Good question. It might be productive to find someone still alive who was fired then and ask. Carter's presidency started in 1977.
Fallout from the Church Committee which investigated the CIA, FBI, and IRS in 1975?
The Church Committee exposed many CIA abuses in 1975.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee
That include Operation Mockingbird (mass media infiltration and control), mind control experiments etc.
It took a while but eventually that led to mass firings in the CIA.