Richard Helms

Former CIA Director Richard Helms, who ran afoul of Congress for failing to fully disclose the agency's questionable activities at home and abroad, has died. He was 89. Helms, the first career intelligence officer to head the CIA, died Tuesday night at his Washington, D.C.-area home, the agency announced Wednesday. It did not report the cause of death, but Helms had been in failing health for some time.

Former CIA Director Richard Helms, who ran afoul of Congress for failing to fully disclose the agency's questionable activities at home and abroad, has died. He was 89. Helms, the first career intelligence officer to head the CIA, died Tuesday night at his Washington, D.C.-area home, the agency announced Wednesday. It did not report the cause of death, but Helms had been in failing health for some time.

Former CIA Director Richard Helms aided a failed 1978 attempt to take over First American Bank of Washington on behalf of the Bank of Credit & Commerce International, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. It said court records in Atlanta show that Helms assisted Iranian millionaire Rahim Irvani, who served as chairman of an offshore company created in 1978 to hide BCCI's role in the attempted takeover. The copyrighted story said U.S.

Former CIA Director Richard Helms aided a failed 1978 attempt to take over First American Bank of Washington on behalf of the Bank of Credit & Commerce International, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. It said court records in Atlanta show that Helms assisted Iranian millionaire Rahim Irvani, who served as chairman of an offshore company created in 1978 to hide BCCI's role in the attempted takeover. The copyrighted story said U.S.

Barrington Parker, 77, District Court judge who presided over the 1982 trial of presidential assailant John W. Hinckley Jr. Appointed to the federal bench by President Richard Nixon in 1969, Parker later barred the Nixon Administration from establishing price controls in 1973.

Former President Nixon said he expects historians to judge him more by Watergate than by his diplomatic overtures to China. "Historians are more likely to lead with 'He resigned the office,' " Nixon said in an interview in the latest issue of Time magazine. "The jury has already come in, and there's nothing that's going to change it. There's no appeal. Historians will judge it harshly." Nixon discussed the Watergate break-in in his new book "In the Arena," excerpted in the magazine.

Re "Britain Arrests Ex-Dictator Pinochet," Aug. 18: I was pleased to see that the article mentioned the proposed extradition of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. I note that Chilean officials were concerned about the illegality of arresting a man who was traveling on a diplomatic passport. Were they equally concerned about the thousands of murdered civilians killed by the Pinochet regime and dropped into the ocean after their bellies were slit open (so they wouldn't float)? Or the tortured students whose bodies were never returned to their still-grieving mothers?

Your editorial (Dec. 3), "Trust-Busting Snoopery," is explained in William Seaman's article of the same date on the opposite pages, "Sneaky Suspicions in the Israeli Spy Case." The chief of the ABC News bureau in Tel Aviv since 1972 summed it up best in his quote of the former CIA director, Richard Helms, who said, "The only sin in spying is to get caught in the act." And, as Seaman suggests, even friends don't quite trust each other in today's mad world. For American Jews, however, there is the comment in your editorial that we need to take to heart, and deal with: the lack of a "rational political system."

As President Obama grapples with accusations of torture by U.S. agents, I suggest he consult the former Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle. I first contacted Daschle in 1975, when he was an aide to Sen. James Abourezk of South Dakota, who was leading a somewhat lonely campaign against CIA abuses. At the time, I was researching a book on the United States' role in the spread of military dictatorships throughout Latin America.

Whenever an airliner is hijacked or a terrorist bomb goes off, the civilized world is reminded that it still has no effective means of combating those who use random violence as a political act. Presidents threaten swift retaliation, but their words are seldom backed by deeds. For the most part they are stymied, paralyzed by the web of international relations and the fear that action will invite a still-more-drastic response.

CBS has been ordered to reimburse former CIA Director Richard Helms for legal fees he paid in 1984 when he refused to give a videotaped deposition sought as part of CBS' defense against Gen. William C. Westmoreland's now-defunct libel suit against the network. The ruling Tuesday by a federal appeals court in Washington didn't specify the amount of money involved in Helms' claim against the network. His attorney, John G. Kester, was not available for comment at Calender press time Wednesday.

--Investigators trying to find a kidnaped 9-year-old girl went the extra yard and drafted star quarterback Joe Montana to help. The San Francisco 49er and his wife, Jennifer, made a public appeal for the return of Michaela Joy Garecht. "We're here as parents. . . " the football player said. The Montanas spoke at the FBI's San Francisco headquarters to bring attention to the search for Michaela, who was abducted in front of a Hayward, Calif., supermarket Nov. 19.