Description:

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities opened public hearings with an inquiry into a case in which direct orders of the President of the United States were evidently disobeyed by employees of the CIA.

The particular case under examination involved the illegal possession of deadly biological poisons which were retained within the CIA for 5 years after their destruction was ordered by the President, and for 5 years after the United States had entered into a solemn international commitment not to maintain stocks of these poisons except for very limited research purposes.

The main questions before the committee were why the poisons were developed in such quantities in the first place; why the Presidential order was disobeyed; and why such a serious act of insubordination could remain undetected for many years.