Richard McGarrah Helms was born in St. Davids, Pa., to a family of financial means. Dennis said he didnt know. 's covert operations, or ''plans'' division, and by the early 1950's he was serving as deputy to the head of clandestine services, Frank Wisner. Helms first marriage to Julia Bretzman Shields ended in divorce. 0 had run a major secret operation in Chile that gave more than $8 million to the opponents of Mr. Allende, using the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation as a conduit. But he never knew its back story. Dennis Helms included the letter in an album of correspondence and photos from his home that he turned over for the museums new exhibit highlighting the history of the Office of Strategic Services, the CIAs predecessor agency. Most likely, Dennis figures, his father got the stationery shortly after Germanys surrender and backdated the letter to confer historical sweep. Mr. Helms pleaded no contest in 1977 to two misdemeanor counts of failing to testify fully four years earlier to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Helms trained at an OSS farm in Maryland and was sent to Washington, DC. Former CIA Director Richard Helms, who ran afoul of Congress for failing to fully disclose the agencys questionable activities at home and abroad, has died. Suddenly Helms exploded, "You sonofabitch! During his three years in Iran, Mr. Helms would make more than a dozen trips back to Washington to testify before Senate committees investigating CIA activities during his directorship. With his wife he entered a new life in local society. She married Frank Shields on 15 May 1929. At the time of this writing, several US congressmen and veterans' groups are sponsoring a bill that will provide medical care for American military personnel who unknowingly took part in military research between 1954 and 1973. On that night, more than two hundred synagogues were set aflame, ninety-one people were killed, and twenty thousand were arrested and taken to concentration camps. As for the initials "MK," the words "mind control" come to mind, though the origin of this code name has never been found. He was assigned to Berlin at the end of the war and worked for Allen Dulles, who would later become head of the CIA himself. Mar 1973 Father of Dennis and grandfather of Julia and Alexander; brother of Betty Helms Hawn, Pearsael Helms and Gates Helm; stepfather of Didi Anderson, Jill . A year later, he was among a group of journalists who interviewed Adolf Hitler. When Mr. Helms refused, according to the Powers book, Mr. Nixon forced him out and sent him to Iran as ambassador. He went to Europe as a reporter for United Press. Sources: Materials in collection. His life's ambition on leaving college was to own and operate a daily newspaper. - 22 October 2002) ( his death) Richard Helms Net Worth His net worth has been growing significantly in 2020-2021. hbbd``b` $V He would serve longer as director of central intelligence than anyone except Allen Dulles, the legendary spymaster who led the CIA from 1953 to 1961. Born March 30, 1913, in St. Davids, PA; died of bone cancer, October 23, 2002, in Washington, DC; son of Herman and Marion Helms; married Julia Bretzman Shields, 1939 (divorced, 1968); married Cynthia McKelvie, 1968; children: (first marriage) Dennis. His conviction, which resulted in a suspended sentence and a $2,000 fine, became a rallying point for critics of the Central Intelligence, Agency who accused it of dirty tricks, as well as for the agency's defenders, who hailed Mr. Helms for refusing to compromise sensitive information. Hollidays to Entertain at Dinner Helms was, of course, very non-committal politically. Other inmates died in pressure chambers designed to simulate high-altitude environments. In that capacity, in 1955, Mr. Helms impressed his superiors by supervising the secret digging of a 500-yard tunnel from West Berlin to East Berlin to tap the main Soviet telephone lines between Moscow and East Berlin. - 22 October 2002) (his death) Connections Married Julia Bretzman Shields, September 8, 1939 (divorced 1968). When Mr. Helms refused, Mr. He later became an international consultant, specializing in trade with the Middle East. For the normally reserved bureaucrat, publicly unleashing such a bizarre verbal assault seemed out of character. Richard Helms, a former director of central intelligence who defiantly guarded some of the darkest secrets of the cold war, died of multiple myeloma today. How do we create a person's profile? In this brave. in 1973, Mr. Helms served until 1977 as the American ambassador to Iran, whose ruler, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, was supported by the United States. