THOUGHTS FROM DISCUSSION WITH SENATOR CHURCH, 28 NOVEMBER 1977

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01554R003300030008-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 30, 2004
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: November 20, 1977
• Content Type: MFR

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2 0 ''"ON 1977
SUBJECT: Thoughts from Discussion with Senator Church,
28 November 1977
1. The number of instances in which Directors have had dif-
ficulty getting response from within the Agency in a timely manner,
e.g., the case you read in which there was a year's delay between the
giving of an order and the next time it had to be repeated, may have
been related to the lack of oversight. In short, if the various Deputy
Directors felt in a strong enough position with respect to the Director,
there was little pressure that could be brought to bear to carry out
the Director's orders. When he discovered they hadn't been carried
out, the Director had only the option of dismissal. With the over-
sight process, the Director himself is under added pressure, which is
reflected down the stream.
2. Secrecy and the conviction that they knew what was best for
the nation more than anyone else were two of the Agency's weaknesses.
It takes a series of oversight mechanisms to insure against these
mechanisms getting out of control.
3. The Church Committee had a rule that neither the names of
agents nor the detailed methods of collecting information would be
passed to them.
STANSFIELD TURNER
Director
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Secrecy and Society
by Stansfield Turner
There have been stories in the media in recent weeks concerning
a new book that is critical of the CIA's role in the closing days
in Vietnam. The media play on this publication questions whether the
CIA had the right to review this book or, by extension, any work before
publication, and if so whether it had the right to excise portions it
reasonably. considered damaging to national security.
The answer to the first question is unequivocally yes. The CIA
had the right to review this book because the author had signed a
specific agreement to that effect as part of the terms of his employment
with the Agency. At no time prior to publication did he challenge the
validity of that agreement. Rather, he claims there is some higher
right which gives him the privilege of breaking that oath. Yet, all of
the evidence upon which he bases that rationale was available to him when he
met with me on the 17th of May. In that meeting he explicitly promised
me that he would fulfill his written obligation to provide us his manuscript
for review. More than that, he reaffirmed this obligation a few days later
in writing. The Central Intelligence Agency, and I as its Director,
accepted this man at his word. We made no effort to monitor the
progress of his activities. He simply violated both his own oath and
our trust. Moreover, his publisher, Random House, and his initial TV
interviewer, "60 Minutes," have also acknowledged that they were party
to this deliberate evasion of written and spoken promises-
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Why do people and organizations feel that duplicity is justified
in circumstances like these? Because, I suspect, of an erroneous
premise, clearly expressed in some of the newspaper articles on this
case, that government employees inevitably place covering their and
their agencies' reputations above their duties. and even above the law.
This is a common, anti-establishment. reaction which has become so
familiar in recent years. Its fallacy lies in the absence of any
evidence that the CIA, over the past year and a half when Mr. Snepp
was writing his book, deliberately used secrecy to protect its reputation.
To the contrary, the public record attests unequivocally to the Agency's
willingness to face the past squarely whatever the effect on its public
reputation. The self--revelations last July of the MKULTRA drug abuse
activities of the 1950s and the 1960s are only the most recent examples
of this forthright policy. What is at stake, however, is a fundamental
issue for our society. If the society cannot trust the judgment of its
public servants regarding what should or should not be withheld from
the public, then the society can in fact have no secrets at all. The
logical extension of the Ellsburg-Snepp syndrome is that any of our
210 million citizens is entitled to decide what should or should not be
classified information.
Secrecy is, of course, dangerous. It can be abused. Yet, some
things must be secret. Someone must be trusted to decide what truly
is secret. Clearly there must be checks and balances on those who
decide. But because these judgments are difficult does not mean that
the chaos of no regulation at all is to be preferred. I believe that
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the public recognizes the necessity for some secrecy in our modern
society. There is no question that we each recognize it in our
individual lives. Nor is there a question that we recognize it in
the activities of corporations. Surely, it is not difficult to make
the extension to government. None of us is so naive as to believe that
we live in a totally open and benign world. Many of our efforts, like
those directed toward strategic arms limitations, which could move us
closer to the open and peaceful world which we all desire, would be
impossible if we tried to negotiate from a position of total openness.
Nonetheless, how much secrecy is necessary and who should decide what
will remain secret are vexing issues.
