As the 'secret war' eventually became public it created a firestorm in Washington. While this Laotian struggle continued on the borderlands of the Vietnam War, DCI Helms was blindsided when several senators began to complain that they had been kept in the dark about "CIA's secret war" in Laos. Helms recalls that three presidents, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, had each approved the covert operation, the "secret war", and that 50 senators had been briefed on its progress, e.g., Senator Symington had twice visited Laos. Helms elaborates on the turnabout: