Richard Helms Interviewed by R. Jack Smith, 21 April 1982

i
i
’ !
&&!(ST/ /203 008 09
attention to his job, that he was working at it, that whether you liked what he did or not, he was paying
attention. You know, you could get his ear for five minutes, or whatever the case might be, and he was
bright enough to get the point. So, I think over time the Agency’s performance with him improved. In
other words it had no place to go but up, if you want to put it that way. But it did go up. And now what
happened after I left and he became Secretary, and [William] Colby and all the rest of it that’s an era that
I don’t know anything about. But, you’re absolutelyright when you say that the Agency was not having
an easy time of it in the early days of the Nixon administration.
( U / T ) JS: You know, I have a foot note. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you [of] ‘aremark that I’ve
always th ught that was extremely funny but also bears out precisely what you were saying about your
relations with Kissinger on a personal level. When [Ambassador] Pat Moynihan came home from New
Delhi, shortly after the word had come out in the end of 1972 that you were being fired, Moynihan saw
Kissinger and said, “What’s going on here, what’s this about firing Helms?” And Kissinger said, “I
didn’t do it, the ‘Chermans’ did it.” Erlichman and Haldeman. [Laughter]
II
(U/FwO) RH:That’s right. As a matter of fact, Kissinger didn’t even know I was leaving. 9 w.. 8 - t l i t J
(U) JS: I know. But I thought that was excruciatinglyh y . “The Chermans did it.” [Laughter]
( U / F k O ) RH:No, there’s no doubt about what happened. And I think they would have liked to have
done it four years earlier. In any event, let’s say this. Despite this challenge to the Estimates, the
analysis and so forth of the Agency, the fundamental fact remains that if the things had not been read, if
people were not paying attention to them there never would have been the challenge. So I don’t think
anybody needs to feel bad about a rgcky period in the Agency’s history. It was bound to be a rocky
period with Richard Nixon as President, given the fact that he held the Agency responsible for his defeat
in 1960. And he never forgot that and he had a barb out for the Agency all the time because he really
believed, and I think he believes to this day, that that “Missile Gap” question was the responsibility of
the Agency and that it did him in.
(U) JS: And it was politically motivated.
( U / h t Q RH:And it was politically motivated. So, dealing with him was tough, and it seems to me
that the fact that I ended up with four years of working for him with my head on my shoulders is not the
least achievement of my life. [Laughter]
JS: Dick, the Arab-Israeli War, the June 1967 war, that’s always regarded as one of the high points of
the Agency’s success. And you’ve paid tribute to it a number of times. I talked to Sherman Kent about
it just yesterday.
&) RH:My recollection of the events are as follows: Unfortunately, I don’t recall on what day of the
week I was having breakfast at the White House, but during breakfast President Johnson got a telephone
call from Arthur Goldberg, who was his Ambassador to the United Nations. Goldberg was apparently
vociferous on the phone about an approach that had been made to him by some Israeli Official, possibly
the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, pointing out that Nasser was about to take a step which I
believe was the closing of the Straits and the Red Sea, if I’m not mistaken. But the precise thing that
Nasser was supposed to do you can readily find in the history. And the President was “just going to have
S y / /203 008 09