Sources- 943 F Category Six Use of Military Undercover Agents 949 G Category Budget and Manpower 950 H Category Eight Permanent and Interagency 950 I Category Nine Removed Surreptitious Optical Surveillance 951 J Category Ten Removed Investigations of Diplomatlc Personnel - 95 1 V The Huston Plan A Boston Plan Phase One Advice for the President 951 B Huston Plan Phase Two The President s policy 955 VI Recision of the Huston Plan A Time for Reconsideration A The President Takes a Second look 957 B Huston Leaves the White House 961 VII The Hidden Dimensions of the Huston Plan A Duplicity 962 B 967 Mixed motives 9'71 D Credit Card Revolutionaries 973 921 922 Aftermath The End or the Beginning A The Intelligence Evaluation Committee B Secret Meeting 1with Hoover 1X Summer and Conclusions A ccountability Authority and the Law B The Quality and Coordination of Intelligence C Public Polio r Implicationa_ Table Summary of the Meetings for the Preparation of an Intelligence Report for the President June 1970 Ap endix Chronology of Huston Plan and Intelligence Evaluation prepared by Senate Select Committee eta Page 974 977 980 931 981 935 983 NATIONAL SECURITY CIvn LIBERTIES AND THE COLLECTION OF INTELLIGENCE A REPORT ON THE HUSTON PLAN I I NTBODUGTIDN 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 Res olution 21 a Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities The Select Committee on In telhgence was given a broad mandate to investigate the extent if any to which illegal improper or unethical activities were engaged by the intelligence agencies of the Federal Government Falling within this mandate was the speci c 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 organiza tions within the United States 1 This report presents the results of the Select Committee inquiry into this controversial intelligence lan In June 1970 President Nixon requested a review of those mtel- ligence collection practices which might lead to better information on domestic dissenters In response the intelligence conununity 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 rst 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 e 'ect 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 intel- ligence report for him The Committee investigation into the Huston Plan began in April 1975 During the course of the inquiry over 40 interviews were con- ducted These included all major and most minor participants in the intelligence agencies who helped draft the intelligence report for 1 Senate Resolution 21 January 27 1975 See 923 69-984 0 75 - 59 924 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 negotiations the conditions set for the interwew 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 repel-t Supplemented by this presidential retrosPect the extensive docu- mentation now available as well as the existence of views from vir- tually 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 brie y in the following pr cis 2 A Point's Richard M Nixon won his first Presidential election in 1968 by less than one percent of the total popular vote The Presidential cam- paign that year had been accompanied by some of the most violent street demonstrations in the history of American elections His rst year in of ce provided the President with ample further evidence of the mood of revolt in the countr In March and April 1969 student riots erupted in San Francisco ambridge and Ithaca and in Chicago ghetto blacks battled the police in the streets By October and November the antiwwar movement was suf ciently well organized to bring to the nation s capital the largest mass demonstra- tions ever witnessed in the United Stems 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 Presidential assistant Tom Huston and others in the Write 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 de ciencies in intelli gence collection had resulted from the decision in the mid-1960s by J Edgar Hoover the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investiga- tion to curtail certain collection techniques particularly surrepti- tious entry and electronic surveillance This view was shared widely by intelligence of cers 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 Tern 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 Domestlc See the main text for documentation of facts presented in the pr cis 925 Intelligence FBI to help remove Hoover s restraints on intelli- gence collection By the spring of 1970 Huston decided to or senior White House personnel to have the President request a orough review of intelligence collection methods The President himself greatly concerned about domestic unrest a eed to the proposal On June 5 1970 President Nixon he 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 Speci cally this Interagency Committee on Intelligence Ad Hoe was charged with the prepara- tion of a report for the President on existing intelligence gaps how to close them and how to enhance coordination among the'i-ntelligenee agenems Assigned a tight deadline the Ad Hoe Committee stall prepared the study in a fortnight The nal report was entitled Special Report Interagency Committee on Intelligence Ad on one 25 1970 it received the signaturesof the four top intelli nee directors Hoover FBI Helms CIA Bennett DIA and ayler N SA 3 The enterprise was imique It pooled the resources of the foreign - oriented CIA DIA and NBA with those of the domestiooriented FBI Many of the participants endorsed the enterprise enthusiasr tically not because of an interest in hotter 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 brie y fearful of breaking through the membranes of law and propriety Drawing upon the Special Report Tom Huston prepared a memo-4 randu-m in earlyJuly for Presidential adviser H R Bob Haldeman under the heading Operational Restraints on lIntelligence Collection In this memorandum Huston who had been the White House rep- resentative at the Ad Hoc Committee meetings recommended that the President select for implementation those optionsin the Special Report which would have relaxed dramatically the current restrictions on ins telligence collection The set of options recommended by Huston is de ned 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 J Edgar Hoover Director Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI and Chairman 01' the Ad Hoc Committee Richard Helms Director - Uentral Intelli- gence Agency CIA Lt General Donald V Bennett USA Director Defense Intelligence Agency BIA Vice Admiral Noel Gayle-r pronounced GUY ler USN Director National Security Agency NBA 3 Since the Senate Watergate Committee revealed Nixon White Heusc rela- tions with the intelligence community the term Huston Plan has been generally used in reference to recommendations and options described in both the Special Report of the Interagency Committee on Intelligence Ad Hoc June 1970 and in the memomndum from Tom Charles Huston to H B Haldeman July 1970 In this report Special Report refers only to the Special Report of the Interagency Committee on Intelligence Ad Hoc and Huston Plan refers to the recommendations outlined in the memorandum from Huston to Haldeman July 1970 - 926 Presidential approval of the options recommended by Huston would have given intelligence and counterintelligence specialists within the intelligence cmnmuni-ty authority no 1 monitor the international communications of US citizens 2 intensify the electronic surveillance of domestic dis- senters and selected establishments - 3 read the iirtemational mail of American citizens 4 break into speci ed 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 collec- tion restraints This decision later formed the core of Article II 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 memo rand-um to each of the intelligence agency directors dated July 23rd infomning them that certain restraints on intelligence collection were being removed Writing under theheading Domestic Intelligence Huston invoked Ithe authority of the and outlined exactly which restrictions were to be lifted This document is the second sion of the Huston Plan and is similar to the rst sent to the President for 'his approval via Haldeman in early July Four days later on July 27th the Huston Plan sent to the intelli- gence 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 rst 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 dis covery of a much more extensive degree of impropriety in the intel- ligence community than was initially revealed in 1973 Moreover the Committee found instances of duplicity between the intelligence agen cies and the President and amon agencies themselves Despite lthe request of lthe Presi ent for a complete report on intel- 1i gence problems the Special Report of June 197 0 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 con- tained on watch lists submitted by other agencies The CIA mail program was clearly illegal and the NSA program was of question- able lawfulness Not only were laws violated but the President was asked to consider approving the CIA mail opening program appar- ently without ever being told of its existence Furthermore despite the ultimate decision rby the President to re- voke 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 927 would provide the contents of any interce ted international commu nications of those citizens to the other inte ligence agencies The number of Americans on this watch list expanded to a high point in 197 3 The CIA continued its illegal program of mail opening After the Huston Plan the FBI lowered the age of campus inform- ants thereby expanding surveillance of Amarican college students as sought through the Plan In 1971 the FBI reinstated its uselof mail covers 3 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 intelli- gence evaluation called the Intelligence Evaluation Committee IEC an entity highly comparable to one outlined in the Special Report Finally several of the rincipals involved in the Huston Plan episode continued to seek the 11 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 ulti- mate rejection of the Huston Plan Placed in perspective the Huston Plan must be viewed as but a single example of a continuous e ort 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 Con ress or the people As a cone mentary on accountability the lesson 0 the Huston Plan is obvious often there was no accountability at all beyond the intelligence agen cies themselves The result was a neglect of civil liberties by the intelli- gence collectors 0 7381563 The case of the Huston Plan has been of particular signi cance because it raises a host of central issues about the American intelli- gence 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 con- ceal operations from the President in June 1970 From the representa- tive of the President Tom Huston From the Attorney General From the Congress From each other What review procedures ex- isted to evaluate and approve the various collection techniques dis- cussed in the Special Report Were these procedures used Lawlessneas Has the White House or the intelligence service acted in disregard for thelawi 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 legalit l Did the intelligence rofessionals or Tom Huston seek legal consu tation with the Justice Il epartment Congress the courts or their own legal counsel in drafting the intelli- gence plan mail cover involves a request to the Postal Service to examine the ex- terior of mail addressed to or from a particular individual or organization 928 _Quelity and Coordimtioa of Intelligence How justi ed was the d1ssat1sfaction_ expressed by the Nixon Administration with the quality and coordination of intelligence on domestic dissenters in 1969 and 1970 D1d the raising of barriers to intelligence collection by Hoover in the mid-1960 s si i cantly reduce the quality of counterintelligence information How adly were intelligence functions impaired by the severance of formal liaison ties between the FBI and the other intelli- gence 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 re ected in the Report and subsequent memoranda are provoca tive stimuli for thought debate and reform on the scope and method if-intelligence activities within the United States If BACKGROUND A THEE OF TURBULENCE A Frastmtimis in the White Ems The antiwar protests and the incidents of violence and civil dis- obedience which occurred throughout the country in 1969 and 1970 greatly concerned the Nixon Administration much as it had the ohn- son ndministration before it Amon the responses of both adminis trations was the belief that hostile oreign powers must somehow be responsible for or at least in uencing the domestic Unrest President Johnson often asked the intelligence agencies to robe the possibility of linkages between the antiwar movement an foreign in uence Not long after entering the White House President Nixon took up the refrain In April 1969 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 con- nection 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 pre- pare a second and more thorough report on foreign support of campus disturbances Tom Charles Huston lawyer and recently discharged Army intelligence o icer drew the assignment chie y because he was interested in the subject and seemed to know more about New Left politics than anyone else on the White House staff 011 June 19 1969 Huston paid his rst visit to William O Sullivan of the Sullivan had served as the Assistant Director for Domestic Intelli once since 1961 In this position he was responsible for counterintel igence 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 G D Brennan testimony 3 25 75 Hearings Vol 2 pp 104 107 135 Tom Charles Huston deposition 5 23 75 p 4 Huston deposition 5f23f 75 p 4 Memorandum from William C Sullivan'to Eartha DeLoach 6 20 69 Hear- lugs1 Vol 2 Exhibit 5 929 he had with the President Concerned about revolutionary activities by the New Left the President wanted to know the details on the radical movement cepecially Sullivan remembers Huston enb phasming all information possible relating to foreign in uences and the financing of the New Left 3 T0 at least one intelligence of cial 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 Suliivan 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 011 the next day June 20 1969 Huston prepared the request to be sent to Hoover With the earlier re- port which the FBI had prepared for Ehrlichman in mind Huston told the Director that the available intelligence data on Communist in uence over radicals was inadequate 1 On behalf of the Presi- dent Huston wanted to know what gaps existed in intelligence on radicals and what steps could be taken to provide maximum ossible coverage of their activities Unwilling to accept earlier inte ligence results which did not t 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 covera would be neces sari r as it appears there will be increasing closer inks 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 eSpecialljr the FBI data and the disenchantment with the intelligence agencies continued 13 3 The Hustm Sanioan Allirmce Throughout the rest of 1969 Huston was assigned to receive and disseminate FBI intelligence estimates sent to the White House Con- tempt 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 espe cially after he became more acquainted with Sullivan Listening to the 3 Sullivan memorandum 6 20 69 Stair summary of intelligence oi cer interview 6 27 75 1 Sullivan memorandum 6 20f69 1 Memorandum from Tom Charles Huston to J Edgar Hoover 6 20f69 Hear- ings Vol 2 Exhibit 1 Memorandum from G D Brennan to William C Sullivan 6 30 69 Hear- ings Vol 2 Exhibit 7 3 Huston deposition Liv 23 175 p 19 1 Huston deposition 5 23f75 pp 19 21 930 counterintelligence specialists made Huston sympathetic to the dif culties 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 5 From June 1969 to June 197 0 the iinportant relationship between Huston and Sullivan deepened into a working alliance devoted to the lowering of intelligence collection barriers As a Central Intelligence Agency o cer 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 1 The two had numerous meetings and telephone conversations during this cried beginning with dialogues on the report prepared for the Presi ent in June 1969 and followed by preparations to deal with protest activity in the Washington 13 0 area As Huston recalls it was during this period that he became close to Sullivan and his assistant Brennan think I had their con dence 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 testi ed And they certainly had my con dence In fact I do not think there was anyone in the government who I respected more than Mr Sullivan 1 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 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 de- ciencies could be remedied if the intelligence agencies and partic ularly the FBIHiirould reinstate collection methods common in the good old days such as the use of electronic surveillance to obtain in- telligence data 18 0 The New Hoover Counterintelligence specialists throughout the government were dis- mayed when undercover FBI operations important to them and car- ried out for several years were suddenly suspended by Hoover in the 1960s The new emphasis in the Kennedy Administration on investi- Huston deposition 5 23 75 28 see also Tom Charles Huston testimony 9 23 75 Hearings Vol 2 pp 16 18 1 Memorandum for the Record James Angleton 5 18 73 p 2 Hearings Vol 2 Exhibit 61 see also Huston deposition 5 23 75 1 23 and staff summary of William Sullivan interview 6 10 75 1' Huston 9 23 75 Hearings 1 16 Huston deposition 5 23 75 p 33 Sullivan staff summary See Sullivan's endorsement in March 1970 of a proposal advanced by Richard Helms the CIA Director that the FBI consider installing electronic surveillance upon GIA request with the prior approval of the Attorney General and on a 1'9- lative basis In a handwritten note Hoover vetoed the idea Memorandum from William O Sullivan to Cartha DeLoach 3 30 70 1 Sullivan emf sunlmary 6 10 75 931 gations into organized crime and civil rights had already drained man- power from security and intelligence operations according to an ex- perienced FBI counterintelligence specialist Then by the mid-19603 Hoover began to terminate speci c security programs In July 1966 for example Hoover wrote on a memorandum that henceforth all FBI 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 