The Church Committee (formally the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) was a US Senate select committee in 1975 that investigated abuses by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Chaired by Idaho Senator Frank Church (D-ID), the committee was part of a series of investigations into intelligence abuses in 1975, dubbed the "Year of Intelligence", including its House counterpart, the Pike Committee, and the presidential Rockefeller Commission. The committee's efforts led to the establishment of the permanent US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
One of the revelations of the committee include Operation MKULTRA, which involved the drugging of US citizens as part of human experimentation on mind control; COINTELPRO, which involved the surveillance and infiltration of American political and civil-rights organizations; Family Jewels, a set of reports detailing potentially illegal, inappropriate and otherwise sensitive activities conducted by the CIA; and Operation Mockingbird, a purported campaign with domestic and foreign journalists operating as CIA assets and dozens of US news organizations providing cover for CIA activity, although these particular allegations have been described as not “grounded in reality” by historians. Without identifying individuals by name, the Church Committee stated that it found 50 reporters, mostly stringers paid per story, who had official, but secret, relationships with the CIA.
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