TOP SECRET -24- Helms, who had considerable experience as a covert operator, gave precisely the opposite meaning to the same words, interpreting them as conveying authority for assassination. Helms repeatedly testified that he felt that explicit authorization was unnecessary for the assassination of Castro in the early 1960's, but he said he did not construe the intense pressure from President Nixon in 1970 as providing authority to assassinate anyone. As Helms testified, the difference was not that the pressure to prevent Allende from assuming office was any less than the pressure to remove the Castro regime, but rather that "I had already made up my mind that we weren't going to have any of that business when I was Director." Certain CIA contemporaries of Helms who were subjected to similar pressures in the Castro case rejected the thesis that implicit authority to assassinate Castro derived from the strong language of the policymakers. Bissell testified that he had believed that "formal and explicit approval" would be required for assassination, and McManus testified director or by anybody else as presidential authorization to go forward? "Mr. Helms: That is right. But in answer to that, I realize that one sort of grows up in tradition of the time and I think that any of us would have found it very difficult to discuss assassinations with a President of the U.S. I just think we all had the feeling that we were hired out to keep those things out of the oval office." NW 50955 DocId:32423539 Page 534