VERO BEACH, Fla., Jan. 20 (UPI) -- Otis Pike, a former U.S. congressman and critic of Defense Department spending, died Monday in Florida, his family said. He was 92.
The family announced his death in a statement. His son, Douglas Pike, said the former New York lawmaker had been hospitalized in a Vero Beach hospital with a kidney ailment, the Washington Post reported.
Pike, elected to the House of Representatives in 1960, was considered an independent thinker during his 18 years in Congress. A Democrat elected in a Republican-leaning district, Pike was a military veteran who was dubious about escalation of the Vietnam War and critical of Pentagon overspending, the Post said.
He also led one of the first congressional investigations into allegations of abuses by U.S. intelligence agencies. In July 1975, he became chairman of a House committee that was the counterpart of a Senate committee led by Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho. Both panels reviewed activities of the CIA and other intelligence agencies, marking the first time Congress examined secret dealings and suspected abuses by the CIA since it was founded in 1947.
Among other findings, the Pike Committee called for congressional oversight over intelligence operations, a prohibition of CIA-sponsored killings and more transparency in the intelligence budget.
The results of the Pike Committee were never published because the full House voted to keep them secret, citing national security. However, reporter Daniel Schorr obtained a copy of the committee's report and recommendations and published it.
Pike always denied giving Schorr the report, Douglas Pike said.
His first wife, Doris Orth Pike, died in 1996 and a son, Robert Pike, died in 2010.
Pike is survived by his second wife, Barbe Bonjour Pike; children Lois Pike Eyre and Douglas Pike; and two grandchildren.
