[ADDRESS BY LT. GENERAL VERNON A. WALTERS TO AMERICAN SECURITY COUNCIL]

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80R01731R002000100007-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 41
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 3, 2002
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: July 23, 1975
• Content Type: SPEECH

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23 July 1975
Washington, D. C.
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 July 23, 1975
I'd just like to say, first of all, a few words about
what is intelligence. Intelligence is information that is
vital to the making of sound decisions by our Government,
informations concerning foreign countries and information
concerning the policies of foreign countries., concerning
the armament of foreign countries, concerning the economics
of foreign countries that must be properly analyzed and
must be properly disseminated.
For instance, a lot of intelligence, if you don't get
it out in time, is simply history. It is not intelligence
unless you get it to whoever needs it right away. Why do
you need it? Why do we need it. today?
Well, we need it today because, in my opinion, the
United States is in a tougher power situation than it has
been since Valley Forge. Not since Valley Forge has any
foreign country had the ability to destroy or seriously
cripple the United States. That capability exists today.
We all know that detente is, we hope, something that will
work and will serve to lessen tensions between the countries.
But at the same time as detente, we can't help seeing the
Soviet Union deploying four new different types of ICBMs,
signs of a fifth on the horizon. They're third generation
misssiles, they're not anything they've just cooked up.
We see them building larger and more powerful submarines.
We see them increasing the number of tanks and modernizing
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the tanks in the Soviet rifle divisions.
We see, in other words, in all areas a tremendous mili-
tary effort being made to modernize and improve the Soviet
forces beyond what seems to me to be necessary for either
deterrence or defense. And so the inevitable question
which faces the United States Government is: What use will
they make of this, of these capabilities? And that is a
question for which the United States Government must look
to the intelligence community, to the CIA and the other
intelligence agencies, for answers.
Now, one of the problems we have today is that there is
a great effort abroad to make you believe that intelligence
is immoral, un-American, unworthy and everything else,
and that everybody should know all the secrets that are
running around, and that the Founding Fathers would have
frowned on all of this dirty stuff that's going on.
Well, let me tell you a few things about the Founding
Fathers. George Washington wrote a letter to his chief of
intelligence in New Jersey, C
le Elias Dayton, and this is
what he said: "The need for procurring good intelligence is
so obvious that it need not be emphasized. All that remains
for me is to caution you that secrecy is essential in these
matters, and for lack of it they generally fail no matter
how favorable the outcome."
So clearly, George Washington did not believe that pub
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lishing all the news concerning intelligence or the secrets
of the'United States was necessary.
And I come down to a much closer time, to President
Truman. In 1956, he was asked about this and this may
seem harsh to you -- `;lot of you from the media -- but
he said: ".'It matters not to the United States whether its
secrets become known through publication in the media or
through the activity'of spies. The damage to the United.
States is the same in both cases." And he added: "I,, for
one, do not believe that the best interest/of our country
'-is/'served by going on the principle that everybody has the
right to know everything."
And that extends across a long period of American history.
So the idea that this is immoral or wrong is simply not an
actual fact if you look at American history. However, I
want to say something more about that.
But right now we're engaged in a number of inquiries
to determine whether any great nation can operate its
secret intelligence service, so to speak, in a goldfish
bowl. Now, we may succeed because we are a very unusual
people. But if we do, it'll be just like going to the moon.
We'll have been the only ones who ever succeeded in doing
Now, I think these investigations can be healthy, they
can be helpful to us in the future, providing they are
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conducted in a positive, constructive and responsible
sense-and are not operated as some sort of a political
football, because the security of the United States is far
too precious to be kicked around as a football.
We are quite prepared to accept any guidelines which
the Congress may decide to put upon us. We could live with
those guidelines as we've lived with the guidelines they
gave us in the past. But I would hope that when they
institute these guidelines, they institute some mechanism
to change them so that as perceptions of what is acceptable
and unacceptable change, that will be introduced in some
way into the guidelines.
You could have run in 1935, in some parts of the country,
a segregated school. You cannot in 1975. In 1925, you'd
have probably been in trouble if you tried to operate any-
thing but a segregated school. So these perceptions of
what is right and wrong change with the passage of time.
And we hope that whatever the Congress does in its wisdom
to provide us with guidelines at the end, will provide us
with a mechanism to change these guidelines as we go along.
Now, we are being called-up and investigated for the
things we did, or alleged to have done. What I fear is that
in 1990 or 1985, Mr. Colby's distant successor will be summoned
and he will be investigated for what he failed to do. "You
mean you weren't doing this? You mean you didn't do that?
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You mean you failed to do this?"
So however this works out, I hope that these guidelines
which we will get in the end from the Congress, will
contain some mechanism for interpreting to us the changing
perceptions of the American people on different things.
Again, I go back to the perception of what was right and
wrong. Now, I was doing a little research on intelligence
in connection with the Bicentennial year, and I discovered
that George Washington operated three separate kidnap
attempts on Benedict Arnold. And you can guess what he'd
have done with him if}got him.
For three years, from 1772 to 1775, prior to the outbreak
of the Revolution, Benjamin Franklin, as Assistant Postmaster
of the Colonies, was running a mail-intercept service on
the British.
