An immediate cause of the surge in Congressional oversight activity may be sourced in the American people's loss of confidence in the USG due to the Watergate scandal. Also, the apparent distortions and dishonesty concerning the reported progress of the war in Vietnam gravely eroded the public's previous tendency to put its trust in the word of USG officials. Evidence published in 1971 had demonstrated "systemized abuse of power" by J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director. The September 1973 overthrow of a democratically elected government in Chile ultimately revealed earlier CIA involvement there. Other factors contributed to the political unease, e.g., the prevalence of conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination, and the emergence of whistleblowers. Accordingly, the Central Intelligence Agency, which was tangentially involved in Watergate, and which had been directly engaged in the Vietnam War from the beginning, became a subject of Congressional inquiry and media interest. Helms, of course, had served as head of the CIA, 1965–73. Eventually the process of scrutiny opened a secret pandora's box of questionable CIA activities.