How much must always be a matter of the subjective judgment of
human beings. The best we can do is build into our system, as we
have in the past few years, a series of bureaucratic checks and balances
that will control secrets and secret activities, yet at the same time
protect the public from any abuses which excessive secrecy can
encourage. Beyond that, another check is the ballot box where the
public exercises ultimate control over the quality of individuals in
public office. And, also, the free media in our society can assist
the public in ensuring against excesses of secrecy. However, such
vigilance does not best proceed from the unsubstantiated assumption of
evil motives on the part of all public servants. Investigative
reporting does imply some measure of investigation. No one from
Random House or CBS, for instance, contacted me or anyone in the CIA
to investigate the other side of this story. It would appear
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that they feared that we might have obtained an injunction against
publication. Yet, an injunction is a legal mechanism of our judicial
process. It, too, is a means of protecting the public. Should
corporations be encouraged to skirt the legal mechanisms of our country
by subterfuge?
This case in itself is not worthy of this much discussion. It is
only of interest as an example of our dwindling capacity to maintain the
minimal level of secrecy essential to the effective operation of our
intelligence apparatus as well as many other organs of our government.
It is remarkable today, and I say this with no self-pride because I
am a newcomer, that the Central Intelligence Agency can operate as
effectively as it does despite these circumstances. President Carter
has said, "One of the greatest surprises to me in coming to office
is how effective the CIA is." The concomitant of this fine performance
is the fundamentally healthy and patriotic attitude within the Agency
despite its being a frequent whipping boy. There is no question in my
mind that the people of the United States recognize the need for good
intelligence and can appreciate the destructive effect the carping of a
Snepp can have. It is time, instead, to concentrate on the constructive
role of oversight of the CIA and other agencies of the government.
I hope that the public will join with us in the CIA in seeking
constructively to understand and build our role for the future.
We need less encumbrance from national self-flagellation over the past
and more interest in how we can achieve a workable balance between
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necessary secrecy on the one hand and oversight on the other.
Perhaps that venerable statesman, Averell Harriman, is overly generous
when he often says, The CIA is our first line of defense." But he
is not far enough off that we can afford less than a constructive
approach to what the Central Intelligence Agency should be providing
for the defense of our country and its institutions.
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DCI-4 ~8 4. P v y7
Side A
Draft Article on "Secrecy and Society"
There has been much to-do in the media in recent weeks concerning a
new book that is critical of the CIA's role in the closing days in
Vietnam. It is written by a former CIA employee, Mr. Frank Snepp. The
media play on this publication questions whether the CIA had the right
to review this work before publication and if so whether it had the right
to excise portions of the writing in this publication it considered
inimical to the national interest.
The answer to the first question is unequivocally yes, the CIA had the
right to review his work. Mr. Snepp signed a specific agreement to that
effect as part of the terms of his employment with the Agency. Even today
he is not challenging the legality or the constitutionality of that
agreement. Rather he is claiming that there, is some higher right which
gives him the privilege of breaking that oath. When one analyzes his own
statement as to how he derives that right, there is no question that he is
speaking from pure sophistry. Perhaps more important, it is factually the
case that all of the evidence upon which he bases his rationale for breaking
his agreement was available to him when he met with me on the 17th of May
of this year. Nonetheless, in that meeting he unequivocally promised me
that he would fulfill his written obligation to provide us his manuscript
for review. More than that, t&e reaffirmed this days later in writing.
I, and the Central Intelligence Agency, accepted Mr. Snepp at his word. We
made no effort to monitor the progress of his activities. Thus, I can
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only conclude that Mr. Snepp violated both his own oath and our trust.
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Moreover, his publisher, Random House, and his initial TV interviewer,
"60 Minutes", have also acknowledged that they were party to his sophistry
and deliverate evasion of written and spoken promises. Why do people in,
organizations feel so justified in circumstances like these?
Because, I suspect, of an erroneous premise which they must have
accepted without scrutiny. It was best expressed in the column in the
New York Times on
, by Mr. Tom Wicker. The basic presumption
of his analysis of the Snepp incident was that all government employees
inevitably place covering their and their agencies reputations above their
duties and even above the law. This is not an uncommon knee-jerk, anti-
establishment reaction with which we have become so familiar in recent
years. I see no evidence in this case that the CIA, over the past year
and a half when Mr. Snepp was writing his book, deliberately was using
secrecy to cover its reputation. This was demonstratively not the Agency?s
policy in other cases like the self-revelations last July of the MKULTRA
drug abuse activities of the 1950s and 1960s. What the Wicker thesis does,
however, is to raise a fundamental issue for our society. If the society
cannot trust its public servants on what should be and should not be withheld
from the public, then. the society can in fact have no secrets at all. This
is because the logical conclusion of the Ellsburg--Snepp syndrome is that
any of our 210 million citizens is entitled to decide what should be and
should not be classified information. Random House and CBS is clearly
supporting this thesis in their efforts to make heroes of people like Snepp.
In my view if we cannot as a nation live down our past any better than this
our future may indeed be bleak.
