Richard Helms

Richard Helms (`913-2002) was a career intelligence professional who rose to be the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). He was the first DCI to rise from the ranks of the United States intelligence community (IC) rather than being appointed from outside. Helms was also the only DCI that was convicted for irregularities in office, although there were other DCIs that either died before a criminal process could be completed, or, more commonly, a judgment call was made that

After graduating from Williams College, he worked as a newspaperman until the start of the Second World War. He entered the IC in Office of Strategic Services, where he specialized in clandestine human-source intelligence, or, in more common terms, spying. Helms became Director of the Office of Special Operations (OSO), a pre-CIA espionage organization. In 1952, after the insistence of DCI Walter Bedell Smith that there had to be a single chain of command for field operations, the OSO merged with the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), the post-OSS, pre-CIA covert action organization to form the Directorate of Plans (DDP). Frank Wisner, the head of the OPC, became head of the DDP, with Helms as his deputy. When Wisner left the post, DCI Allen Dulles made Richard Bissell, not Helms, the new DDP.

After the CIA's disastrous role in the attempted invasion of Cuba in 1961, Bissell was forced to resign. Helms became the new DDP.

After falling out with John F. Kennedy, he was sent off to Vietnam. Following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Helms was made Deputy Director of the CIA under Admiral William Raborn. A year later, in 1966, he was appointed Director.

In the early 1970s, partially as a result of the Watergate break-ins under President Richard M. Nixon, the United States Congress took a more active role in intelligence agencies, as did independent commissions such as the 1975 United States President's Commission on CIA activities within the United States, also called the Rockefeller Commission after its chairman. Revelations about past CIA activities, such as assassinations and attempted assassinations of foreign leaders, illegal domestic spying on U.S. citizens, drew considerable Congressional oversight that had not been previousy exercised. It was determined, by several investigating committees, that the CIA had given inappropriate assistance to persons affiliated with the White House and the 1972 Nixon reelection campaign. Certain of the individuals involved in the Watergate breakins had worked, in the past, for the CIA. In an audio tape provoking President Nixon's resignation, Nixon ordered his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, to tell the CIA that further investigation of Watergate would "open the whole can of worms" about the Bay Of Pigs of Cuba, and, therefore, that the CIA should tell the FBI to cease investigating the Watergate burglary, due to reasons of "national security".

The ease of Helms's role under President Lyndon Johnson changed with the arrival of President Richard Nixon and Nixon's national security advisor Henry Kissinger. After the debacle of Watergate, from which Helms succeeded in distancing the CIA as far as possible, the Agency came under much tighter Congressional control. Nixon, however, considered Helms to be disloyal, and fired him as DCI in 1973. Helms was the only DCI convicted for irregularities in office; his autobiography describes his reactions to the charges