Spymaster Richard Helms: an interview with the former US Director of Central Intelligence

In this previously unpublished interview with Richard Helms in 1990, the former US Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) offered his views on a wide range of intelligence issues. Contrary to conventional wisdom, he argued that members of Congress had maintained rigorous accountability over the secret agencies in the years before the major spy scandal of 1975, when the Central Intelligence Agency was found to have spied on American citizens. He emphasized, too, the vital importance of human (as opposed to technical) intelligence, and expressed cynicism about the effectiveness of large-scale covert actions. For Helms, the DCI's most important job was to bring the facts to the table at high policy meetings.     

Revealing the parameters of opinion: an interview with Frances Stonor Saunders

In 1999 Frances Stonor Saunders published Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War (London: Granta) (American title: The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters). The book received much attention from the media and from academics, and triggered a renewed assessment of this important aspect of Cold War history. W. Scott Lucas interviewed Frances Saunders about the methods of the CIA, the role of the intellectuals in the political and cultural battles of the Cold War, the question of their autonomy, the need for financial support of cultural activities, and the debate about the principles of intellectuals.