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. At some point, he lost track of it. He grew up in South Orange, N.J., and was schooled in Europe, where he became versed in languages and fluent in French and German. Judith 'Didi' Bretzman Anderson (Shields)was 10years old when World War II: Nagasaki is devastated when an atomic bomb, Fat Man, is dropped by the United States B-29 Bockscar. Please c, ontact . Later that day he went to a reunion of former C.I.A. Anyone can read what you share. However, in later years, it was publicly revealed that in reality the Soviets' work in this area had been much exaggerated. He died on October 22, 2002 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. He became a consultant to businesses that made investments in other countries. In his personal life, Mr. Helms was known as an avid tennis player and sports fan, with a dry wit that showed when he was with friends, and, with his wife Cynthia, he was active in the Washington social scene. With the goal of eventually owning a small newspaper, he set off after graduation for a career in journalism. He was reserved in public. He had graduated from Yale before the war and attended Harvard Law School for a year. . He dated the letter V-E day for May 8, 1945. At that time, North Korea had developed so-called "brainwashing" techniques for use in obtaining "confessions" from American prisoners of war. And then he added, "Your questions are almost as dumb as the Committee's.". Father: Herman H. Helms Mother: Marion (McGarrah) Helms Spouse: When twenty-four-year-old Helms left Germany in 1937, he decided he wanted to become a newspaper publisher and realized that the best route to this goal would be to learn the business side of the industry. The substance of the briefing did not surface publicly for two years, until a combination of news media accounts, a presidential commission and congressional committees bent on public disclosure made it known. Early in Mr. Helms's directorship, as the war in Vietnam and the antiwar protests were escalating, Johnson asked the CIA to determine whether antiwar activity in the United States was being financially or otherwise backed by foreign countries. . Dennis Helms, now a 69-year-old intellectual-property lawyer in New Jersey. "He was a kind of middleman between the field and Washington policymakers, approving and even choosing the wording of cables to the field describing 'requirements'; and passing on concrete proposals for operations from the local CIA stations," Powers wrote in his biography of Mr. Helms. Richard married Julia Helms (born Bretzman Shields) on month day 1939, at age 26 at marriage place, Indiana. By the same token, Helms writes that key CIA actions were always carried out with presidential approval. I didn't want to lie. For several years, the CIA had tested the use of hypnosis in interrogations and on unwitting subjects under Operation ARTICHOKE. He was 89. But Mr. Helms soon found himself called to account for his own actions when the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence delved into the agency's efforts to assassinate world leaders or destablize socialist governments. Helms remained with the OSS after his discharge from the Navy in 1946 as the Cold War began in earnest. He was responsible for espionage, intelligence gathering, special undercover operations and the political propaganda section. Although the Shah was six years younger than Helms, the fellow alumni became very close in their later lives, and particularly when Helms was appointed ambassador to Iran by President Richard Nixon in March 1973. Following the 1947 creation of the Central Intelligence Agency (CI Education: Williams College, B.A., 1935. Shortly thereafter, he returned to the United States and took a job with the Indianapolis Times newspaper, where by 1939 he had become national advertising director. Less horrific experiments carried out by Nazi scientists were conducted in order to find ways in which to control prisoners and make them reveal secret information. In the late 1950s, he interned at the CIA vacuuming dust off Soviet newspapers in the agency library and later went to Williams College, just like his dad. Ancestry . Soon after, he was transferred to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor of the Central Intelligence Agency, under the command of General William J. Donavan. He worked in New York plotting the positions of German submarines in the western Atlantic. How and when exactly did his father sneak into that compound to grab the stationery (along with a dinner plate)? The Hitler letter arrived in a brown envelope, postmarked May29, 1945, and bearing two 3-cent purple stamps with the words: WIN THE WAR. The recipient: Master Dennis J. Helms c/o Mrs. Richard Helms, of Orange, N.J. After his introductory lines, Helms wrote of Hitler: He had a thirst for power, a low opinion of man as an individual, and a fear of intellectual honesty. Richard Helms and Julia Bretzman Shields Joseph S. Farland and Virgina Christopher H. Monroe Browne and Mary Frances Ashby Elmer E. Rasmuson and Lile Bernard Frank A. O'Connor and Mabel Conover John J. Fitzpatrick and Olivia Perez Robert S. Barkell and Eunice Helena Force Ernest J. Seemann and Esther Virginia Vice During his war service in the US Navy, Lieutenant Helms was initially assigned to track enemy submarines off the coast of New York. Mr. Helms was the first career intelligence