Richard McGarrah Helms

After graduating from Williams College, Massachusetts, he joined the United Press news agency and in 1936 was sent to Nazi Germany to cover the Berlin Olympic Games. On his return to the United States he joined the advertising department of the Indianapolis Times. Two years later he became national advertising manager. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor Helms joined the United States Navy. In August, 1943, he was transferred to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). After the surrender of Germany in 1945, Helms helped interview suspected Nazi war criminals. Helms remained in the OSS and in 1946 was put in charge of intelligence and counter-intelligence activities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The following year Helms joined the recently formed Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). His first task was to mount a mount a massive convert campaign against the Communist Party during the Italian General Election. In 1955, he participated in the effort to construct a tunnel from West Berlin to East Berlin to listen in on East German communications. Helms became involved in intelligence work in Cuba and Vietnam, too. He served as Deputy Director of the CIA from 1965 to 1966. In time, he rose to the rank of Director of the CIA, serving in that capacity from June 30, 1966 to February 2, 1973. Helms was the first career intelligence officer to assume that post. Helms served under two presidents as head of the CIA: Lyndon B. Johnson, a Democrat, and Richard M. Nixon, a Republican. In 1973, Helms did not bend to Nixon's suggestion that the CIA become involved with the Watergate investigation. In 1977, Helms pleaded no contest to charges that he had not fully disclosed to Congress the agency's plans to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro and to fund to opponents of Chilean President Salvador Allende, who, in 1973, was overthrown by a military coup. After his ambassadorship to Iran, Helms did consulting work. From 1977 to 1997, he was the president of the Safeer Company in Washington, D.C. Helms received the Career Service Award of the National Civil Service League in 1965, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal in 1973, and the National Security Medal in 1983. Richard M. Helms married Julia Bretzman Shields on September 8, 1939, and the couple had one son, Dennis J. Helms. After a divorce, Helms married Cynthia McKelvie in 1968. Richard M. Helms died on October 22, 2002.