REMARKS OF WILLIAM J. CASEY DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AT THE AMERICAN STOCK EXCHANGE CONFERENCE LOY HENDERSON HALL, DEPARTMENT OF STATE TUESDAY, 12 JUNE 1984

• Document Type: FOIA
• Keywords: SPEECHES
• Keywords: CASEY
• Keywords: SPEECHES
• Keywords: CASEY
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005288315
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 18
• Document Creation Date: June 22, 2015
• Document Release Date: January 30, 2009
• Case Number: F-2007-01107
• Publication Date: June 12, 1984

REMARKS OF WILLIAM J. CASEY
DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
AT THE
AMERICAN STOCK EXCHANGE CONFERENCE
LOY HENDERSON HALL, DEPARTMENT OF STATE
TUESDAY, 12 JUNE 1984
APPROVED FOR RELEASED DATE:
08-Dec-2008
 For the past three years Bill Casey has been an energetic and indeed
occassionally a Controversial Director of the CIA who enjoys ready access
to the President. Even Mr. Casey's critics would acknowledge, however,
that he has earned the respect of his colleagues in the intelligence
community and that he has been an affective Director of the Agency. Its
been my privilege to work directly with Bill Casey, and I can tell you
that he is very good. Its my pleasure to give you as our first speaker
this morning, the man who knows more than anybody else about what is
going on in the world today, the Honorable William Casey, Director of
Central Intelligence.[APPLAUSE)
WILLIAM J. CASEY:
Thank you for the most generous introduction, for all the
indoctrination you gave me in coming into this job, and I'd like to tell
all of you I'm very pleased to be here. I must first register (NOT
01
DISCERNIBLE] is given the administration viewpoint on National Security.
I took a vow of political chasti when I was appointed Director of
Central Intelligence three and a half years ago. What I will give you
within our time constraints is the independent view which the American
Intelligence Community takes in financial security and provides to the
Adminstration and to the Congress on what we see out there around the
world and how we just go about serving the nations first line of defense.
The Soviet Union still dominates our interest as Craig Gremlen
(spelling?] watches we see Chernenko and the third of three aging and
sick leaders and a transitional leader. Whether he dies tomorrow or some
 years, hence, its not likely to make much difference because we are
dealing with a collectivity, an institutional force which will change if
The CIA of very [NOT DISCERNIBLE) China some [NOT DISCERNIBLE] before he
died that made us very careful about protection when any one might cash
in his chips. All we do know is that the Soviets have a large and
growing arsenal of nuclear weapons which are aimmed at the United States,
Western Europe, and East Asia. On top of that new missiles and missile
carring planes and submarines are being designed, developed, tested, and
deployed in amazaing confusion. This is compounded by the work the
Soviets have carried out over the last decade to improve that capability
for missile defense while we have done little of nothing in that area.
Recently we see alarming signs?of radar [NOT DISCERNIBLE] the testing of
interceptors and other activities which would give them a running start
if they should break out of the treaty limiting missile defense and
establish the kind of nationwide defense which could heavily [NOT
DISCERNIBLE] strategic balance against us. On the European front in the
Conventional area the Warsaw [spelling?] forces outnumber NATO forces
increasingly in numbers of troops, tanks, guns, and planes and allowing
the quantitative edge we once counted on quiet heavily. These forces are
being deployed in an increasingly aggressive way and backed up with a
steadily expanding ray of long range missiles which can reach European
Capitals. Yet the main threat may lie else where. Kruschev [spelling?]
