NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - CIA Director William Colby
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - CIA Director William Colby
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - CIA Director William Colby This tape is glitchy, it flickers fairly often and blinks black and the color is off at different times
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - CIA Director William Colby
(00:01:52) NPACT logo appears, National Public Affairs Center (00:02:02) Opens to Senator FRANK CHURCH holding up a sight bearing hand gun designed to shoot darts - he asks witness WILLIAM COLBY, CIA director, about the purpose and operation of the gun (00:02:31) NPACT introduction to the Senate Hearings on Intelligence Activities begins in which acronyms for the IRS, NSA, CIA & FBI spin around on the screen followed by an image of the capital and then a copy of the Senate resolution to investigate these Intelligence organizations, this intro is narrated by an announcer who also introduces NPACT correspondents PAUL DUKE AND JIM LEHRER.
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - CIA Director William Colby
DO NOT USE (00:03:17) Shot of tv Studio where Lehrer sits at desk in front of a large monitor bearing a hearings coverage logo, he introduces and summarizes the day's testimony which he says is the stuff of spy novels, it has been the questioning of CIA director Colby mainly about the CIA's possession of two containers of shellfish toxin and cobra venom which contain poison enough to kill thousands of people - the sound is somewhat muffled - the image skips a bit during this segment (00:04:30) Lehrer introduces panel, DAVID WISE , a journalistic expert on the CIA, DAVID PHILLIPS, a CIA agent and former director of covert operations in Latin America
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - CIA Director William Colby
(00:05:17) Paul Duke gives more summary of the day's hearing, he says the committee is there to put in check "a rogue elephant" that has gone out of control, he also mentions that the public seems much less interested in these hearings, that nothing can shock them anymore after Watergate hearings two years ago.
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - CIA Director William Colby
DO NOT USE (00:06:30) Lehrer segues to the hearings
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - CIA Director William Colby
(00:06:38) Shot opens to close up of Colby testifying to the committee, he gives a detailed history of what lead up to the investigation of the toxins, in this history he says that the existence of the toxins came to his attention when earlier in the year he issued a request for any illegal practices within the CIA to be brought to his attention, also in this history he mentions different delivery systems designed in conjuction with the toxin, including dart firing fountain pen, Colby claims the only time the toxins went out on a mission was in the form of a suicide pill for the U2 pilot, FRANCIS GARY POWERS, spying on the Soviet Union, Colby ends by saying the toxin was found in a relatively unused vault and that it was kept after orders for its destruction were issued because of the cost of the destruction and the claim that it was irreplaceable (00:10:34) Church gives statistics as to the number of people that could be killed by the CIA toxins and asks why the CIA ever created the toxins, especially the great amount, in the first place (even before they were declared illegal by NIXON's passage of a ban on chemical and biological weapons)
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - CIA Director William Colby
(00:12:09) Colby responds that the toxin was developed to replace the L-Pill, a cyanide suicide capsule, with a more efficient alternative, he also admitts it was developed with the army as a weapon and that the CIA should not have held on to the amount it did (00:13:16) Church points out that the discovery of various poison delivery devices found in the CIA lab, including a dart gun, implicate the toxin's intended use was also as an offensive weapon, he asks Colby to present some of the delivery devices that were designed for this purpose (00:15:30) Church is presented with the dart gun, a modified 45 with a scope, and container of the ammunition - Colby gives the weopan specifics including the fact that ammunition was designed that would hit the victim without notice, Church: "As a murder weapon that's about as efficient as you can get" - Colby :"It is a very serious weopan" (00:17:30) ****Some good footage of senators with weapons as the pistol is passed down the committee line for investigation, Senator BARRY GOLDWATER holds it up and takes aim with the scope, this is met with chuckles by those eagerly clustered around him
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - CIA Director William Colby
DO NOT USE (00:18:09) Lehrer consults the panel about the testimony just shown, he asks Phillips if CIA agents ever sat around debating the pros and cons of switching from the L-pill to shellfish toxin - Lehrer then asks Wise about the U2 mission use of the poison, Wise reports there are differention contentions about what sort of poison was carried by Powers - finally Lehrer asks both men what they thought about Colby's presentation of the dart gun - Phillips thinks it was a mistake to make public agency weapons and that the international community will take a keen interest and Wise says he thinks it's all part of the stage show aspect of the hearings enjoyed by both senators and the CIA (00:24:18) Lehrer segues to more hearings footage
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - CIA Director William Colby
(00:24:40) Shot opens to Senator WALTER MONDALE who states "the record's a mess", that the CIA has has no system of accountability within it and how this was exposed by the shellfish toxin - there were no orders issued for its destruction and it seems it was chance that its existence was brought to official attention (00:26:21) Senator HOWARD BAKER asks Colby about the destruction of documents surrounding the shellfish toxin that perhaps give the purpose of its use and reason for its storage by a Mr. GOTLEIB (00:28:00) Baker asks Colby to define the doctrine of "plausible deniability" and to tell the committee if this was the excuse by which the CIA operated in its hiding the existence and purpose of the shellfish toxin - Colby defines plausible deniability as a way in which the U.S. could deny responsibility for anything that it was potentially feasible that they could not have done, he says that it strictly a doctrine used for international affairs and that where as the CIA might have hidden their domestic operations under it before they no longer do so now (the image blinks black for a second during this segment and the color comes back in radioactive light/white tones - bright and greenish)
