REMARKS OF COLONEL LAWRENCE K. WHITE DEPUTY DIRECTOR, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY BEFORE THE 61ST ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CHIEFS OF POLICE NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA SEPTEMBER 27, 1954

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-04718A001300160002-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 20
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 21, 2001
• Sequence Number: 2
• Content Type: SPEECH

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MARES OF mu
DEPUTY DIRECTOR, CENTRAL I ELLIONCE A.
Before
The 61st Annual Conference
of the
International Association of Chiefs of Police
Bee Orleans Louisiana
September 27, 1954
In facing this distin
d audience I am reminded of the
Second Lieutenant at Fort Denning, Georgia, a few years ago who
fofld himself explaining a demonstration of tank tactics and per-
formance to a sizeable group of General Officers. The terrain was
such that in order to Observe the demonstration it was necessary for
the General Officer group, sitting on hastily erected bleachers, to
face into the sunlight. The lieutenant, of course, faced the Tenerels
with his back to the sunlight. He opened his presentation by saying,
"Sirs, I regret very much that in order for you to see this demon-
stration it has been necessary to have you face this bright sunlight
but I can assure you that the sun can't possibly blind you as much
as all of those stars I'm facing do mel"
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As one whose personal problems with the police to date consist
of settling two traffic violations for overparking, one of which I
assure you I shouldn't have been charged with, my nisgivings at
addressing such an impressive array of law enforcement officers are
comparable to that of the Second Lieutenant at Fort Blemmdmg, I will
add that I feel an extra misgiving or two because I am here today
pinch-hitting for my boles, Mr. Allen W. Dulles, Director of Central
Intelligence, who has been prevented from speaking because of important
commitments in Washington. Add to what I have said the fact that MY
being here at all is something of a contradiction in terms, since one
of the fundamental tenets of intelligence work is cultivation of the
gentle art of listening, and you can see my apprehension at addressing
such a large and impressive audience.
' In Mr. Dulles' stead, then, I should like to tell you something
of the background and function of the National Intelligence Effort
and its place in the structure of the United,Statea.Government, while
making a few observations on possible similarities between the tech-
niques of law enforcement and those of intelligence that may highlight
certain basic resetblances between the mays in which each of us con-
ducts our business.
orcement and Intelligence Armies
In the first place enforcement and intelligence have both
been the recipients of considerable gratuitous publicity of one kind
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two 0CC
me
fiction
11 of which has had the net effect of glamorising the
nal fields., sometimes Almost to a point of eMbarrass-
is nothing that radio script writers, novelists, pulp
re, and journalists enjoy more than the classic story
of the chase,whether' it be after a dangerous criminal or a state
secret. Psychologists weed probably point out that them writers
were merely catering to a fundamental human desire to reduce good
and evil to basic terms so that their conflict might more easily be
understood. In this context, a Dillinger and a Meta Heri become
synonymous as representations of "bad guys" while uniformed police,
detectives or intelligence agents in hot pursuit are manifestations
of the "good goys." However, both law enforcement and intelligence
function more efficiently by publicising their sources or methods
even though 411 of the elements of a good nystery are inherent in
every action of either group In fact, in our business publicity
can almost never enhance the chances of gussets of an operation; nor
is publicity after a successfUl operation more beneficial. There are
always sources and methods that may be disclosed. which Jeopardize
other current or future operations and I am sure that you in your
work must find these principles generally sound also. In addition,
the profession of intelligence is beset by the magnetic attraction
that the very word "intelligence" has for the general public. It
seems to me that the average person immediately attaches a sinister
meaning, with a strong cloak and dagger flavor, to the very mention
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of?
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ti
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asion that anyone in
access to all state
As I am sure you know
as well as I, when Ivo told three people a "secret" it is sometimes
anything but a secret Bence, we try to operate on a "need-to-knoe
principle which, with perfection, woad insure that each officer or
employee received only that classified information which he needed in
order to do his job. But all you have to do when your friends ask
you aboutthe situation in the Per Bast, Near Bast, or elsewhere, is
to smile and say, "I don't knowln and you are credited with really
having the inside dope. I've often thought that if I knew only a
fraction of what I was given credit for under these circumstances
my service would certainly become invaluable. Manor without publicity
in a little difficult to have When viewed in this context there is
little glamor in our business. Our work, like yours, is not done with
mirrors and the reward for a steeling performance in usually anonymity
and the self-satisfaction ofajob well done and known only to a bow.
Each of our field depends in a large measure upon logical dedi
tions made from available facts, painstakingly researched. Upon these
facts and opinions conclusions are drawn, on the basis of which positive
action is taken. Nations, as far as their posture toward other nations
is concerned, are similar to individuals, in that they should be well-
informed, not only about their owe capabilities and weaknesses, but
about those of their friends. Likewise, once they know from what
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quarter possible danger can come, either overtly or through too
great reliance on aoie or all of their allies, they must be
prepared to take steps to circumvent disaster. The steps that
nations take to protect thenmelves or to advance their interests
in the world are based, in large or small measure, upon the advice
that they receive from their intelligence advisors. Just as when
you consult a road nap before driving from one place to another where
you may not have been before, so governments of the world rely upon
the advioe and facilities of their intelligence conponents in the
formulation of their policies, foreign and domestic, which may have
an international impact
III. National Intelligence
From the deys when men first devised methods of protecting
there3.ves from their energise by mans of standing arnies here
has been an intelligence !Unction. The Indian scouts who rode the
*stern plains of the United States as outriders for the cavalry wares
in effect, intelligence agents whose job it was to report on the loca
tion, strength, disposition, and probable hostile intent of enemy
forces. Their value was negated entirely if they kept what they knew
to themselves, mere won over to the enemy, or distorted it for personal
or political reasons when reporting to their commands. It was equally
disastrous on occasion when their advice went unheeded.
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Wational intelligence then is the means by which government
are advised from the best sources available as to the viol= of
adopting certain broad national policies that are sure to have an
effect on other lands and in world councils. In today's compel=
world, this advice does not confine itself aolely to military matters,
for under certain conditions, economic sanctions, internal politics
or cultural upheavals may accomplish 'what force of arma cannot do.
Thus, it may be just as important to know what the social conditions
or industrial productivity of country 4A0 are as it is to know their
military potential. Intelligence is then the handmaiden of foreign
poliey....that instrument through which nations express their basic
attitudes toward the rest of the world. Such policy cannot be static;
it mast change or adjust as the need dictates and the measure of itr
flexibility is often a function of theetficiency with which the
intelligence community operates and the clarity of the advice given
the architects of foreign policy.
obviously, the best advice is that which is t.e most comprehensive,
objective, and truthful. There is an opposite side to this metter
too.leaders of nations must be willing to believe and believe in
their own intelligence producers, even when the advice they gime or
the news they bring is not easy to swallow. Of course, it goes without
swing that the intelligence producers must consistently come up with
reliable estimates of the situation in order to merit this confidence.
