MH/CHAOS

Hersh went on, “The CIA domestic activities during the Nixon Administration were directed,” citing his unnamed source, “by James Angleton, who is still in charge of the Counterintelligence Department, the Agency’s most powerful and mysterious unit.” Hersh’s statement is not true. First, Angleton did not direct the MHCHAOS program. Second, there was never a “Counterintelligence Department” in CIA. Angleton was head of the CI staff, which was later upgraded to a center in the mid-1980s. What I can infer from Hersh’s statement is that his unnamed source, if there truly was one, was unreliable or misinformed.

When MHCHAOS began, the United States was escalating its involvement in the Vietnam War. Neither President Lyndon Johnson nor President Richard Nixon wanted to be the first president to lose a war. President Johnson’s Vietnam policy only aggravated the New Left and also alienated the middle class with his administration’s efforts to control the war. As U.S. involvement increased, so did opposition to the war.

In the spring of 1967, student antiwar protests gained momentum. Those participating in antiwar marches were ready and eager to expose themselves to arrest in exchange for the chance to optimize the desired result of their protest. Some marched because it was something to do, others just followed the crowd, and others joined because they felt alienated from society by U.S. government policies.

No matter what the personal reasons, these protests continued to increase in intensity when other groups began to merge with those agitating against the war. The large-scale and well-publicized protests helped influence world opinion against the United States. In the summer of 1967, racial unrest and antiwar sentiment escalated. Washington became the logical target, beginning with a march on the Pentagon in October 1967. The goal of the protestors was to undermine any future U.S. military escalation of the war in Vietnam.

What President Johnson saw was increasing domestic unrest. Between 1963 and 1968 there were 369 civil rights demonstrations, 239 black riots and disturbances, 213 white terrorist attacks, 104 antiwar demonstrations, 91 campus protests, 54 segregationist clashes with counterdemonstrators, and 24 anti-integration demonstrations. Too many incidents, thought the president, to be anything but foreign inspired. By forming the Kerner Commission, named after Illinois governor Otto Kerner who chaired the commission, in 1968 President Johnson apparently believed these riots were not some spontaneous uprising but were planned by outside agitators and, perhaps, subversives. He hoped that the commission would find that the case.

Johnson administration officials also did not believe that this unrest was homegrown. In all the wars the United States had participated in, Americans generally rallied around the flag. While there were always some who opposed any war, the nation had not seen before the depth and scope of opposition aligning itself against this war in a small Asian nation. A series of events within the United States caused the political leadership to become paranoid about an international conspiracy to undermine the nation’s national security. Peace demonstrations against the Vietnam War, combined with the civil disorders following the assassinations of Martin Luther King and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy and the Poor People’s Campaign, truly alarmed the White House. The West European student strikes that were in full swing at the same time reinforced this alarm.

Some of CIA’s domestic actions during the convulsive year of 1968 did not involve SOG. The CIA’s OS activated an emergency security plan at CIA headquarters as a precautionary measure during the riots after King’s assassination, the Poor People’s Campaign, the funeral of Kennedy, and a few other public events to protect CIA personnel and facilities. The OS responded to the Secret Service’s request for CIA help with security measures at the Republican National Convention in Miami in August 1968, and later at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago with Helms’ approval, but the DCI directed that the support given be overt.

The OS also activated its command center several times in 1969 and 1970 during antiwar demonstrations and other protests. In the end, CIA was not directly affected by the activities. In mid-April 1971 the May Day Collective made plans to harass CIA headquarters. The Agency gave permission to the group to hold a news conference on April 28 on its property, but outside the front gate. CIA security personnel and Fairfax County police were on standby during this event, which went off peacefully.

Challenges to traditional authority and a lack of political deference on the part of university students were seen as foreign inspired. These new, middle-class protestors locked arms with the old-line militants to challenge the Johnson presidency. Johnson truly felt that there had to be some external force provoking American youth to riot and demonstrate. “Johnson’s liberal toleration of pluralism and protest clashed with his conviction that opposition to a president’s foreign policy bordered on treason.”²

He became convinced that the Communists were behind these acts, and he wanted CIA to prove it. Johnson appears to have used the long-standing fears of Russian intentions to “bury” the United States as the basis for his decision. He also felt that CIA was the best resource he had to discover whether the militant bombings and destruction and the black riots and burning of our cities were foreign directed.

