Valtin on Church Committee
March 14th, 2007
In The Most Important Congressional Investigation in U.S. Historyhttp://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/3/12/181553/747
, Daily Kos’ Valtin provides background on the 1975-1976 Church Committee’s investigation of intelligence abuses by the CIA, FBI, NSA, and other agencies.
Extent of the Select Committee Investigation
Since the passage of the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act, signed into law in 1992 by President George H. W. Bush, over 50,000 pages of Church Committee records have been declassified and made available to the public. These files contain testimony and information on U.S. attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, on the Church Committee’s investigation of the intelligence agencies’ response to domestic assassination, MKULTRA mind control research by the CIA and other agencies, and COINTELPRO, among other topics.No other Congressional investigation left such a damning indictment of government malfeasance and undemocratic actions as the Church reports have left us.
Sen. Church was not left untouched by backlash. The “Anybody But Church” Committee (ABC) — the child of the conservative Washington National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC). (See the many court decisions against NCPAC for their electoral shenanigans here.) Apparently, Idahoans, upset at Church’s support for the Panama Canal treaty, elected GOP’er Steve Symms by less than 1% of the vote in the Reagan landslide year of 1980.
The Church Committee Reports
It’s worth quoting some from the reports to give a flavor of their breadth, their political rigor, and their depth of research. The whole is way too long to quote at any length, or even give a decent sampling, but I believe those who are politically active today, and those who are currently serving in Congress, should use the Church hearings as both an inspiration and a template.
Entry Filed under: Congress, Law, Politics, Rights and Liberties
1 Comment Add your own
1. Rex Bradford | March 15th, 2007 at 7:13 am
The 14 published reports of the Church Committee may be read online at:
Many declassified transcripts and files are also available online. The details of the attempts to murder Fidel Castro provide great illumination of the concept of “plausible deniability” and give the lie to the “someone would have talked” mentality about state crimes. The full set of reports is about much more than assassination plots of course, covering domestic surveillance (CointelPRO, MHCHAOS, HTLINGUAL), covert operations in Chile to overthrow Allende, and a detailed history of the various intelligence agencies.
See also:
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