As a long-time professional practitioner, Helms held strong views concerning the proper functioning of an intelligence agency. Highly valued was the notion of maintaining state security by keeping sensitive state secrets away from an enemy's probing awareness. Secrecy was held to be an essential, utilitarian virtue, of great value to the government. It was necessary in the conduct of both surreptitious information gathering, i.e., espionage, and in covert operations, i.e., the reputed ability to directly intervene by stealth in the course of political events. Consequently, Helms became utterly dismayed at the various investigations of USG intelligence agencies, especially when they resulted in the publication or broadcast of classified information, highly sensitive, that had previously remained secret. For example, among the information divulged were facts that exposed Richard Welch, the CIA station chief in Athens, who subsequently was murdered. At points during the many hours of testimony given by Helms before Congress, his frustration and irritation with the direction of the proceedings are clearly discernible.