Everything about Richard Helms totally explained
Richard McGarrah Helms (
March 30,
1913 –
October 23,
2002) was the
Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from 1966 to 1973. He was the only director to have been convicted of lying to
Congress over
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) undercover activities. In 1977, he was sentenced to the maximum fine and received a suspended two-year prison sentence. Despite this, Helms remained a revered figure in the intelligence profession. CIA Historian
Keith Melton describes Helms as a professional who was always impeccably dressed and had a "low tolerance for fools."
Biography
Helms was born in
Philadelphia in 1913. In 1935, after he graduated from
Williams College in
Williamstown, Massachusetts, he got a job at the
United Press in London.. The depression in London, however forced Helms to find work in Germany, where he covered the
Berlin Olympic Games; he'd spent two of his high school years at the prestigious
Institut Le Rosey in
Switzerland where he learned to speak
French and later Realgymnasium in Freiburg, where he became fluent in
German. He joined the
advertising department of the
Indianapolis Times; within two years he was national advertising manager.
Career in intelligence
During
World War II Helms served in the
United States Navy. In 1943, he was posted to the
Office of Strategic Services (OSS) because of his ability to speak German. In the aftermath of the war, he was transferred to the newly formed
Office of Special Operations (OSO), where at the age of 33 he was put in charge of
intelligence and
counter-intelligence operations in
Austria,
Germany, and
Switzerland.
The OSO became a division of the CIA when that organization was created by the
National Security Act of July 1947. In 1962 Helms became
Director of Plans after the CIA's disastrous role in the attempted
invasion of Cuba. After falling out with the
Kennedys, he was sent off to
Vietnam where he oversaw the coup to overthrow President
Ngo Dinh Diem. 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.
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 then served from 1973 to 1976 as
US ambassador to
Iran in
Tehran.
Helms's ultimate undoing was the CIA's role, at Nixon's behest, in the subversion of
Chile's
socialist government (
Project FUBELT), and the
overthrow of that country's democratically elected president,
Salvador Allende, on
September 11,
1973. According to Helms, Nixon had ordered the CIA to support a military coup to prevent Allende from becoming president in 1970. However, following the assassination of Army Commander-in-Chief General
René Schneider by elements of the military, public support swung behind Allende, and he took office in October 1970. Subsequently, the CIA funneled millions of dollars to opposition groups and striking truck drivers in a continuing effort to destabilize the Allende government.
During his ambassadorial confirmation hearings before the Senate, Helms was questioned concerning the CIA's role in the Chilean affair. Because the operations were still secret and the hearings were public events, Helms denied that the CIA had ever aided Allende's opposition. However, later information uncovered by the
Church Committee hearings showed that Helms's statements were false, and he was prosecuted and convicted in 1977. He received a two-year
suspended sentence and a $2,000 fine. He wore the conviction as a badge of honor, and his fine was paid by friends from the CIA.
In 1972, Helms ordered the destruction of most records from the huge
MKULTRA project, over 150 CIA-funded research projects designed to explore any possibilities of
mind control. The project became public knowledge two years later, after a
New York Times report. Its full extent may never be known .
In 1983, President
Ronald Reagan awarded Helms the
National Security Medal. After he died of
bone cancer in 2002, Richard Helms was interred in
Arlington National Cemetery in
Arlington, Virginia.
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