In the early 1970s, Helms categorically denied under oath before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee that the CIA was trying to overthrow the Marxist Allende
Government in Chile, when he had, in fact, directed massive covert efforts to do
just that.22 Moreover, Helms went out of his way to lie, for the false testimony
came not at some Senate hearing where he was defending the CIA's reputation, but
at a hearing where he was personally seeking confirmation as Ambassador to Iran.
The honorable course would have been to refuse to discuss the Chilean incident
with the Committee and to take his chance of losing the ambassadorship. It was not
any secrecy oath that Helms had with the CIA that was at stake, it was his
nomination as Ambassador to Iran. Faced with the alternatives, Helms lied. 

Although this was clearly perjury, when angry Senators forced a prosecution, the
Washington establishment rallied around Helms, who was allowed to escape justice
by pleading to a single violation of 2 U.S.C. section 192, a statute that requires
witnesses to answer questions before Congress. This was the sweetheart deal
Helms got. 

In order to relieve Mr. Helms of pleading to a felony charge of perjury, the Justice
Department created a special misdemeanor to which he was permitted to plead "no
contest." The Department of Justice charged Helms with, Helms pleaded to, and
the Judge sentenced him for, a crime that doesn't exist. The Department of Justice
was so anxious to strike a bargain with the defense that it manufactured a "crime"
for the occasion. 

Mr. Helms was charged with the misdemeanor of failing to testify "fully, completely
and accurately" before a Senate Committee. There is no such crime. There is a
felony statute of perjury before Congress and a misdemeanor statute of contempt
of Congress for a "refusal to answer." Helms was charged under the latter statute.
But he did the exact opposite. He did not refuse to answer; he answered and did so
falsely. This is not a crime under the "refusal to answer" contempt misdemeanor
statute. 

Yielding to the Government's intense pressure to accept the "no jail" plea bargain,
Judge Barrington Parker assessed only a $2,000. A group of 400 retired CIA
intelligence officers promptly donated funds to pay Helms' fine at an impromtu
victory party at the Kenwood Country Club following his sentence.23 As Joseph
Rauh wrote in the November 9, 1977 edition of the Washington Post, "The CIA
now knows that the law is only peripherally for them." 

The problem that Helms presented was typical of those we would face with the
covert operators at the CIA. Here was a man who had lied to Congress and gotten
away with it. Was there any reason to expect him to do less in a private litigation?
The 1973 destruction of MKULTRA documents virtually guaranteed that Helms
would have free rein to concoct any story at all when we questioned him.