professional to serve as the nation's top spymaster, and he was among the last of the remaining survivors of the CIA's organizing cadre, operatives who earned their espionage stripes as young men during World War II. Richard M. Helms (1913-2002) was born on March 30, 1913 in Saint Davids, Pennsylvania to Herman H. Helms and Marion McGarrah Helms. A Secret Order: Investigating the High Strangeness and Synchronicity in the JFK Assassination. His father, Lt. Col. James H. Angleton, had worked for a US firm in Italy and, with the outbreak of war, the elder Angleton also wound up working in intelligence under General Donovan. Mr. Helms said outside the courtroom that he wore his conviction "like a badge of honor," and added: "I don't feel disgraced at all. Television host, razor sharp political pundit, and #1 bestselling author Bill OReilly focuses in on where we all stand in the Age of Obama in Pinheads and Patriots. The committee, which was led by Senator Frank Church, an Idaho Democrat, accused Mr. Helms of failing to inform his own superiors of efforts to kill Fidel Castro of Cuba, which the Senate panel called "a grave error in judgment.". His wife is Julia Bretzman Shields (1939 - 1968) ( divorced) ( 1 child), Cynthia McKelvie (? $(&F\ 6 I was simply trying to find my way through a difficult situation in which I found myself.". At an early age, Helms studied in Switzerland at Le Rosey. In 1929, when Richard was sixteen, his family including Richard, his older sister Elizabeth, and younger brothers Pearsall and Gates departed for Europe. Agents often turned to him in times of trouble, Powers wrote of Helms. In 1939 he married Julia Bretzman Shields, and they had a son, Dennis, who became a lawyer. endstream endobj startxref In the face of the Communist challenge, the US military sought to prepare its soldiers for survival in the event they were captured by the enemy. Helms, who was present at the creation of the agency in 1947 during the Cold War, was an important operations man in the agency for two decades. Over the years, speculation has grown that Helms was the famous source known as Deep Throat, who helped guide Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in their Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation of the Watergate scandal. Born on March 30, 1913, in St. Davids, Pa., Richard McGarrah Helms — he avoided using the middle name — was the son of an Alcoa executive and the grandson of a leading international banker, Gates McGarrah. He died on October 22, 2002 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. For more than 11 months, until the tunnel was detected by the Soviet Union, the C.I.A. In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Helms insisted that the C.I.A. Your side won." On Christmas Day 1991, Richard, by now enjoying retirement with his second wife, Cynthia McKelvie Helms, wrote a letter to Dennis and his wife, Meg Helms, summing up his career. Mr. Helms believed he had performed well in a job that, although many Americans considered it sinister and undemocratic, was nevertheless a cold-blooded necessity in an era of cold war. Day-to-day tasks were run by the CIA's Sheffield Edwards, who several years later would become a key player in Helms's CIA Mafia operations involving Cuba. It was Helms's fluency in the German language that helped him earn the position of station chief in post-World War II Berlin. As America's top spymaster, Powers wrote in his biography, Mr. Helms "is remembered as an administrator, impatient with delay, excuses, self-seeking, the sour air of office politics. The Agency's MK experiments started out in 1950 as project BLUEBIRD. Dear Dennis, the seven-sentence letter begins. Mr. Helms pleaded no contest in 1977 to two misdemeanor counts of failing to testify fully four years earlier to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Or find other results in the 1940 census forJulia Helms. The gold-embossed letterhead features a swastika and the name Adolf Hitler. had never tried to overthrow the government of President Salvador Allende Gossens or funneled money to political enemies of the Marxist leader. Asked for an example of Helms's characteristic utterance, three of his old friends came up with the same dry phrase, 'Let's get on with it.' At his retirement in 1973, Mr. Helms left an organization viewed with suspicion by many and about to undergo intense scrutiny from an unfriendly Congress for activities ranging from assassination plots against foreign leaders to spying on U.S. citizens. Helms began intelligence work with the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. The man who might have written on this card once controlled Europe three short years ago when you were born. He fancied a career in journalism, and went to Europe as a reporter for United Press. One part still confuses. In this position, Helms was in charge of all covert action operations. During his CIA years and after, Mr. Helms followed a code that stressed maximum trust and loyalty to his agency and colleagues, maximum silence where outsiders were concerned. , 13). By a cabal of CIA employees, the Mafia and Cuban exiles, who killed Kennedy out of vengeance and in the hope of new. