The Year of Intelligence’s Contentious End

Abstract

This chapter examines the end of the Year of Intelligence. Public interest began to wane following the release by the Senate’s Church Committee of a report on assassinations, and the death of Central Intelligence Officer Richard Welch in Athens, Greece, prompted pushback against further investigation. The report of the House’s Pike Committee was classified. The outcome of the year laid the groundwork for much of the current architecture for intelligence oversight. Both critics and supporters of the investigations were disappointed by their ultimate outcomes. The Year of Intelligence also prompted both internal and external questioning of the propriety of the relationships between the CIA and news media, especially following an article in Rolling Stone by Carl Bernstein alleging that the CIA had made widespread use of the press in the Cold War. The combination of the Year of Intelligence, Bernstein’s reporting, and the continual generational change of reporters and CIA officers fundamentally changed the nature of the relationships between the CIA and the press.