George Washington had a listening post operating next
to British headquarters in Philadelphia, by a lady. George
Washington had people right outside Jersey City who would
interrogate the travelers who were going into New York City
occupied by the British and coming out again.
As a matter of fact, as far back as the Revolution, there
was a fort which was dedicated to intelligence activity,
but I blush to tell you the name of the fort. It was known
as Fort Looney.
Again, I get back to this question of the perception of
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what is wrong. You've all heard about the story of assassina-
tions,'and on assassinations I would simply like to say
that I agree fully with the position that Director Colby
has taken; that it is not in the interest of the United
States to have the Agency point the finger at anybody
inside or outside the Agency in this connection.
I would say that in connection with -- Mr. Castro was
one of the people who was discussed a great deal. And I
wasn't with the CIA in those days, and as a matter of fact,
I accompanied him for three days-th&t he was making here
around the United States. But shortly before that,he had
been shooting people every day in front of the television
cameras in the national stadium in Havana. And people were
quite agitated to.him.
Not long ago, somebody I know said to a distinguished
member of the Congress that if anybody had been able to
assassinate Hitler during the War they would have probably
been the::first recipient of the Victoria Cross and the
Congressional Medal of Honor. And the guy said, "Yes, but
if they could'.ve gotten him in '35 or '36, think of how
many lives you'd have saved."
So you've got a question of .. the perception. We weren't
at war with Germany in 1935 or'36. We would have had no
justification for taking any action against him. But that-it
depends on the way people look::at these things.
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Now, one of the problems we have is that, in connection
with all of this publicity, is that thes=e----zar
number of people who want to believe that America is always
wrong,,,What I call ".the America-is-wrongers." Someone
said to me. the other ddy, "Don't you think that some of these
things that were done against us, were done as retaliation
for what the United States did?"
Well, I said if you take the vision of the United States
as an aggressive, imperialist, hostile nation, perhaps
you can rationalize this. But if you look at the United
States, which has fought and won two great wars in this
century, and not only took nothing from the vanquished but
helped the vanquished. No victor in history has ever done
for the vanquished what we have done.
If today Volkswagen is selling cars in the United States,
it is because we as a people put machine tools in that
factory at right after the War. And that's true
of Fiat, or anybody else.
I submit that the United States has done something no
country in history has ever done. It has financed its
competitors back into-business sooner. Back into competition
with it. And if that is the action of a hostile, aggressive,
threatening nation, words have a funny meaning.
Now, as I say we have this problem of America is always
wrong. We also tend to have this somewhat puritanical view
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of ourselves as being better than other people. And we
say, "Oh, yes, that espionage is all right for the dirty
old British, French, Russians, Germans or someone else.
But we Americans are pure. We',don't do that sort of thing."
Well, unfortunately wE are not that much better than
everybody else, and if you look at our crime statistics,
they will tell you that we are not in a position to assume
such a holier-than-thou attitude.
Not long ago I was in Europe and I was told a story which
I think is very illustrative. It was told to me before the
Mayaguez incident. This man said to me, "Did you hear the
story of the Frenchman, the Englishman and the American who
were captured by the cannibals on a desert island?"
And I said, "No, what is it?"
And he said, "Well, the cannibals-in an island in the
Pacific captured a Frenchman, and Englishman and an American.
And the cannibal chief told them they were to be eaten for
lunch the next day, but he would give them each one wish,
which did not include setting them free, before he did this.
"So he said to the Frenchman, 'What do you want?'
"The Frenchman said, 'Well,, if I'm going to be killed
tomorrow morning I guess I'd just as soon spend the remaining
time with the beautiful cannibal girl over there.'
"So they said O.K., and they untied him and he and the
cannibal girl went off in the woods.
"Then they said to the Englishman, 'What do you want?'
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"He said, 'I want a pen and paper to write a letter
to.the'Secretary General of the United Nations and protest
against the unfair, unjust and unsporting attitude you have
demonstrated toward us.'
"So they untied the,-Englishman and they led him into a
hut and they gave him a pen and a paper.
"Then they said to the American, 'What do you want?'
"And the American said, 'I want to be lec.d into the middle
of the village, I want to be made to kneel down and I want
the biggest cannibal here to kick me in the behind.'
"And they said, 'Well, that's an odd request but the
Americans are odd people and we did promise, so O.K.'
"So they led the American into the middle of the field,
into the middle of the square. They made him kneel down,
they untied him, the biggest cannibal gave him a kick and
knocked him sprawling. Now the American had been hiding a
submachine gun under his clothes. So at this point he
pulled out the submachine gun and he cut down the cannibals.
Well, the rest of them fled, and the Frenchman, hearing
the gunfire, came out of the woods and the Englishman, hearing
the gunfire, came out of the hut and they looked at the
American and they said, 'Do you mean to say you had that
submachine gun the whole time?'
'The American said, 'Sure.'
'And they said, 'Well, why the heck didn't you use it
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before now?'
"And the American looked at them, and very earnestly
he said, 'But you don't understand. It wasn't until they
kicked me in the rear end that :I had any moral justification
for it.'"
