Congressional Supervision of America's Secret Agencies: The Experience and Legacy of the Church Committee

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2004.00342.x
• Author: Loch K. Johnson
• Published date: 01 February 2004
• Date: 01 February 2004

Congressional Supervision of America’s Secret Agencies 3

Loch K. Johnson

The University of Georgia

Congressional Supervision of America’s

Secret Agencies: The Experience and

Legacy of the Church Committee

In 1947, the United States created a modern intelligence community to guard against another

surprise attack like the one at Pearl Harbor. This community consists of 13 major agencies, among

them the CIA and the FBI. Concealed from public view, they pose a significant challenge to the

concept of government accountability in a democratic society. This article examines the failure of

congressional lawmakers to hold the secret agencies accountable during the Cold War. Contrary

to recent theoretical research on legislative oversight, which suggests reasons that accountability

has been strong in the United States, this study finds that a weak system of legislative review has

permitted a dangerous erosion of civil liberties. The study also explores the efforts of the Church

Committee in 1975 to fashion new safeguards that would reduce the probability of further abuse

of power by the intelligence community.

For the purposes of gathering and interpreting informa-

tion from around the world, the United States created 13

major agencies during the Cold War, known collectively

as the “intelligence community” and led by a director of

central intelligence (DCI). Seven of the agencies have a

predominantly military mission and are within the juris-

diction of the Defense Department (among them, the Na-

tional Security Agency, which gathers signals intelligence);

five are associated with civilian departments, such as the

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) within the Justice

Department; and one, the Central Intelligence Agency

(CIA), stands alone as an independent entity that is an-

swerable directly to the president (Lowenthal 1992;

Richelson 1999). Together, these agencies comprise the

largest cluster of information-gathering organizations in

American history, and they are rivaled in world history only

by the intelligence apparatus of the Soviet Union during

the Cold War and Russia today.

Concealed from public scrutiny, America’s intelligence

agencies pose a major challenge to the idea of government

accountability in a democratic society (Ransom 1970, 1975;

Johnson 1985). This essay examines the failure of legisla-

tive supervisors to hold the intelligence community in check

during the Cold War, leading to a significant erosion of

civil liberties in the United States. It also explores the pre-

requisites that are necessary to lessen the probability of

further abuse of power by the secret agencies.

A Conceptual Framework

There is an extensive literature on the subject of con-

gressional control over administrative agencies, commonly

referred to as legislative oversight (Aberbach 1990; Ogul

1976; Scher 1963). As Spence notes (1997), positive theo-

rists and quantitative empiricists have pointed to lawmak-

ers’ capacity to shape the environment of agency decision

making so as to align bureaucrats with the goals of over-

sight committees on Capitol Hill. For instance, Calvert,

McCubbins, and Weingast (1989) and McCubbins et al.

(1989) both maintain that executive agencies are essen-

tially hard-wired at their statutory inception to honor leg-

islative intentions (ex ante control). Moreover, they posit,

Loch K. Johnson is a regents professor of public and international affairs at

the University of Georgia, author of several books on U.S. national security,

and editor of the journal

Intelligence and National Security.

Johnson was

special assistant to the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in

1975–76, staff director of the House Subcommittee on Intelligence Oversight

in 1977–79, and special assistant to the chair of the Aspin-Brown Commis-

sion on Intelligence in 1995–96. E-mail: Johnson@uga.edu.