profes- sionals Helms Bennett and Gayler all expressed this view as did privately key intelligence o icers 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 sug gested that the wiretap hearings held by Senator Edward V Long in 1965 had turned public opinion against the use of certain intelligence- gathering techniques and that the Director was merely reading the writing on the wall One seasoned CIA intelligence o icer recalls Mr Hoover s real concern was that during the Johnson Ad- ministration where the Congress was delving into matters pertaining to FBI activities Mr Hoover looked to the Presi- dent to give him support in terms of conducting those opera - tions 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 con dence in the number one law enforcement agency -2i Others pointed to the increased risks involved in break-ins because of new and sephisticated security precautions taken various Bureau targets Hoover according to this theory was unwil ing to engage in past practices when faced with the new dangers of bein caught The fact that Hoover reached age 79 in 1965 was $550 s1gni cant 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 Director-ship was now reviewed for renewal on an annual basis So he became accordin to an FBI of cial very conscious of the fact that any incident whic within his Brennan 9l25 75 Hearings 1 101 31 See also J Edgar Hoover s handwritten notes on memorandum from William O Sullivan to Cartha DeLoach 7 19 68 13 3 As early as 1963 Hoover began to oppose the broad use of domestic wiretaps Memorandum from William C Sullivan to Gartha DeLoach 3 7 70 2 Richard Helms deposition 9 10 75 1 3 General Donald V Bennett dep- osition p 12 Admiral Noel Gayler deposition 6 19 75 pp 84' So - livan staff summary 6 10 75 Huston deposition 5 23 75 13 36 In the latter part of 1989 Hoover was advising the CIA to see the Attorneyr General not hind if it wanted to expand its intelligence collection on foreigners within the United States Sullivan memorandum 3 30 10 5 Staff summary of intelligence o icer 3 20 75 1 James Angleton testimony 9 24 75 Hearings Vol 2 pp 6940 In April 1970 Sullivan noted that we have had to retreuch in recent years larger as a result of the lack of support from responsible quarters Memorandum from Wil- liam O Sullivan to Cartha DeLoach 4 14 70 Hearings Vol 2 Exhibit 2 Sullivan staff summary 6 10 75 932 understanding might prove an embarrassment to the Bureau could re ect questionably on his leadership of the Bureau 2 Several highly-placed observers in the intelligence community also believed the Director was simply growing old and more wary about preserving his established repu tation a wariness nurtured by the pro- tective instincts of his close friend and professional colleague Clyde Tolson who held the second highest position in the FBI Dr Louis Tordella theIlong-time top civilian at SA speculated in conversa- tions With William O Sullivan in 1969 that Tolson probably had told Hoover something to the e 'ect If these techniques ever back re youtil gigage and the reputation of the Bureau will be badly dam- age Tordella Sullivan and others in the intelligence world grew in impatient with the new Hoover and with what they con- cidered to be his obstinance on the question of intelligence collection If they were to expand their collection capabilities as they and the Whlte 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 Their 15 minute appointment with Mr Hoover in the spring of that year stretched into two-and-a-half hours The experts rst 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 rein- stating 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 grati ed 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 in dicating 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 couldn t go to the chief law enforcement gure in the country and ask him to ap rove something that was illegal he recently ex plained despite 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 pa tience for one another for several years Hoover distrusted the '5 Brennan 9f25 75 Hearings 1 97 Staff summary of Louis Tordella interview 61'13 75- Tordella staff summary 6 16 1 5 933 Ivy league style of CIA personnel in general according to Sul- livan intelligence was a term 'of derision Hoover liked to use against the Agency 29 Gayler and Bennett newcomers to the intel- ligence community were warned immediately by their assistants not to challenge the Director of the Bureau directly on matters relating to domestic intelligence so It would take the pressure of events skillful maneuvering by a group of FBI counterintelligence Specialists and Huston s strategic peeition on the White House staff to focus the attention of the Presi- dent on the problem of intelligence collection D The Pressure of Events Events encouraged action Riots and bombings escalated through- out the country in the spring of 1970 In his of cial 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 threatsin one 24 hour period in New York City 31 The explosion of a Weather man bomb factory in a Greenmch Village townhouse in March particularly shocked Toni 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 dispute over con dential sources in Colorado i3 Though hostility between the two agencies had sur faced before with some frequency over matters such as disagreement regarding the bone dca of communist defectors this particular dis- pute was the one straw that broke the camel s back 3 The incident in Colorado now known as the Ribs Case involved a CIA o ieer who received information concerning the disappearance of a foreign national on the faculty of the University'of Colorado a Czechoslo- vak by the name of Thomas Riha The information apparently came from an unnamed FBI o cer stationed in Denver Hoover demanded to know the identity of the FBI agent but as a matter of arsenal in 'ty 'the CIA of cer re- fused to divulge the name of his source cover was furious With Helms for not providing the FBI with this information and in a- t of pique 35 he broke formal Bureau ties with the Agency I To 3 Sullivan staff summary 3 Gayle - deposition 6 19 75 p 28 stat summary of General Donald Bennett interview 6f5f75 1 Resident Nixon statement 5f22f73 Presidentiai' ocumta Vol 9 No 21 May 28 1973 p 694 Huston deposition 5123175 1 21 Hoover issued an order that direct liaison with CIA Headquarters be terminated and that any contact with CIA in the future he by letter only Henceforth the position of FBI 1131mm agent to the BIA was eliminated See also Hoover s notes on a letter from Richard Helms to J Edgar Hoover 2 28 70 and Sam Papich deposition 9 22 31 5 p 3 3 Angletou 9 24 75 Hearings pp 83 84 a Staff summary of intelligence 2 9 76 3' By midsumer formal Bureau liaison ties with-alt other intelligence agen- cies had been terminated as well leaving only a staff linkage between Sullivan in the Bureau and Huston in the White House 934 many observers including Huston and Sullivan the severance of these ties contributed to the perceived inability of the Bureau s intelligence divisionto perform their task adequately In context a special meeting was called on April 22 1970 in Haldeman s o ice In attendance were Haldeman Krogh Huston Alexander Butter eld who had responsibility for White House liaison with the Secret Service and Ehrlichman The purpose of this gather mg was to improve coordination among the White House staff for contact With intelligence agencies in the government and more im- portantly as Huston remembers to decide whether because of the escalating level of the violence something within the government further needed to be done 3 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 re ort on what could be done The meeting was planned for May In a dition Tom Huston was given a high stall position in the White House henceforth he would have respons1bilities for internal security He was now in a strategic pos1tion to hel Sullivan reverse existing Bureau policies The meeting tween 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 importan recalls Huston The expansion of the Indo- china war into Cambodia and the shootings at Kent State and ack- son 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 111 THE MEETINGS 3 TIIE WRITING OF THE SPECIAL REPORT A Who What When and Where Throughout June 1970 a series of seven important meetings on in- telligence were held in Washington They began on une 5th in the Oval Of ce with a conference between the Chief Executive and the intelligence directors at which President Nixon requested the prep aration of an intelligence report and they ended twenty days later in Hoover s of ce where the directors gathered to of cially sign the re- port for the President In between these two meetings came a pre- liminary plannin session in Hoover s o ice on June 8 and four sub- sequent sta meetings held at CIA Headquarters in Langley Virginia It was at these staff meetings that the intelligence report was formu- lated See Table 1 a 'JEluaton deposition 5 23 1 5 p 22 H R Haldeman's appointment calendar for April 22 1970 includes a list of participants at this meeting Memorandum from John R Brown to H R Haldeman 3' Hostel deposition 5 23 75 1 26 OF THE FOR THE PREPARATION OF AN INTELLIGENCE REPORT Fil' R THE PRESIDENT JUNE 1570 Heating Nonaetlng Juno 51 -- Jun Juno 9 I June 12 1 Juno 1 I Juno 3 loan 25 Home FBI cm can a participants - - Prosldent Nixon Hoover Helms Helms nonleton CIA Gregor FBI Lion- colonel tailor Stiluroll Hoowr Holma Hoover no Savior Bennett au lmm tanan up n Mop'ro I Sullivan a Monro Ga 1a Bennett Helms Bu nam PISA Downro Anny Captain lli anhurgh FBI Su lino Huston Admin Gayle Sullivan FBI Huston Navy Brennan nan Eonnott G Mom rag DIAL Ilrl1cl1man H Haldaman H Huston 3 mating Ho uast for intol- Planning malon Agenda Rama of working lat dra 2d draft ceremony luanpa plan papers Film J an advisor to the President alsolattandacl this mealing hut lust as a holdovar from an minim Invited to stay on by the Proudanl at those Individual listad attondod a ma a of the 4 staff mornings hold at the Contra loo Money Note Helms D Moore and Honor attended only the lat CIA meeting A law ulnar obaorvan not listad above attended or more of the last 3 muons at the can Including D Brennan al Frao'J Cassia oi tho FBI 936 B At the White Horace June 5th The President Bequests an telie'genee Report Huston was responsible for arranging the conference between Presii dent Nixon and the intelligence leaders and had briefed the President 111 advance The brie ng was based on a two page working paper that Huston prepared rel ing on his conversations with the considerably more experienced ivan As Sullivan s assistant C D Brennan recalls Mr Huston did not have that suf cient in-depth background concerning intelligence matters to be able to give that stron direction and guidance and therefore Sullivan was the principal re be- hind the preparations leading to the Huston Plan Sullivan s role seemed to be to tell Huston what were desirable changes in the intelli- gence services Huston was to try to make what was desirable possible through his position as the White House man charged with respon- sibility for domestic intelligence The two-page working paper outlined for the President items he mi ht discuss with the intelligence directors the increase in domestic vio once the need for better intelligence collection a report to be pre pared for the President on radical threats to the national security and gaps in current intelligence on radicals and the use of an interagency sta to write the report 11 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 Huston took the opportunity to urge the President to appoint Sullivan as the chairman of the stall subcommittee The une 5th meeting in the Oval Of ce lasted less than an hour Reading from a talking-paper prepared for the session by Huston the President rst 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 which we know too little about Certainly hun- dreds perhaps thousands of Americans mostly under 30 are determined to destroy our society They nd 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 forelgn 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 M 3 Brennan 9 25 75 Hearings pp 105 106 Huston stated that the paper for the President clearly re ected Bill s rSul- livan s views- Huston deposition 5 23 75 p 32 1 Huston deposition 5 23 75 p 32 3 Attachment to memorandum from J Bruce Whelihan to Ron Ziegler 1 29 74 p 2 from the Nixon Papers 3 Huston deposition 5 23 75 p 33 Talking Paper prepared for President Nixon 6 5 70 937 Among the chief factors complicating the internal security prob- lem according to the paper were the people of the United States Our people perhaps as a reaction to the excesses of the McCarthy era ears 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 uality of intelligence he had been receiving on the protest movement s Based on my review of the information which we have been receiving at the White House read his prepared notes am convinced that we are not currently allocating resources within the intelligence community to the collection of intelligence data on the activities of these revolutionary groups 3 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 Departing from his prepared notes the President next mentioned a meeting he had had with President Calder of Venezuela earlier that morning m President Calder had complained to him about the high degree of violence and unrest in the Caribbean notin that some Latin American nation believes U S nationals Speci cally 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 Neither apparently wished to discuss the Riha Case with other disagreements General Bennett recalls that the President chewed our rImtts Bennett staff summary Bio 75 The Director of DIA took notes on the meeting and thought he remembered President Nixon turning on a taperecorder sitting on his desk at the beginning of the session No other participant recalls this taping and no such tape was found in the search- through the papers of President Nixon by his lawwers at the request of the Select Committee Talking Paper prepared for President Nixon 6 5 70 In fact however this matter had received considerable attention from the intelligence agencies- See for instance the testimony of FBI intelligence of cer Brennan 9 25 75 Hearings Vol 2 pp 104 107 135 and the Select Committee Report on 01 51 Project CHAOS 7 Talking Paper prepared for President Nixon 6 5f70 3 Huston deposition 5 23 75 pp 35 36 Report to the President by the Commission on CIA Activities within the United States June 1975 p 122 note Huston deposition 5 23 75 38 938 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 lmown 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 inter- agency committee staff 52 The meeting in the Oval Of ce tool place on a Friday Sullivan s rst assignment from Hoover was to set up a preliminary planning session to be held in Hoover s of ce the followmg Monday 0 In Hoover s Office J1me 8th A Premonitory At the Monday meeting Hoover reminded the other intelligence directors that the President was dissatis ed with the current state of intelligence on domestic radicals and stressed his own alarm at links between protesters in this country and Cuba China and the Iron Curtain countries 53 He said that President Nixon wanted an his- torical 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 he chairman of the staff group and its rst meeting would occur the next afternoon Tuesday June 9th at the Central Intelligence Agency Hoover asked Richard Helms rst and then the others if they had anything to add none of the intelligence directors did Then came Tom Huston s turn to re5pond The Director had misunderstood the intent of the President said the White House aide The report was not to he 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 erational changes Admiral ayler of SA then Spoke up it was his understanding too that the committee was to concentrate 011 the shortcomings of current intelligence collection General Bennett Gaylor 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 fcit we cmpli All the intelligence directors except Hoover supported the objectives articulated by Huston - Hoover who was apparently irritated by this turn of events 5 nally agreed and the meeting ended abruptly He asked the other directors to give this matter the highest priority and to assign their top cape-rte to the project After the meeting Hoover con ded to Wil- 1 Talking Paper prepared for President Nixon 6 5 70 5 Huston deposition 5 23 75 34 5' Sullivan staff summary 6 10 75 5 Huston 9 23 75 Hearings p 4 5 Sullivan sta summary 6 10 75 5 William G Sullivan deposition 11 1 75 1 121 939 li-am Sullivan that he believed Huston was a hippie mtellectual 5 Sullivan s own views on the importance of this undertaking were re- ected in a statement which he prepared for Hoover as background information for this meeting Individually those of us in the intelli- gence community are relativelyr small and limited he wrote Uni ed our own combined potential is magni ed and limitless It is through unity of action that we can tremendously increase our intelli nee gathering potential and I am certain obtain theanswers the President wants 3 D The longley Meetings Drafting the atezle'gence Report The Ad Hoc Committee stall met the next day at CIA Headquarters in Langley Virginia for the rst of four drafting discussions 59 The First Langley Meeting the Agenda At the rst staff meeting Huston summed up for the-participants the objectives of the President using a Top Secret outline 'he had prepared 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 iding expertise to layr out what collection barriers the counterintel gence experts wanted removed Huston r atntnild make sure the Committee did not stray from the goal of suggesting options to remove these barriers The Objectives iof 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 of ce 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 require- ments for the Committee Sullivan asked for comments regarding the level of classi cation for papers or reports prepared by the Comrnittee The classi cation Top Secret was adopted Helms also recommended the maintenance of a Bigot List re ectin the namesof all persons who would have knowledge of the work 0 the Comm1ttee 5 Sullivan staff summary 9 23 75 9 Attachment to William Sullivan memorandum