--- aliases: - SSCI - Senate Intelligence Committee category: Intelligence & Government created: 2026-09-22 location: Washington, D.C. relations: - fn: 4 reverse: true role: chairman of the budget subcommittee type: member_of with: '[[Malcolm Wallop]]' - end: 1993-02 fn: 7 type: investigated with: '[[BNL Scandal]]' start: 1976 summary: Permanent Senate committee created in 1976 after the Church Committee to oversee intelligence; its budget subcommittee ended Army remote-viewing funding in 1982, and its 2014 study documented the CIA's interrogation program. tags: - Organization - Government - Congress - IntelligenceOversight - RemoteViewing updated: 2026-09-22 --- The Senate created the Select Committee on Intelligence in 1976 "to oversee and make continuing studies of the intelligence activities and programs of the [United States](/places/united-states/) Government" and "to provide vigilant legislative oversight over the intelligence activities of the United States to assure that such activities are in conformity with the Constitution and laws of the United States." It has seventeen members, nine from the majority and eight from the minority, including members drawn from the Appropriations, Armed Services, Foreign Relations and Judiciary committees.[^1] It and its House counterpart grew out of the findings of the [Church Committee](/events/church-committee/).[^2] ### Letelier and the Charter On September 29, 1976, eight days after the assassination of [Orlando Letelier](/people/orlando-letelier/) in Washington, Senator [Daniel Inouye](/people/daniel-inouye/) of the committee wrote to Director [George Bush](/people/george-hw-bush/) asking what the [CIA](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/) knew of a reported high-level meeting in the Chilean government at which Letelier had been discussed.[^3] In April 1978 the former deputy director for plans [Thomas Karamessines](/people/thomas-karamessines/) appeared before the committee to oppose its draft charter for the CIA, calling the investigations of the preceding years "an inexcusable exercise in political sensationalism."[^8] ### Remote Viewing At the end of fiscal 1982, according to the Army's Intelligence and Security Command, "the budget subcommittee of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (Senator Wallop) curtailed all psychoenergetic operational activities conducted by the Army in the National Foreign Intelligence Program"; its chronology records that on October 1, 1982, "NFIP funding terminated for Army GRILL FLAME collection operations project by Congressional directive," and the program continued under other funding as [Center Lane](/programs/center-lane/).[^4][^5] Senator [Claiborne Pell](/people/claiborne-pell/) invited eight members of the committee to a GRILL FLAME briefing in his Capitol office on September 29, 1982; "none were present."[^6] After a briefing of [Malcolm Wallop](/people/malcolm-wallop/) on October 5, 1983, the Army's record states that "the Senator replied that he is only one person, and that perhaps the briefing should be presented to the entire SSCI Budget Subcommittee."[^4] Committee staff received status reports on the [Star Gate](/programs/stargate-project/) program in March and April 1995 and a briefing on June 1, attended by seven staff members, during its [transfer to the CIA](/events/1995-transfer-of-star-gate-to-the-cia/).[^9] ### Later Inquiries The CIA told the committee in April 1984 that it "was unable to confirm reports implicating high-level Sandinistas in drug trafficking."[^10] In 1986, after a member of Senator [Jesse Helms](/people/jesse-helms/)'s staff was briefed by the CIA on the burning of Rodrigo Rojas by Chilean soldiers and the Chilean government learned of an American intelligence operation, the committee asked the [Justice Department](/organizations/department-of-justice/) to investigate whether Helms or an aide had disclosed it.[^11] Its staff reported in February 1993 on the [BNL Scandal](/events/bnl-scandal/) that the intelligence agencies and the Justice Department had coordinated poorly and that the CIA's grounds for withholding its reports from prosecutors had "no legal support," without finding deliberate concealment.[^7] Its study of the CIA's detention and interrogation program, released in summary on December 9, 2014, concluded that the program had produced little intelligence not available by other means and that the agency had misled Congress, the [White House](/places/white-house/) and the public about it.[^12] [^1]: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, "About the Committee." https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/about-the-committee/ [^2]: Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. *Final Report,* S. Rept. 94-755, 1976, as cited on the Church Committee page. [^3]: Inouye, Daniel K., letter to George Bush, September 29, 1976, CIA Reading Room, as cited on the Orlando Letelier page. [^4]: Buzby, Brian, memorandum "Briefing to Senator Wallop, 5 October 1983," October 14, 1983, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700270015-0. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. [^5]: US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "Briefing - Project Center Lane," c. 1984, CIA-RDP96-00789R002100180002-8, and "List of Events from September 1977 to January 1986," CIA-RDP96-00788R001100020001-8. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. [^6]: Jachim, Robert J., memorandum "Information Briefing for Senator Clairborne Pell," October 6, 1982, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100320001-5. [^7]: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. *The Intelligence Community's Involvement in the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) Affair,* staff report, S. Prt. 103-12, February 1993. [^8]: Hailey, Jean R. "T. H. Karamessines, Ex-Chief of CIA Covert Work, Dies." *The Washington Post,* September 9, 1978, p. B4. [^9]: "Star Gate Transfer Chronology: 1995," memorandum for the record, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200190017-9; Director of Research and Development, ORD-0520-95, memorandum for the Executive Director, "Star Gate - Final Response," September 27, 1995. [^10]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998, as cited on the Sandinistas page. [^11]: United Press International, report on the Justice Department inquiry into Senator Helms, August 2, 1986. [^12]: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. *Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program,* S. Rept. 113-288, December 9, 2014.