DCI REMARKS TO DEPARTMENT OF STATE EXECUTIVE SEMINAR AT CIA HEADQUARTERS WEDNESDAY, 6 MAY 1981

• Document Type: FOIA
• Keywords: SPEECHES
• Keywords: CASEY
• Keywords: SPEECHES
• Keywords: CASEY
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005288325
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: June 22, 2015
• Document Release Date: January 30, 2009
• Case Number: F-2007-01107
• Publication Date: May 6, 1981

APPROVED FOR RELEASED DATE:
12-08-2008
 DCI REMARKS
TO
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
EXECUTIVE SEMINAR
AT
CIA HEADQUARTERS
WEDNESDAY, 6 MAY 1981
 Congratulations to you on your bicentennial! Though it has been
seven years since I left the Department, I have not forgotten that it was
in 1781 that the Continental Congress established the Department of Foreign
Affairs.
Nor have I forgotten that a year later, Secretary Livingston was
given his intelligence mission. He was empowered to deal not only with
diplomats, but also-"with all other persons from whom he may expect to
receive useful information relative to his department."
Over the years, Presidents have relied on the Foreign Service for
political and economic reporting. But Presidentsalso used non-commissioned
"executive agents" for secret missions. These agents were, in a sense,
the forerunners of CIA collectors. They did not replace, but supplemented
diplomatic collection.
Your reporting is still as important as ever. In many countries, it
is sufficient. In others, your reporting narrows down what has to be
gathered by secret methods.
We also depend on you for biographic reporting. And, let's not
concentrate only in those in power now -- but also those on their way up.
This reminds me of a true story about Ambassador Bunker and Mrs. Bunker.
Years ago, in the American Embassy in Manila, there was stationed a
 "Small Birds Attache" from the Department of the Interior. The Bunkers
remembered this when stationed in India. On every occasion, Mrs. Bunker
expounded what came to be known as the "small birds doctrine." She
encouraged young Foreign Service couples to befriend and cultivate the
."small birds" -- the ones on their way up the ladder of power and
influence. Do likewise and preach the "small birds doctrine."
For some five years I was there at the creation of modern American
intelligence. I was sending observers behind German lines in World War II.
I was planning the organization of the first American peacetime intelligence
service. Now, about a third of a century later I've spent three months
looking over the American intelligence community that has evolved from
that embryo. Now I'm talking about how it measures up to today's needs
and how it might be improved.
My predecessors have changed intelligence to be more than a
simple spy service. They developed a great center of scholarship and
research. A center that has as many doctors and masters of every kind
of art and science as any university campus.
Those previous Directors have produced a triumph of applied technology.
That technical impact is felt from the depths of the oceans to the limits
of outer space. They're using photography, eleotronics,.acoustics
and other technological marvels to learn things totally hidden on the
other side of the world. In the SALT debate, for example, Americans
openly discussed the details of Soviet missiles. Those missiles are
 All this has produced a staggering array of information, a veritable
Niagara of facts. But facts can confuse. The wrong picture is not worth
a thousand words. No photo, no electronic impulse can substitute for
direct, on-the-scene knowledge of the key actors in a given country or
region. No matter how spectacular a photo may be, that photo cannot
reveal enough about plans, intentions, internal political dynamics,
economics, and so forth. There are too many cases where photos are
ambiguous or useless. Too many cases where electronic intelligence may
drown the analyst in partial or conflicting information. Technical
collection is of little help in the most difficult problem of all --
political intentions. Here clandestine human intelligence can make a
difference.
We started aclandestine intelligence service in OSS. Over the
years it has proven itself and has served the nation well. The clandestine
service has also received undeserved slings and arrows. I am personally
dedicated to supporting and strengthening that unique asset.
Of late, a good deal of the criticism of CIA has been leveled at
the analytical function. The necessity of analysis is obvious. Collection
is facts. Just as houses are made of stones, so is collection made of
facts. But a pile of stones is not a house -- and a collection of facts
is not necessarily intelligence.
Much of the criticism is based on unrealistic expectations of what
 an intelligence service can do. We produce good current intelligence.
We also produce good intelligence on military and economic capabilities.
But if one reduces all intelligence analysis to the predictive function --
and then looks for a 1000 batting average -- no intelligence organization
will measure up. We are interested in foreknowledge, but we do not
have a pipeline to God. Nor do we have a crystal ball. In short,
the CIA does not have powers of prophecy. The CIA has no crystal ball
Also, it is one thing to deal with something that is knowable--but
unknown by us. It is another thing to deal with something that is
unknown--and unknowable. Often intelligence is expected to predict what
course a country will take--when the leaders of that country themselves
don't know what they will do next.
If we can't expect infallible prophecy from the.nation's investment
in intelligence, what can we expect? We can expect foresight. We can
expect a careful definition of possibilities. We can expect professional
analysis which probes and weighs probabilities and assesses their
implications. We can expect analyses that assist policymakers in devising
ways to prepare for and cope with the full range of probabilities.
The President does not need a single best view, a guru, or a prophet.
The nation needs the best analysis of the full range of views and data
it can get.
 as open and competitive as possible. We need to continue to resist the
bureaucratic instinct for consensus.
We don't need analysts spending their time finding a middle ground
or weasel words to conceal disagreement. The analyst's time needs to
go into evaluating information, getting at its meaning and its implications --
expressing both their conclusions and their.disagreements clearly.
A single homogenized estimate serves policymakers badly. The homogenized
estimate buries valid and meaningful differences, forces the intelligence
product to the lowest or blandest common denominator. This search for
consensus cultivates the myth of infallibility. Consensus implicitly
promises a reliability that cannot be delivered. Consensus too frequently
deprives the intelligence product of relevance and the policymaker of
a prudent range of .possibilities.
The time has come to recognize that policymakers can easily sort
through a wide range of opinions but cannot consider views and opinions
they do not receive. The time has come to recognize that CIA, DIA, NSA,
INR, and every other element of the intelligence community should not
only be allowed to compete and surface differences, but be encouraged
to do so.
And, the time has come to recognize that the intelligence community
has no monopoly on truth, on insight, on initiative in foreseeing what
will be relevant to policy. For that reason, we are in the process of
reconstituting a President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. That
Board would be made up of strong and experienced individuals with a wide
range of relevant experience. In addition to that, we are asking
 scientists and a wide variety of experts, scholars and practitioners to
serve on advisory panels to address special problems. And we contract
with think tanks and a wide variety of business corporations to do
specialized research for us.
We will need to use even more of this specialized approach in the
future to cope with the intelligence requirements of our increasingly
complex and dangerous world. In the OSS, we were doing pretty well
if we knew where the enemy was and how he was redeploying his forces.
For the first twenty years of a peacetime intelligence service most
of the effort went to understanding the production and characteristics
of weapons. It is only in the last 10 years that it has dawned upon us:
We have been threatened and damaged more by coups and subversion and
economic aggression than by military force. We'll still devote a large
slice of our effort to military estimates. We'll rely heavily on those
estimates in formulating our defense budget and force structures. But
we've got to supplement the military studies by increased efforts to
assess economic vulnerabilities and technological breakthroughs. We've
also got to identify social and political instabilities and how they can
or are being targeted -- whether by economic and political means -= by
subversion, propaganda, or terrorism.
There are great challenges ahead of us. We will rise to the occasion.
There is an ancient Chinese saying: "May you live in interesting times."