to Gartha DeLoach 6 6 70 Hearings Vol 2 Exhibit 9 I The FBI served as secretariat for these meetings with William Greegar keeping the minutes Summaries of the sessions are found in a series of FBI memoranda Memorandum from William Sullivan to Gartha DeLoach 6 10 70 Hearings Vol 2 Exhibit 11 Memorandum from William Sullivan to Cal-the Deloach 6 15 70 I Hearings Vol 2 Exhibit 13 Memorandum from William Sullivan to Charles Tolson 6 29 70 Hearings Vol 2 Exhibit 17 Memorandum from William Sullivan to Charles Tolson 6 26 70 Hearings Vol 2 Exhibn 18 and Interagencv Committee on Intelligence minutes 6 19 70 Hearings Vol 2 Exhibit 14 Memorandum Subcommittee on Domestic Intelligence undated A summary of the rst session is found in Sullivan memorandum 6 10 70 59-934 fr 75 - 60 940 The Committee turned next to the heart of the matter the meth- 0f 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 Presi Jent 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 intelli ncewcollection activities Again Huston urged them to remember President s interest in the pros and cons of each restriction Bu 'ham of NBA called attention to the outline circulated by Huston In its rst paragraph the outline called upon the Committee to de ne and assess the existing internal security threat The NSA representa tive 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 do mestic point of view and CIA from the foreign point of view All mem- bers concurred and Sullivan asked the FBI and CIA to have the pa- pers 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 exam ining 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 he Second Langiey 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 wouid cover three speci c areas 1 an assessment of the current internal security threat and the likelihood of future violence 2 a listing of the current restraints on intelli- gence collection and 3 an evaluation of interagency coordination within the intelligence community Just as he had reminded Hoover that Monday in the Director s o ice 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- unaccepta'ble according to CIA representative James Angleton and said that the group was not being responsive to the President s needs 2 As exempli ed by the FBI submission Huston wanted the restraints clearly identi ed the pros and cons listed and a format pro- vided whereby the President could indicate whether he wished the restraints to be maintained relaxed or that he required more informa tion to make a decision The entire range of coliection options were to be listed whether the Committee thought they were preposterous or The second Langley meeting is summarized in Sullivan memorandum 6 15 70 Angleton 9 24 75 Hearings 57 941 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 partici- pants was generally in favor of the establishment of a permanent in- teragency committee on intelligence It would evaluate intelligence coordinate operations prepare ongoing threat assessments on domes- tic protest _and develop new policies The idea of a permanent committee was strongly endorsed by Hus- ton who said the President would probably favor its creation Privately Huston thought this was the most important recom- mendation 3 Among the participating agencies only the CIA ques- tioned the need for a permanent committee recommending instead the establishment of a temporary group rst to see if it would work The Agency s hesitancy may have re ected 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 threaoassessment paper entitled De ning and Assess ing 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 Bu- reau 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 5 The Committee agreed to have the FBI prepare a rst 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 8 everyone was to provide the Bureau w1t h 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 staif was the most im- portant From it emerged the speci c options which the group would lay before the President The first two sessions had been preparatory now the Committee was read to examine thoroughly a rst draft of the report The members dissected the draft in minute detail spen- 1n all afternoon and part of the evening going over it The FBI and A reports on De ning and Assessing the Existing Internal Secur- lty 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 rst went step-'by-step through the section on the internal security threat facing the United States The military representatives criticized the CIA an FBI data and interpretations on militant New Le groups black 3 Huston sta summary 9 22 75 - Huston 9 23 75 Hearings pp 18-19 sta ' summary of James Angleton in- terview 9 12 75 Ober was also in charge of the controversial CIA Operation to in vestigate foreign contracts with American dissidents See the Select Committee Report on Operation Chaos Staff summary of Richard Cotter interview 9 15 75 Sullivan staff sum- mary 6 10 75 For a review of the third ICI meeting see the Interagency Committee on Intelligence minutes 6 19 70 942 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 observa- tion 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 re- lated to internal security While the discussion on the options was - and punctuated by disagreements the end result was a rst draft of the intelligence report which had the support of all the par- ticipating agencies The Fourth Langley Meeting The Final Draft The fourth and nal meeting of the ICI staff was held on June 23rd and was devoted to improving the rst draft and polishing it into a nal report Between the third and fourth sessions Sullivan and the other representatives from the various agencies showed the rst draft to their superiors While the other directors saw no signi cant prob- lems with the draft Hoover balked He would not sign the report he informed Sullivan It would have to be completely rewritten to elimi- nate the extreme options in the Restraints section and the recom mendation for the permanent interagency committee would have to be removed also 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 bur glaries and the opening of mail and other similar activities providing somebody higher than myself approves longer want to accept the sole responsibility the Attor- ney 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 ap- prove these because the Attorney General was not asked to be a member of the ad hoc committee I cannot turn to the ad hoe committee to approve of these burgl-aries 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 pre- pare a detailed memorandum and set forth these views 79 6 3 The last meeting of the ICI staff is summarised in the Sullivan memorandum mil 70- '9 Sullivan staff summary 6 10 75 7 Sullivan deposition 11 1 75 pp 122 24 943 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 commonl done on interagency intelligence papers Hoover nally agreed Sulgvan 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 Sullivan distributed this second draft of the report at the nal Langley meeting It bore Hoover s footnotes conspicuously and the participants realized that Hoover had intervened 2 The rst draft had been written in the Bureau Research Section and brou ht to the third Langley meeting without being shown to Hoover Co 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 gured and now the Com mittee was back to square one 7 Only one da separated the last meeting at Langley from the of- cial signing the Special Report which was to take place in Hoover s of ce on une 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 Sullivan deposition 11 1 15 pp 124 125 7 Sullivan staff summary 6 10 75 Sullivan also remembers the presence of an Intelligence Review Board in the draft which was designed to monitor problems within the intelligence side of government He remembers Hoover demanding its removal at this stage and Sullivan complied No one else remem- bered this Review Board conmpt '3 Cotter staff summary 9 15 15 Staff summary of Col John Downie interview 5 13 75 The footnote aspect of the Special Report remains a mystery A Sullivan memorandum dated June 24 1970 discussing the results of the nal 101 staff meeting notes that the Hoover footnotes were included in the nal draft distributed on June 23rd to all the participants Sullivan memorandum 6 24 70 Yet Adm Gayler now 'denies knowing about these notes until the actual signing ceremony in Hoover's of ce on June 25th Gayler staff surn- mary 6 19 75 Gen Bennett goes so far as to claim the footnotes were added after the signing ceremony Bennett staff summary 6 5 75 Going still further Col Downie the Army representative believes the directors signed an innocuous report then the signature page was attached later without the knowledge of the other directors to a report which included all the extreme options appearing in the Special Report as we know it today Downie staff summary 5 13f75 This extreme version was then sent to the President via Tom Huston What seems most likely to have happened regarding the footnotes is as follows Sullivan had told Huston early in the sessions at CIA Headquarters that it would be a major error to show Hoover the nal draft of the repert at the same time the other directors saw it He would just whack it away and will have no chance Sullivan said Houston deposition 5 23 75 p 65 Instead Sullivan decided to have the Ad Hoc staff rst approve a draft which they did at their third meeting The members were then to get their respective agency hierarchies to approve it also This was accomplished directly after the third meeting Helms Bennett and Gayler reviewed this first draft and found it generally acceptable Bennett had it approved by his and Gayler s superiors at the Defense Department Finally once the representatives of the various agencies had reported back that their directors had given their approvals around June 20th Sullivan approached Hoover saying Here is the roport' that has been approved by all the other agencies and we need your approval Sullivan staff summary 13 10 75 Sullivan hoped that faced with this united front Hoover would go along Sullivan staff summary 6 10 76 Huston deposition 5 23 75 944 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 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 own personal observations and if he could do it so could they Bennett and Gayler were particularly annoyed that Hoover had objected to speci c operations when what was listed were options for the President not recommendations Hoover s critical footnotes made the options a pear to be recommendations which the other directors automatically sup orted They either wanted another meet ing among the Directors I to demand that the footnotes be with- drawn or else they wanted to insert their own footnotes saying they favored certain things recalls Huston The White House sta 'er was very much interested in not creating any dif culties 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 appreci ate it if they would not raise the question with the Director 73 Helms has testi ed that he does recall the episode m At the time Huston appeared unconcerned about Hoover s nota tions One participant at the nal 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 3 Tordella of NSA too remembers that Sullivan was not particularly upset by Hoover s move With Helms Bennett and Gayler still in sup- port of the Special Re rt Sullivan believed President Nixon would accept the options on re- aring The nal 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 perjora-t-ive was removed pro cedures replaced restrictions in one segment for instance and references to CIA-FBI liaison di iculties was excised as was the con- cept of a full-time working staff for the recommended permanent interagency commit-tee The essential alteration however was the addition of Hoover s footnotes $2 The next step was to have the intelli- gence directors sign the report Huston deposition 5 23 75 11 67 Huston 9 23 75 Hearings 1 7 Huston 9 23 75 Hearings 1 7 Helms deposition 9 10 75 1 40 5 Staffsunimary of B Willard interview 5 16f75 1 Tordella stall summary 6 16 75 9' Sullivan memorandum 6 24 70 945 E The Signing C emmony The meeting to review and sign the Special Report began at 3 00 on the afternoon of June 25th 33 The Director of the FBI opened the meeting by commending the members for their outstanding ellor t and cooperative spirit displayed in preparing the Special Re- port 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 page in this fashion For each page oov er addremed his quest-ion 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 di 'erent ways Huston hoped the meeting would end before Gayler or Bennett raised the susbj eat of the footnotes We got down to about number of pages and nally it was just too much for Admiral Gayler Hus ton recalls and so sure enough there he goes He started in about a footnote I think 35 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 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 The Inter-agency Committee on Intelligence Ad Hoc had completed its assignment IV AN INTELLIGEUCE REPORT FOR THE PRESIDENT THE OPTIONS The next day une 26th the Special Report was delivered to Huston at the White House for the President For each of the intelli nee 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 Hoover s notes were typed in beneath the options for each collection technique The first category of options written into the report dealt with cem munications intelligence A Category 01% Communications Intelligence 9 Present interpretation should be broadened to permit and program for coverage by NSA of the communications of US citizens using international facilities '3 Sullivan memorandum 6 24 70 9 Sullivan staff summary 6 10 75 3 Huston deposition 5 23 75 p 70 9' Bennett stalf summary 6 5 75 3 Huston deposition 5 23 75 1 70 9 Sullivan sta summary 6 10 75 5' Special Report In-teragency Committee on Intelligence an Hoe 6 70 cited in this report as Special Report Hearings Vol 2 Exhibit See note 3a mThe and in the following two paragraphs is probably an original error and read 831 94 6 wPresent 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 fa- cilities 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 clari cation of their role in targeting against communications tra ic involving U S revolutionary leaders and organizations 91 At the time NSA believed that its authority pre- cluded production and dissemination of intelligence from international communications between citizens and barred speci c targeting against the communications of US national s 2 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 interna- tional communications messages which were sent to or from these in- dividualsuapproximately 1 650 of whom were US citizens 93 The present director of the NSA does not know whether or not the Presi- dent knew about the NSA Watch List 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 the were already doing that is selecting the international messages 0 speci ed U S nationals for transcription and dissemination to other intelligence agencies Explicit approval from the President for this practice would l ave permitted an expansion of the American names on the Watch 1815 8 Category Two Electronic and Penetrations Present procedures should be changed to permit intensi- cation 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 intensi- cation of coverage of foreign nationals classi ed of in- terest to the intelligence community Note The FBI does not wish to change its present proce dure 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 At- torney General for coverage required by them and thereafter instituting such coverage themselves As the Special Report stated has been particularly hard hit by this limitation I 5 The CIA had a strong interest in this option too In the mid 1960 s Helms had approached Hoover to increase the number of telephone in Special Report p 23 1 Special Report p 23 - a General Lew Allen testimonv 10 28 75 Hearings Vol 5 p 12 See also NSA Repert Sec II Monitoring of International Communications 9 Allen hearings p 28 '6 Special Report p 26 947' tape to assist the CIA in its missions For similar reasons the CIA now joined the NSA in its quest for increased electronic coverage As a former high-level CIA counterintelligence o icer has noted Thou- sands of man-hours would have been saved if the Bureau had been will- ing to place taps on selected telephones 9 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 3 Yet ve 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 bread use 0 Oategm 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 Of ce to the press and serious damage would be done to the intelligence com- munity The FBI has no objection to legal mail coverage pro- viding it is done on a carefully controlled and selective basis in both criminal and security matters m As the draft explained two types of mail coverage exist routine cover age 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 Oocert coverage has been discontinued the President was told in the Report and one option placed before him read Present restric- tions on covert coverage should be relaxed on selected targets of prior- ity foreign intelligence and internal security interest Emphasis added 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 of cials that although warrantless mail opening was illegal the good that owed from them in terms of anticipating threats to United States made it The objective was to try to uncover foreign involvement in this country 103 but in the retro- Sullivan sta sommary 7 Staff summary of James Angleton interview 3 Special Report p 27 Sullivan staff summary 6 10 1 5 - This represean a change in Hoover s position though the Bureau would not actually engage in this legal coverage again until 1971 Earlier in the history of the Bureau prior to 1964 it had been a common technique Special Report p 31 See for example Angleton Hearings p 61 See also Mail Report Angleton 9 24 75 Hearings p 76 948 spective view of the CIA of cer in charge of the program the covert mall programs were very much an error Since 1958 the FBI had also known of these programs and in fact had contributed names to the Watch List 5 D Categm y Four Samptetious Entry Present restrictions should be modi ed to permit pro curement of vitally needed foreign classi ed material mPresent restrictions should also be modi ed to permit selective use of