Secrecy is, of course, dangerous. Yet, we must have some. We must
trust someone to decide what truly is secret. Clearly there must be checks
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and balances on those someones who so decide. But that does not mean we
have the chaos of total unregulation. In fact, I believe that the public
recognizes very clearly the necessity for secrecy in modern society. There
is no question that we each recognize it in our individual lives. There is
no question that we each recognize it in the activities of corporations.
Surely, it is not difficult to make the extension to our government. None
of us are so nieve as to believe we live in an open and totally benign world.
Clearly many of our efforts, like those toward strategic arms limitations to
make the world more benign and harmless, would`be meaningless if we were
negotiating from a position of total openness. How much secrecy, and by
whom, are nonetheless vexing issues.
How much must always be a matter of the subjective judgment of human
individuals. The best we can do is build into our system, as we clearly
have in the past few years, a series of bureaucratic checks and balances
and hope that these will protect the public good but not destroy our
capability for creating and maintaining a proper level of secrecy. Still
another check, of course, is the ballot box and the quality of individuals
whom the public assign to office. And, not to be forgotten, in our free
society we have the vigilance of the media to ensure against excesses of
secrecy. Such vigilance, however, does not best proceed from the
unsubstantiated assumption of evil motives of all public servants. What
has become popular these days is investigative reporting. But that does
imply some measure of investigation. No one from Random House or CBS,
for instance, contacted me or anyone in the CIA to investigate the other
side of the Snepp story. It would appear, I'm afraid, that they fear their
profits would be lost to an injunction against their publication. Yet, an
injunction is a legal mechanism of our judicial process. Should corporations
be enco ra ed t skirt the le al mechanisms of our country by subterfuge?
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This case is not all that worthy of this much discussion in itself.
It is only that it is an example of our dwindling capacity to maintain the
minimal level of secrecy essential to the effective operation of our
intelligence apparatus as well as many other organs of our government. A
remarkable point today, in fact, and one which I can say with no self-pride
because I am a newcomer, is that the Central Intelligence Agency is as
effective as it is in these circumstances. President Carter has said "One
of the greatest surprises to me in coming to office is how effective the
CIA is." The corollary of this fine performance is that basic morale in
the Agency must be high because you don't produce well without a good
underpinning of attitude and morale. There is no question in my mind that
this is how the people of the United States want'it. There is no question
in my mind that it is also time that the media of our country began to
concentrate on its constructive role of oversight of the CIA and other
agencies of the government. In this way.only can the media keep we
government servants on our toes. Continually knocking us for the evils
of our predecessors blunts our effectiveness but it does not serve the
basic purpose of good oversight.
All of us in the CIA are anxious to benefit from every example of
excess or poor performance in the past. But we do not find in Mr. Snepp's
book much valuable advice in this regard. At 32 years of age he was a
medium functionary not a high level maker of intelligence policy. His
book reflects his medium level of appreciation of the facts. He levels
two charges: that CIA reporting in Vietnam was bad; that CIA execution
of the evacuation in the closing days was inefficient. The first charge
has been investigated thoroughly. There is no way to "prove" the charge to
be wrong. There is, to the best of my knowledge, no evidence that it is
right. The second charge on evacuation is typical of the type of second
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guessing that surrounds any military type operation. It is always easy
for the operators on the spot to feel that they were not adequately supported
by the policy makers in remote positions. Often, of course, this misunder-
standing derives from the fact that the operators simply lack the perspective
of the policy makers at higher levels. In this case, I don't have any
clear way of judging who is right--the operators like Snepp or the policy
makers in Washington.
I do know, however, that I am not spending a lot of my time in figuring
out how to do our next massive evacuation better and hence, I am not benefiting
much by Mr. Snepp's advice in this regard, I also note that there must
have been many, many operational mistakes during our long involvemetxt in
Vietnam: mistakes in the military, mistakes in the State Department,
mistakes in the CIA and elsewhere. The reason we are only rehashing
allegations like this against the CIA is that it has become such a popular
whipping boy. Witness, for-instance, th('inordinate attention, almost
fascination, which the MKULTRA drug disclosures generated even though the
activities with which we should genuinely be concerned were well, well into
the past.
It is about time, in my view, that the public joined with us in the
Agency in seeking to understand and build our constructive role for the
future. We need less encumbrance from national self flagellation with the
past and more oversight and more attention and interest in how we get and
keep our secrets for tomorrow. Perhaps that venerable statesman, Averell
Harriman, overstates it somewhat when he repeatedly says "the CIA is our
first line of defense." But he is not far enough off that we can afford
less than a constructive approach to what defense the Central Intelligence
Agency should be providing each of us today and tomorrow.
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