No country unwilling to give credence to its own intelligence product
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can long advance itself in world co
preserve itself fra disaster dunn
abundant evidence that Adolf Hitler, when the tide of battle was
running set against the Third Reich, refUsed to believe his aim
intelligence people because what they told him was incoatable with
his own delusions regarding the way the war shoed have gone
matter how distasteful it is, policynskers must do all of their erring
on the side of confidence in the intelligence presented to thee and
to be well.merited this confidence must be born of a never-ending
pursuit of all of the facts that can possibly be marshalled and pre-
sented in time to be properly used,
MIT" Agene7
I lave dealt thtwly in generalities about the matter of national
intelligence so that I might set the stage for a description of what
our national intelligence effort is and how it functions in the United
States, Until the establishment of the Central intelligence Group
in 1946, whose meMberihip was largely drawn from the wartime Office
f Strategic Services, and until 1947 when the National Security Act
of that year gave fora and substance to the Central Intelligence
Agency as it is now constituted, there was no such thing as a centralized
federal intelligence concept in the United States Comermsent,
Policy-
makers relied upon the various separate intelligence activities, most
of which were located within the structure of the military., and whose
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opinions often differed each from the other in significant respects
(W4 might well compare such a situation to that which might exist
if General Meters continued to manufacture component parts for its
automobiles without providing an assembly line to turn out the
finished product.) It was the desire of the President expressed
through the Congress, to create a mechanism through which effective
collection of intelligence could be supplemented by a forum where
conflicts of opinion between intelligence activities could be con-
sidered and resolved, where possible, prior to submission of their
material to the architects of foreign policy. To meet this need the
Central Intelligence Agency was established as a truly independent
Agency., reporting through its Director to the National Security
Council where the President is the presiding *Moder. CIA is not
responsible to the Department of Defense, the Department of State
or any other component of the Government, nor are the intelligence
components of these agencies under the command of the Director of
Central Intelligence, The Director is, however, responsible for the
coordination of the Government's national intelligence effort. We
like to refer to the intelligence components of all agencies as the
"intelligence cormunit We work very closely with one another.
Ours is a closely coordinated, common effort, the results of which
funnel through the Central Intelligence Agency to the National Security
Council which is our Nation's top advisory board on matters affecting
the national security and of which the President is the presiding officer.
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Mr. Allen W. Dufle, oa Director, briefs the President and the
National Security Council regularly on sensitive foreign devel9P-
manta, and though on request he may recommend a course of action
to this body, the making of foreign policy is not his fUnction or
responsibility. CIA does not make the foreign policy of the President
and his policymaking associates any more than the chief of police
makes the decision as to the verdict that a judge and jury will
determine in a particular case. It is our job to assemble the facts
based upon careful investigation, to analyse them, and to present
our estimates to the proper authorities for whatever action is deeMed
appropriate. The ingredients which make up eh an estimate are
military, political, economic, sociological, scientific, etc., all
pawed in proper perspective so as to present a balanced estimate.
There are, of course, infrequent occasions when complete agreement
cannot be reached. We would have cause for COCCATTli it seems to me,
if this were not the ease. In such a case a dissent by any partici
patine intelligence component is given a full presentation along with
the eetimate We believe that an estimate, to be useful must be
forthright, dlear, d concise, and that watered-down4 least common
denominators of agreement must be avoided.
When you consider the theer bulk of the material fron which
intelligence opinions and estimates are dram% the reset is staggering
In anly one year literally millions of separate pieces of intelligence
in the form of reports, publications, radio broadcasts, documents and
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photographs find their way into each of the member agencies of
what we have come to cell the "intelligence community's MOT of
these are at odds with each other and others contain only particles
of meta informations The process of reconciliation, revision,
checking and rechecking, editing and paring down is tremendous, but
absolutely necessary to insure acceptable accuracy.,
Take foreign radio broadcasts, for example. It is significant
that a foreign radio broadcasts a certain commentary. Of greater
significance is how many times it was broadcast in a given period, in
what languages, and to what audiences. Was there any semblance of
truth in the commentary? Was it slanted?....led if so, how? WIWI it
slanted differently for different audiences, etc.? I am sure you can
see that a conveyable analysis of other categories of information
that may go into an estimate makes this a rather delicate process
with plenty of Burgin for error. Of course, one never has all of the
information he would like available ,on which to base intelligence
estimates. I weed estimate, however, that perhaps as much as eighty
percent of the information available to us is obtainable through
perfectly open sources; the press, publications of all sorts, educe
tional institutions, industry, and individuals. An additional ten
percent may be obtainable through more difficult, dangerous, and
costly methods. The remaining ten percent of an intelligence estimate
is "deduction." This, of course is the most difficult and where the
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It in dif
them or reading their communications, and even than you can't be
sure. If we imagined ourselves as Communist eetimators for a moment
and think back to the situation shortly before the entry of the United
States into the Korean war, I think that we might well be justified,
from the attitude of the United States as demonstrated in many ways,
that the United States would not emelt its forces to defend South
'ores. Yet, we did exactly this and did it very expeditiously when
the Commmndst terms launched their invasion.