So this is a little bit one'; of our problems, too.
Again, another foreigner said to me the other day, he
said, "Don't you have a law against indecent exposure in
the United States, against taking off your clothes in public?"
I said, "We certainly do."
Well, he said, "Will you explain to me why you practice
internationally what you prohibit domestically?"
One of the things that America has brought to intelligence,
in my opinion, it's brought two great things: It's brought
the application of American technology and scientific know-
how to the collection of intelligence. And it's brought
analysis of that intelligence to a degree that has not been
known in previous intelligence services.
And I think one of the interesting things in our intelligence
studies as they go forward is if there are dissenting views
they are expressed, and the reasoning behind them is expressed,
which I think is a somewhat new factor. I think we have
brought this to intelligence and we have made intelligence
a force not just for war, as in the past, but for peace.
I was present as General Eisenhower's interpreter at the
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'53 conference in Geneva. And he made the Open Skies
Proposal whereby each country would overfly the others
and see what they were doing. And the Russians refused
that as a ground that it would violate their sovereignty.
And I'll never forget"General Eisenhower wound. up with a
very eloquent speech, held his hands up to heaven and said,
"I wish God would give me some means of convincing you of
my sincerity." And there was a loud clap of thunder and
every light in the building went out. And to this day,
the Russian technicians are still trying to figure out
But we had great talk 15-20 years ago about a missile
gap. We can't have that talk anymore? thanks to intelligence
we know what the situation is.
And you know one of the things that engenders hostility
and eccentric and erratic action is fear of the unknown.
And when you know what the situation is, you're a lot
better off. I can't go into details, but I can tell you
that we in the Central Intelligence Agency have several
~c'nM
times brought together people at'different countries that
looked as if they were nearer at the edge of conflict, and
been in some part instrumental in resolving that.
Or sometimes someone has said to us, "Oh, so-and-so is
going to do such-and-such to us."
And we said, "No they aren't. We know they aren't because
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they haven't got the means to do it."
Now, you know, you just have to take me on faith. There's
no way I can tell you who was involved or anthing else
because it would be extremely embarrassing to them and to
Ai-
us. But intelligence, 'believe,me, is a force for peace
as well as for war. It is a force to guard us against
surprise. And it is also a force to dissipate misunderstandings
or, as I say, fear of the unknown)which is one of the things
that pushes people to do eccentric things.
Now, I've been at the agency for three and a half years.
People often ask me what I feel about it and all I can tell
you is that I never cease to be startled at the competence,
at the integrity, at the continuity, and most of all at the
d edication of the people there. They're Americans just like
everybody else in this room, they want to live in an American
society according to the rules :that the American people
establish. But they must know what the American people are
willing to accept as rules and want us to do.
Now, the Congress set up the Central Intelligence Agency
in 1947 with the full knowledge that it was going to engage
in espionage. And they left the charge deliberately vague:
"And do such other things as the National Security Council
may direct."
As I've told you we can live with any kind of oversight.
We have never had a leak out of our oversight committees.
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We tell them anything they want to know. And we can live
with whatever form, out of the present investigations,
whatever form of oversight the Congress comes up with we
feel confident we can live with.
What I feel personally less confident is that we will
get any clear guidelines as to what we can do and what
we can't do. I think that's going to be-an extremely
difficult thing to get.
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And finally, I would like to say one word about the
people of the Central Intelligence Agency, and that is simply
that, as I say, I've been struck by these people. Here
they are under a torrent of accusation and mud and innuendo
A-if
and continuing to do a 'superb job in producing what I believe
/!1
to be the finest intelligence put before any government
the world every morning.
People sometimes forget that people in intelligence have
rights, too. They have the right to the same presumption of
innocence as any other American citizen. The accusation
comes, and the rebuttal never catches up. The news about
Mr. Butterfield being a CIA infiltrator of the White House
covered seven-column headline.' The news that he wasn't:
one column.
A man by the name of Sturgis went on the television and
said he was an employe of the CIA and had organized some
plot against Castro. We called the director of that program
and told him that a careful search of our files revealed
that man had never at any time ever been a member of the CIA?
or worked for it in any form. He was introduced on the pro-
gram as a former member of the ''CIA. There's just no way
you can catch up with that kind of thing. I don't say this
in any complaining aspect. I just say it on behalf of the
thousands of people who are serving the United States in a
very difficult way.
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I've been in the army. It's much easier to serve in the
army. You live openly, everybody knows what you are and
everything else. The life of the people in the Central
Intelligence Agency is more difficult. I'm not asking
for any special privilege for them, but I'm asking for at
least the same rights as other American citizens enjoy.
This whole question of intelligence, as I said, is a very
serious matter. The survival of the United States as a free
and democratic society may well depend upon it. We have
been spending enormous amounts of time rummaging through
the garbage pails of history looking at the ``i0s and the
'60s. The question of whether we're going to continue as a
free and democratic nation is going to be decided in the late
'70s and early '80s. And I just hope that sometime we begin
to spend appropriate time on that period, which is going to
determine how we and our children are going to live in the
future.
