The Family Jewels by John Prados Read Free Book Online Page B

underway, who had approved it, or how it began.
    Not satisfied, Britt Snider sought a meeting with NSA’s recently retired deputy chief, Louis Tordella. In that exalted position since 1956, Tordella would have the backstory if anyone did. They met at his home on a Sunday afternoon in September. Sure enough, the NSA man had the goods and laid out his account into the evening. Tordella conceded that Americans’ cables were monitored, but maintained this concerned only a few persons and had not been a primary objective. Snider returned to his office. The NSA suddenly set up a briefing for committee members where it related thesame facts. Senator Church summoned cable company officials and took testimony, after which Snider prepared a staff report on Shamrock.
    The next step was for the Church Committee to decide whether to hold a public hearing. No senior NSA official had ever appeared before Congress. The committee was split, partly but not entirely along party lines, with Church and some favoring a hearing and Tower plus others opposed. Senator Church convened a private meeting to hammer out a plan, inviting Secretary Schlesinger and General Allen to make their case against public discussion. The showdown took place on the afternoon of October 2. Schlesinger, returning from a NATO ministerial conference in Europe, was late and tired. Staffer Loch K. Johnson recalled the scene: “He sounded like Moses speaking from the mount, engulfed in swirling clouds of pipe smoke.” 37 Grave and somber, Schlesinger spoke in a low voice. Lew Allen nodded at his points. It was all too sensitive. Hearings might inadvertently disclose information to America’s enemies. Schlesinger seemed to have no sense of crisis, the political values at stake. An NSA congressional aide, James G. Hudec, listened in mounting horror as Schlesinger, who seemed tired and may not have understood what he was asked, offered alternatives that kept Fort Meade in control: the committee could hold closed hearings, then write a report the NSA would edit; or it could assemble a report that NSA would vet, and then could have a hearing based solely on that material. Frank Church had heard enough and dismissed the officials. Once they left, the senators thrashed it out, and Church wore Tower down until the committee agreed to proceed.
    The Ford administration, well-informed by Republican members and staff of the inner workings of Church’s investigation, now became desperate. Attorney General Levi, who had refused to discuss the issue previously, specifically asked to speak about the NSA. The administration wasmomentarily in a stronger position because Senators Church and Walter F. Mondale, in appearances during the intervening days, had made statements disclosing certain other testimony taken privately. But Levi’s appearance proved a disaster. The attorney general held his hand against his face and spoke dismissively. Staffer Johnson thought Levi looked like he was nursing a toothache. Levi held up the specter that after a public hearing corporations would no longer cooperate with government, denying NSA a valuable source. Why that should matter for an operation that had been terminated he did not say. As for those Americans on the watch list, they were suspicious individuals. Levi could not answer questions from Senators Mondale and Gary Hart. He then repeated that a public hearing would damage American security and refused to say anything more. Heated debate within the committee followed. Senator Church lost support for a full NSA inquiry, but members came to focus on Shamrock and Minaret.
    President Ford counterattacked the same day, announcing that he himself would reform U.S. intelligence by fiat, issuing an executive order to revamp the system (something that did not happen until three months later). He followed up with telephone calls to Church and other committee members imploring them to back off. But the hearings on CIA mail-opening took