told us in 1961 that the Communists would win not through nuclear war
which could destroy the world, not through conventional war which might
 become nuclear soon, but through national liberation wars in Africa,
Asia, and Latin America. We didn't believe that any more than we
believed Hitler when he told us in the early 30's how we would take over
Europe. Yet the Soviets moved on to develop Cuba as a base during the
60's, during the mid 70's we saw them send weapons thousands of miles
away to link up with Cuban troops in Angola, Ethiopia, South Yehmen, and
today Vietnam, Angola, Ethiopia, South Yehman, Iran, and Nicaragua have
been taking over by regimens hostile to the United States and Afghanistan
has been invaded by Soviet troops. In this way Soviet power has, been
established through bases and proxies in Vietnam, along China's southern
border, and astride the sea lanes which brings Japan's oil from the
Persian Gulf. In Afghanistan 500 miles closer to the warm water ports of
the Indian Ocean and the Straits of Bermuz of which comes the oil
essential for Western Europe. On the Horn of Africa, overlooking the
passage way of Suez, which connects the Mediterranean Sea and Indian
Ocean, in South Africa rich in minerals in which the industrial nation
must have, and in the Caribbean in Central America on the sea lanes in
the very door step of the United States. That's whats happened in a
short ten years. This is a continuing process of creeping Imperialism
CH1
which threatens other areas of strategic significance Japan, Honduras,
A1,44 I.RIA
Guatamala, Sudan, Samilas [spelling?], Eubia [spelling?]. The most
affective technique employed in this strategy has been the use of
proxies. This is not exactly new in history. The. Romans used men from
conquered countries to fight their enemies. Later Swiss and German
mercenaries were available to the highest bidder all over Europe. The
British army had its sherpas [spelling?], the Franks had its Foreign
 Legion. But the Soviet's use the Cubans, the East Germans, Libians, and
Vietnamese in a different and broader way. In peace as well as war in a
role as much political as military different proxies having specialized
functions of the more than 40,000 Cubans in Africa, 80 percent are,
soldiers in active duty, Vietnam with the fourth largest army in the
world keeps China and Thailand worries as its solitifies its position in
Capitreea [spelling?]. The Soviet's support Cuban and Vietnam with more
than 5 billion dollars in economic and military support every year.
North Korea, Libya, Cuba, South Yehman, East Germany, and Bulgaria train
a security forces which organize the supervisor block watches to protect
the regimens and the people and sure that the anti-western pro-Communist
regimen is permanently installed and entrenched. These countries also
operate camps for training terrorists and invaders to be sent around the
Terrorism has become a weapon system itself used by Sovereign states that
destabilize in all the governments and intimidate them in their foreign
policy. As practiced today terrorism is obliterating the distinctions
between peace and war. [NOT DISCERNIBLE] terrorists organizations around
the world can be hired by Iran, Syria, Libya, other radical governments.
U.S. facilities and people, around the world are the major target and this
is a major challenge, continuing challenge, for our intelligence
capabilities.
The Soviets have in, place, on all continents, and on all its apparatus in
the KGB and the Soviet military service the GRU. Plus some 70
 y.g sr ARA4Y
nongoverning Communists parties plus aw a c ray of peace and friendship
organizations all directed from Moscow plus the associated and
coordinated capabilities of these German, Cuban, Polish, Czechoslavakian,
Bulgarian and other hostile intelligence services, as well as the people
to people movements the Cubans and others, sponsored by the government of
these satellite countries. To put it all together and its awesome and as
skillfully directed as stealing our technology and other secrets,
damaging our reputation, confusing our people and dividing us from our
friends and allies. The CIA is the organization of the free world, most
capable of dealing effectively with this huge and much larger apparatus.