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. The committee, which was led by Senator Frank Church, Democrat of Idaho, accused Mr. Helms of failing to inform his own superiors of efforts to kill the Cuban leader Fidel Castro, which the Senate panel called ''a grave error in judgment.''. Historical Person Search Search Search Results Results Julia Louise Bretzman Helms (1907 - 1986) Try FREE for 14 days Try FREE for 14 days. He had multiple myeloma. Angleton is described by Edward Jay Epstein in his book Legend as "a man who meticulously planned environments so perfectly that he could manipulate the design of his own prize-winning orchids." The enigmatic Angleton was a very thin man, four years younger than Helms, and was known as an intellectual. Later, Helms served as U.S. ambassador to Iran. , , , . Born on March 30, 1913, in St. Davids, Pa., Richard McGarrah Helms -- he avoided using the middle name -- was the son of an Alcoa executive and grandson of a leading international banker, Gates. Helms was given the post of ambassador to Iran, which he held until 1977. With the appointment of Allen Dulles as Director of Central Intelligence in 1953, Helms began to lay the groundwork for a program that became known as operation MKULTRA. Through the 1970s, Helms was repeatedly called to testify before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about CIA activities that may have violated the agencys charter. Returning to America, he graduated from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts in 1935. Helm's style was cool by choice and temperament; his instinct was to soften differences, to find a middle ground, to tone down operations that were getting out of hand, to give faltering projects one more chance rather than shut them down altogether, to settle for compromise in the interests of bureaucratic peace." According to Helms's assistant, George McManus, the main reason Helms did not tell his boss about mob involvement in assassination conspiracies was because McCone would have considered it "morally reprehensible.". He was married to Cynthia McKelvie and Julia Bretzman Shields. After the war, Helms stayed in intelligence work, giving up his plans in the newspaper business. He became the CIA's deputy director for plans, the innocuous-sounding title of the chief of covert action. They just dont exist. Young Richard attended Carteret Academy. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. This psychopharmacological research involved the combined use of mescaline and hypnosis. Beneath Helms's outward appearance of restraint (the Daniel Schorr outburst being a major exception), the career spymaster was the embodiment of ambition. Under Johnson and then President Nixon, Helms headed Operation Chaos, which spied on American citizens linked to the increasingly powerful antiwar movement, looking for ties to foreign governments. Helms's unauthorized use of the Mafia in various operations was typical, particularly his attempts to eliminate Cuba's Fidel Castro. You killer! Helms, the first career intelligence officer to head the CIA, died Tuesday night at his Washington, D.C.-area home, the agency announced Wednesday. 'His marriage, to Julia Bretzman Shields in 1939, was to make a major differ- ence to his later career, in an unusual way. Richard Helms worked closely with the Gehlen network of former German spies to penetrate Soviet intelligence and uncover Communist activities in West Germany. In the early 1970s, the agency was further compromised when several of its employees were arrested in the break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington. Mr. Helms kept a low public profile as director of central intelligence, and he avoided publicity. One part still confuses Dennis: The letter is dated V-E Day. James Angleton, another master spy who had spent World War II working with the OSS in Italy, also stayed. Much of the records of this work have been destroyed, but it is estimated that the CIA may have used thousands of subjects in its behavior modification experiments. %PDF-1.5 % The price of ridding society of bad is always high. [M]y life has spanned an historic period, and I am rather awed by that fact, he wrote. Helms was enrolled in Le Rosey, a private preparatory school on Lake Geneva. Helms completed his schooling in Europe at age eighteen in 1931 and returned to the United States after his acceptance at Williams College in western Massachusetts. Mr. Helms believed he had performed well in a job that, although many Americans considered it sinister and undemocratic, was nevertheless a cold-blooded necessity in an era of cold war. He will be. The prison term was suspended. Mr. Helms was forced out of the agency in 1973 by President Nixon, who considered him insufficiently cooperative in providing C.I.A. Julia apparently favored the Democratic Party. colleagues, who gave him a standing, cheering ovation, then passed the hat and raised the $2,000 for his fine. Over the next 20 years, Mr. Helms rose through the agency's ranks, and in 1966 he came the first career official to head the C.I.A. Helms, who consistently opposed that plan to oust Castro, was named head of the plans division, the third highest position in the agency. In part because of his foreign language skills, he was able to hook up with the United Press in London and soon after was sent to Berlin. 