Reverse Blowback

There has been a lot of discussion on this forum regarding "blowback", started by Andy Fox. That concept talks about the long-term effects of a given policy and how a choice can come back to bite you on the rear. It seems to me that the concept has been applied by the left to criticize certain policies, although I know this is an overgeneralization. So I have a reverse blowback possibility, although maybe it is just plain blowback. And it had its roots in conservative Idaho. Philip Terzian had a syndicated column recently discussing some of this that maybe some of you saw.


Anyway, it starts with the now inconceivable election of Frank Church to the Senate from apparently conservative Idaho. His attack on the CIA in his hearings had impact that continues to this day. And the "reforms" it caused have damaged our ability to collect intelligence at a time when we need it the most. The CIA was damaged in all kinds of ways, from decrease in funding to imposition unwieldy and sometimes unnecessary oversight, and the increased difficulty of attracting good people into the CIA for a career. Additionally, there was a choice made to rely on technical intelligence over human intelligence that figured into the mix, although was not caused by the "reforms" of the Church Committee. But the damage to the CIA had to figure into the decision to move away from humint to some degree.


While some will give Church credit for exposing some cold war abuses, his escapades are now causing us some problems. Maybe Church saw them coming, but certainly others didn't. We are about to undo some of the "reforms" which sprung from the Church hearings in order to combat the growing problem of terrorism. And as even Cyrus has hinted at, we will need excellent intelligence to appropriately deal with the terrorist threat we face.


So tell me what you think of this blemish to Idaho's conservative reputation. Meanwhile some trivia: What is the best thing Carter did as President? Concede to Reagan before the polls closed in Northern Idaho (then a Democrat stronghold) to insure Church would lose his seat to the arch-conservative commie-hater Steve Symms. And you didn't think Carter had any personal political vendettas?

Starting with your last paragraph first, I remember that many polls showed the Reagan-Carter election "too close to call." I believe Carter was truly shocked by the margin of his defeat and was not thinking about anything else other than his own pain when he conceded early. With all due respect, I don't think Northern Idaho was on his mind. But I don't know about the relationship between Carter and Church, so perhaps there is something to this.


As to the damage allegedly caused to our intelligence gathering by Church's investigation, it was not the intelligence gathering that was the focus of his "escapades." It was the rogue nature of the CIA's escapades and it's use by Presidents to circumvent the normal processes of our democracy to do things secretly from the American people and congress, some of which were contrary to what we would expect our government to be doing, e.g., assassinating people, rigging elections, etc.


Now whether this has had the effects you indicate is open to question. Has the CIA had trouble attracting good people since then? If so, where is the evidence that the results of the Church investigations caused this? Has the CIA indeed relied on technical intelligence rather than human intelligence to the detrimine tof our intelligence gathering? Has there indeed been a decrease in funding and unnecessary oversight? (In light of the CIAs record, "unnecessary" would not be a word that comes to mind when discussing oversight.) And if these things have taken place, how have they affected the CIA's ability to do its job?


Senate races can sometimes yield funny results. When I was a kid in N.Y., it was solidly Democratic, yet we had two Republican senators, Javits and Keating (and a Republican governor). And eventually James Buckley became a senator from New York. Here in crazy California, we've had Hayakawa and George Murphy, but also John Tunney and Barbara Boxer.


As far as Church being a "blemish" on Idaho's reputation, what other senators have established that reputation and what have they contributed on the national scene? I'm not trying to be facetious, I plead ignorance here. I remember Church's leadership on foreign policy issues and the Church commmittee, but I don't remember whether he was liberal or conservative on other issues.