To cope with international terrorism and Soviet technology acquisition
active measures, propaganda and world espionage worldwide, our
cooperation in intelligence exchanges, training technical support and
operational efforts with some two hundred intelligence and security
organizations in-friendly countries is critical in maintaining an
effective counter-terrorism and counter-espionage capability to protect
our people, our installations and our interests around the world. This
is a backboard that is really the only thing that can effectively counter
this tremendous apparatus our adversaries have put together and worked so
effectively. Now there are other important factors in the world
affecting our national interests which we have to watch. Religious and
tribal forces, political factions of movements, narcotics and arms
traffikers, economic curtails, and technology thieves. Narcotics
forwarded into the United States from South America, the golden triangle
of Southeast Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran. They come in containers,
they come in small planes, small boats, they come in stomachs even. We
 Then we must cope with nuclear proliferation, third world death and
international competitors problems which can undermine political
stability in so many countries as well as our own security and
prosperity. one of the most critical and most difficult intelligence
challenges that we face is the assessment of Soviet technology and
science and its potential for military and strategic surprise.. .We
believe if we watch this closely, regularly, we believe we are still
ahead in most of the twenty critical technologies we look at. But they
have pulled ahead or alongside some and our margins and lead times tend
to shrink. The ability of the Soviet military industrial complex to
acquire and assimilate Western~'technology far exceeds any previous
estimates. We estimate that seventy percent of the technology most
significant to recent Soviet weapons developments came from Western
sources.. They come through our open literature, buy through legal trade
channels, religiously attend our scientific and technological
conferences, send students over here to study. They use dummy firms and
sophisticated international networks to divert and steal weapon
technology. We have identified hundreds of firms operating through more
than thirty countries engaged in these technology diversion schemes.
This is a major effort to slow down this illegal building of their
capabilities against which we must defend with our own technology and R
and D that we have developed and paid for. We have had a fair number of
successes and frustrating this I will mention'just one. You may recall
 lately last year and early this year West German and Swedish customs
siezed several advanced (spell g?] computers and thirty tons of related
illegal trader named Muller. We caught that but this is only the top of
the iceberg. Our evidence shows that much larger quantities of computer
and electronic equipment have been successfully diverted to the USSR
through the activities of the Muller firm, others like it and Western
manufacturers that have dealt with these outfits. Now stepping back that
is a catalog of the kind of intelligence [NOT DISCERNIBLE] we have to
contend with. Broadly the less developed nations of the world in-line
with this stategy of national wars of liberation are likely to be the
principal US, Soviet battlegrounds of the future. The Soviets have
become the worlds leading supplier of arms. Over recent years their arms
shipments to the third world have been four times greater than their
economic assistance. This is amazing, these small countries dependent on
the Soviets for thousands of (NOT DISCERNIBLE], for spare parts as a
continued logistical support. Once they dig into a military system it is
hard to replace them.
Despite the global expansion of its power, despite its impressive
military machine the Soviet Union is crippled in only having a military
dimension. Economically it has little to offer the third world. In the
countries which have come under Soviet influence economic performance has
ranged from poor to very poor. In the long run economic, financial,
scientific, technical and cultural exchanges that contract and maintain
close relationships with both third world countries are far more
 effective than merely military support. The Kremlin cannot compete in
$UBOER SIO,V
these areas. This forces the Soviets to rely on [NOT DISCERNIBLE) and
disruption of stable political and economic relationships, to weaken
Western relationships and to create a condition of caos in which their
surrogates and internal allies can sieze power. we have to find a way to
mobilize and use more effectively our greatest asset in the third world
which is private business. Few in that part of the world wish to adopt
the Soviet economic system. Neither we nor the Soviets can offer a
limited or even large scale economic assistance to less developed
countries. Advancement is the key to economic success in the third'~world
and those countries need investment and know how from our country our
NATO allies, Japan and other dynamic countries of Asia and Latin
America. The Soviets are helpless to compete with this private capital
and this advanced technology that we can make available to developing
countries.
American intelligence has developed to meet this range of challenges. My
predecessor enlisted photography, electronics, acoustics, siesmic
readings and other technological marvels to gather facts of all corners
of the earth. These capabilities have been and are being enhanced as new
technologies and new intelligence needs emerge. As a result we will be
receiving many more photos, signals and reports in a few years than we
are receiving now. To sift, evaluate and get practical meaning from this
enhanced flow of information we have to recrute and develop dedicated
people. We do have scholars and scientist in. every discipline of the
 social and physical sciences as well as engineers and specialists in
computers and commmunications in profusion unmatched by any university.
