- This was simply intolerable for a senatorial patrician, and that was indeed Bush's
concept of his own "birthright."
Bush gave the lie to Aristotle's theory of the humors: neither blood nor phlegm nor black
nor even the yellow bile of rage moved him, but hyperthyroid transports of a manic rage
that went beyond the merely bilious. George Bush had already had enough of the Stennis
Committee, enough of the Church Committee, enough of the Pike Committee. Years
later, on the campaign trail in 1988, he vomited out his rage against his tormentors of
- Bush said that he had gone to the CIA "at a very difficult time. I went in there
when it had been demoralized by the attacks of a bunch of little untutored squirts from
Capitol Hill, going out there, looking at these confidential documents without one simple
iota of concern for the legitimate national security interests of this country. And I stood
up for the CIA then, and I stand up for it now. And defend it. So let the liberals wring
their hands and consider it a liability. I consider it a strength."
But in 1975 there was no doubt that George Bush was in a towering rage. As Christmas
approached, no visions of sugarplums danced in Bush's head. He dreamed of a single
triumphant stroke that would send Church and all the rest of his tormentors reeling in
dismay, and give the new CIA Director a dignified and perhaps triumphant inauguration.
Then, two days before Christmas, the CIA chief in Athens, Richard Welch was gunned
down in front of his home by masked assassins as he returned home with his wife from a
Christmas party. A group calling itself the "November 19 Organization" later claimed
credit for the killing.
Certain networks immediately began to use the Welch assassination as a bludgeon against
the Church and Pike committees. An example came from columnist Charles Bartlett
writing in the old Washington Star: "The assassination of the CIA Station Chief, Richard
Welch, in Athens is a direct consequence of the stagey hearings of the Church
Committee. Spies traditionally function in a gray world of immunity from such crudities.
But the Committee's prolonged focus on CIA activities in Greece left agents there
exposed to random vengeance." [fn 20] Staffers of the Church committee pointed out that
the Church committee had never said a word about Greece or mentioned the name of
Welch.
CIA Director Colby first blamed the death of Welch on Counterspy magazine, which had
published the name of Welch some months before. The next day Colby backed off,
blaming a more general climate of hysteria regarding the CIA which had led to the
assassination of Welch. In his book, Honorable Men, published some years later, Colby
continued to attribute the killing to the "sensational and hysterical way the CIA
investigations had been handled and trumpeted around the world."
The Ford White House resolved to exploit this tragic incident to the limit. Liberals raised
a hue and cry in response. Les Aspin later recalled that "the air transport plane carrying
[Welch's] body circled Andrews Air Force Base for three-quarters of an hour in order to
land live on the 'Today' Show." Ford waived restrictions in order to allow interrment at