LIMIT CIA ROLE TO INTELLIGENCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000700550045-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 10, 2004
• Sequence Number: 45
• Publication Date: December 22, 1963
• Content Type: NSPR

-171
} By Harry S. Truman
Copyright. 1263, by Harry S. Truman
INDEPENDENCE, MO., Dec. people, he needs to have avail-
j --I think it has become able to hilts the most accur?
necessary to take another look and up-to-the-;minute .inoria,i-
;lie purpose and operations Lion on what is going on!
not our Central Intelligence everywhere in the world, and
1 ency--CIA. At least, I would particularly of the trends u'
' i' to submit here the origi- I developments in all t ,,)
i :ii reason why I thought it,danger spots in the Conte
liccc,ssary to organize this!bctween East acid West. '.I'i.is
Agency during my AdrInistra-'is an immense task and re-
lion, what I expected it to do quires a special kind of an in-
an arm of the President.
T think it. is fairly obvious
tU t by and large a Pres-
ident's performance in office
is as effective as the inforrna-
I,ion he has and the informa-
lion lie gets. That is to say,
that assuming the President
has available to hire all tl.c
formation palhered by .he
many intelligence agencies
already in existence. Tilt !?e
partnlents of state, Defers;e,
Comnlorce, I n t, e r i o r 1:1
others are constantly enga!:"xi
lzii)iself possesses a knowledgelin extensive information It'll
of our history, a sensitive uri-iering and have done exe IL-! A
Iderstanding of our institu- work.
turns, and an insight into the But their collective info n:a-
Ineeds and aspirations of the',tion reached the President
too frequently in con',lict,;i,*
conclusions. At times, the in-
tc~l ii;;ence reports tended to
be slanted to conform to c.st.,li-
lished positions of a given
department. 'I'hts herorncs
,confusing and what's worse,
such intelligence is of li le
use to a President in reaeb ni
the right decisions.
Therefore, I decided to ?:t
u) a special or ;ar,izal ion
charged v: ita the collecting: of
all intelligence reports from
every available source, eec: to
have tho: c reports react: ;'r,e
as President without depart-
mental "treatment" or inter-
pretations.
I wanted and needed the in-
formation in its "natural raw"
state and in as comprehensive
a volume as it was practical
for me. to make full use of A.
But the most important thing
about this move was to guard
against the chance of intel-I
ligence being used to in-I
fluence or to lead the Pres.
ident into unwise decisions-
and I thought it was neces-
sary that the President do his
own thinking and evaluating.
Since the responsibility for
1t$ he el), b.obdl
iiir. 7'lierc are always those
w;io would want to shield a
i',c iricnt; from had news or
judgments to spare him
;'?s}i11 being "upset:."
i,br sonic time I have INori
rl i:,' iirisen by the way CIA 1M. 'if
lb;-en diverted from its oli;an-
al assi;;nment. It has become
a.-, operational and at times a
icy -i)laicing arm of. t.l,e
Corerihment, This has led lo l
tiYiuble acid may have conl-
,,ounded our difficulties in
se. er;ii explosive areas.
I never had any thought
that when I set up the CIA
that it would be injected into
peacetime cloak and d tcl-
1 operations. Some of the com-
plications and embarrassment
that I think we have experi-
enced are in part attributable
to the fact that this quiet in-
telligence arm of the Pres-
ideut has been so removed
from its intended role that it
is being interpreted as a
symbol of sinister and myste-
rinus foreign intrigue-and a
subject for cold war enemy
pi'cipagailda.
With all the nonsense put
THE WASHINGTON POST
out by Communist propaganda ~,
about "Yankee iniperialism'"11
"csploi,t.ive capitalism," "%':a:'-'
mongering*" "monopolists," in
their n;une-calling assualt on
the Wc~.t, the last thing we
needed was for the CIA to be
seized upon as something akin
1 t.o a subverting influence in
the affairs of other people.
I well knew the first tear
1porary director of the CIA,
.Adm. Souers, and the later
permanent directors of the
CIA, Gen. hoyt Vandenberg
and Allen Dulles. These
wore men of the hit hest char-
acter, patriotism and integrity
-and I assume this is true oC
all those who continue in
charge.
But there are now some
searching questions that need
to be answered. I, therefore,
(would like to see the CIE', be
restored. to its original assign-
ment as the intelligence arm
of the President, and that
whatevcx, else it can properly
perform in that special field-
and that its operational duties
be terminated or properly
use d elsewhere.
We have grown up as a
nation, respected. for our free
institutions and for our ability
to maintain a free and open
society. There is something
about the way the CIA has
been functioning that is
R 511 3f P O -9
torte post ion an cc 0,Q045
we need to correct it.
4le -ision making was ]us -
ApprovindRkie8t;ec2Q6p4/.1k2+/1i5 : CIA
,information is kept ,roni 'n"m
;'or whatever reason at the
(discretion of any one depart
f
or Release 2004/12/15 : CI Y ?RY5 4O1 P00700"0045-9