Our national collection division with officers around the country, taps
scientist and businessmen who own the world in their professional
capacities, taps them for the information that comes their way and for
the insights and understanding they develop. We tap academic
specialists, think tanks, other sources of scholarship and knowledge.
All this is distilled into CIA intelligence estimates and evaluated in
President and his colleagues must make. For the national estimates, the
chiefs of the components of the national intelligence community, which
are the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the
CIA, the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corp intelligence staffs, the
FBI, the intelligence arms of the state treasury and energy departments,
this group of people comprise a boird of review. They are charged with
contributing to this processing information obtained by their
intelligence collectors and the judgements developed by their analysts.
SErn.oN~"~ a ~=~ED
The estimates that result are no longer a homogenized [NOT DISCERNIBLE]
consensus. Rather they present policy makers with a range of those
alternative outcomes which are well reasoned and substantiated. This
process has greatly enhanced the collaboration and working relationships
between the various elements of the intelligence community and it is
supplemented by daily reports to administration policy makers (NOT
DISCERNIBLE) security field, the Congress, as well as thousands of
 To maintain the support of the American people and get the assistance of
people around the world who share our values and want to help us in this
work it is essential that the American intelligence community maintain'a
reputation for integrity, confidentiality, reliability and security. I
believe that the quality of the intelligence produced, the loyalty and
dedication of our people and the large number of Americans interested-in
joining our ranks demonstrates that we do maintain that kind of a
reputation despite a drumbeat of criticism in the media and elsewhere.
With few exceptions, the highly publicized charges made against the CIA
charges were on the front pages and their reputations were buried away so
that few people noted them. Today, we are sustaining damage not yet
fully measured as Frank Carlucci suggested in his opening remarks, from
an actual and perceived inability of our government to maintain
confidentiality and keep secrets.
In conclusion, I would like to site the safeguards which assure that the
activities of the intelligence community support and conform to national
policy established pursuant to the constitution by the President and the
Congress. We undertake no special activities which are not reviewed by
the national security council, authorized by the President and briefed to
the Congress pursuant to law. We fully cooperate in every respect with
the Congressional oversight process which assures.not only special
activities but the whole range of programs of the community are
scrutinized by legislators responsible directly to the people. Finally
our people fully understand and acknowledge that their mission is to
 produce timely and high quality intelligence for the President and the
government of the United States. To provide independent, unbiased and
objective evaluations, to remain always open to new perceptions and to be
ready to challenge the convention of wisdom. In short, they call them as
they see them. Their committed to conduct their activities in themselves
according to the highest standards of integrity and morality and honor
and according to the spirit and letter of the law in the constitution.
All this has been articulated specifically and recently in [NOT.
DISCERNIBLE] for the CIA which resulted from a reevaluation of the CIA
mission, an organizationwide process in which several thousand
individuals participated. A word about the people themselves. They have
survived one of the most rigorous screening processes known to man. The
highest skill requirements, the toughest intelligence and psychological
testing, severe medical clearances, security clearances, polygraphs all
of which provides high confidence that those who get through this
obstacle course are smart, clean of drug and alcoholic addiction, healthy
and psychologically able to'cope.
Last year we had a hundred and fifty-three thousand inquiries for
employment, we interviewed some twenty-three thousand, we selected
twenty-three thousand and interviewed ten thousand. Four thousand came
through all the tests satisfactorily, of those fifteen hundred [NOT
EN7-eR ON .t17)'
DISCERNIBLE). [NOT DISCERNIBLE] there is a three year probationary
unusual risk and responsibility, no public recognition for their
 in silence. In these burdens, there is a satisfaction for them based
primarily on the knowledge that intelligence is our first line of
defense, that on doing it well might hang our security and future as a
nation and that satisfaction is heightened by the early exposure to the
range of perils I have very quickly outlined to you. There is
satisfaction and challenge in being the ones called upon for constant
vigilance and readiness to cope with these threats. The bonds of trust
and sharing of responsibility among these people have flourished. from
knowing that their common risks and burdens are carried with courage and
grace. From realizing how their common success, effectiveness and safety
depends on the reliability and contribution of each one of them, from
feeling the human and economic cost of each tiny granule of information
that pours into their hands and mine and from knowing how the value of
all that hangs finally on the care, depth and breadth of precision with
which those nuggets of intelligence are evaluated, analyzed and
interpreted for there practical meaning.