this technique against other urgent and high priority internal security targets Note The FBI is opposed to surreptitious entry classi ed This option re ected 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 surrepti tious entries Millions of dollars could be saved by such operations Buffham argued at the Langley meetings One option for the President proposed that present restrictions should also be modi ed to permit selective use of this technique against other urgent and high-priority internal security targets 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 of Campus Sources Present restrictions should be relaxed to permit expanded coverage of violence-prone campus and student islated grou 5lA coverage of American students and others travel- ing abroad 0r living abroad should be increased Note The FBI is opposed to removing any present con- trols 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 1m The intelligence professionals complained at the drafting sessions that it was dif cult to gather data on student subversives when no secondary school students and no one below the legal age in colleges and univer- sities were allowed to work fer the intelligence agencies as sources 11 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 1 Angleton 9 24275 Hearings p 64 Angleton 9 24 75 pp 77-378 Mail Report Sullivan staff summary 6 10 75 see also memorandum from William Sullivan to Cartha DeLoac-h 6 19 70 Hearings Vol 2 Exhibit 15 Staff summary of Benson Bu iham interview 5 19 75 Special Report p 33 In the fall of 1970 the FBI reduced the age limits on campus infermauts from 21 to 18 1 Sullivan sta ' summary 6 10 75 949 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 sta ' 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 recommendar tions in terms that campus informant coverage shall be expanded 3 The Special Report noted that in this area the military services have capabilities which could be of value to the 1 F Category Sim Use of Military Underwear Agemo T 1e counterintelligence mission of the military services should be expanded to include the active collection of intelli- gence concerning student related dissident activities with provisions for a close coordination with the FBI change should be made in the current mission of the military counterintelligence services however present re strictions should be relaxed to permit the use of trusted mili- tary personnel as FBI assets in the collection 'of intelligence regarding studentwrelated activities Note The FBI is opposed to the use of any military under- cover agents to develop domestic intelligence information be- cause this would be in violation of the Delimitations Agree- ment The military services joined by the FBI oppose any modi cation of the Delimitations Agreement would extend their jurisdiction beyond matters of interest to the Department of Defense The only speci c views on intelligence operations which Huston s superiors at the White House discussed with him before the June meetings had to do with the militar Haldcman expressed to Huston the_President s belief that we shou use the military services in col- lection 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 fer domestic intelligence collection The military voiced its opposition to the idea however and the FBI was also against ism The Committee wanted to eliminate the option from the report Huston himself thought the proposal was inappropriate but he insisted the option be Since Haldeman and the President had enplicitly requested 1 The response of the Committee in Huston s opinion was to write a set of optlons in favor of using the military which were very imsy Sullivan staff summary 6 10 75 1 Huston 9 23 75 Hearings 23 24 Special Report p 35 Tom Charles Huston deposition 5 22 75 pp 39 40 see also Huston 9 23 75 Hearings pp 17 35 Huston 9 23 75 Hearings 1 35 Huston 9 23 75 Hearings 35 950 and they would not convince anyone In the Report six Advantages of Maintaining Restrictions were listed compared to just three Ad- vantages of Relaxing Restrictions 3 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 9 In fact at that time Army of cials were preparing for their appear- ance before the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights 1m which was then investigating the question of military surveillance of civilians in the United States This investigation serves as an im- portant backdrop for understanding the marked caution of the mili- tary intelligence representatives during the sessions at La ley The Special Report included two more sets of options for Presi- dent s consideration 19 Category Seven Budget and Manpower Eac h 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 Oategory Eight Permnent Inter-agency An ad hoc group consisting of the FBI CIA NSA DIA and the military counterintelligence agencies should he appointed and should serve as long as the President deems necessary to rovide evaluations of domestic intelligence prepare peri ic domestic intelligence estimates and carry out the other obj actives indicated aibove permanent committee consisting of the FBI CIA NSA DIA and the military counterintelligence agencies should be appointed to provide evaluations of domestic in telligence 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 do- mestic intelligence however the FBI would approve of pre- paring periodic domestic intelligence estimates In the rst draft of the Report the following options were also though both were removed in the writing of the nal 1 Special Report pp 37 38 Special Report p 38 1 Federal Data Banks Computers and the Bill of Rights Part II Hear- aye before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights 2 31 71 through 3 17 71 1 Sullivan memorandum 6 24 70 Another option ate permit the use of truth serum went into an early rough draft in the Bureau It was devised 'by Bureau staffers in hopes that Hoover would remove it from the nal report but as a compromise keep in an the other options Sullivan however decided to remove this option before the rst draft ever left the Bureau to be read by the 101 ate at Inngley itter staff summary 21 15 75 951 Category Nine Rammed Surreptz'tiom_ Optieai 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 nally 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 m J Category Ten Rearmed 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 pro- ceeding 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 countermtelligence specialists who viewed the State Department skeptically As one re marked candidly Our roles are often con ictual they re always try- ing to Lbuild bridges edetente and all that stuff while we re trying to catch spies On balance lthough opinion within the group fas gored keeping the clearance procedure and avoiding a dispute with tate These rst 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 of cial si 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 intelli nce collection These recommendations became known as the Huston lan - V THE HUSTDN PLAN A Huston Plan Phase One Advice for the President For several weeks after the signing of the Special Report on une 25th it appeared to the intelligence agencies that their e 'Orts had come to nothing No response had come from the White House and Sullivan began to believe the whole idea had died aboming 12 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 Staff summary of counterintelligence expert 3 20 75 1 counterintelligence expert staff summary 8 20 75 Sullivan staff summary 6 10 75 952 President to approve the strongest options in the Special Report de- SIgned 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 une 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 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 12 To avoid a nasty scene between the military direc- tors 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 dissatis ed with current intelligence collectionproce dures except Hoover Even the FBI participants according to Huston believe that it is imperative that changes in Operating- proce- dures be initiated at once Furthermore all members felt it impera- tive to establish a permanent interagency committee for intelligence evaluation again with the exceptiorr 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 heis 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 I 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 ap- praisal were Huston s speci c recommendations on the decisions Nixon should make concerning the lifting of Operational restraints The The recommendations in this rst version of the so-c-alled Huston Plan were-written under the heading Operational Restraints on In telligence Collection 12 Huston offered advice on each operational section of the Report and each recommendation was buttressed by a one to-several paragraph rationale The recOmmeI-ldations comprismg 5 Memorandum from Tom Charles Huston to H R Haldeman TITO Hear- ings Vol 2 Exhibit See footnote 3a 1337 inconsistent Hustmi is apparently referring to Hoover s willingness to permit the exercise of collection techniques in the past which he would not permit in 1970 Attachment to Huston memorandum 1770 953 Huston s plan as presented to the President are outlined below with the exception of the rationales which concluded chie y that 1 cover age 1was inadequate and 2 all the methods had been used before with great productivity Gmumcat ons Intelligence Recom mend ation 3 Present interpretation should be broadened to permit and program for coverage by NSA of the communications of US citizens using international facilities Electronic and Penetrations Recommendation Present procedures should be changed to permit intensi e cation 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 in- tensi cation of coverage of foreign nationals classi edl Mail Coverage Recommendation Restrictions on legal cover-age should be removed ALSO present restrictions on covert coverage should be relaxed on selected targets of priority foreign intelligence and internal security interest Surreptltioas Entry Recommendation Present restrictions should be modi ed to permit procure- ment of vitally needed foreign classi ed material ALSO present restrictions should be modi ed 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 speci c operational restraints Huston made two further recommendations Manpower and Budget Recommendation Each agency should submit a detailed estimate as to pro- jected 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 and the military agencies should be appomted to provide evaluations of domestic intelligence The and instead of error from the Special Report is repeated in Huston s recommendation 954 prepare periodic domestic intelligence estimates and carry out the other objectives speci ed in the report In his discussion of these methods Huston raised end quickly dis missed questions about the legality of two collection techniques 1n particular covert mail cover and surreptitious entry Covert mail coverage is ille al and there are serious risks involved he wrote However the agvantages to be derived from its use outweigh the risks 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 13 In brief the President s aid was asking the highest political gure in the nation to sanction lawlessness within the intelligence commuit 1ty 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 re ected what I understood to be the consensus of the working group 13 Huston agreed with this consensus Sullivan has explained his view not necessarily shared by others- that he and the rest of the intelligence of cers 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 di erent 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 rule- 00k 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 un- bridle the intelligence collectors Huston believed that the real threat to internal security was repression The New Left was capable of pro- ducing a climate of fear that would bring forth every repressive dem- agogue in the United States These demagogues were not in the govern- ment but out in the country the intelligence professionals if given Attachment to Huston memorandum 7 70 p 2 Attachment to Huston memorandum 7 70 1 3 In using the word burglary Huston sought to escalate the rhetoric to make it as bold as possible He thought that as a staff man he should give the President the worst possible interpretation of what the recommendation would result in Huston deposi- tion 5 22 75 1 69 1 Huston deposition 5 22 75 p S 1 Sullivan sta summary 6 10 75 955 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 re- pressmn 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 se- curity 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 Kiss- inger is aware of this new procedure 13 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 con- sistent with those employed by prior administrations and had been found to be effective by the intelligence agencies 13 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 rec- ommended 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 Nevertheless Huston proceeded to draw up the of cial memorandum which would carry the news to the intelligence directors The Huston Plan was now presidential policy 3 Huston Plan Phase Two - The President s Policy Just over a week later on July 23 1970 Huston nished the o icial version of this presidentiallymati ed plan and sent it on its way Via courier to Hoover Helms Bennett and alayler 133 With only minor changes this o icial 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 op- tions posed by the counter-intelligence experts and the President of the United States had agreed with those recommendations Henceforth with presidential authority the intelligence commu nity could at will intercept and transcribe the communications of Americans using international communications facilities eaveSdrop Memorandum from Tom Charles Huston to Richard Helms 7 9 70 Hear- ings Vol 2 Exhibit 19 mMemorandum from H R Haldeman to Tom Charles Huston Hearings Vol 2 Exhibit 3 See also H R Haldeman testimony Senate Select on Presidential Campaign Activities Hearings 7 31 73 Vol 3 D- - - Answer of Richard M Nixon to Senate Select Committee Interrogatory 19 3 19 76 13 1a Huston 9 23 15 pp 23 24 1 Memorandum freni Tom Charles Boston to Intelligence Directors 7 23 70 59-934 0 - - 61 956 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 pend ing Congressional hearings on military surveillance of civilians The of cial memorandum to the intelligence directors further noted that on August 1 1970 the permanent lter-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 Com- mittee Huston would be the personal representative to the Presiv dent with complete White House sta ' responsibility for domestic intelligence and internal security affairs By September 1 1970 just before the reconvenjng 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 di- rectors ranging from surprise to shock and rage Admiral Gayler was surprised that the President had selected the most extreme op tions 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 memoran- dum was largely irrelevant to the mission of the Defense Intelligence Agency According to his assistant James StilweII 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 Pr nt 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 The Director of the FBI went through the ceiling Sullivan re- calls 2 Hoover and his assistant Cartha DeLoach walked immedi ately to Attorney General Mitchell s of ce nearby Mitchell was totally surprised It was the rst time he had heard of the Ad Hoc Com mittee 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 Ibe presidential policy As Mitchell noted in Select Committee public hearin individual items in the Huston Plan had been suggested to him Elfefore July 1970 and had been turned down With the Huston Plan the a gregate was worse than the individual parts that had been suggests 3 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 Hoover later told Sullivan that the Attorney 1 Gayle-r deposition 6 19 75 42 1 Bennett staff summary 6 5 75 1 Staff summary of James Stilwell interview 5 21 75 Sullivan sta summary 6 10 75 3 John Mitchell testimony 10 24 75 Hearings Vol 4 p 12 3 1 John Mitchell testimony Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities Hearings 7 10 73 Vol 4 pp 1603-1604 957 General was angry he had been by-passed by Huston and others in the White House on this whole affair 5 Mitchell told the Director to sit tight until President Nixon re- turned from San Clemente the Attorney General would then discum the whole a air with the President Hoover returned to his o ice and wrote a memorandum to Mitchell re-emphasizing his strong op- position 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 speci c opposition to the lifting of the various investigative restraints referred to above and to the creation of a permanent interagency committee on domes- tic intelligence the FBI is prepared to implement the instruc- tions of the White House at your direction Of course we would continue to seek your speci c authorization where appropriate to utilize thevarious sensitive investigative tech- niques involved in individual cases 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 3 As Mitchell had advised Hoover so too he told Helms to sit tight 9 VI REGISION OF THE HUSTON PIANS A TIME FOR RECONSIDERATION A The President Takes a Second Look When President Nixon returned from the Western White House one of his rst conversations on July 27 was with the Attorney Gen- era 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 15 As former President Nixon now recalls Mr Mitchell informed me that Mr Hoover Director of the FBI and Chairman of the Inter agency Committee on Intelligence disagreed with my approval of the Committee s special report President Nixon was surprised by Hoover s objections because he had not voiced any reservations to 1 Sullivan staff summary 6 10 75 Memorandum for the record from Richard Helms 7 28 70 Hearings 1Vol 2 Exhibit 20 See also Mitchell 10 24 75 Bearings 11 123 where he testi ed that he made known to the President any disagreement with the concept of the plan and recommended that it be turned down 1 Memorandum from J Edgar Hoover to John Mitchell 7 25 1'0 1 Helms memorandum 7 28 70 Richard Helms testimony 10 22 75 Hearings Vol 4 p 89 15 Mitchell 10 24 75 Hearings 1 123 mAnswer of Richard M Nixon to Senate Select