I would like to say one word about our director, Mr. Colby:
I rarely find myself in agreement with the Chinese Communists,
but they have a song that says, "Sailing depends upon the
helmsman," and we have a superb one.
Many people felt Mr. Colby should have been. more aggressive
or more penitential. I think Mr. Colby has established a
credibility with the congressional committees that enables
him to make sure that the good secrets are kept secret. I
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think he has established a reputation with them for frankness,
for openness and for reliability. I think he has steered
the only course that could hold the Agency together and
gain the respect of the committee so that we could have an
objective and a dispassionateinvestigation.
And I must say that I consider him one of the most re-
markable human beings I have ever known. I once said that
the next time I go to Rome/ I'm going to the Vatican to see
what I could do about obtaining the first beatification
process for anybody still alive. How this man stands this,
I do not know, and he stands it without passing on any of
the strain. Whatever there is, he absorbs himself -- he
doesn't pass it on to me or any other of his subordinates.
But I just think that we are very fortunate, indeed, to have
such a pilot while we're passing through this squall.
One more word: As I say, one of the difficulties is that
many people would want us to operate our intelligence not
just by standards acceptable to the American people, but
with a degree of purity that we can be sure will not be
reciprocated. And if you're fighting someone with brass
knuckles, and you're required to fight according to the
Marquis of queensbury rules, you're going to have quite a
difficult time, to put it mildly.
Finally, I would just like to say that, every day when
I go to work, I find a memory of something that is not our
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American choice) And that is the fact that we must fight
on the silent intelligence battlefield. As I go into the
building, I see the stars carved in the wall of the Central
Intelligence Agency who symbolize the people, the members
of that Agency, who have fallen in the service of the
United States -- unhonored, unknown by most, but nevertheless
just as truly as anybody who died anywhere else that you
and I might continue to live free.
And on the other side of the entrance is carved the motto
of the Agency, which is a Biblical quote and says, "You shall
know the truth and the truth will make you free." I can't
help thinking that in our time, we perhaps ought to change
that a little bit, irreverant as it might be, to, "You must
know the truth, for only the knowledge of the truth will keep
you free."
We face a different kind of problem in what, faces the
United States today. I would just like to read to you a
couple of sentences from a Chinese writer who wrote 500 years
before Christ. He wrote a book, called The Art of War, and
he'described how you undo your enemies. And this is what
he said:
"The most consummate art is to subdue your enemies without
having to fight them on the battlefield. The direct method
of war is necessary only on the battlefield, but it is only
the indirect methods that lead to true victory and its con-
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solidation."
And this is the advice he gives you of how you undo your
enemies. And if any of you find anything familiar about
this, you're not wrong:
"Den4grate everything that is good in your opponent's
country. Involve their leaders in criminal operations.
Undermine them by every means and then expose them to the
public scorn of their fellow citizens. Use the most execrable
and vile individuals. Cause trouble by every means at hand
within their government. Spread discord and quarrels amongst
the citizens of the opposing country. Agitate the young
against the old. Destroy by all means the weapons supply
and discipline of your opponent;. Cover with ridicule their
old traditions and heritage. Be generous in your offers and
rewards to purchase information or accomplices. Put secret
agents everywhere. Never stint on money or promises, and
thus you will reap a rich reward."
This is the new form of war ;with which we have to contend.
It is not the old thing of divisions marching across the
field. It is this type of thing which is the silent battle-
field of which I speak.
We will do our best. We will conform to whatever standards
are imposed upon us by the American people. And throughout
the past, the United States intelligence community has tried
to do what they could to keep the United States a free and
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independent country. This is sometimes difficult, because
we Americans have a tendency to disband our intelligence
after wars or between wars.
In August, 1941, I was sent to the Military Intelligence
T
Training Center at Camp Richie, and the commandant of that
camp was a British colonel. In 1932, Mr. Stimson, when he
was Secretary of State, was handed an intercepted message
and he rejected it with horror, saying, "Gentlemen don't
read other gentlemen's. mail." Seven years,; as Secretary
of War, he couldn't get his hands on enough other gentlemen's
mail.
As I mentioned, perceptions change. We hope that as a
result of these things, we will get guidelines, but guide-
lines that will contain the means of telling us when these
perceptions change} And that we will not be judged on what
we did in 1955 on the basis of 1975 standards or judged in
1990 on the basis of 1990 standards against what was done in
1976.
People have asked me whether I thought the Agency will
survive this. I have no doubt. If the United States is to
remain a free and independent country, it must; have good
intelligence. There is no alternative for us as a people.
(END. ADDRESS)
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Q&A FOLLOWING SPEECH BY VERNON WALTERS
(START OF SECOND SIDE)
... details but I think the' word "massive" is th completely
out of place.
For instace, let's get into one simple item: wiretaps.
I believe we found that we conducted 32 wiretaps in 27
years. That's about l2 wiretaps a year. That may be
massive by by somebody's standards, but it's not by mine.
In my opinion, you've got a number of isolate' facts,
some distortions, and you put '?them all together in a salad
or in an omelet -- what should have been a salad if things
were kept separately -- and he drew a conclusion which I still
believe to be false.
