Olmsted, Kathryn S. Challenging the Secret Government: The Post-Watergate Investigations of the CIA and FBI. Chapel Hill NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. 255 pages.

It may come as a surprise to viewers of "The X Files," but prior to the 1970s there was almost no information in the officially-acknowledged public record to suggest that the FBI and CIA had ever engaged in illegal or questionable activities. Then in the wake of Watergate, reports surfaced in the press of CIA involvement in the coup in Chile, and massive domestic spying by the CIA and FBI against war protesters. These were followed with stories of CIA plots to kill foreign leaders. The Church Committee in the Senate, and the Pike Committee in the House, were formed to investigate.

Congressman Michael J. Harrington (D-MA), and journalists such as Seymour Hersh (New York Times) and Daniel Schorr (CBS), played a significant role in exposing this secret history. At the time, many thought that the momentum for exposure would lead to significant reforms. But a year later the climate had changed dramatically. Harrington was in trouble with the House Ethics Committee for leaking information about Chile, the Pike Committee report was suppressed by Congress, and Daniel Schorr was fired from CBS after leaking the Pike report to the Village Voice. The author suggests that the momentum for reform was lost when the revelations became more than a deluded, complacent public could comfortably bear.
ISBN 0-8078-4562-0

Extract the names from this source

Back to search page