Committee Interrogatory 17 3 9 76 I 11 958 the President when the Committee met a few days earlier 2 The Attorney General told the President that Hoover believed initiating a program which would permit several government intelligence agen- cies to utilize the investigative techniques outlined in the Committee s report would signi cantly increase the possibility of their public dis closure 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 1 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 micro- phone transmitter was greater than the ossible bene t to be derived 15 Based on his conversation with Mitchell President Nixon decided to revoke his approval originally extended to the Committee s recommendations Warned 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 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 recom- mendations 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 sgbjects were illegal and I think opening of mail was one of em Q All right Then based upon your knowled from an examination of the document that in the past at east illegal actions involving the opening of mail that had taken place did maAppearentiy the former President is referring to the June 5 1970 meeting with the intelligence directors in the White House if so his statement is puzzl- ing since the recommendation had not been drafted at the time If he is referring to another meeting with Hoover no other record of such a meeting after June 5 has been found Most likely the former President had the June 5 meeting in mind where Hoover indeed made no objections for there were no recommendations to object to at that time Answer of Richard M Nixon to Senate Select Committee Interrogatorv 17 3 9j76 p 11 15Minswer of Richard M Nixon to Senate Select Committee Interrogatory 17 3 9 76 p 12 5 Huston 9 23 75 Hearings 1 24 959 you convene a grand jury to look into the admitted acts of 111a ality on behalf of some intelligence services Mitchell I did not Q And wh not Mr Mitche l 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 furtherthe opinion that if you had had time to focus on the matter then it would have been wise to convene some investi ation within the Department to determine what had happen in the est Mr Mitchell I belleve that that would be one of the normal processes where you would give it in is 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 3 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 memo- randum 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 men- tioned something about Hoover having pulled the rug out from under h-im 155 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 of ce and tried to persuade him to convince the President that the dbjections raised by Hoover had to be overridden He urged a meeting between Haldeman Mitchell and Hoover 160 Two days later in anticipation of this meet- ing Huston put his views down on paper for Haldeman The memorandum written under-the title Domestic Intelligence ran ve pages and was extremely critical of the FBI Director 161 Huston rst reminded Haldeman that all the agencies and all of Hoover s own sta ' on the 101 Ad Hoc supported the options Mitchell 10 24 15 Hearings 145 7 Huston deposition 5 23 75 I 56 1 Staff summary of interview with the 1970 Ohief of the White House Situa- tion Room 7 1 75 1970 Chief of Situation Room staff slimmary 7 1 75 Huston deposition 5 23 75 1 82 1 Memorandum from Tom Charles Huston to H R Haldeman 8 5 70 960 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 operationsgoing to look like he is more powerful than the PreSIdent Huston further warned that all of us are going to look damn silly 1n 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 1ts merits was a- rst rate objective job Tom Charles Huston was ghting 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 m2 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 possi- bility Huston again urged Haldeman to act recommend that you meet with the Attorney General and secure his support for the Presi dent 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 was for all intents and purposes writing memos to myself 133 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 The President had a high regard for John Mitchell Men 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 pres sure 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 19503 reputation as a staunch anti-Communist to Hoover Of course Sullivan adds Hoover had his les too 135 The Director had another ace in the hole he could always have had the Huston recommendations leaked bringin the enterprise to a sudden halt Moreover Huston notes that opinions of Helms Gayler and Bennett wens far less weighty than Hoover s Neither President Nixon nor Haldeman were well acquainted with Gayler or Bennett and Helm s relationship with the White House tended to be precar- ious Huston believes in view of the problems that he 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 Huston memorandum 8 5 70 Huston staff summary 5 22 75 1 Huston staff summary 5 22 75 Sullivan staff summary 6 10 75 Huston deposition 5123 753 D- 73- 1 Huston deposition 5 23 75 p 77 - 961 B Huston Leaves the White House The memoranda written Huston went unanswered throughout the month of August Shortly after writing his August 7th memo- randum Huston was informed by Haldeman that John Dean was talnng over his responsibilities at the White House for domestic in- telligence Huston would be on Dean s staff As Dean recalls Huston was livid 1'33 John Dean had come to the White House on July 27th from the Justice Department where he had worked with and impressed Mitch- ell for 2his 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 In the following months Huston would do practically whatever he felt like doing sending an occasional memo to the President or Haldeman on intel- ligence matters writing speeches for Pat Buchanan continuing to circulate the daily FBI intelligence reports in the White House re- viewing con ict-of-interest clearances prodding the Internal Revenue Service to investigate New Left organizations and their supporters 1 and writing a history of Vietnam bombing negotiations Huston often spoke to his counterintelligence associates on a special scrambler phone which he kept hidden in his o ice in a safe 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 Hustonm 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 Premdent s oral request to Hoover on August 16 5 to intensify the investi ation of extremist organizations We need changes at the operating eve not merely at the concluded Huston but throughout the intelli- gence community Finally Huston found time to relate brie y 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 W Growing ever more disenchanted with his position and With Nixon s policies Huston resigned from the Mite House staff on one 13 1971 1 Staff summary of ohu Dean interview 8 7 75 Dean staff summary 8 7 75 0n Huston s activities during this period see Huston deposition 5 23 75 1 For example on Arab terrorism see memorandum from Tom Charles Host-en to President Richard Nixon 8 12 70 2 Memorandum from Tom Charles Boston to H R Haldeman 9 21 70 Hearings vol 2 Exhibit 62 Dean staff summary 8 7 75 See also John Dean testimony Senate Watergate Hearings June 28 1973 Vol 4 pp 1446 1456 Richard Ober handwritten notes on Huston memorandum 7 9 70 Memorandum from J Edgar Hoover to President Richard Nixon 8 17 79- Memorandum from Tom Charles Huston to H R Haldeman 8 17 70 Dean staff summary 8 7 75 '962 and returned to Indiana to practice law He continued to serve as a consultant to the White House nishing his study of Vietnam negotia- tions On October 7 1972 he was named a member of a Census Bureau Adinsory Committee on privacy and con dentiality Huston s original ally William Sullivan managed to remain on good terms with J Ed Hoover at least for a few months he was reprimanded by the Director for letting the Ad Hoc staii get out of handf 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 ehan 'ng nature of the U S internal security threat Sullivan told his augience that the race riots and student upheaval had nothing to do with the Communist Party Rather they were at- tributable to problems within the American social order and to the Vietnam War When he returned to Washin 11 Sullivan remembers all hell broke loose 13 Hoover told him had given the wrong answers How do you expect me to get my appropriations said the Director of the FBI if you keep downgradin the Communist Party The breached widened and nally a year ater on October 1 1971 Hoover had Sullivan literally locked out of his of ce for good VII THE HIDDEN DIMENSIONS OF THE HUSTON PLAN A Daplicity Looking back on the summer of 1970 Tom Huston observes that the atmosphere of duplicity was the most astonishing aspect of the meet- ings 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 do- mestic radicals Instead President Nixon and his representative were victims of deception didn t know about the CIA mail openings I didn t know about the COINTELPRO Program an FBI internal security operation Huston says There 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 1'31 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 com- munity read the outside of envelopes of selected mai1 1'52 Huston believes that part of the problem was bureaucratic game playing the Bureau Ihad 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 i the CIA had its own game going They didn t want the Bureau to mow 133 5 Huston deposition 5 23 75 pp 83 84 1 Sullivan sta f summary 6 10 75 1 Sullivan deposition 11x1 75 p 35 38 Huston deposition 5 22 75 1 50 Answers of Richard M Nixon to Senate Select Committee Interrogatories 3f9 76 pp 1 4 5 and 14 Huston deposition 5 22 75 pp 5041 963 Agencies concealed programs from one another partly out of in teragency ealousies and rivalries Huston speculated m They did not want to have revealed the fact that they were working on each other s rturf For example Mr Hoover would have had an absolute stroke if he had known that the CIA had an erations CHAOS going on Huston has suggested another possib 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 0E if the President of the United State5 decides he does not want to do it because they had no way of knowing in advance what decision the Presi- dent 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 136 The unfortunate end result of these concealments between agencies was the fact that the President did not know what his mtelligence 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 dis- continued In truth however the CIA program to read the inter- national mail of selected American citizens and foreigners was con tinuing 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 - personally never informed the Presidentm Mitchell has denied that Helms told him of a CIA mail-opening program 39 and has testi ed further that the President had no knowledge of the pro- gram either at least not as of the time we discussed the Huston plan 19 Helms suggested that Huston may not have been told about the mail opening program at any of the work group meetings bacause he was the White House contact man forlf ldomestlc intelligence We thought we were in the foreign intelligence eld Whatever the ex planation however it is clear that the President was given a mislead ing document James Angleton who served as Chief of the CIA Counterlntelligence Staff from 1954 to 1974 and was in charge of the CIA covert mail pro gram from 1955 to its termination in 1973 had other explanations for the misleading language on the mail program in the Special Report Angleton testi ed It is still my impression that this activ1ty that is referred to as having been discontinued refers to the Bureau s activities in this eld it is certainly my impression that this was 3 Huston 9 23 75 Hen-rings p 33 Huston 9 23 75 Hearings 1 33 1 Huston 9 23 75 Hearings p 33 34 1 Special Report p 29 1 Helms 10 22 75 Hearings pp 89 96 Mitchell 10 24 75 Hearings 1 137 See also pp 120 122 nollr tchell 10 24 75 Hearings p 138 964 the gap which the Bureau was seeking to cure 93 The language of the Report itself however does not re ect such a distinction Angleton also stated that the CIA would never discuss such a sensi- tive'topic as their mail program in large meetings like the 101 Ad Hoc sess1ons at Langley The possibilities for leaks were too great for one he o bseiwes 194 One of Angleton s assistants has referred to the Langley meetings as a sh bowl Delicate matters if they required Premdential approval would have been raised either by the Director of the FBI or the Director of Central Intelligence Angleton stressed 19$ 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 misrepre- sented the facts Mn Angleton I was referring sir to a much more re stricted 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 mis- informed Not only was he misinformed but when he reconsidered authorizing the opening of the mail ve days later and re- voked it the CIA did not pay the slightest bit of attention to him did it the Commander-in-Chief as you sa 3 Mr Angleton I have no satisfactory answer or 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 rst 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 1n Chief Questioning Tom Huston on the subject of mail openings the Chain man of the Select Committee summarized the Huston Plan sacroise as follows Angleton 9 24 75 Hearings p 54- 1 Angleton 9 24 75 Hearings 1 56 Staff summary of counterintelligence specialist 2 8176 Angleton 9 24 75 Hearings 1 56 Angleton 9 24 75 Hearings 1 37 965 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 Attorne r 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 there practices had been going on for a long time prior to the request for his authority And after he revoked that author- ity 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 19E In retrospect Huston reasons that if he and others in the White House had known these intelligence options were being exercised al read r and had not produced results signi cant enough to curb domes- tic 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 Huston now oints to the irony in the fact that intelli once is sup- possed to provi policymakers with information upon ich to make decisions but in June 1970 the tOp policymaker in the government was kept unaware that certain sources of information were even avail- able 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 intelli- gence collection He wrote in a memorandum to Cartha DeLoach his immediate supervisor and the Number 3 man in the FBI in une 1970 that Benson Bu 'ham the NSA representative at the Inngley meetingsl wastaking a particularlv active role in the review of the restraints section of the draft Admiral Noel Gaylor sic of the National Security Agency wrote Sullivan my have been a moving force behind the creation of this committee Emphasis added 2 Sullivan was indeed in a good position to know He and Tordella of NSA Gaylor s deputy had viewed these meetings since the begin- ning as in Tordello s words nothing less than a heaven-sent oppor- tunity for NBA 203 Yet Sullivan ended his memo for the FBI leadership with the admonition Contingent upon what the Presi dent decides it is clear that there could be problems involved for the Bureau 20 This was the rst written example of Sullivan s annarent strategy to impress upon Hoover Tolson and DeLoach his disassociatinn with attempts to relax restraints which Hoover wanted maintained Two Huston Hearings - 16 5 Huston Hes rings p Huston 9 23 75 Hearings 34 Sullivan memomndum 6 19 70 maTordel-la staff summary 6 16 75 Sullivan memorandum 6 19 70 966 days later on one 20 Sullivan took a de nitely 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 pro tecting Hoover and the FBI against the excesses of Huston s commit- tee 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 o ice 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 inter est m JSullivan concluded on the eve of his promotion to the Num ber 3 spot in the FBI 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 intelli nee estimates Huston suspected that the opposition of the 131 s representatives was ambivalent am sure that tactically the people in the Bureau probably were telling Hoover that the other fellows are pushing this stuff Huston has testi ed 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 gured that they had to push the Director to get done what they wanted to do 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 Brennanhad discussed the direction the Com mittee ought to take many times over 209 They worked closely together during the June meetings and before formal meetings Huston Sul- livan and the Bureau representatives were in frequent contact over the telephone or talking together directly Members of the FBI contingent won 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 say ag-reed After you work with somebody and you are convinced that what they want to' do is right you agree with them 2 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 To conclude that Huston dominated and Memorandum rom William Sullivan to Clyde Tolson 6 20 70 Hearings Vol 2 Exhibit 16 ml'JEIuston deposition 5 23 75 Sullivan staff summary 6 10 75 Sullivan memorandum 6 20 70 Huston deposition 5 23 75 pp 64 65 Huston deposition 5 23 75 pp 62 63 Sullivan staff summary 6 20 70 FBI counterintelligence specialist staff summary 8 20 75 Huston deposition 5 23 75 p 63 1 Huston deposition 5 23 75 1 63 967 manipulated the-intelligencecommunity is an error The relationship 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 L it The professional intelligence community The ro fessional intelligence community tells me you give as ese toolls we can solve the problem recommended those too 5 212 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 Freeldent Nixon revoked his authority for the Huston plan Without obtaining presidential approval for their actions 3 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 3 And the legitimacy of other intelligence collection methods such as placement of American names on the NSA watch list was highly ques tionable Yet former President Nixon does not recall any dis cussion concerning the possible illegality cf any of the intelligence gathering techniques described in the report during my meeting with the 101 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 