Finally, this is not our intelligence service its yours, the people. It
works for our common security and well-being and there are things you
could do to help. You can share with our national collection division
special information and insights that come in the course of your travel
and other business activity. You can speak up when our work and purposes
are misunderstood and misrepresented. You can direct promise to young
people looking for a challenging and honorable career who are
recruiters. Some of you can continue to develop and apply your
 technological and creative capabilities to the better, faster and deeper
collection, processing and handling of information as you have in the
past. Without that we would not be able to keep up with our mission at
all. Thank you, I will be happy to hear your questions, collaborate on
what I have said to the extent that I can do so with appropriate
discretion. [APPLAUSE]
Arthur Levitt:
Thank u very much Bill for those comments. Bill, 1 t me exercise the
perogativ of the moderator and ask the first ques ion and then turn it
over to you or subsequent questions. The heart f any intelligence
operation is t. protection of sources and meth ds. Obviously you are
not going to colt ct information if you canno protect it. How do you
reconcile that with the applicability of t Freedom of Information Act
to our intelligence c unity and where o you stand on legislative
adjustments to that act?
William J. Casey:
and methods but not impossibl
We do have the right not to release
as necessary to minutely screen and
ervice or anybody else could
figure out from what we released. This requires that the handling of
these requests fo information be carried out by experienced intelligence
officers.
 DIRECTOR WILLIAM CASEY: ...I'll be happy to hear your
questions, elaborate on what I've said, to the extent that I can
do so with appropriate discretion.
MODERATOR: ...Bill, let me exercise the prerogatives of
the moderator and ask the first question, and then turn it over
to you for subsequent questions.
The heart of any intelligence operation is the protec-
tion of sources and methods. Obviously, you're not going to
collect information if you can't protect it. How do you recon-
cile that with the applicability of the Freedom of Information
Act to our intelligence community, and where do you stand on
legislative adjustments to that act?
DIRECTOR CASEY: Well, the Freedom of Information Act
makes it difficult to protect sources and methods, but not
impossible. We do have the right not to release information
which is classified and which would jeopardize sources and
methods. And to exercise that right, it's necessary to minutely
screen and think about what another intelligence service, or
anybody else, could figure out from what we release. This
requires tht the handling of these requests for information be
carried out by experienced intelligence officers [technical
difficulties] because of the necessity to screen it so minutely,
huge cost and a huge commitment of people. We estimate that
something like four percent of our operational people are tied up
in doing this work, which has very little benefit. It doesn't
provide oversight, the oversight process on a day-to-day basis.
This is looking back 10, 15, 20 years of history.
Now, there is legislation, which has gone through the
Intelligence Committees with their approval, which would exempt
from this process the operational files of the CIA. It is that
part of the files which requires this very minute screening and
highly unproductive and dangerous work because you're going to
miss some, some things are going to get out. And the fact that
our operational files are exposed to that kind of possibility
certainly weakens the confidence that other intelligence people
and other people around the world don't want to help us and risk
their lives and reputation to do so, are prepared to take that
risk.
So, if we can get enacted this legislation which will
exempt our operational files, that will substantially reduce the
burden of complying with this law, will provide considerable
assurance to people who must rely on our security, and I believe
will take virtually nothing away from the public or the histor-
ians, who we've agreed to -- as part of the support for this
bill, we've agreed to increase the rate at which we make
 available historical files, going back a good many years, so that
the proper study of history can be carried on.
