Talk:Richard Helms

message: |This article referrs to Helms as both "Director of the C.I.A." and "head of the Central Intelligence Agency".  Is the appropriate title for both not Director of Central Intelligence?
Acegikmo1 15:16, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Title?

message: I'm fairly certain there is no basis for Helms as the inspiration for 'X' in JFK.  The inspiration was, in fact, L._Fletcher_Prouty.  They even included a Prouty interview on the JFK DVD.  So, I'm removing this  
bselig
Thanx for the update... You're right. I stand corrected. Chilkoot
Changes made to Helm's uppbringing from a copy I have on Helms autobiaography: Looking over my shoulder, 2003 -nerox21
Deceptive Language
"Helms' ultimate undoing was the CIA role in the subversion of Chilean socialist government and the overthrow, under Nixon's orders, of that country's socialist president Salvador Allende in 1973. Helms had reportedly opposed this operation."
This is deceptively stated.  According to Helms [and other sources] the overthrow of Allende occurred completely independently of CIA or other US influence.  Nixon made a last ditch effort to stop Allende's designation as president [Allende received a plurality of the vote and became president of Chile only when the Chilean Congress chose him over the second place finisher].  But after Allende's inauguration, the US took no further action.  Pinochet acted on his own.  I'll get the reference from Helm's memoir, A Look Over My Shoulder
203.84.191.125 11:30, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: X?

message: The article currently states some information which may be some irrelevant POV: 
"Nixon continued to work against the Allende regime, including disruptive economic measures. Yet Allende had been elected with only 36% of the vote in a three-way contest, and during his presidency he was said to ignore the constitution in his socialist projects, policies which proved to be very unpopular and polarizing. Of course, the military junta's 1973 coup was more unconstitutional yet."
It is immaterial whether Allende was unpopular or polarizing. "Yet Allende had been elected with only [...]" seems POV to support meddling, but is actually irrelevant. What matters from the perspective of this article is just the first line: that the Nixon  administration and the CIA were working against the democratically elected government of Chile. Any additional detail is unwarranted speculation. 201.231.81.53 (talk) 23:30, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Irrelevant tidbit about Chile and Allende 

message: :*NB: I have deleted my comments from August 1 & 11 2012, as I now regret posting them. (They are, of course, still available in the page history.) Some of my concerns regarding the length and scope of this biography were addressed when material on Helms's "Early career" was split into a separate article, which has since been redirected (mistakenly, in my view). Despite what I wrote at the time, I have come to greatly respect Elfelix's work crafting what is easily Wikipedia's best-researched biography on any Director of Central Intelligence (probably including the GA George H. W. Bush—although any comparison would be apples-to-oranges insofar as Helms's tenure at the Agency was of far greater consequence than Bush's).TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 04:08, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: The huge additions to the Mossadegh section are a violation of standard policy, although they are well-sourced and neutral.  The sheer fact that Helms worked in the CIA at the time doesn't mean this history belongs in his biography.  No other CIA biography is written like this.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 08:29, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: This brief note here today marks my first familiarity with this subtitle in Talk, "Scope of Article and POV issues". Some comments that may once have hit the mark in fact are already modified. While I both agree and disagree with both the opinions and accuracy of its reading, I can appreciate the thought and consideration that is evidenced here. The life of Helms is chiefly of interest because of his role in the CIA, both what he did there and what he thought about it. Context is very important. The understanding of the person who Helms was depends on it. A truncated and neutered picture is not the best methodology, but rather implies its own POV. "A foolish consistancy is the hobgoblin of little minds." --Ralph Waldo Emerson. With the possible exception of Allen Dulles, the CIA career of Richard Helms and his years as DCI constitute the most important biography in CIA history. If a shorter, bare-bones version is desired, a person can skim or skip sections--but not vice versa. Elfelix (talk) 03:36, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scope of Article and POV Issues 

message: Can we nominate this article for a Good Article? It looks like it meets all of the criteria. It is well written, factually accurate and verifiable, broad in its coverage, neutral, stable and contains many relevant images with suitable captions. Catauro (talk) 04:41, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: It needs a lot of clean-up. Especially, there are far too many extraneous and unnecessary photos of persons who are mentioned only in passing in the text, and who have no major role in this article. Sam Ervin? Angleton? Why? --Michael K SmithTalk  15:54, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good article nomination 

message: In order to ensure accuracy and integrity of the editing process I reverted all the edits here of the sock 178.216.122.254 of the banned editor Irongron. I was away from editing due to obligations and missed what what happening until much later. I looked over the edits and determined this was the best course of action for this article. Please see the banned editor's sock investigation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:JamesBWatson&oldid=618034898#A_Very_Strong_Probable_Sock_of_an_editor_you_permanently_banned_in_April_2014_User:IRoNGRoN The IP 178.216.122.254 and ☭Soviet☭ User talk:Иронгрон Иронгрон is Irongron written in the Cyrillic alphabet... are both socks of ☭Irongron☭User talk:IRoNGRoN
Additionally the edit seemed out of place and was promoting of Irongron's obsession with his pet project the A-12. The deployment of a couple of aircraft was not a highlight of the Tuesday Luncheons. 208.54.35.169 (talk) 03:30, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed Edits of a Banned Editor's Sock that were out of place in this article  

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Richard Helms. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080512181920/http://www.utdallas.edu/library/uniquecoll/speccoll/Leeker/123b.pdf to http://www.utdallas.edu/library/uniquecoll/speccoll/Leeker/123b.pdf
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers. —cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 19:44, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: there are many instances throughout this section where i cannot tell if a statement is actually backed up by a citation several sentences later, or if it/they are opinions of wiki writers and editors.  there are too many to list.
a specific comment on the sub-section "Year of intelligence" - as i read thru this section, i was confused, because it seemed to be more than 1 year that was being discussed. not until the very last sentence of the section was it made a bit clearer. i would suggest either moving that sentence to the top of the section, or making the title "Year of Intelligence - 1975" or "The 'Year of Intelligence'" or "The 'Year of Intelligence' - 1975".Colbey84 (talk) 06:47, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Placed on queue for future review. Thank you for comments. Elfelix (talk) 05:56, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section 5 

message: Would an interview with Richard Helms from 1986 be useful here as an external link? Focus of conversation is nuclear weapons policy. http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_4DCA2FEDD38B4920B0FA048ED4B6C72D (I helped with the site, so it would be conflict of interest for me to just add it.) Mccallucc (talk) 22:25, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External link to interview on nuclear policy? 

message: No mention of CIA/Indonesia.  Mentioned in gruesome "The Act Of Killing".  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.161.193.26 (talk) 17:11, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: The documentary mentioned Helms specifically?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 04:29, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Indonesia 

message: There are many unnecessary photos of persons who are mentioned only in passing in the text, and who have no major role in this article. Why? Should we delete some? —usernamekiran (talk) 22:24, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Photos of others 

message: This article has such a strange tone. Clearly one individual has written a great deal of it. In particular, the word "yet" is overused, appearing at the beginning of sentences like a tic. There is also far too much analysis for an encyclopedia article—lots of "probablys" and "nonethelesses," etc.
148.75.218.85 (talk) 06:20, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tone/voice