Q General, right after the Watergate break-in, you tried
to warn President Nixon what was really going on[_ 1
and you made some explosion. Can you tell us: Do you think
the President really knew what was going on in Watergate?
A That's a domestic activity'~andaas you know, we're pre-
cluded from that. The only person I had access to was
John Dean and I told him that.
Q You did not speak to the President?
A I did not speak to the President.
Q General, what was your reaction when you read the trans-
cript of the President's conversation after Water-
gate when he suggested to his subordinates that they should
try to get the CIA involved in the cover-up?
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WALTERS - 2
A I was surprised.
Q General, are you doing anything less now than you would
have done before all this uproar? Has all this uproar
reduced your activities?
A I would say, yes, it has. It has. There have been
various things, you know, that have passed. For instance,
there is a legislative proviso that we must report any
political actions or covert actions; to the Congress --
to the Foreign Relations or the Foreign Affairs Committees
of the House.
We're an American organization living in the United
States. The acceptance of such things is much less now
than it used to be. We try and live according to the
standards of what is acceptable to the American people.
We do much less of this--I can't tell you we do none. I
spoke a little while ago about analysis and technology and
the overt collection of intelligence. But no technology,
no system -- no technological system -- nothing overhead
or underneath will get you into anybody's head or get you
into the decision process. Only people can do that.
And if you get into the question of what is very popular
f
now 4s cost effectiveness, a man can tell you something at
infinitesimal cost which would cost you hundreds of millions
of dollars to get through a technological system. So some-
times the human source is a very cost-effective one.
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Q General, could you give us your thoughts on why the
perceptions have changed?
A Well, I think the perceptions have changed throughout
American history. Mr. Lincoln, during the Copperhead riots,
,1 1
ordered the artillery to fire on the rioters in New York
and I think there were about 1,100 people killed. If that
were to happen today, everybody would be outraged. These'
things change.
Unless I'm mistaken, the Maryland Assembly was about to
vote Maryland out of the Union and Mr. Lincoln sent federal
troops over and closed the Maryland Assembly.
Now if those things were done today, they would be wrong.
But in the perception of the threat to the Union which
existed then, the threat to the very existence of the United
States, they were conceived as acceptable.
You know when Mr. Scorzani was tried for kidnapping
people in American uniforms, he summoned as witnesses
two British officers. He said, "Did you ever wear a German
uniform and operate behind the Allied lines?" They said,
"Yes." He said, "The defense rests."
Q Are the Soviets violating the SALT agreements?
,AirJ
A I am not aware oflvviolation by the Soviets of the SALT
agreements.
Q Are they cheating on the agreements rather than violating
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A I am not aware of any major cheating on the SALT agree-
ments. I think the Soviets know, you know, and this is
consecrated in the SALT agreements, that there are national
technical means of verification.
Q Which they are interfering with now- (1P ! ! I
A I do not think they are interfering that I: know of. I
think they have undertaken not to, as we have undertaken
,,and I don't think they under-
not to interfere with theirs
estimate ours.
Q Have they violated the unilateral statements -
A I don't want to get into the details of the unilateral
statements but I do not believe that a unilateral state-
ment made by either party was necessarily binding unless
the other one issued a statement saying, "We accept this."
Some they accepted, some they took note of and some they
made no comment on.
Q Right, but in other words, in terms of actual unilateral
understanding that we made, could you suggest how many of
those were actually disregarded by --
A Well, someof them were changed from between one agree-
ment and the other. I am not aware, to the best of my
knowledge, of any major Soviet violation of any of the
agreements they have undertaken in connection. with the
strategic arms limitation talks.
Q When I'm talking about unilateral understanding, I'm
talking about the. --
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WALTERS - 5
A Well, I can only repeat what I say. I think if there
had been any major violation, :it would have come to my
attention. I am not aware of one as of now.
Q General, why did you people fail back in the '60s to
get rid of Castro?
A I wasn't there. I can't tell you.
Q What's your fifth ICBM that's showing up -- the fifth
in the family?
A Well, they've got another system -- it's sort of a hodge-
podge of some of the previously existing ones. It's a
mixture of some of the other previously existing ones.
Q Does it have a number? Is it bigger, smaller?
A It's smaller.
Q General, to follow up on Vic Lasky's question about
Castro: Do you have any personal feelings on that
What might have gone wrong with that operation and why it
did not succeed?
A Well, it's difficult. There's no sight like hindsight.
It's about a 20/5 eyesight. I.don't know. I think it was
a very difficult problem to do. Anybody who has lived in
a totalitarian Communist society knows how difficult it is
to operate in that kind of an environment.
I think a lot off,believe that Fidel was not. really a
Communist and he wasn't really going to set up that kind
of a state and perhaps some of these things might be done.
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WALTERS - 6
But when the Communists get into power and set up a real
Communist state, it's quite difficult to operate in it.
Q Do you think in hindsight it was a worthy enterprise?
A That's an internal judgment which I would not want to
A !
pass at the present time. I'll just say this: I think at
that time, it would have probably been acceptable to the
American people. I'm not sure that it would today. And
as I told you, we've got to operate within the framework
of what we consider the American people by and Xlarge
will accept.
