The ‘Season of Inquiry’ and the Fight over the Ban on Assassination

The chapter analyses the role played by assassination in the “season of inquiry.” The “season of inquiry” was a period – during the mid-1970s – in which the intelligence community’s activities became to object of scrutiny and oversight by both Congress and the media. The chapter covers the Ford Administration’s attempt to stymie the inquiries through a Presidential Commission – the Rockefeller Commission. The chapter then proceeds to explore the battle between the Administration and the ‘Church Committee,’ the US Senate Committee tasked with investigating the intelligence community and chaired by Senator Frank Church. Having started its investigation, the Committee published an interim report on the US government’s involvement in the assassination of foreign officials. The report contained recommendations to establish a prohibition on assassination providing extensive details on how this prohibition should be interpreted. Above all, the Committee wanted this prohibition to be enshrined into law. Unwilling to let Congress restrict the intelligence community, the Ford Administration instead published an executive order (11905) which reformed the intelligence community and contained a prohibition on assassination. Contrary to the Committee’s recommendations, an executive order is not a law, and the prohibition was vague. This, the chapter argues, opened the gates for the future contestation and weakening of the ban.