of error lies. This is the unknown
reels of what people are actually thinking,.
know what they are thinking without talking to
The kind of positive foreign intelligence of which I have been
'peaking in connection with CIA's responsibilities must not be con-
fused with the internal intelligence, or counterintelligence, developed
by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with whom CIA has exceedingly
satisfactory relations, I am pleased to say. In extreme cases under
dictatorships, whole populations are kept in check and reported on
through the medium of internal secret police whose mission it is to
preeerve the party, and hence the eystem, in power. That, of course
is not the case in those United States.
Cer
uld like to emphasize to you as police officer* that the
Intelligence Agency has no police, subpoena, law enforcement
or internal security functions. Those security forces that CU
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does have are concerned entirely with natters of physical security,
protection of classified information, and investigation of person-
nel who may be employed by us, In the performance of this latter
task, many of you have come in contact with our representatives.
I want to add here that we are exceedingly grateful far the splendid.
assistance which they have been given by the state and municipal
authorities in this country, without whose help, spontaneously
offered, the work of CIA would have been seriously hampered.
Despite the similarities between law enforcement and national
intelligence to which I have alluded, there remains one major point
of difference between the two finlds. When a police force produces
an exceptionally brilliant piece of work, either in forestalling
felony or in apprehending a criminal, its successes are usrarly
given ample recognition by the press, as rightly they should. In
the field of intelligence, major successes remain such as long as
they are not recognised. A favorite tactic of the opposition in
the present "cold war" is to attribute every internal disorder,
every failure on their part to "paid agents of agigmmusilmtimmrican
imperialism," or other less charitable phrases. Through this device
the opposition hopes to imam out an inadvertent admission or denial
from some recognized intelligence source in the Five World
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of an "intelligence
sct%a.1. facts meybe
to roll with the pun
your personal sense
13
rae that fails to locate a cri=inal at
ty comes in for iti Share of
vidance seems to point in the direction
lure" in our country. Nven though the
varisncs with this assumption, you learn
aa4 to accept the fact that you have only
satisfaction to thaw for a, particular
success in which you may have played a pert. In a my, it is
analogous to being a baseball umpire; you may call the plays as
you see then for eight inning* and everyone on both teams is
satisfied, but comes a close play at the plate and you are a, blind
degenerate robber to at least half of the audience sitting two
hundred yards away in the blesehers.
A
or sec
the C"t.t orbit. I make no bones about the relative difficulties
that do exist in Obtaining information from a eammtrywbere the
entire population lives in fear of its life, and where every move-
ment if subject to rigid control and exhaustive examination. Not
only is the physical problem of getting accurate information extremely
difficult, but it is further complicated by the feet that in the most
extreme eases or authoritarian rule, such as in the Soviet Union,
we as, an entire population that has been carefully trained to spy
an itself:, Not only are there secret police and paid informers
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a
these 7 million
Ccessinists serving 1
32124 their
ez'shS of 7
At the height of
members of the
estbaorie3OOO. And
include all
on nese Deetatton, but
dedicated operative who
indigenous personnel
years in fact, raking
to bvtant poets in the
so that when the whistle blows the
to have strong nationalistic overtones,
control of ccesanalestions transports..
first into their has. As a case
recent tie caesuras concerning the
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4.
possibly 20 years ago by the Sov
amat," omlyth this ease using other people's currenni:Not
only was the riag well.aidden enough to **ceps detection for
too long a time, but it was also able to survive the sess purge
of the Tudeh Party ranks that took place after the overthrow of
the Sossedegh regime and the reinstatement of the Shah. At a
time Chosen by &Asia, this netweik could, have engineered large
scale alifiassinatione of everyone from the Chah on down, The
important thing for you as chief* of pollee organizations, domes
tic and foreign, to remedber in this co text is the old swing,
'Sternal vigilance is the price of libertU4 (04, no counter-
espionage mission is ever completely finished.
