NEW JOB CONSIDERED CIA CHIEF HELMS TO LEAVE POST

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000100010007-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 24, 2000
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: December 3, 1972
• Content Type: NSPR

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Approved. For Release 20001dd3r. 1-1~P75-00001 RO
DEC 1972.
AEC Boss Eyed
As Successor
By OSWALD JOHNSTON
Star-News Staff Writer
Richard M. Iielrns will step
down as director of the Cen-
tral Tntelligence Agency, high
administration officials said
yesterday.
This disclosure came amid
indications that Helmns,59, has
been offered another major as-
signment. in the second Nixon
administration and is still con-
sidering it.
Helms could not be reached
for comment and high-ranking
CIA officials who were
reached late yesterday said
they had no information about
Helms' plans to step down or a
possible replacement.
Official announcement of
Helms' departure is being de-
layed while he considers an
opportunity offered him by
President Nixon to assume an-
other high-level position, it is
understood.
The exact nature of the new
assignment possibility could
not be ascertained. It was as-
sumed it would involve the for-
eign policy field, in view of
He1nis' background.
Humors that 11elms would
be stepping down have been
prevalent for several weeks.
Helms was named director
of the CIA in 1966 by President
Lyndon Johnson. He had been
a top figure in the agency un-
der Allen Dulles and John A.
McCone,
lie was a newspaperman in
Europe before World War If,
and worked for the Office of
Strategic Services during and
after the war. He joined the
CIA at its inception in 1947.
.He has been thought of
as well regarded by Nixon as
the nation's most experienced
intelligence officer. Slightly
more than a year ago his of-
fice was widely expanded in
responsibility in a sweeping
reorganization of the U.S. in-
telligence community. .
The leading candidate tut-
der consideration to succeed
Velars, authoritative sources
indicate, is James H. Schles-
inger, chairman of the Atomic
Energy Commission and one
of the chief architects of the
intelligence reorganization.
The reorganization mandate
made public by the White
House in November 1971 gave
Helms new authority to over-
see the consolidated budget of
the American foreign intelli-
gence effort - variously esti-
mated at $5 billion to $6 billion
a year.
Schlesinger was assistant
director of the Office of Man-
agement and Budget when
plans to reorganize the intelli-
gence establishment were first
devised, and much of the plan-
ning was worked out by the
OMB early in 1971.
The plan's main thrust was
to coordinate the complicated
and at tunes self-contradictory
U.S. intelligence effort and
place the separate establish-
ments at the CIA, in the De-
fense Department, in the sepa-
rate uniformed services and in
the State Department -under
one head.
When Helms was designated
to fill this position it was wide-
ly supposed that the budgetary
authority the new plan gave
him would empower him not
only to bring the rival intelli-
gence establishments under
control, but also to cut the ag-
gregate cost of their opera-
tions by $1 billion.
The extent to which this re-
organization has succeeded
during the year since it was
announced is unclear.
The cost of intelligence gath-
ering is still largely secret and
the results of Nixon's move for
economy in this field are not
clearly known.
There has been little out
ward organizational change in
the intelligence community.
.There have been many indica-
tions, however, that the sharp
and bitter rivalry among the
separate branches has been
s h arpeii ed since Helms
stepped into his enhanced
leadership role.
To insiders, the latent rival-
ry between the CIA and the
Pentagon's Defense Intelli-
gence Agency has never been
more bitter than during the
past year. Helms has been a
particular target of Pentagon
intelligence experts ever since
he contradicted their view that 1 there Nov. 21 -- by coinci-.
the Soviet Union was deploy- dence, perhaps, just a day aft-
ing a massive new missile sys- or Helms' own visit to the
presidential retreat.
-CPYRGHT
tern designed for a nuclear
first strike.
Well-informed sources in the
defense and intelligence estab-
lishments have been looking to
Schlesinger as a possible suc-
cessor to Helms for a variety
of reasons.
His close association with
the reorganization is, proba-
bly, paramount, But there is
also the factor that Schlesin-
ger was a colleague of Andrew
M. Marshall during his stint at
the Rand Corporation. Mar-
shall, as a result of the reor-
ganization has become the
ranking intelligence watch,
dog on the White. House staff.
Schlesinger had been named
for a promotion in the Nixon
administration in March 1971
when his work on the reorgani-
zation plan was still in prog-
ress. At that time he had
been picked for a ranking posi-
tion in the Department of Inte-
rior, but the appointment was
blocked by the opposition of
western senators who wanted
a more obedient regional rep-
resentative.
In July 1971 Schlesinger was
picked for the top job at AEC.
Schlesinger was with one of
the first groups of administra-
tion officials to call on Nixon
at Camp David during his see-
and-term reorganization delib-
erations. Schlesinger went
Approved For, Release 2000/05/23 : CIA-RDP75-00001 R000100010007-9