President Johnson, a Democrat, started the program but decided not to run for reelection and left the White House in 1968. President Richard Nixon succeeded him. Like Johnson, President Nixon was dismayed by the extent to which his Vietnam policies encountered domestic opposition. He, too, believed that these challenges to traditional authority and a lack of political deference on the part of college students was foreign inspired. Under these circumstances, CIA assistance to the general attempt to preserve public security seemed natural. Both presidents placed demands on CIA to determine whether the movement opposing the Vietnam War or the rise of Black Nationalism was funded or directed from abroad.

President Johnson tasked Helms to give him positive proof that foreign entities were causing the domestic unrest within the United States. Helms believed it was a legitimate request, but he also realized that the Agency had to walk a fine line to respond to it. If there were a foreign influence at work, it was CIA’s job to discover who was involved, why they were doing it, where the money was coming from, and how they were doing it. Helms knew that CIA’s response had to be comprehensive.

Several officers also convinced him that if the Agency were going to be involved, it had to take whatever chances went with it because it was important to the president. Helms made a conscious decision at the time this arose. As I recall hearing it, one of Helms’ assistants told him that if the Agency were going to obtain a rounded picture, its investigations needed to be comprehensive. The Rockefeller Report, on page 131, said Helms bought this reasoning because he was pressured by the continuing and insistent requests from the While House.

President Johnson began to apply pressure on CIA to give him some good news on the Vietnam War front in the summer of 1967. Johnson wanted to show Americans that his policies and programs in Vietnam were working and that they should support the war effort. CIA officer George Allen, who sat in on White House meetings when his boss, George Carver, was unavailable, said that CIA’s participation in those gatherings on manipulation of domestic opinion was the most distasteful and depressing of his bureaucratic career.³

A second example of White House pressures: In September 1967 Walter Rostow told the Agency that because President Johnson wanted some useful intelligence on Vietnam for a change, CIA should prepare a list of positive developments in the war effort. According to George Allen, the special assistant for Vietnamese affairs (SAVA) refused to prepare such a study, but at Helms’ request the Deputy Director for Intelligence (DDI) did prepare one. Helms sent it to Rostow with a cover note protesting the exercise and pointing out that this special, limited study was not a true picture of the war. Rostow pulled off that cover note and was finally able to give the president a “good news” study from CIA. I mention this episode because it was also at this time that President Johnson asked CIA to prepare a questionable (and therefore super-sensitive) study on the international connections of the U.S. peace movement.

In another misleading article by Hersh in 1975, he claimed that “former high-level members of the Central Intelligence Agency have said, in interviews that, to their knowledge, the agency’s super secret Counterintelligence Division never made written reports on its sensitive activities to Richard Helms or other top agency officials.”⁴ This article makes me wonder whether Hersh did interview any senior CIA officials, or if his information was purely creative writing on his part.

As for written reports, in late 1967 the national security affairs assistant to the president asked CIA for an assessment of possible foreign links with American dissident student groups. CIA sent a message dated November 3, 1967, to its stations informing them that headquarters was participating in an interdepartmental survey of international connections to the Anti–Vietnam War movement in the United States. It said the survey was attempting to establish the nature and extent of illegal and subversive connections that may exist between U.S. organizations or activities and Communist, Communist-front, or other anti-American and foreign elements abroad. Headquarters wanted any connections, from casual to closely controlled channels, for Communist Party directives.

Stations were asked to review their files or any readily available information and cable the results, as well as any comments the stations believed relevant. CIA specifically told its stations that they should limit their coverage to evidence of contacts between the U.S. peace movement elements and foreign groups or individuals. In a cable from headquarters on November 3, 1967, CIA told its stations that it was not interested in anti-Vietnam protests unless Americans or U.S. organizations were involved. If American involvement was detected, the stations were asked to try to determine if the activity was locally inspired or foreign directed.

Ober provided the collected information to the Office of Current Intelligence (OCI), which then prepared a report, “International Connections of the U.S. Peace Movement.” Paul Corscadden of the OCI was the principal author of this study on youth unrest. The draft paper, which argued against the conspiracy theory, went through several controversies and revisions. Finally, in September 1968, the report, “Restless Youth,” which examined the demonstrations and disorders occurring in Europe, included a section analyzing the American scene to complete the picture. There were actually two “Restless Youth” reports; one, which was disseminated to the intelligence community, did not contain the American section. The other study went to the president, Rostow, and Secretary of Defense Cyrus Vance. This study, dated December 24, 1974, concluded that “there is no convincing evidence of control, manipulation, sponsorship, or significant financial support of student dissidents by any international Communist authority.” The OCI report also concluded that the radicalism within the United States emerged from domestic social and political alienation.