an objection enator 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 whatso ever eoncerning the illegality of these recommendations Mr Huston No Senator Mondale Does that strike you as peculiar that tap public of cers in the most high level and sensitive posi tions of government would discuss recommending to the President actions which are clearly illegal and possibly un- constitutional without ever asking themselves whether that was a proper thing fer them tobe 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 Huston Hearings 17 Attachment to Huston memorandum 7 70 pp 2 3 See NSA Report Sec II 2 5 Answer o'f Richard Nixon to Search Select Committee In terroga-tory 23 3 9 76 1 13 59-984 0 75 - 52 968 something that they had been aware of had been under- taking for a long period of time Senator Mondale Is that an adequate justi cation Mr Huston Sir I am not trying to justify I am just try- ing 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 21 Legal advice was not sought several important legal matters were in- volved in preparing the report for the President The CIA General Counsel was not included or consulted since as Angleton had test- i ed 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 proc- ess of project approval 2 Avmdance 0 legal and constitutional matters was apparently not uncommon throughout the intelligence community William Sullivan has testi ed During the ten years that I was on the US 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 nat urally 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 i2 Sullivan attributes much of this attitude concerning the law to the molding in uence of World War II upon young FBI agents who have since risen to high position In a depomtion Sullivan noted that during the 19405 there was a war Legality was not questioned Lawfulness was not a question it was not an issue Senator Mondale That carried on unfortunately after the war Mr Sullivan Senator you are right We could not seem to free ourselves either at the top or bottom could not free ourselves from that with which we had been imbued as young men in particular most all young men when we went into the Bureau Along came the Cold War We pursued the same course in the Korean War and the Cold War continued then the Vietnam War We never freed ourselves from that psy- chology that we were indoctrinated with right after Pearl Harbor you see I think this accounts for the fact that no body seemed to be concerned about raising the question is this Huston 9 23 15 Hearings 1 21 1 Angleton 9 24 75 Hearings p 77 3 Sullivan deposition 11 1 75 pp 92 93 969 lawful is this legs is this ethical It was just like a soldier in the battle eld YWhen he shot down an enemy he did not ask himself is this legal or lawful is it ethical It is what he was ex ected to do as a soldier We id what we were expected to do It became a part of our thinking a part of our personality m Neither the Attorne General nor anyone in his of ce was invited to the sessions at Lang or consulted during the proceedings During public hearings on the Huston Plan Huston was asked about the absence of consultations with the Attorney General Senator Church And it never occurred to you as the Presi- dent s representative in making recommendations to him that violated the law that you or the White House should confer with-the Attorney General before making those recom- mendations Mr Huston No it didn t I should have but it didn t The Attorney General knew nothing of the preparation of an in telligence report for the President u-ntil so informed by Hoover on July 27 1970 several weeks after Hoover had signed the June Special Report 1 One reason for the absence of Attorney General John Mitchell 'Huston explains is that-this was an intelligence matter to be handled by the intelli ence agency directors 222 Mitchell the head of Justice was not included just as Laird the head of Defense was not included Huston now claims though that he naturally thought Hoover would check with Mitchell or his Deputy before signing the Special Report just as General Bennett cleared with his superior Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard and informed the Sec- retary of Defense Melvin Laird 223 Another reason for the exclusion of Mitchell might have been the institutional animosity which existed between the professional in telligence establishment and the Of ce of the Attorney General The former was primarily interested in the collection of intelligence and the protection of sources the latter suifered in Huston s view from prosecutor s mentality an interest in the collection of evidence for its use in securing prosecution Huston states that there are two approaches to handling the problem of violence-prone demonstrators One is the intelligence-collection approach where you try to keep tabs on what is going on and stop it before it he pens The other approach which is perhaps the only tolerab cone in a free society from a perfectly legitimate point of View is you have to pay the price of letting a thing happen and then follow the law and hope you can apprehend the person responsible and prosecute him according to the law 3 Sullivan deposition 11 1 75 pp 95 96 Huston 9 23 75 Hearings p 15 In the summer of 1970 Huston held the belief that the Fourth Amendment did not apply to the President in the exercise of matters relating to internal security or national security -HnstOn 9 23 75 Hearings 1 20 ISee also Huston 9 23 75 Hearings p 14 Helms memorandum for the record 7 28 70 Sullivan staff summary 6 10 75 Mitchell testimony Senate Watergate Hearings July 10 1973 Vol 4 pp 1603 04 5 Huston deposition 5 23 75 I 35 3 Huston 9 23 75 Hearings 1 15 Bennett staff summary 6 5 75 9 Huston deposition 5 22 75 p 167 970 Considerable tension existed between these two approaches in 1970 The enmity between some members of the White House staif no- tably Huston and the Justice Department stretched back to prepa- rations for the antiwar demonstrations in Washington in 1969 The Justice Department Huston believes saw the violence which occurred as egremeditated and leaned toward seeking indictments under the eral Antl-riot Act In contrast Huston and Sullivan saw the prob lem from the perspective of an intelligence o icer The answer rested in mobilizmg the intelligence agencies not the law enforcement com- munity 225 As Huston has testi ed frankly did not have a whole lot of con dence in the Justice Department sensitivity with respect to between types of protest activity 22 So the ustiee Department continued to seek more stringent criminal sanctions to deal with the problem of subversives and the intelligence collectors pursued the expansion of their methodology as a better solution In his March 1976 interrogatouy answers former President Nixon took the position that there have been and will be in the future m circumstances in which presidents may lawfully authorize actions in the interests of the security of this country which if undertaken by other persons or even by the president under different circumstances would be illegal 2 As an example the former President drew upon the example of mail opening The opening of mail sent to related priority targets of foreign intelligence although impinging upon the individual said the former President may nevertheless serve a - salutory purpose when as it has in the past it results in reventing the disclosure of sensitive military and state secrets to enemies of this country 2 The White House staffer who recommended the use of illegal and highly questionable intelligence gathering techniques in 1970 had de- cided ve years later that in the end the growth and preservation of a free society depended upon a reliance on the law 229 For Huston the sanctions of criminal law had replaced his earlier faith in un- restricted intelligence collection as the more appropriate response to the threat of violence in our society The risk inherent in the latter approach was too great In Huston s words The risk was that you would get people who would be sus ceptible to political considerations as opposed to national security considerations or would construe political consid- erations to be national security r considerations to move from the kid with a bomb to the kid with a picket sign and from the kid with the picket si to the kid with the bumper sticker of the opposing can idate And you just keep gomg down the line 231 5 Huston deposition 5 23 75 p 24 Sullivan sta summary 6 10 75 Huston 9 23 75 Hearings 1 15 2 Answer of Richard M Nixon to Senate Select Committee In-tenrcgatory 34 3 9 76 17 I bid Huston ares 75 Hearings p 45 1 Huston 9 23 75 Hearings 1 47 Huston was 75 Hearings 45 971 0 Mia-ed Matinee Also hidden behind the events of une 1970 were the reasons for ardent participation-er lack thereof in the writing of the intelli- gence report Reaction to the rst gathering of the 101 Ad Hoe work-group was mixed Some participants were delighted by the turn of events or years a group of counter-intelligence specialists within the FBI had favored reinstatement of collection procedures taken away from them lhy the Director and viewed the request'from the White House for a Special Report as a unique oppoitimity The CIA NSA and most of the FBI representatives shared an enthusi- asm for the project with varyin' degrees of optimism that the planning would actually he approve by Hoover 'Not eve one however was Sanguine about the receedings What a bucket o werms observed Richard O'ber Ang eten s backup man from the CIA to Col Keller of the Air Force after the meeting Keller thought it was worse than that wouldn t have touched what they were talking about with a 10-foot pole he noted recently The things they were talkin about were illegal and certainly heyond our interest and capability 235 Keller dropped out after the rst meeting warning his boss General Triantafeller not to get the Air Force in velved The Air Force kept a representative at the meeting Col Demo-it Gene Walker hut only as an observer who had 'been cau- tioned to keep a safe distance from the planning and to protect the Air Force 238 This reaction was typical of all the military representatives The Army member Col John Downie was the most outspoken At the rst gathering he made it clear that the Army would keep the hell on of domestic intelligence collection since it was already in deep trouhle over the recent exposure of Army surveillance of civilians Dewnie and others were at that moment preparing for hearings 'before the Senate s Constitutional Rights Subcommittee on that very subject Dewnie now states that the Army would have been far less resistant to Sullivan s efforts to draw them in had they not Jbeen on the hot seat at the time 238 Stilwell of DIA was also told 'by Gen Bennett to proceed with ex- treme caution he was sup esed to help out where he could but Bennett felt the DIA had ittle to contribute to the effort Huston recalls the DIA role as being minimal 239 Willard the Navy civilian observer remembers that the dominant feelin of the military representatives was Don t try to draw us into this The attitude 1 Staff summary of 001 Rudolph Keller interview 8 11 75 a Keller staff summary 8 11 75 Col Heller s protesta ens about illegali- ties to the contrary no witness recalls anyone including Keillor who discussed the legal aspects of intelligence collections during the Langley meetings a Staff summary of 001 Demelt Walker interview 7 23 75 Keller stat summary 8 11 75 Downie staff summary 5 13 75 Downie staff summary 5 13 75 Stilweli stall summary 5 21 75 Bennett Staff summary 6 5 75 Hus- ton deposition 5 23 75 p 40 Willard stair summary 5 16 75 972 of the Air Force and the Navy was in Stilwell s opinion We haven t been involved in domestic intelligence collection and we re not going to start new And for the Army the attitude seemed to lbe We may have been stupid enough to stick our nose in once but we re not going to get burned twice 2 1 Among the FBI participants at Langley Donald E Moore was an exception After Sullivan he was the senior Bureau representative on the ICI staff He had been involved in intelligence work for the Bureau since 1956 and in June 1970 was the Inspector-in Charge ESpionage Research Branch He was greatly troubled by the opening meeting at Langley felt very uneasy about the direction the work group was taking he remembers Their views were contrary to what Mr Hoover would have liked I wanted out 2 A Hoover loyalist Moore went to Sullivan after the meeting and asked to be excused from sub 11th sessions Suit yourself Sullivan replied and Donald Moore fa ed from the scene except for desultory comments made on the threat portions of a draft Sullivan asked him to review a week later 3 Even among the ICI enthusiasts not all were pursuing the same - goal Ostensibly the Ad Hoc Committee was established to provide better intelligence to the President primarily on New Left activities and secondarily on foreign in uence over the New Left The radical protesters were clearly Tom Huston s main interest Data collection on the New Left and black lnilitancy was of great interest to others as well such as George Moore who was the Bureau Section Chief with responsibilities in this area However several of the participants saw the concern of the President over domestic intelligence chie y as a way to ride piggyback through the White House approval process their own primary goal of knocking down obstacles to foreign intelli gence collection As one FBI observer at the Langley meetings has commented - Hoover put us out of business in 1966 and 1967 when he placed sharp restrictions on intelligence collection I was a Soviet specialist and I wanted a better coverage of the Soviets I felt and still feelchat we need technical coverage on every Soviet in the country I didn t give a damn about the Black Panthers myself but I did about the Russians I saw these meetings as a perfect opportunity to get back the methods we needed and so did Sullivan m Huston was aware that Gayler and others were in the venture for reasons other than strictly to improve domestic intelligence The whole question of surreptitious entry was an issue going into this thing I didn t know anything about and didn t understand really what it had to do with the subject underhand Huston recalls It was really clear to me that it was a foreign intelligence matter It just seemed to me that if these people felt so strongly about it why 1 Downie stalf summary 5 13 75 2 Sta summaryr of Donald E Moore interview 7 28 1'5 3 Denald Moore staff summary 7 28 75 2 counteriutelligence expert staff summary 8 120 75 973 Sh uld Say no 15 1111 39' it W_11t in the report for the L President 2 5 iH-nston mmemibers another-example of-the approach used 'by NSA the modi cation of its authority for the collection of communications intelligence For all I laiow that directive could have authorized people to have free lunch in the White House mess he says In other words Admiral Gayler said This is what needs to be done and that s what I did Those focusing on domestic intelligence objectives and those on foieign intelligence those committed to relaxing collection restraints and those reluctant to be involved these were the central cleavages in the sta ' of the Interagency Committee on Intelligence Ad Hoc 1 Credit O'c'rd Reoahztim ea Just as hidden from the President and Tom Huston as the CIA mail program though more from reasons of their own selective per- ception than from duplicity was the reality of the antiwar movement which helped spur the writing of the intelli ence report in the rst place The threat assessment section of the pecial Report was not too different from earlier assessment repared for E'hrlichman and Huston in April and June of 1969 T- ough more thorough it also failed to produce much concrete evidence of forei in uence over domestic unrest During the public hearings on Huston Plan C D Brennan the FBI witness said that the Bureau was never able to nd evidence indicating the antiwar protesters in the United States were nanced by external sources felt that the extremist groups and the others who were involved in antiwar activities and the like at that time were of the middle and upper level income stated Bren- nan and we characterized them generally as credit-card revolution- aries 247 DeSpite the lack of any substantial evidence of foreign involvement the 'White House under both Johnson and Nixon had persistently tasked the Bureau to discover evidence of foreign funding 24H As in earlier reports however the assessment section of the Special Report pointed to the danger of foreign connections developing in the future Consensus here was high Like those in the White House the intel- ligenceo icers writing the Report walked a slippery slepe when they began to speak of the need to expand intelligence collectiOn more because of potential rather than actual ndings These were among the main forces not immediately visible which were particularly important in shaping the Special Report and the Huston Plan Those who had sought to obtain presidential authority to broaden intelligence collection methods had ultimately failed but they remained committed to their objective of expansion nonethe less The intelligence collectors were not to be dissuaded by the simple absence of presidential or congressional authority Huston deposition 5 22 75 1 41 Huston deposition 5122 75 1 46 Tordella has also alluded to an additions reason for high NSA interest in these proceedings Intelligence budgets were sagging in 1970 and some saw chances here for expanded intelligence activities and increased funding Tordella staff summary 6 16 75 Brennan 91'25 7 5 Hearings 1 134 Brennan 9 25 75 Hearings pp 104 107 135 974 AFTERMATHZ THE THE Two events of particular signi cance followed in the close wake of the Huston Plan One was the creation of the Interagency Evaluation Committee IEO and the other was a secret meeting involving Hoover Helms Gayler and Mitchell The IEO has become controversial since it was similar in some respects to the pennanent interagency group recommended in the Hus- ton Plan Questions have thus been raised concerning whether the IEC became the instrument for carrying out the provisions of the Hus- ton Plan possibly even serving as the precursor of the Plumbers group which broke into the Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate Ibuildin in 1972 A review of the EC history by the Committee