I personally would want to say one thing about assassination
in general, and my own personal feeling and I've said this
to several people. Assassination is wrong because it's
against the law of God, against the law of man, and it
doesn't work. Bullets kill only men, never ideas. That's
my own personal philosophy on it.
Q Would you have said the same thing about Adolf Hitler
being bumped off?
A I think I would have said the same thing because I think
Goering or some one else would have taken over with even
greater fanaticism and it would have been rougher for the
people that were in the power of the Nazis and. all in all
for the world, it would not have made anything better.
That could be argued with easily and other people could
differ with it but that, I think, is probably -- I think
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WALTERS - 7
someone like Goering would have taken over, he would have
used that the way they used the assassination.'Ernst Von Rath
for the "Crystal Knight" to have some kind of a huge purge
and pogrom. It would have more greatly fanaticized the people
who were already fanaicized~and I don't think it would have
been helpful to the world unless it could have been accompanied
with a whole lot of other things that were not necessarily
present.
Q General, does the KGB indulge in such --
A I don't know whether they do. They have in the past.
Q How would you compare you/operation/from theirs?
A Well, I don't personally know of any foreign leader
Q General, you said that we need a better mechanism for
interpreting the s?eb o of the American people. I thoughT
we had one called the presidential election. How could we
possibly have a better mechanism than we have 'where Congress
says "the X"n CIA shall do such other things as the
National Security Council shall order." And the President
appoints all the members of the Council' In effect, he's
the Commandertin{Chief. Is there any way Congress could
set up a committee for the conduct of intelligence?
A I think Congress can set up anything they want by legis-
Q Do you think such a committeA would be helpful in inter-
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WALTERS - 8
preting this perception.
A Well, I think that intelligence -- the more people you
have making decisions, the more difficult it is to arrive
at a decision. But we can live, as I said, with anything
the Congress sets up.
Q Isn't it true that the reason Congress wrote that thing
in the first place -- "such other things as the National
Security Council may direct" --`simply their lawyerly
rte.
recognition that they can't spell out what intelligence
operations ought to be and do?
A Well, I was a very young captain at the time but my
perception would not be terribly far from yours.
Q General, when you say you cut back on foreign covert
operations, is that because of keeping a low profile right
now with all the investigations,or is it a permanent thing
brought on by the changed reporting r-'
A I don't think there's anything permanent in intelligence.
Intelligence depends a great deal on the sense of threat
the Americant lfeel.
In 1955 and 1960, the American people felt very threatened.
Now they don't.
Q Should they feel threatened?
A I would.
Q General, in that regard, I mean, talking about the
missile buildup now, your intelligence does report on Soviet
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WALTERS - 9
missile capability, for example. How would you regard
this continual buildup -- as a violation of the spirit of
SALT -- and do you think it should be regarded as an in-
creasing threat and the American people should be made more
aware of it, or what?
A SALT does not prohibit the qualitative improvement of
existing systems. The Vladivostok Agreement limits us to
a certain number. There has been no violation of that.
But on the other hand, there is nothing in the SALT
agreements which prevents them from improving -- qualitatively
-- what they have. And this is what they have been doing
rather than violating in numbers.
Q General, would it be possible to separate the intelli-
gence activities of the CIA from covert activities such as
the Allende program? You said you were doing
covert activit$t now. Can intelligence survive without
the international dirty tricks,?
A Well, it depends what you consider dirty tricks. If you
consider helping democratic forces to survive a hostile
j that/
environment, I'm not sure I would agree that's a dirty
trick.
Q Where did that happen?
A That happened in Chiles specifically.
Q Where are the democratic forces in Chile today?
A They're not back yet.
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WALTERS - 10
Q They sure aren't.
A No, but you know, one thing about rightist dictatorships
that differs from Communist dictatorships is that eventually,
r
the rightist dictatorships fizzle out and there is change and
hope for change.
There is no case where the Communists have achieved power
where they have ever transferred it by any means whatsoever
with one single exception and that is the Communist regime
in Budapest in 1921 N was displaced by the arrival
of Rumanian troops who occupied Budapest.
With a rightist dictatorship you may have to wait but
eventually11 it's going to go. With a Communist dictatorship
and the Brezhnev doctrine -- that the Soviet Union has the
right to intervene to protect the achievements of the
socialist regime -- there's not much hope for any transfer
of power.
Q General, you said you would be irretrievably damaged
then if you were put out of the business --
A I think the United States would be irretrievably damaged.
The agency's future or existence is of small import. What
is of import is the existence of the United States as a
free and democratic society. And if the United States had
no intelligence service, I would have serious doubts about
its ability to survive as a free and democratic society.
Q Have you been badly hurt this year as a result of the
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publicity that's come out this year?
A I wouldn't say we've been badly hurt. In fact, I marvel
at how relatively little) but yes, we have been hurt.
People that used to give us whole reports are giving
us summaries and people who used to give us summaries are
now shaking hands with us. And people who used to voluntarily
U'
help .our--M-de----out -- "Ah, don';t come near me." This, I'm
sure, must be a delight to the American "wrongers." But
that
to the people who believe the United States represents
the best hope of mankind for freedom in the world, it is
not an encouraging factor.