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - CIA Director William Colby
(00:29:52) Senator WALTER HUDDLESTON refers to a memorandum from Dr.CAREMISSINUS (?) to the then director of the CIA, RICHARD HELMS, which Helms claims he never recieved, this document is to notify the CIA of the need, under presential decree, to destroy their stock of chemical and biological weapons held at Army base Fort Deitrich, it lists the then current stock of such things that need to be destroyed and this list does not include the shellfish toxin, the document also suggests that the CIA could if chosen by Helms continue with it's use of these weapons - Huddleston confirms with Colby the implications of all this (00:33:19) Senator GARY HART asks if Colby can vouch that there are no other chemical or biolgical poisons stored elsewhere within the country - Colby cannot - Hart then asks Colby to define the term compartmentization - Colby defines it as the keeping of sensitive information to a limited circle of CIA employees - Hart asks if the director of the CIA has limited access to compartmentalized information - Colby says no
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - CIA Director William Colby
(00:35:30) Senator JOHN TOWER asks how prevalent insubordination is in the CIA such as that revealed in the shellfish toxin case and what is going to be done about it - Colby responds that the discipline is tight in the CIA and that this incident was an exception
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - CIA Director William Colby
DO NOT USE (00:37:59) Back to studio and Jim Leher who says that Colby in his testimony implicated a Dr. GORDON as being responsible for toxin not being destroyed, Lehrer says that although Gordon testified today there is no footage of him because he invoked a committee rule to ban media coverage of his testimony
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - CIA Director William Colby
(00:38:50) Paul Duke introduces Gordon's testimony (00:39:04) Shot of Gordon in the hearing room gallery before he testified, he sits with a woman who would appear to be his wife, and wears dark glasses (00:39:37) Duke summarizes Gordon's testimony starting with the three reasons for Gordon's failure to destroy the toxins: he thought the presidential order did not apply to CIA toxins, he did not think the toxin fell under any ban, he never recieved any order to destroy them - Duke adds that Gordon said he was disturbed by having to throw away 18 years of expensive research and that he believed at the time that the CIA needed to continue to have such weapons capabilities - Duke also mentions that former CIA director Helms, who was implicated as sharing responsibility to for the violation of presidential orders fell asleep during Gordon's testimony (in the audience)
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - CIA Director William Colby
DO NOT USE (00:41:34) Lehrer turns to discuss Gordon's testimony with the panel - Phillips thinks that Gordon did not destroy the toxins because they were his life's work/obsession - Wise says that thier failure to have been destroyed makes the U.S. look a fraud to the international community after it claimed it had already gotten rid of all of its chemical and biological weapons, he also adds that this sort of insubordination is not the exception (00:45:40) Lehrer segues to more testimony
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - CIA Director William Colby
(00:46:15) Shot of Senator BARRY GOLDWATER who tells the committee that there is a danger in these investigations of going to far in exposing secret operations and ruining the agencies involved, he goes on to say he is proud of the CIA and praises its representatives that have testified and recommends the intelligence agencies as a good place of employment for the nation's youth - Colby thanks Goldwater for the pat on the back (00:48:00) Hart asks how we should go about supervising the CIA - Colby responds external supervision will only improve internal supervision (00:49:30) Senator MATHIAS states there is a need to define the relationship between the constitutional process and the operations of the CIA - Colby responds that the CIA is already responsible to report to six different government committees, including a congressional one, all thier domestic intelligence operations - Mathias in turn responds that he knows many congressional members who have shyed away from attending such committees, saying they "don't want to know"
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - CIA Director William Colby
(00:51:43) Back to Duke in the studio who segues to an interview he conducted with Church in the hearing room right after the day's session ended (00:52:25) Shot of Duke interviewing Church, Duke asks Church if there was a direct refusal not to follow orders on the part of the CIA, if there was any wink by White House administration not to destroy the CIA toxins, if the CIA might have kept the poisons to use in assassination plots, what's to prevent this from happening again
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - CIA Director William Colby
DO NOT USE (00:56:22) Back to the tv studio and Duke and Lehrer discuss the with the panel issues of responsibility and supervision of the CIA - Phillips says that the CIA has too often been the tool of the White House and foreign policy and that it will welcome the opportunity to be carry out its operations under congressional supervision - Wise says that congress needs to take the iniative to patrol the CIA and hence forth also start taking some of the reponsibility for its operations (01:00:50) Lehrer closes out the show, mentioning President FORD's statement about possible changes to the CIA and telling the viewers what's to come in tomorrow's testimony