below suggests that the Committee did resemble the interagency outlined in the Huston Plan however the IEC amounted to little more than a research group with no operational dimension and no ties to the Plumbers unit The IEC however did bring to fruition the Huston Plan concept of an interageIICy intelligence committee A The Intelligence Evaluation Committee Within a month of John Dean s arrival in the White House he had learned chie y through conversations with Huston the basic details about the work of the Ad Hoc Committee on Intelligence and the col- lision with Hoover By late August Haldeman had approached Dean on the Huston Plan instructing him to see what I could do to get the plan implemented Dean has testi ed that he had found the plan totally uncalled for and unjustified 2 2 Eventually on Se tember 17 1970 Dean went to see John Mitchell about the Huston an and H-aldeman s request for its implementa tion Mitchell explained to him some of the details of the Plan As Dean now recalls his reaction was to think You ve got to be kidding This sounds like something the people on Mission Impossible would dream up 253 The Attorney General reiterated his position against the Plan with one exception Unlike Hoover Mitchell now thought that a permanent interagency committee for intelligence evaluation might be useful As Dean testi ed in 1973 After my conversations with Mit- chell I wrote a memorandum requesting that the evaluation commit tee be established and the restraints could be remoed later I told Mr Haldeman that the only way to proceed was one step at a time and this could be an important rst step He agreed Emphasis added 254 This memo of September 13th from Dean to Mitchell read in part key to the entire 0 oration will be the creation of a sic mteragency intelligence unit or both operational and- evaluation pur- poses and then to proceed to remove the restraints as necessary to obtain such intelligence Emphasis added 2 Echoing Huston s Dean stat summary 8 7 75 3 Dean Senate Watergate Hearings 6 25 73 I 916 Dean stuff summary 8 7 75 Dean Senate Watergate Hearings 6 25 73 11 916 Memorandum from John Dean to John Mitchell 9f18 70 Hearings Vol 2 Exhibit 24 975 recommendation to Haldeman of a month bafore the memo bore the Bob Haldeman has suggested to me that if you would like him to join you in a meeting with Hoover he will be happy to do so Looking back on this memorandum Dean pointed out that although he was against the intelligence collection methods in the Huston Plan he knew Haldeman supported them and would be reading the memo too Dean recalls that to keep his rapport with Haldeman and his job he included the operational language in the memorandum ac tually believing he claims that the permanent evaluation committee would be as far as the undertaking would ever go He and Mitchell were in agreement that the enthusiasts in the White House would uire some kind of paci er and this memorandum would give them at cast a sense of action and commitment 25 Whatever the truth may be about the later intentions of Dean Mitchell or Haldeman an interagency Intelligence Evaluation Com mittee was planned and set up by Dean and Robert Mardian As- sistant Attorney General in charge of Internal Security during the waning weeks of 1970 The IEC held its rst meeting in ean s EOB of ce on December 3rd with Mardian in char 25 The meeting repre- sented the ful llment of one Huston Plan ob1ective the creation of a permanent interagencyintelligence committee At this opening session of the IEC were several old hands from the earlier 101 Ad Hoc Committee Angleton of CIA George Moore of FBI B 'man of NSA and John Downie of DOD At the subsequent meetings the group would be supplemented by staff aides many of whom like Richard Ober of CIA had also seen duty at the Langley meetings in June The focus of the IEC it was decided at themes-ting would be 011- intelligence in the possession of the United States Govern- ment respecting revolutionary terrorist activities in the United States and to evaluate this intelligence to determine the severity of the problem and what form the Fed eral response to the problem identi ed should take Though Dean had received a special security clearance at CIA on September 30th and had immersed himself at Haldeman s request into the details of the Special Report and the Huston Pl an his particl- pation in IE0 meetings soon came to an end The IEC began meet- ing in the udice Department under Mardian s tutelage and by January of the new year Dean had stopped attending the sessions 30 Thereafter the IEC was chie y operated by Mardian and Bernard A Wells his deputy One of the military staiimen assigned to the Intelligence Evaluation Committee was Army counterintelligence specialist Col Werner E Michel His views on the IEC are shared by virtually everyone familiar with its activities Michel observes that 1 the IEC did very little and nothing of an operational character 2 what little it did do 1 Dean staff summary 8 7 75 Memorandum from Robert Mardian to John Mitchell 12 4 70 Hearings Vol 2 Exhibit 25 Mardinn memorandum 12 4 70 Dean staff summary 976 chie y prepare intelligence reports was not done very well and E3 its leadership speci cally Mardian was inexperienced when it came to intelligence work The principal representatives to the IEC experts like Angleton Bu ham Downie and George Moore dropped out of the proceedings by July 20 1971 leaving beinnd subalterns to observe and participate General Bennett has said for example that an enlisted man was as- signed to the IEC staif to make sure Mardian wasn t trying to drag the military into something unwarranted 2 - The IEC prepared about thirty sta ' reports and fty- ve intelli gence calendars on radical events which were distributed to Dean in the White House and to the heads of participating agencies includ- ing Treasury and the Secret Service These reports were considered to be of low quality by ex erienced intelligence specialists The singularly most questions-b document to emerge from the IEC les was a memorandum appearing on January 19 1971 ped on Justice Department stationery and addressed to Mitchell Ehrlich'man and Haldeman the unsigned memorandum purported to speak unani- mously for the IEC articipants It asked for the implementation of the Special Report of June 1970 obviously from the text the memo- randum actually sought the adoption of Tom Huston s recommenda- tions All those who have been involved in the project rmly believe read the memorandum that the starting point for an effective domes- tic intelligence operation should be the implementation of the Special Report of the Interagency Committee on Intelligence The anonymous author or authors added that there is considerable doubt as to how signi cant a contribution the proposed committee the would make to existing domestic intelligence operations without implementa- tionof the Ad Hoc Committee Report Emphasis added Dean has stated that Mardian was reopensible for this memoran dum Mardian however denies he made any attempt or suggestion to implement provisions of Ithe Huston Plan or the Special Report of one 1970 In his view the IEC was strictly an effort to increase formal liaison among the intelligence agencies since Hoover had broken it off the previous summer The IEC was only for analysis 2 The Committee does not appear to have done anything more than try to evaluate raw intelligence data over 90 per cent of which was generated by 'the Like the Huston Plan itself this interagency effort also tailed in large part because of Hoover s truculence toward it At one point Hoover wrote to Mardian concerning a proposed 1 Stair summary of Col Werner E Michel interview 5 12 75 See also memo randum for the record by Col Werner E Michel May 21 1973 9 Bennett staff summary 6 5 75 Michel staff summary 5 12 75 Stilwell stair summary 5 21 75 Downie staff summary 3 13 75 Buffham staff summary 7 19 75 Angle ton staff summary 11 5 1'5 Memo-randum unsigned on Justice Department stationery to John Mit- gell John Ehrlichman and H R Haldeman 1 19 71 Hearings Vol 2 Exhibit - 9 Dean staff summary 3 7 75 Staff summaryr of Robert Mardlan telephone interview 1 13 78 Michel Bm summary 5 12 75 The FBI did have however the bene t of data the CIA mail opening product and information the pro eat 97 7 charter for the IEC it is requested that an appropriate change be made in the wording of para aph IV entitled to clearly show that the FBI will not provi personnel for the proposed perma- nent intelligence estimation sta Mardian later complained to the Attorney General on February 12 1971 that the content of the intelligence estimates would be of in- su icient quality to warrant continuing without coopera- tion 9 Eventually Hoover did send over two but they were considered to be less than satisfactory by most other Itici- pants 27 The Director of the FBI clearly was not into in the success of the IEC no more than he had cared for the concept of an interagency committee as outlined in the Huston Plan According to various sourCes the secrecy of the IEC stemmed Jfrom its handling of secret documents its desire to avoid publicity and criticism which might come to an interagency intelligence group regardless of how innocuous its works and Mardian s attempt to make the IEC appear to be more important than it really was In early June 1973 the IEC was nally abolished by Assistant Attorney General Henry E Petersen He concluded in-a memorandum to participating agencies Now that the war in Vietnam has ended demonstrations carrying a potential for violence have virtually ended therefore I feel that the IEC function is no longer necessary 2 Be- hind this smoke screen lay the real reason according to IE0 sta mem- ber James Stilwell 1E0 leaders feared the mounting criticism of the recently revealed Huston Plan a copy of which appeared in the New York Times would lead the jackals of the press to their door It was time to close shop Some members of the IEC staff argued that it would be a mistake to abolish the IEC at this time because people would conclude wrongly that it was in some way an extension of the Huston scheme This viewpoint was overridden m B Secret Meeting with On March 25 1971 an FBI counterintelligence of cer wrote a memo- randum for Hoover s information regarding a request from Attorney General Mitchell which asked the Director to meet with him Helios and Gayler on March 31 The o icer did not know the agenda for the meeting but 5 culated that it would cover the subject of foreign intel- ligence as it re ated to domestic m Ilileuroraudum from J Edgar Hoover to Robert Mardia n 1 3l71 m lletomorauiilum from Robert Mardian to John Mitchell 2 12f71 Hearings Vol 2 Exhibit 27 for example Michel staff Summary 5 12 75 Stilwell stair summary 5 21 75 m f i or example Dowuie staff summary 3113 75 Stilwell shad summary 5 21 75 9 Memorandum from Henry E Feterseu to 001 'Werner E Michel 6 11 73 Stilwell staff summary 5 21f75 Stilwell sta ' summary 5 21f75 Memorandum from W R Wanna to C D Brennan 3 23 75 Though W R Waunall is the name on the memorandum it may have been actually dictated by a subordinate in the FBI Intelligence Division In January 1971 the NSA Di rector had written a memorandum to the Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General on how his Agency could assist with intelligence hearing on domestic problems See memorandum from Noel Gayler to Melvin Laird and John Mitchell 1 26 71 Benson Bu ham of N33 personally showed the memorandum to John Mitchell Memorandum for the record by Benson K Bu ham 978 The NSA noted the memorandum was alread sending intelligence extremely confidential basis on the international conunmiications of American citizens but only as by product from communications monitoring responsibilities This Information was not developed in any systematic way The memoran dum suggested that Helms and Gayler might have an interest in in creasing intelligence output of this type The memorandum stated that the principal source of Bureau data on subversive activities was electronic surveillance and live informants To supplement these collection techniques Hoover was advised to take advantage of any resources of NSA and CIA which can be tapped for the purpose of contributing to the solution of the problem The memo- randum sounded like a fragment of conversation from the Langley meetings the previous June The meeting in Mitchell s of ce actually occurred on March 29 Later Hoover prepared a memorandum for the les which indicated that Helms was primarin responsible for the gathering The purpose of the meeting was to discuss a broadening of operations particularly of the very con dential type in covering intelligence both domestic and forei Ga ler was most desirous of having the Bureau reinstate certain intelligence collection programs and Helms spoke of further coverage of mail These approaches were rebuffed by Hoover who told Helms and Gayler according to his memorandum that he Was not at all enthu- siastic a at such an extension of Operations insofar as the FBI was concerned in view of the hazards involved Mitchell then intervened according to Hoover s memorandum and asked Helms and Gayler to prepare an in depth examination of what collection methods they desired After reading the report Mitchell said he would convene the group again and make the decision as to what could or could not be done According to the Hoover memo Helms agreed and said he would have the report prepared very 27 The Huston Plan battle had been fought again this time with the inclusion of the major missing participant Attorney General Mitchell The results were similar to the earlier outcome a victory for Hoover Yet clearly the war was not over While neither Helms nor Gayler nor Mitchell recall this meeting or the outcome of the Helms-Gayler report and while it is unclear whether such a report was ever actually prepared one thing is certain eforts to implement provisions of the Boston Pica persisted The unlawful 01A mail-opening program con- tinued the list of am of American citizens on the NSA Watch List expanded daring the years 1 970 to 1973 the a Zimit an FBI cam infomiaats was lowered from 21 to 18 and til Bureau iatcvwi e its investigations in the internal security eid Memorandum for the les by J Edgar Hoover 4 12 71 Hearings Vol 2 Exhibit 31 Subsequent to the meeting with Mitchell the Attorney General reversed the FBI decision against a proposed CIA electronic surveillance accord- ing to Angleton and in May 1971 all the devices which had been installed were tested and all were working See Memorandum for the record by James Angleton p 5 Hearings Vol 2 Exhibit 61 For the detailed documented evidence on these points see the Select Commit- tee Reports on the CIA mail program the NSA and the FBI internal securityr programs Information on the incidents of surreptitious entry remains classi ed but the cases are limited to foreign targets See also Brennan testimony Hearings 100 on the extent of the FBI internal security investigation 979 The intensi ed intelligence activities of the FBI included surveil- lance of every Black Student Union and similar group regardless of their past or present involvement in disorders Emphasis added 3 This involved the opening of 4 000 new cases Also members of the Students for a Democratic Society SDS were placed under investi gation accounting for an additional 6 500 new cases The FBI witness during the Huston Plan public hearings did not believe the President was ever told about this increased Bureau activity 21m Nor according to other witnesses was he told about the instances of expanded intelligence collection by other agencies Speak ing of the CIA mail program former Attorney General John Mitchell suggested that the old-school-tie boys who had been doing it for 20 years just decided they were going to continue to do it 231 Looking back on the Huston Plan President i301 said in an of cial statement in 1973 Because the approval was withdrawn before it had been Implemented the net result was that the plan for expanded intel llgence activities never went into effect 232 It was not that simple however As a former CIA Chief of Counter-intelligence James Angle- ton noted - The Huston Plan in effect as far as we were concerned was dead in ve days and therefore all of the other matters of en- larging procurement within the intelligence community were the same concerns that existed prior to the Huston Plan and subsequent to the Huston Plan The Huston Plan had no im- pact whatsoever on the priorities within the intelligence com munity 233 People are reading a lot into the Huston Plan Angleton continued and at the same time are unaware that on several levels in the com- munity identical bilateral discussions were goin on Angleton stated that since the creation of the CIA in 1947 there has been con- stant discussion of operations and improvement of collection so there is nothing unusual in time There were a number of ongoing bi- lateral discussions everyr day with other elements within the intelli- gence community which may or may not have duplicated the broad general plan that Huston brought about 235 The fact that the President approved the Huston Plan if only brie y is deeply troubling in itself as some of its provisions con- travened the law That some of the intelligence agencies could continue these programs after the President revoked his authority and in fact expand them is cause for great alarm These facts raise serious questions about the sensitivity of the White House and the intelligence agencies to the law and the Constitution Memorandum from Executives Conference to Clyde Tolson 10 20 70 Hear ings Vol 2 10 29 70 The Executives Conference was an occasional gathering of senior of cials in the FBI Executives Conference memorandum 10 29 70 Brennan 9 25 75 Hearings pp 133 139 Mitchell 10 24 75 Hearings p 141 On the apparent lack of presidential awareness of the NSA watch list expansion see Allen 10 29 75 Hearings pp 28 29 and Nixon s answers to interrogatories 3 9 76 11 1 I President Richard Nixon Presidential Documents pp W Angleton 9 24 75 Hearings pp '70 '71 Angieton 9 24 75 Hearings p 82 3 Angleton 9 24 75 Hearings 1 83 980 IX SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS The Huston Plan isode is a story of lawlessness and impropriety at the highest levels olf government It is also a story of high-level de ception for some of the intelligence agencies