Q General, you quoted the truth: "You shall know the truth
and the truth shall make you free." I wonder if one of the
problems has not been that the CIA has kept the information
that it's had so much to itself that the American people
have not been very well informed. I'm thinking specifically
now of what is going on in Portugal. There seems to be a
good deal of confusion about how much the Soviets -- the
KGB -- is putting into Portugal. I've heard as much as
10 million dollars a month which rather dwarfs the 8 million
dollars that the CIA put into Chile.
A During the Allende regime, the Eastern European countries
put in 300 million dollars.
Q Do you know or does the CIA, know how much the Soviets
are putting into Portugal and why isn't this type of infor-
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mation made known so that people understand what is going
on in the world?
(a
A Well, I think you must differentiate between/public
relations group and an intelligence society. We are not
in existence to influence American opinion. We are there
to serve the elected officials who have been chosen by the
United States Government. We tell the Congress. We tell
the President. If they choose to reveal it to the American
people, that's their right. But we do not feel that we
should use our intelligence to sway American public opinion
one way or the other. We are not a policy-making agency.
That is up to our masters. If they wish to make that infor-
mation public, if the Congress wishes to make it public,
they can. We brief them, we tell them everything we know.
Who do we go to A directa to the CIA to say, "Tell
us what was going on in Chile under the Allende regime as
our agents know it and reported it"?
A I'm not sure I understand the question.
Q Who do we go to get the story on --
A Who do you, the press?
Q Yes.
A I would guess that's a decision to be made by the Presi-
dent or the Secretary of State or some other duly constitu-
ted authority.
Q Yes, but he says, "Well,_j-got the story here. It's
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WALTERS - 13
CIA but it's classified, secret or top secret. It's up
to CIA', they put the classification on it."
A Well, there's no classification that CIA puts on that
can't be taken off by proper authority.
Q Is the CIA still involved in testing of drugs in Maryland
or other places?
A I don't believe so. If they are, they're crazy.
Q Going back to the assassinations without getting into
the specifics, would it be a correct thing to assume that
when the CIA decided on bumping off Mr. "X" --
ever
A I don't think there's any indication that CIA/aecided
any such thing.
Q The point is, was the White House the one that you people
had to go to or was the White House the one --
A I know what you're driving at and I can't answer the
question other than to repeat what Colby said -- that he
does not believe that it is in the interest of the United
States for us in the agency to point the finger at anybody
inside or outside the agency.;
Q Yes, but they pointed theifinger at you -- Mr. Church,
Senator Church said that you people were acting like rogue
elephants. You're roaming around on your own. That would
mean that you made the decisions. Was that true or wasn't
that true.
A That is attempting to get the agency into an internal
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WAU-CERS - 14
olitical
American,(fight. And I don't believe that the interests
of the United States -- I said, if you recall at the time
of the Watergate -- that the strength of the agency lay in
its being apolitical. And I can't really take a position
saying some Senator is saying the truth or the falsehood.)
or the President or anybody else. It would be unseemly
for me, as an appointeeIof the executive branch and as the
person who is responsible to the Congress, to start pointing
fingers of accusation at someone. The answer to that
question you're going to have to get somewhere else. I
just can't --
Q General, why did the CIA get into the experimentation
with LSD when the Army Warfare Service was working on it
as part -W~ of
A Well, this occurred, as you know, 24 years ago. I would
say -- I was not present at the time and I have no direct
had /
personal knowledge of it -- that what immense:Ly impressed
the American people about this time was the behavior of
the American prisoners in Korea -- the turncoats who had
elected to stay and denounce the United States. Americans
had never faced this problem. These were the first America
"wrongers" who showed up -- and they've unfortunately grown
greatly in numbers since.
We were baffled. We figured there must be some means
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WALTERS - 15
by which they do this. They must be hypnotizing them or
drugging them. Then we had Cardinal Mindszenty who had
been the soul of resistance against the Nazis and initially
against the Communists and here is this man with this
haunted look -- and any of you who ever saw that picture
of the man's face, beating his:breast and accusing himself
of every crime in the book. We felt this was a weapon that
was going to be used against us and we were seeking -- and
this is my perception, as I say, I have no direct personal
knowledge.--This is what the American people were apalled
by, they were frightened by. There was wide acceptance
for it, as you know from the newspapers -- I'm not pointing
the finger at anybody -- but the agency was by no means
the only person engaged in this.
Some of our remarkable institutions of learning and other
things were also participating without any sense of real
horror. And this is a perfect illustration of what I mean
about the changes of perception of what is right and wrong
over the passage of time.
1. A-r
Q General, would you rate the backfire-:intercontinental
brouhaha?
A Are you from "Aviation Weekly"? Some people do, some
people don't. It's a matter of interpretation. It is
theoretically capable of a one-way operation against the
United States or a refueled operation against the United
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States, it is not capable of a nonone-way, nonrefueled'
operation against the United States. And not. being able
to get into the head of the Soviet leaders and decide
whether they were going to order these crews to commit,
to perform, one-way missions, I find it impossible to
answer that question with any degree of certainty.
Q General, let me ask you about Portugal again: Mr.