An updated version was completed in February 1969 without the U.S. section. This one was sent to the vice president and Henry Kissinger. In subsequent reports we prepared, this same conclusion was reached each time. In July 1970 we provided a memorandum, “Black Radicalism in the Caribbean,” to White House staffer Huston and presidential counselor Patrick Moynihan (the future Democratic senator from New York). Both men thought well of the memorandum.

At no time were we given free rein to do anything we pleased. We used Agency sources and friendly foreign intelligence services to gather information, which we passed to the FBI, the White House, and to other government agencies. Intelligence attacks against the United States, its people, and its organizations very often cross the dividing line as they move from abroad to the domestic scene. Our role was clearly and rightfully limited to CI activity abroad. We took our responsibility to properly coordinate and liaise with other U.S. government agencies, particularly the FBI, which was involved in combating this threat domestically, very seriously. We shared completely with the FBI and other appropriate U.S. agencies all the information we acquired abroad.

Our reporting was without bias and did not favor administrative thinking or serve the White House’s conclusion. We probed beneath the mere rhetoric streaming forth from all these groups. In so doing, we had a firm grasp of existing conditions within the antiwar and black militant movements. We compared information collected from various sources, drew conclusions from the analyzed information, and reported it to the president. If any antiwar, New Left, or black militant was being controlled by a foreign entity, we could not find any evidence of it. If our conclusions were correct—and in more than thirty years no information has surfaced to refute or alter these conclusions—we did our job.

The report did not satisfy President Johnson. The president was intensely interested in proving foreign meddling in the antiwar movement. In providing an answer contrary to the president’s belief, Helms feared an eruption of Johnson’s temper. It did not come. The only thing President Johnson told Helms was for CIA to pursue the question. In doing so, he did not give us blatant authority to carry out any nefarious activities. Instead, we had to recruit new sources and devise ways to try to penetrate these groups abroad to determine if there was a smoking gun. In performing our mission, we never asked any foreign security service to detain or arrest any black militants or New Left radicals, although many of the Black Panthers abroad were wanted for crimes committed in the United States.

The President’s calm demeanor may have been because he viewed the Agency as his ally—something President Nixon did not see. Despite Nixon’s view of CIA, we intensified our efforts to try to answer the president’s repeated question. We began clandestinely to collect information on foreign efforts to support, encourage, and exploit domestic extremism and dissidence in the United States.⁵ These efforts included funding, training, propaganda, provision of safe havens, and provision of alias documentation, among other things. The collection emphasis was on foreign involvement, whether directly or indirectly by third-party national leftist groups or individuals.

Principal concern was for coverage of foreign involvement in the extremist antiwar movement; extremist student/youth/faculty groups; black, Chicano, and Puerto Rican extremism; deserter/evader support and inducement; and international aspects of domestic underground media. We were interested in various organizations, which included, among others, the People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice, the National Peace Action Coalition, the Student Mobilization Committee, the Black Panther Party, the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, the Students for a Democratic Society, Dispatch News Service, Newsreel, Liberation News Service, and Ramparts.

Information on these subjects, collected by all-CIA components—including the Clandestine Service, the Office of Communications, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, and the Domestic Contact Service—was disseminated as obtained via CIA memo, subject: The MHCHAOS Program, on May 8, 1973. The bulk of the dissemination was to the FBI but some was also to other agencies, including the White House, as appropriate. The reports to the White House on foreign control of student radicals, black activists, and the peace movement had the same bottom line: no indications of any significant foreign control.