1 son, Dennis J.; married Cynthia McKelvie, 1968. A separate inquiry by the Rockefeller Commission also faulted Mr. Helms for poor judgment for destroying documents and tape recordings that might have assisted Watergate investigators. The Man Who Kept the Secrets, the title of author Thomas Powers's biography of Richard Helms, is a fitting description of his subject. Enabling JavaScript in your browser will allow you to experience all the features of our site. In 1939 Helms had married Julia Bretzman Shields, a sculptress six years his senior. In his biography, The Man Who Kept the Secrets, Thomas Powers wrote that Helms style was cool by choice and temperament; his instinct was to soften differences, to find a middle ground, to tone down operations that were getting out of hand, to give faltering projects one more chance rather than shut them down altogether, to settle for compromise in the interests of bureaucratic peace.. Helms and Dulles, who was then Chief of Mission in Berne, Switzerland, met at General Dwight Eisenhower's headquarters when Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945. Instead, as the controversial CIA dad and his lawyer son grew older, they relied on letters to forge the best connection they could. Family (1) Spouse Julia Bretzman Shields (1939 - 1968) (divorced) (1 child) Cynthia McKelvie (? "I found myself in a position of conflict," Mr. Helms said. His passing, his defeat a boon to mankind. On leaving the CIA, Mr. Helms served three years as ambassador to Iran, then in 1976 ended his government career. Together they formed the "perfect storm." . That particular letter is one that only agency employees and their guests can see. After he left the C.I.A. She serves as The Emily Program's family physician in our Intensive Day Treatment program and residential program in St. Paul, MN, the Anna Westin House. Boston, Cincinnati Guests Included He had multiple melanoma. That reputation grew after 1973, when Mr. Helms clashed with President Richard M. Nixon, who sought his help in thwarting an F.B.I. was able to eavesdrop on Moscow's conversations with its agents in the puppet governments of East Germany and Poland. When the U.S. wartime intelligence forces merged into the CIA in 1947, Mr. Helms became one of the architects of the new organization. At the height of McCarthy's fervid hunts for communists inside the government, Mr. Helms headed a CIA committee to protect the agency against McCarthy's efforts to infiltrate the CIA with his own informers. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. He was known as a charming conversationalist, a gregarious partygoer and an accomplished dancer, and he and his wife continued to be familiar figures on the capital party scene. ''I had sworn my oath to protect certain secrets. This letter was an opportunity to say what was on his mind, said Dennis Helms, Richards only child. To the lean, dapper and detached Helms that meant maintaining the rules of the game -- silence and loyalty. Their guests will include Messrs, and Mesdames Sylvester Johnson, C. Harvey Bradley, Garvin M. Brown, William H. Ball of Muncie, Mr. and Mrs. Ray Nicholson of Richmond and Mrs. Jesse Fletcher, Miss Julia Brink, -Joseph J. Daniels and Paul Robertson. It also conveyed a certain historical intuition about the evil that one man could do. .Booklist. In that sense, he was a little frustrating, he said. When the CIA was established, Helms was one of the architects of the new organization. Right after Germanys surrender, Lt. Helms, an intelligence operative, sneaked into Hitlers chancellery in Berlin and pilfered the Fuehrers stationery. Mr. Helms said he considered this award "an exoneration.". Shields, Judith L. "Judy"September 10, 1949 - May 24, 2022Preceded in death by husband, James W. Shields, Sr.Survived by children, Jim Jr. (Lisa), Scott, Laura Lewis . By 1946, his son Jim went on to become the OSS station chief in Rome. After the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Helms joined the Navy and moved his family to his parents' home in South Orange, New Jersey. His biggest scoop, he said, was an exclusive interview with Hitler. Ian Shapira is a features writer on the local enterprise team. "You now stand before this court in disgrace and shame," the judge told him, and sentenced him to two years in prison and a $2,000 fine. In 1939 he married Julia Bretzman Shields, and they had a son, Dennis, a lawyer in Princeton, N.J. Another Senate panel, the Foreign Relations Committee, found that Helms had lied when he insisted the CIA had not tried to overthrow Allende or offer financial support to the socialist leaders political opponents.