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

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would agree that probably when we were asked, even by the White House, for a profile of an American
citizen that was a bad judgment call. We shouldn’t have done it. So, okay, we shouldn’t have done it.
But as far as the Plumbers were concerned, they were never identified to me for what they were. This
was all put in the context of a perfectly legitimate tightening up of security on leaks and various things of
this kind. In other words there was no smell of cadavers in connection with this at all. At that time
when I heard about the Plumbers I was as thunder-struck as anybody else.
0)Now “The protection of sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure,” that
famous(*Ysentence n the 1974 (sic) statute. One of the criticisms of the Rockefeller Commission, directed
at me was the efforts I made to find out who it was that had leaked certain intelligence material, how it
came that Jack Anderson had vast amounts of materials, how it came that Jack Anderson had vast
amounts of materials in his possession and so forth. And eventually the truth came out that it was the
Yeoman in the Office of the Joint Chiefs in the White House who was putting this stuff together and
giving it to Jack Anderson because he was disaffected and he was a Mormon [as was Anderson]. Rathen
a bad view was taken of efforts by the Agency using any resources other than passive or negative ones to
find out why these things had happened and how they had happened. I would rather have somebody
with a legal turn of mind make a judgment on this. I think the Rockefeller Commission was rather high
and mighty about it and did not focus on what the problem was. If you have the charge on you by statute
to protect - that’s what it says - and you are actually losing out - in other words, you are not
“Protecting”; you find out there are holes in the dam and the water is cuming through. It seems to me
that some active effort to find out and to plug these holes is perfectly legitimate. I think that if one had
done less than that one would have not have been effectively been carrying out the law. Now the
interesting thing about all of these items in the Rockefeller Commission Reports is that they have never,
been adjudicated before a judge or before a jury or before any court of law. They’ve all been sort of ad
hominem comments by commissions of individuals who may have had their own particular axes to
grind. If I went too far, or was over-zealous, possibly that’s true. But if that’s the case, at least it seems
to me that I had a legitimate reason for being. My plea is that either that language be taken aut of the
statute and done away with entirely or redefined so that it’s clear what the responsibilities of the Director
is to this matter and what is expected of him in the execution of this responsibility. I don’t know what’s
been done because obviously I’m out of touch with these things, but I’ll bet you that it’s still in the law
and I’ll bet you that nothing has been done to take it out, and I’m wondering how the present Director or
subsequent Directors may interpret this. In any event, I think it’s a bad piece of language and I think it
ought to be eliminated or redefined and clarified.
(U) JS: Is it the language that’s at fault or is it the interpretation of the actions taken in support of it
that’s involved?
( U / b U Q ) RH:Well, it may be the latter but it seems that the language invites this misinterpretation. If
the Rockefeller Commission fellas have any case. That’s my point.
(U) JS: But it’s so much of a cardinal principle to all of us in the Intelligence business, it just seems
remarkable that it should not be regarded for what it is: a prime first principle.
RH: My next item is about the war in Laos. I didn’t have any very complicated point I wanted to
make about that but there obviously has to be a chapter on the policy involved, who authorized it, how
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