CIA’s most devoted DIRECTORS OF CENTRAL INTELLI- GENCE (DCI), Richard McGarrah Helms was one of the original “cold warriors” and the first CIA career officer to head the Agency.
Born May 30, 1913, to Herman H. Helms and Marion McGarrah in an upper-class neighborhood in St. David’s, Pennsylvania, young Helms attended prep schools in Ger- many and Switzerland, becoming fluent in both German and French. In 1935, he graduated from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and became a corre- spondent for United Press International (UPI) in Berlin. At UPI, he covered the 1936 Olympic games, and later managed to land a lengthy interview with Adolf Hitler. Two years later, he returned to the United States and became an advertising manager for the Indianapolis Times. He was there when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
In 1942, Helms joined the U.S. Navy and served in a fund-raising capacity for the Navy Relief Society in New York. Not long after, he attended a two-month officers’- training course at Harvard University. He was subsequently
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awarded a lieutenant’s commission and assigned to anti- submarine operations in the Navy’s Eastern Sea Frontier command.
Helms’s previous experience in Germany led him in August 1943 to transfer to the OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SER- VICES(OSS), the World War II precursor of the CIA. Fol- lowing training, he went to work for another future DCI, ALLEN WELSH DULLES, in the OSS’s Secret Intelligence branch. For the remainder of the war, he ran espionage operations against the Nazis from posts in Great Britain, France, Luxembourg, as well as Washington, D.C. Ger- many surrendered in the spring of 1945.
When President Harry Truman disbanded the OSS in October 1946, the Office’s operational arm was redesig- nated the STRATEGIC SERVICES UNIT(SSU) and moved to the War Department. OSS research and analysis units were brought under an INTERIM RESEARCH AND INTELLI- GENCE SERVICEand transferred to the STATE DEPARTMENT. Helms remained with the SSU and became CHIEF OF STA- TION(COS) in Berlin. When the SSU was rolled into the new CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE GROUP (CIG), Helms’s Secret Intelligence branch was renamed the OFFICE OF SPECIAL OPERATIONS (OSO). Helms himself was dis-
charged from the Navy at the rank of lieutenant comman- der, becoming a civilian employee with CIG. He contin- ued with the organization when it was reestablished as the CIA in 1947.
In the early days of the COLD WAR, Helms was directly involved in West German espionage operations, particu- larly those involving the intricate spy network created by REINHARD GEHLEN, a former Nazi intelligence officer who was destined to become the head of West Germany’s For- eign Intelligence Service.
In 1951, Helms returned to Washington and assumed the post of deputy assistant director for operations and began succeeding one superior after another. First, he succeeded LYMAN KIRKPATRICK as the assistant director for operations in July 1952. Kirkpatrick was forced to leave office after being stricken with polio. During that same period, the OSO merged with the OFFICE OF POLICY COORDINATIONto form the new DIRECTORATE OF PLANS (OPERATIONS). At Plans, Helms became second in com- mand to both FRANK GARDINER WISNER, the first DEPUTY DIRECTORof plans (DDP), and later RICHARD MERVIN BIS- SELL, JR., the DDP who in February 1962 was forced to resign from the CIA after the ill-fated invasion of Cuba at
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the BAY OF PIGS in 1961. Helms then became DDP, and served in this capacity for the next four years.
In 1965, DCI JOHN A. MCCONE purportedly recom- mended that Helms be appointed his successor. President Lyndon Johnson instead chose Vice Admiral WILLIAM F. RABORN, JR., to be the next DCI, with Helms as deputy DCI. Raborn, however, stepped down after only a few months in office, and, on June 30, 1966, Helms became CIA director.
Helms’s tenure was not an easy one. He had replaced Raborn because Johnson had lost confidence in the admi- ral. For the next seven years, Helms presided over an agency that was losing face in the public eye. It was dur- ing the height of the Vietnam War. Revelations were beginning to emerge in the American press that suggested that the CIA had been involved in a number of illegal and/or immoral activities at home and abroad. Making matters worse, in 1972, the public learned that the Agency may have had a hand, either directly or indirectly, in the burglary of the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel.
It was also during this time that Helms initiated covert OPERATIONS IN CHILE in an attempt to overthrow the regime of Socialist president Salvador Allende Gossens (Allende would be killed and his government ousted seven months after Helms stepped down as DCI). “We’re not in the Boy Scouts,” Helms was fond of saying. “If we’d wanted to be in the Boy Scouts, we’d have joined the Boy Scouts.”
Helms loved the CIA, and he did everything he could to protect the Agency. When President Richard Nixon attempted to divert the FBI’s investigation of the WATER- GATE SCANDALaway from the White House by deepening the CIA’s implication in the matter, Helms resisted. This action was viewed as disloyalty by the president. On Feb- ruary 2, 1973, Nixon relieved Helms as DCI, replacing him with JAMES R. SCHLESINGER.
Helms then accepted a position as ambassador to Iran, a post he would hold until 1976. But during routine con- firmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he swore under oath that the CIA had not been involved in a plot to overthrow Chilean president Allende. It was a lie that would come back to haunt him. He was found guilty of perjury, and, on November 4, 1977, he was given a two-year suspended sentence and fined $2,000. Presiding Judge Barrington D. Parker con- cluded by leveling harsh words at Helms. “You [Helms] stand before this court in disgrace and shame,” he said.
Many CIA insiders viewed Helms’s conviction and subsequent punishment as unjust. After all, they believed, it was sheer loyalty to the Agency that compelled him to commit perjury. Helms himself remained unrepentant. “I found myself in a position of conflict,” he said. “I had sworn my oath to protect certain secrets. I didn’t want to
lie. I didn’t want to mislead the Senate. I was simply try- ing to find my way through a very difficult situation in which I found myself.”
In October 1983, President Ronald Reagan attempted to polish Helms tarnished reputation by awarding him the National Security Medal. His other awards included the Career Service Award by the National Civil Service League and the Distinguished Intelligence Medal.
In retirement, Helms worked both as president of the Safeer Company, a publishing house, and as a private con- sultant.
Helms died on October 22, 2002, at age 89.