A Season of Inquiry Revisited by Loch K. Johnson

Author:Loch K. Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780700621545
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 2015-10-27T16:00:00+00:00

14

From Abuses to Reform

The chairman’s authority over the Senate Intelligence Committee went into a steady slide toward decentralization as we moved into the writing of our final reports. No doubt much of this fission would have occurred even if Senator Church had tried to maintain a secure hold on every project and even if the committee staff had avoided the confusion of administrative control by two individuals, Miller and Schwarz, so different in style, temperament, and objectives. By virtue of this uneven leadership, though, the centrifugal forces almost always present in larger groups were given freer rein.

The reins in the chairman’s hands became looser still in January when his campaign advisers opened Church for President headquarters on Capitol Hill. Now in communication with him daily, these advisers seemed to have greater sway over his schedule than the staff leaders of the investigative committee. The faces of Miller and Schwarz grew longer each week as they grumbled over Church’s inattention. Miller was understandably anxious to have the chairman become involved in committee efforts to fashion an oversight bill.

Amidst the beehive of task forces, subcommittees, special teams, work groups, and individual entrepreneurs, two structures took on a dominance in the waning weeks of the investigation: the Foreign and Domestic Intelligence Subcommittees, headed (at Church’s request) by senators Huddleston and Mondale. The Mondale Domestic Subcommittee exhibited high coherence and a strong sense of direction.1 This was true in part because the staffers working under him were essentially the old FBI Task Force, plus Schwarz’s team of lawyers. Also, Mondale involved himself in the staff work with uncommon attention and commitment.

The Huddleston Foreign Subcommittee lacked comparable coherence.2 Its key staffers (Miller, Aaron, Bader, and Quanbeck) were by training and temperament more individualistic in their work habits—less accustomed to group writing efforts than the attorneys. Huddleston was also less ideally suited to his assignment than Mondale to his. He had no foreign policy background or expertise to speak of, having been chosen by Church because he was dependable, discreet, and the next ranking Democrat on the committee after Philip Hart (who was desperately ill) and Mondale. The upshot was a much more individualistic approach to the preparation of the foreign intelligence report.

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