So, I think we've made a little progress, and there's a
chance we can get it enacted this year. I don't know whether it
will clear the, process with the amount of time that's left, but
it has very good support and is supported by a number of the
institutions in town which normally oppose this kind of thing
because they see in it an opportunity to get what they'd like to
get much more rapidly in the non-operational area. All the
intelligence judgments and assessments would be available, under
the act as it is now. It would merely be these operational
files, which are so sensitive, which would be protected.
MAN: Mr. Casey, relative to your comment about tolera-
ting criticisms in silence, would you comment, please, about the
correlation of the congressional oversight and the great furor,
in Congress and elsewhere, relative to the mining of harbors in
Central America?
DIRECTOR CASEY: Well, that's been so widely discussed
in the press, I don't know that there's much I can add to it.
In that activity, as required by law, we regularly kept
the Congress informed of major developments. The process for
doing that is. that we maintain a legislative liaison staff of
some 20 people. The congressional committees, together, maintain
a legislative staff of some 70 people. They meet and exchange
information, they ask for briefings, and there's an ongoing
process of keeping them informed with the information that they
think they need.
In addition to which, the committees themselves, on this
program, called for briefings. And I and others appeared before
the committee roughly every couple of months. And that would
sometimes be a longer interim if the Congress was out of session.
While they're in session, roughly every couple of months. And we
would then tell them what had happened since the last briefing,
and they'd ask questions about it, any question they chose. We'd
have people there with maps and details and provide the answers.
And that had gone on for, I guess in this program, two
or three years. And certainly in this program, more information
was provided the Congress than in any previous activity of this
kind since the inception of CIA. And information was provided.
Some people felt it might have been provided earlier because of
the sensitivity of it. And there was a misunderstanding or
dispute and a mistake about that, perhap. But that's pretty much
the net of it.
The Central American thing, because it's politically
controversial, has resulted in more public discussion and
 exposure of the activity in the press than anything else, and it
does create misunderstanding and tensions and so on. But I think
that's inevitable in that kind of a thing.
MAN: There's been a lot said about the amount of
technology that is leaving the United States, going to the Soviet
Union. I would presume that with the intelligence-gathering
efforts that the CIA has underway around the world, that the CIA
is also gathering a variety of information on technology being
developed by the Soviets.
Is there any program at all that the CIA has for making
this kind of information available to American researchers or
industry? And if not, why not?
DIRECTOR CASEY: Well, there is an effort to collect
information an evaluation of foreign technology. That informa-
tion is made available to the segments of the government,
primarily the Department of Commerce, which are in touch with
American industry. And it's their responsibility to make it
suitable available to such use as is appropriate and beneficial
to the people they serve. The CIA, itself, doesn't disseminate
information inside the United States, except to the President and
the Congress. It does it through other -- it makes it available
to other agencies of government who, in their discharge of their
obligations to the public, decide what they want to make or what
they can usefully make available.
MODERATOR: Let's take one more question.
MAN: On the Today hh,sw'd is morning, I believe a
contract employee of yours, .had some outpourings that
seemed to be neither complimentary of the Administration or your
department. Would you care to comment on those?
DIRECTOR CASEY: Well, not particularly. That's one
gentleman who was a contract employee for a short period of time,
whose relationship was severed maybe a year ago. And what he's
saying runs counter to the judgment of all the analysts who, in
the ordinary processing of this information, are arriving at the
judgments, the estimates provided to the policymakers, and the
conclusions arrived at by the congressional committees in their
reports and budget authorizations, where they have, in a variety
of ways, public statements and published reports, express a quite
contrary view, that the activities and the ability of the
guerrillas in Salvador to threaten the Salvadoran government
springs in large measure from the support that is provided them
by the -- from Nicaragua, Cuba, and so on. And there's ample
evidence of that. It's been put on public view on TV and it's
been presented to congressional committees. And this is just one
man's opinion.