concealed illegal pro- grams from the President and his representatives from the Congress and from one another The ndin in this investigation are similar to those disclosed in other phases of Select Committee inquiry into the Amemcan intelligence community namely a lack of accountability unclear lines of authority and frequent disregard fur the law A Accountability Authority and the Law On June 5 1970 the President ordered the intelligence community to provide the White House with a complete and factual review of se- lected intelligence collection procedures restraints 11 these proce- dures and options forrelaxing the restraints Instead 0 his representa- tive Tom Charles Huston was deceived The intelli ce report for the President failed to disclose an ongoing illegal mai openin pro to conducted by the CIA with the cooperation and knowle go the FBI It also failed to mention the improper domestic intelli ence activities of the CIA and the FBI now known respectively as per- ation and 29 In short the authority of the President s order for a candid report carried little weight Later on uly 23- 1970 when the President revoked his authority to implement the Huston Plan provisions his action again had little eliect upon the intelligence services The CIA mail-openin con- tinued Operation CHAOS and COINTELPRO went on NEA se- lection of international communications involving Americans was expanded apparently largely as a result of names contributed to the NSA Watch List by the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs the FBI opened thousands of new cases on do- mestic dissenters and intensi ed its campus surveillance by lowering the age of inform-ants to 18 the intelligence agencies formed a perma- nent interagency committee for intelligence as envisaged in the Huston Plan and the intelligence directors from the CIA and the NSA continued to seek the full implementation of certain Huston Plan provisions The intelligence officers conducted ille a1 and questionable collec- tion programs apparently partly because ey concluded the good that owed from them in terms of anticipating threats to the United States made the programs and partly because of the ressure for results from the White House In addition the threats 0 civil strife faced by the nation in 1970 seemed to justify to the intelligence col- lectors the use of extraordinary methods Few of the counterintelli- gence experts who prepared the report leading to the Huston Plan objected to the inclusion of illegal options for the President They did not consult the Attorney General they did not consult the Congress and they did not consult their own legal counsels Although these two programs were not strictly within the intelligence collec- tIOn mandate of the 101 Ad Hoc Committee the r did deal with matters of in- ternal security-and 1n the case of CHAOS with the connection between domestic dissent and foreign powers therefore the CIA and FBI were being far from candid with one another and with the President's mpresentativa hy conceal- ing these programs at the Langley meetings 981 B The Quality amt Uoordimtioa of Intelligemc The Huston Plan is a story not only of impropriety and duplicity in the nation s intelligence community but also of frustration over the quality and coordination of intelligence The frustration came from several sources and tool many forms The White House was dissatis- ed with the information available on domestic dissenters and their foreign supporters and was concerned about the disintegration of liaison ties between the FBI and the other intelligence agencies Within the intelligence agencies themselves various degrees of dis- satisfaction over the quality and coordination of intelligence were also expressed In particular J Edgar Hoover was viewed widely as an obstacle to the expansion of intelligence collection methods especially for the acquisition of foreign intelligence Most of the counterintelligence experts involved in the Huston Plan episode did not share the White House view that domestic dissenters were receiving substantial foreign funding Despite considerable at- tention to this matter at the request of the White House the intelli- gence agencies were unable to discover evidence-of such a link None theless the President s men insisted upon still further investigation of possible foreign ties and complained about the poor quality of intelli- gence data in this area Reactions to the break-down of formal liaison coordination between the FBI and the other intelligence agencies was also viewed from different perSpectives by various participants in 1970 William O Sullivan of the FBI and Tom Huston saw the severing of formal ties by Hoover as another manifestation of paralysis in the conduct of Bureau intelligence affairs Others views the development as an unfortunate inconvenience but one that was 'soon surmounted by sundry informal methods of communication Savoring formal liaison in other words did not terminate cooperation between the intelligence agencies and the rather it forced the establishment of different channels of communication chie y through increased telephone con- versation and the exchange of memoranda No one however thought the situation was as good as before formal ties were broken and everyone looked upon the general lack of communication between Hoover and the other directorswespecially Helms as unfortunate Fetish Policy Implications The case of the Huston Plan provides a tragic commentary on the state of American democracy in the summer of 1970 Tom Charles Huston the top White House adviser for internal security affairs advised the President of the United States in client authorize the violation of to the Constitution and speci c federal statutes protect- ing the rights of American citizens The President Richard M Nixon accepted the advice and gave his brief approval to the unlawful 1n telli- gence plan which now bears the name of his adviser Throughout the episode some of the intelligence agencies concealed projects from the White House and from one another and after the President took back his authority from the intelligence plan certain agenc1es con- tinned to implement the provisions anyway The conclusion to be drawn from this case is that no lo or can the intelligence agencies be exempted from the law or from lines of higher authority The nal report of the Senate Select Committee on 982 Intelligence sets forth a series of recommendations to help prevent this from happening again Central to each of the issues of accounta bility authority lawlessness and the quality and coordination of in- telligence is the question of control The provisions in the Final Report would tighten control over the intelligence community Yet to avoid the dangers of tyranny inherent in greater control in the government the authority and responsibility for this increased supervision must be shared among the intelligence agencies themselves the President the Justice Department the Congress and the courts If shared and closer control is one answer emerging from this investi gation into the Huston Plan another is the need for more frequent dialogue on intelligence problems among responsible individuals in each branch of the Government The Huston Plan arose because well meaning and intelligent people wanted solutions to pressing questions of intelligence quality and coordination The solutions arrived at in June 1970 were inappropriate and have been criticized but the original problems have not been completely unresolved And they will not be until leaders in the Congress and the Executive Branch face them discuss them and decide upon appropriate courses of action The objective of the Select Committee has been to contribute to this vital process APPENDIX OF HUSTDN PLAN AND INTELLIGENCE EVRLUATIOH PREPARED BY SENATE SELECT STAFF Date Cenh'el event Related developments 1955 AsHa 35ng of Senator Long's wiretap hearings Dover mm a December 3966 FBI terminates break-ins has black bag inbs' 1951-53 Capt Thomas Charles Huston U S Army works at BIA in the area of covert aerial reconnaissance 1963 Huston works part time in the Nixon cem- parse Dr iar n Luther King in is murdered student riots at Golan in University 1 1953 Poor People s march heads for Washington lrom Memphis Jone 51 31968 Robert F Kennedy is murdered in Los Angeles Aug 2 1353 Chicago police and some 3 0% demonstrators confront outside the Chicago Hilton Ianuary 1959 Huston begins empl men at the Wilde 03 on the Speec writing and Research 3 Hench 1969 Student riots at San ancl 'o'state Cottage April 1959 Rioti in Btack neighborhoode'ot'cliiongo stir ant riot at Harvard and Camellia Antll1959 Ehriiohman prepares a report for Hilton on foreign Communist support of cam on dis- orders the white House conolu that -presont intelligence collection capabilities yore Inadequate they 1965 rst of 1 tape on government on a - lune 1959 Huston is assigned bl Ehrtisllman through Krogh to Investigate poenble foreign sup port oframpua disorders receives linen and reports from CIA and obtains a evidence to support the hvpodreels though is displeased quality of date especi- ally from the Bureau has rst contact the intelligence community Since entering the White ouae July 1955 Huston admes IRS to move against -o solutions Mite eli establishes the Ciwl Disturbance Group BUG to coordinate intelligence policy and action within Jasltce concerning domestic civil disturbances-eoparentiv be cause be doubted the adequacy of FBI effortain this area Mahler November 1359 During the Huston morntors FBI inteliigenoe estimates for the White Haidemen and Ehrlrohrnon oomplalo about quality at FBI data December 1969 Huston ask Sullivan to have the Bureau re- pare a report on the November morato urn showing that the Weethennen were to blame torthe violence notthe New Mobil-o- lion a conclusion agreed upon by lluston and Sullivan and contrary to the posrtion oi the Deparhnentot Justice January I910 Anny domestic program I revealed Ervin bogus investigation _Hu3ton continues responsi titties for monitonn end disseminating FBI intelligence to the late Home student riots at UB Santa Barbara Maren 193' Explosion of Greenwich Village townhouse 'bonih faoto Weathennen bombings of corporation co in New York increase or 20mm incidents throughout the United 933 984 or one irirELLioEivcE Eanoririon conanrEE PREPARED er SENATE SELECT connirrEE start continued Date Central event Related developments March l9 197i Erefutjve iratection Sdervice established acrng a eavier guer around embass'es Apr r 1570 live l in as Apr 22 193 0 Meeting'in Heldeman's of ce 11510 is t ld to meet regularly withintelligence agencies on questions of domestic violence and report to the White House decrsion that Nixon should meet with intelligence oom- principals regarding intelligence taps Cambodian lncursron prevents meet- from being held in May May 1970 Hoot State and Jackson State shootings anti- tgrar demonstrations Hoover terminates FBI 3313 Army phases out domestic June 11 1930 Huston recommends to Nixon that Sullivan he program 'named chairman or work you for Special Report earlier Benton and ullrvan had _met together to outline the restraint on intelligence collection which Hustoncoutd Show to Nixon in order to persuade him to establish the lnteragenevr Committee on Intelligence tel ad hoc June 5 1910 Nixon holds meeting-in White House to_create l l ad hoc Hoover named chairmen IE- 1 at a meeting with men are a 13' wine - whoever Helms Bennett Geyler Haldeman - Ehrlichman Finch and uston _ Hoover convenes meeting of intelligence rtnoioals to plan the of a Special court for lhePresrdent names Sullivan work group chairman meeting attended by Helms Hoover Geyler Bennett Huston Sullivan and G Moore June 9 19m First meeting of Cl ad hoc work group at Langley discussion on the purpose of the assembled group _eaoh agency assigned task of preparinga list of restraints hamper- ing intelligence collection June10 19l' Sullivan is promoted to No- 3 man in the Bureau sueceeding De Leach as Assistant igg e Drrector De Leach retires on July 20 June 12 192 Second meeting of work group June 17 1910 Third meeting or work group June 23 193W Fourth and nal meeting of the work group - - June 23 19W Hoover terminates all format liaison 'with HER Secret Service and the military servrces- lime 25 1910 Principals meet in Hoover's ol ce to Sign the Special Re rt June 25 1919 A copy of atria Report delrwred to Huston at the hite Home July 1979 John Dean transfers to the White House from Justice where he had otten represented the Government in discossiorrs with protest leaders about demonstration permits for the Washington area Earl July 1970 the memo to Heldeman entitled Operalronei - Restraints on intelligence Collection Huston recommends that Nixon selectmost of the options referring restraints on intel- ligence collection his recommendation he says re ects the consensus of the ad hoe not lust his men viewpoint Huston Writes a separate memo encouragrng Home to implement the Special Report options in _a face-tovtace meeting ivith the Agency chiefs otherwise thong-It Huston Hoover might not accept the re aliens Jill 9 197D in a memo Huston reclaims himself the exclusive center oint at the _White House on matters of omestrc inteli igence or internal security 15 14 19m Haldemen writes memo to Huston sayrng that Nixon had approved Huston's plan1 though he did not agree to the an- nouncement of the decision Nixon tells Heldeman who tells Heston that he did not want to take the tires to call the Agency Directors in 985 0F HUSTDN PLAN AND EVALUATION PREPARED BY SENATE SELECT charming ntinued Data Central event Related developments Jill 23 1970 Huston prepares a memo on Nixon's approval at the extreme options has thememo ap- roved bgat laldeman and sends rtto Helms cover yler and honour Sullivan calls Huston soon thereafter to say that Hoover was furious about the memo and Intended to_ see Mitchell' Hoover cells and vrrites Mitchell to complain the rst time Mitchell hears about the Special Report Hoover goes to Mitchell's of ce to obiect to the _rem_oval of restraints on IntellrEEnce col- lection methods Mitchell suoDOrts Hoover's pbglectives lo 19m ell confers with the President Hatdemao calls Huston to as that Mitchell has tallied to Nisan about Huston Plan and the Jul 23 decision memo was berng recalled so at Nixon Hoover Mitchell and Halda- man could reconsider the plan David hic- Manu of the White House Situation Room telephones each agency to re east the re- Eiurn at the decision memo an the Special and July 23 mm The agencies return the decision memOran doors to the White House Situation Room ALIE- 3 197i Huston and Haldeman hassle verbally about whether Niron should let Hoover's collections to the Huston Plan prevarl Aug-5 Huston writes a memo to Haldeltlan urging irn lementation at the Presidentrat decision re acted in the July 23 memo ME 7 1970 In a memo to Haldeman Huston adrrses that Haldeman meet with Mitchell insecure his support for the President's decrsron 2 that the FBI Director be informed the deci- sron stand and 3 that all Intelligence agencies are to proceed to Implement them at once Aug 10 1913 Huston is shifted to a subordinate poettipn onder_lohn Dean who is charged with assumrns Huston's_ intelligence responsi- in the White House Henceforth Boston's main responsibilities related to con ict at interest clearance and the re vrerv of Executive orders though he coca- sronally prepared intelligence reports l or Haldeman and continued to be the Irarson in the White House for Information Huston also worked on a White House his- tory of Vietnam negotiations RUE 14 1970- Huston asks IRS tor a progress report on its Late Haldemen shows been the Huston Plan and asks him to implement it AU8 25 1970 lo a memo to Haldema review of the operations of rdeological organizations Huston urges hjto House expansion of ubversrve Activities Control Board via an Executive order SEN-10 1970 Huston writes a memo to aldeman on the 53M Mitchell has lunch at CIA to discuss possi- bility of improved interagencv coordination meets with Been in the afternoon and says that he opposes Huston Plan but Hoover approves of on interageocv evalua- atron com mrttee to improve intelligence co- ordination In a memo to Haldeman Dean recommends the establishment of such a committee as a rst ste toward imple- menting the Huston Plan aldeman concurs 55 13 1970 in a memo to Mitchell Dean recommends the creation of an Intellr once Evaluation Com- mittee ll-10 for the mproved coordrnation and evaluation of domestic Intelligence The Interdivisional Information Unit the De- artment or Justice would provrde cover for E8 he will monitored information on civil isturbanoeslor the AG subiect of air hijacking In which he states the need for improved intelligence commu- nity coordination referring to Hoover as the chref obstacle 986 0F HUSTON PLAN AND INTELLIGENCE EVALUATION PREPARE BY SENRTE SELECT comma STAFF Continued - Date Gentrei event Related developments 5911 - 21 1379 in a memo to Haida-roan Huston complains that the IRS has to take any notebia actions against ideoiogioai organizations In a memo to IRS Huston recommends that the Agency put together a email group oi agents to use information gleaned tram tax oods to harass or embarrass certain Doc 3 1970 holds rst meeting In Dean's Jan 1971 An unsigned memo on Department of Justice stations goes to Mitcheti Ehrlichmen and Haigeman recommending Implemen- tation oi the Huston Plan anti supposedly re ecting unanimous IEC opinion Fab 3 1971 Hoover refuses to rovide FBI stafi for Hoover Helms ayier rpeet in Mitcheii s o ico to discuss relaxation of restraints on intelligencecotlectlon June13 19 1 Pentagon Papers are pubilsijeo Huston re- turns to law practice in Indiana soon there- after butoontinues to serve as a consultant to the White House throughout the year July 2 1971 Erhlichman form Plumbers group at Nixon's request Oct 6 1911 Suitiyan from the Bureau May 1972 Hoover dies May Home 1912 Watergate break-Inst 061- 7 1972 Huston is named a member of 8 Census Bureau Advisory Committee on privacy and con dontiei ity- ADT- 30 1973 John Dean I red as White House Counsel June 19% I c abolished This document is from the holdings of The National Security Archive Suite 701 Gelman Library The George Washington University 2130 H Street NW Washington D C 20037 WŚŽŶĞ͗ ϮϬϮͬϵϵϰͲϳϬϬϬ͕ Ădž͗ ϮϬϮͬϵϵϰͲϳϬϬϱ͕ ŶƐĂƌĐŚŝǀΛŐǁƵ͘ĞĚƵ