“Despite the impassioned rhetoric of angry agents and conservative critics, the Church Committee hearings and Carter’s reforms did not dramatically alter the CIA’s operational capabilities. The agency still maintained a massive network of intelligence officers, agents, and assets around the world. Nor did the reforms signal an unwillingness of liberals to use covert action as, by 1979, Carter had authorized the CIA to arm and supply rebel groups in Afghanistan. Instead, the most important consequence of the Church Committee hearings registered outside of the state. The personnel cuts created a pool of politicized covert warriors with no place to go. Free from their jobs in the U.S. government, embittered by the firings, and eager to reclaim power, many turned to the private sector and the world of conservative activism for employment.” CiaChurch Committee Book:Revolutionaries for the Right: Anticommunist Internationalism and Paramilitary Warfare in the Cold War Source: Revolutionaries for the Right: Anticommunist Internationalism and Paramilitary Warfare in the Cold War