After coming to power, the Nixon administration made no reassessment regarding black radicalism or the antiwar movement. Jarris Leonard, Nixon’s assistant attorney general, Civil Rights Division, characterized the Black Panthers as “nothing but hoodlums,” and said that the government has “got to get them.” Nixon and former secretary of the treasury John Connelly discussed the antiwar movement in a conversation on May 9, 1972. Nixon saw the radicals as “a wild orgasm of anarchists sweeping across the country like a prairie fire.”⁶

If either president pressured Helms to find the proof they wanted, it was never communicated to us. Helms never made unreasonable demands upon us, and Ober pointed out that Helms never compelled us to produce the “correct answer.” To his credit, Helms accepted each of our reports to the White House and made no effort to change or influence the analysis. I believe this last point is very important, and it is one either totally ignored or simply missed by the congressional investigators and the Rockefeller Commission members. The integrity of our efforts, our analysis, was never compromised. We reported the information as it was received. We did not water down any reports, nor did we shade any meanings to please the White House. But most important, we did not slander or accuse any antiwar, New Left, or black militant of being in bed with the Communists or with a foreign intelligence service. Each officer was a professional, and as such sifted through all agents reporting, all media reports, and any technical collection received, looking for proof positive. We found none, and that’s what we told the White House. And most important, Helms supported our conclusions and us.

Basically, this left us in a no-win situation. Each time we reported that there was no evidence of foreign control within the domestic student and black militant groups, the White House reaction was one of skepticism. If the White House had accepted our conclusion, Helms, in all likelihood, would have ended the program. Instead, it was back to the drawing board each time. And each time, we had to expand our horizons, to reach further and look at every dissident to try to detect any foreign contact and what that contact meant. In the end, we were trying to defend our conclusion—we were trying to prove a negative.

Helms and Ober were concerned about MHCHAOS’ growth caused by the increasing reporting from CIA stations abroad. The security of the operation was paramount. No correspondence relating to the program was processed through normal Agency channels, but it was compartmentalized. CIA used the term “compartmented” for reasons of operational security and sensitivity. Each Agency officer within the geographic divisions who signed off as coordinating on an SOG-prepared message was placed on a “Bigot List.” The Bigot List, which had the names of all people who were aware of a sensitive operation, was derived from the British practice during World War II.⁷ In CIA, the Bigot List was used for sensitive intelligence operations such as MHCHAOS. This was done to protect the information and to make Agency officers aware of the extraordinary sensitivity of the information. Clearance for access to MHCHAOS information was a policy decision.

Because operational officers detest sitting at a headquarters desk for any length of time, personnel were always changing. This meant the Bigot List continued to grow. I don’t know how many CIA officers were on the list; the Rockefeller report stated on pages 146–147 that “over six hundred persons within the CIA were formally briefed on the Operation. A considerable number of CIA officers had to know of the Operation in order to handle its cable traffic abroad.” Therefore, I question the statements regarding our office as being cloaked in a blanket of security that was “extreme even by normal strict CIA standards.”

As more and more officers became aware of MHCHAOS, resistance began to surface. Many middle managers and even some senior managers opposed CIA’s involvement in American radicalism. David Blee was chief of the Near East Division. One Saturday I was in the office when a cable going to the Near East needed coordination. Jason H——asked me to handle it, so I took the cable to Blee for his signature. No sooner had he looked at the cable than he began a tirade against MHCHAOS, saying that CIA had no business doing this. I interrupted his verbal offensive and asked him to discuss his feelings with Jason H——. I stepped out of his office while he made the call. When he hung up he signed the cable and handed it me without any further comment. Others held similar views regarding the program and made their opinions known to senior Agency officials and Helms, who listened politely but told them it was a legitimate request and he was bound to honor it.

We were not popular with our operational colleagues. The senior officers, like Blee, did not share the view that American New Leftists or black militant activity abroad was a legitimate target of CIA. If it were not for Helms’ support we would have had a lot of difficulties in overcoming opposition from various division chiefs. Although no one ever said it, I had the impression that we were viewed as lepers to be avoided. Thus, while branch chiefs signed off coordinating on our messages to stations under their purview, they never engaged in any conversations or even offered a friendly welcome. They penned their signatures silently because they knew refusing to do so would only cause a call to their division chief complaining of their intransigence, which would result in having to sign off anyway. Branch chiefs do have the power to question or challenge any operations or requests that go to a station under their watch, but for MHCHAOS their opposition would be easily overruled.

The cryptonym MHCHAOS later triggered a lot of focus by the media. The assignment of the cryptonym for the program was innocent and had nothing to do with the chaotic conditions in the nation. Karamessines instructed Ober to identify a limited dissemination procedure, which would afford the group’s activities high operational security while simultaneously getting the information to the appropriate government agencies. To accomplish this, Ober went to the registry to obtain a code name by which the traffic coming in from our stations abroad would come directly to us. The registry assigned the code name from a list it maintained, and CHAOS happened to be the next word. For security reasons the code name should never give any hint to the identification of the operation.