S. Stephen Powell, Covert Cadre, 57:
CNSS [the Center for National Security Studies] launched its activities with a two-day conference on September 12 and 13, 1974. . .Sens. Edward Brooke (R-Mass.), Philip Hart (D-Mich.), and James Abourezk (D-S. Dak.) and Rep. Michael Harrington (D-Mass.) lent credibility. . .The proceedings amounted to a trial of the CIA, which was assumed guilty of various crimes. . .The first day's panel discussions were chaired by people almost entirely hostile to the CIA: . . .Victor Marchetti and John Marks. . .David Wise. . .David Ross. . .and "The CIA and Watergate" by Walter Pincus. The next day's offerings were [by]. . .Morton Halperin and Anthony Lake, Sen. Frank Church's legislative aide. . .Herbert Scoville. . .Jeremy Stone. . .Nancy Stein. . .Robert Borosage, director of CNSS, and Melvin Wulf, general counsel to the ACLU.
The hostility of the conference reached its height that afternoon when William Colby was subjected to a twenty-five minute harangue by Pentagon Papers thief Daniel Ellsberg. The conference ended with a panel. . .chaired by Richard Barnet, Paul Warnke, and Neil Sheehan, the New York Times Pentagon Papers reporter.