Irvine mentioned that he had heard estimates from the CIA
of 10 million dollars --
Mr. Irvine: No, not from the CIA, from the West.
Q Senator Bentsen has kl~x made the statement; then that
he had heard from the CIA that as much as 10 million dollars
a month was going into Portugal from the Soviet Union. Is
that correct or could you tell us --
A Well, I'm sure if Senator Bentsen said it -- if he did
talk to someone that said it -- far be it from me to suspect
a United States Senator of not telling the truth.
I think it is extremely difficult -- I know what you're
driving at -- but it's very hard to get a flat answer to
that.
Q Can you give us any estimate though?
A I would estimate -- and I'm estimating -- that that is
not out of the bal7park. They're doing it with cash and
that's very hard to keep track of.
J f ro
Q Unless watch/hrough Mexico.
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WALTERS - 17
Q Maybe you can get Senator Ervin to work on that.
Q Mr. Walters, in your agency's assessments of the threats
to world peace, where do you rate Alexandr Solzhenitsyn?
1 9 6 w
Do you the advice that the President got that
he ought not to have met with Mr. Solzhenitsyn because the
meeting would have damaged detente -- whatever detente is?
A Well, I would presume that '', the advice that he got came
from some part of the National Security Council, since they
STAT
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were appointed by him. I would find it difficult to-)agree
with my bosses on anything like that.
I don't know. It's a very complex question and I don't
know whether you'll know the answer until a couple of years
from now one way or the other.
One of the things that I'd like to say a word about --
one of the things that bothers me a little bit -- is that
I think the person of the President, he is the head of the
political party, he is the ruler and everything else, but
there should be a certain restraint in handling -- there's
so much responsibility on the man's shoulders, it is an
awkward situation that he is so many things at once.--the
head of the party, the ceremonial chief of state, the head
the
ZGovernment and the head of the Administration. And I
think that efforts to nail the President down with every-
thing to get him to certify this, that or the other, to
put his responsibility on the line is not really in the
interest of the United States.
Q Then you think he should not have met --
A I did not pronounce myself one way or the other. That
is really a domestic American issue as to what would happen
in the United States, and it's a matter of domestic policy;
and I think that for me, as an appointed official of the
United States Government, to say I think the President was
would
right or wrong,/again, be unseemly.
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Q Was it really a policy question whether or not he should
have met Mr. Solzhenitsyn?
A No, I just think that for me as an appointed official
by the President to publicly criticize the President would
be unseemly.
Q Well then,you do disagree with him?
A No, I didn't say I did.
Q But you don't necessarily have to criticize him.
A No. I do not feel that it's appropriate for me to
express an opinion on the decision of the President. Well,
we can argue this one out. I think I've made my point.
Everybody would like me to get on one side of a domestic
argument and put the agency in domestic matters. I think
the only way we can operate in the service of the American
people is not get involved in political disputes within
the United States. Everybody' wants to sort of use us to
back up their argument internally. I think if we do that
we may derive some small, immediate advantage; but in the
agency
long term, I think it will harm the ability of they-
gk -to give what it must.-- independent assessments to
the properly constituted authorities.
Q Do you think that this investigation of the CIA and
the seemingly concurrent t ng1e` w7kth the FBI is symptomatic
of some kind of a conspiracy in the United States?.
A I don't know about a conspiracy but I'read you something
T)- 0
from "Sun Sueng" that doesn't fit it very far off -- "Cover
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WALTERS - 20
with ridicule everything that is valid in your oponent's
country" and so forth.
Q Do you think it was ulterior then perhaps or --
A I think it's ulterior in some people, yes. I'm not
saying it's ulterior in zwa everybody. ;Certainly not,
there are a lot of honest people who believe --- I want to
make one thing quite plain. I'm not opposed to the
congressional investigations As I,said, providing they're
conducted in a responsible and positive and constructive
fashion. I think they can be helpful. It's been 20 years
since we had an investigation.
I might add, though, in the light of what the CIA is
doing, the charge under which the CIA was operating following
that last investigation, which concluded with something
like this. It was the Dolittle investigation and I don't
know when it was -- way back. But anyway, he said,"The
United States is facing a ruthless and implacable enemy
who is determined to destroy us by all means in their power.
We must match their dedication with ours and their ruthless-
ness with ours." Again, that's the change of perception.
Q General, is that a correct assessment today? Are we
facing that kind of enemy?
A Well, I think we're facing a very tough situation.
Q Are we facing that kind of an enemy today 4 what he
referred to?
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WALTERS - 21
A Well, I think the tactics may have changed but I don't
think the long-term goals have changed very much.
Q General, have you noticed any change since this so-called
period of detente in intelligence or anything? Any change
Al
at all since this co-operation, so to speak?
A I don't think so.
Q How much better trained
A I don't believe there's any.
Q Never has been?
A I have no knowledge of any.
by the Russians?
Q Are you concerned about the spying over at the embassy --
the big antenna, the stories they've had lately?
A That's an internal U.S. problem.
Q Are the Soviets making it more difficult for us now
to obtain information on the ICBM firings than was the case
at the time SALT was proposed? (Tape ends).
(END)
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