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In describing U.S. operations overseas, the committee noted that the CIA was so autonomous that it ran its own airlines and set up its own businesses to act as covers for agents and even created its own insurance companies, whose total assets amount to more than $30 million. More disturbing to the committee was the fact that the CIA put academics, newsmen and missionaries on its payroll and propagandized not only foreigners but Americans. CIA types wrote books backing up U.S. policy that were made available in the U.S.—sometimes after they had been favorably reviewed by other CIA types.
The report itself was evidence of the agency's continuing clout. At the urgent request of CIA officials, some 200 pages of material on secret overseas operations were deleted from the final version, and many portions of the surviving text were heavily censored. These changes may have been justified, but the CIA even tried to delete transcripts of hearings that had already been publicly telecast. At this, however, the Senators plucked up their courage and drew the line.
The committee did get across its main point: from 1961 to 1975, the CIA conducted some 900 major covert operations overseas. Many of these not only were of questionable value but occurred without proper supervision by the White House or oversight by Congress.
For a while, the committee gave serious consideration to proposing a total ban on all covert activities, reasoning that they were simply incompatible with the tenets of a democratic society. But the final report concluded that the U.S. should be able to mount undercover operations to counter grave threats to the nation. Last February, President Gerald Ford announced new Executive guidelines to control the CIA'S covert activities, but the committee remained unsatisfied, insisting that the restrictions be made even tougher and written into law.
To establish clear-cut responsibilities and lines of authority for foreign and domestic intelligence operations, the committee recommended the formation of a special watchdog committee in the Senate (leaving it up to the House to enter into a joint committee later on, if it wishes). Under the reorganization recommended by the Senators, the new committee would be able to pass on the foreign intelligence budget (which is now considered so vital a secret that the figure—estimated at about $10 billion —was eliminated from the report at the request of the CIA). What is more, the President would be compelled by law to inform the committee before any significant undercover operation was undertaken—thereby giving the members a chance to object to, although not veto the enterprise. Political assassinations would be forbidden by statute, as they now are by Ford's decree. In addition, the committee would ban by law any attempt to subvert a democratic government—a step that Ford says he favors.
There are already strong indications that the Senate is not prepared to approve the radical new reforms or even the creation of a new oversight committee. G.O.P. Senators John Tower and Barry Goldwater refused to sign the report, arguing that its strict recommendations would make it impossible for the CIA to operate effectively. The proposed change, said Tower, vice chairman of the committee, "could endanger American security."