Tkis ;moiety'
and cower mechanise of the Soviet.
is used with devastating effect within their own borders, as I
have said, largely through a practical application of the carrot
aM the USE philosophy, wherein informing for the State is not
osl an art, it is a profession, rewarded by the necessities of
detections, either physieel or philosophical are
?*het by deprivation of the right to work the right to travel
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presentation of the
namy of them, educe
stations spinet hos
ations of 'hat the
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f you will, with ons existing in our
often see& to ue, us I have read the often
iofortion in our try's newspaper* an&
biest Job of a hostile intelligence force
4i the nese of what they can obtain through
to that the fact that freedom of the press
m of opinion but freedom to present Whatever
can locate and you can see hov fruitful
must be Vhen the United States is the target.
ore ',peered in a WaShington Sunday newspaper
tallation of 1110 guided missile stations
eitol.Not only was there an arresting
onstruction methods being used, but statistics
d. guesses) regarding the effectiveness of the
le aircraft. There were diagrenmatie cross-
inside of a typical station would look like
the number of men who would man it, and actual photographs of one
of the construction sites and partially laid foundations. As a
lead for the article, there vas a map of the Washington area with
definite indications of where each installation was to be situated.
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towering
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available to each cos of the re than 8,000
who represent foreign governments, and for
of 4.20, the price at that Sunday's edition.
hesitate to sey What an equal coverage of 811.414Ar installations
in a country ruled by Communism would cost to Obtain, were it
available, but you can be sure that it would be considerable
terms of money, effort and grey hair*:
Goverrmen
exelsPle
cite an
a
you ore all familiar. The WW
year by leading American neuspape
ually at a. price of around one
are literally choked with solid
OD])' about countries other than our own, but
si resources, their megaitude location and utili-
are breakipg down our major centers of
ristory of our political development and present
*afltz5tiofli descriptive articles about industrial
promisees, distribution of inc, number, location and memberthip
a reader
copy?
isticsl
of our schools and technical inet tutes, biographies and what
have you; in short the raw data from which finished intelligence
is made. This volume, were such available on the Soviet Union
containing the same high degree of reliability, would be worth
mastless hours of painstaking research and a considerable
expenditure of money. You can vow, with good odds, that such
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their r to the n*esta$
in the
remarkE,
of into
fUllr should have.
tot
priit
misinterpreted as advocat
the press and the pople
Freedom of the press is
*ay
been
hew
heritages which mat be safeguarded. rrom another viewpo
there is something vastly encouraging about the vaf in which
the Free World can proudly boast of its accomplishments and
assets in the press and in volumes like the TOMX1 ALMANAC. in
many rays, such evidence is an asset, providing it is prodced
within limits of reason and does not beacon amenace to the
national security, for if our enemies know exactly what they
face in the way of industrial strength, physical resources
moral determination and logistics prObleas, that in itself may
well be a major deterrent to any hostile act.
I have often thought that those in command of our forests
today, or in the foreseeable future (given much less tutor-
tton
than they had at Pearl Rubor), take some Very positive
scticaYour opinion as to whether Pearl Harbor was a command
failure or an intelligence failure, or both, is perhaps as good
mine. But it seems clear to ne that any "Pearl Harbor? in the
future is more likely to be due to an intelligence failure. The
very great responsibility for insuring that there is no such
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this nchiner- is only bout en years ol4 in contrast
ot co tree TiCh have been in the business for mature-es,
we beUeve it is working well. Machinery alone is of course,
not the answer. As in your wait, unless you have informed,
dedicated, alert, gintive people you are not likely to
sueeeed And