SPEECH BY VERNON A. WALTERS TO THE ROTARY AND KIWANIS CLUBS OF COLUMBUS, OHIO

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80R01731R002000100013-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 27
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 3, 2002
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: February 17, 1975
• Content Type: SPEECH

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Speech by
General Vernon A. Walters
to
The Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs of
Columbus, Ohio
Feburary 17, 1975
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_
President Eibling, distinguished members of these two
great service organizations, I feel very honored at being
here today and having this opportunity to talk to you and I
marvel at your patience and tolerance in coming in here on a day like
this to attend this meeting.
The introduction stressed the fact that I have been in
intelligence for a long time and that I spoke eight languages.
I must tell you two stories about those. When I came into the
Army as a private 34 years ago, I was interviewed by a sergeant
and he was very impressed with the number of these languages
and he went to get a major who came to see me, and he was
equally impressed. We11,this was 1941 and everybody was
getting sworn into the Army in high positions. Mr. Knudsen,
the Chairman of General Motors, was made a Lieutenant General
in Transportation, and Robert Sarnoff, of RCA, was made a
Brigadier General, and I thought they were going to offer
me a Lieutenant Colonelcy in military intelligence. But
if they made it a Majority, I would take it since we would
probably soon be in the war and everybody had to make
sacrifices. So, after this was all over, everybody got down
and was comparing MOS's and I said, what are MOS' s; they
said MOS is your Military Occupational Speciality -- that's
what you're going to do in the Army. So I looked at my card
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and it said "506" and I thought this was the time to use
some of this leadership I was going to be called on for so
soon so I turned to one of the other guys and said "Go find
out what 506 is." It worked like a charm. Be went down,
came back with a puzzled look on his face, and he said,
"506 is a truck driver." I said, "Somebody's made a mistake."
Nobody had. Well, a couple of years later after I went to
Officers Candidate School, they caught up with me and they
plucked me out of a new Infantry Division and sent me off
to North Africa.
On the language problem -- the languages are an advantage
and a disadvantage. One day I was standing watching a
parade in Brazil next to the Soviet Ambassador and he turned
to me -- he had been in the States for six years and he
spoke real good English -- and he said, "The trouble with
you Americans is you never bother to learn anybody else's
language." So I knew he hadn't read my biography. So I
said to him, "Mr. Ambassador, that's not really true any
more; it may have been true a couple of years ago, but now
we really make an effort." And he said, "No, and besides,
as people, you do not have gift for languages like the
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Slays." So I said to him in Russian, "Mr. Ambassador,
that's a bunch of garbage." Only the Russian word I used
isn't exactly "garbage." _"And I am a little bit surprised
that an intelligent man like you who has lived outside the
Soviet Union continues to believe this kind of fairy tale."
Well, that shook him a little bit, and I stepped in for
the kill and that's when disaster struck. I said to him
in Russian, "Mr. Ambassador, would you like to try
Portuguese," knowing that I spoke it much better than he
did. And he looked at me and he said, "Walters, you may
be a
good soldier, but diplomat you are not."
So these things sometimes get you into trouble.
really what I am trying to talk about a little bit is
the world in which we live today. This world has new
dimensions. For 25 years the United States had an
overwhelming strategic predominance that kept the world --
the Western world -- the NATO world -- secure and free.
That predominance is no longer present. We declined
But,
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from predominance to parity and now we are in a stage of some-
what unstable equilibrium with the Soviet Union. In November
1974 at Vladivostok, President Ford and Party General Secretary
Brezhnev signed an agreement--they didn't sign an agreement,
they reached an agreement--limiting the number of interconti-
nental ballistic misiles which each nation would have to 2400,
of which 1320 could have multiple re-entry vehicles. We are
pursuing negotiations with the Soviets for further steps in
this direction. But in large measure the success or failure
of these on-going negotiations will be determined by their
perception of us. Their perception of what our intentions are
and of what we intend to do. The Russians respect strong people.
This runs throughout their history. They will watch us to see
whether we are a people determined to remain strong and free.
And in large measure that will guide the, kind of negotiations
we have with them.
Now I would just like to say a word about the general world
military situation, not in any great detail, but just to give you
an idea. The United States, as of now, has 2,100,000 men under
arms and we have approximately 1,900,000, men in our active reserve.
The Soviet Union has a figure nearly twice that. It has 2.7
million men under arms and it has something like 6 million men
in its reserves. The Peoples Republic of China has 3 million
men under arms and 8 million men in its reserves. So these are
some of the standings in the military affairs of the big countries.
Now I would repeat that the strength of a nation is not the
aggregate of its men, tanks, planes and ships; it is the resolution
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of that people also that contributes and makes that nation's
strength. It is the determination of that nation to remain
free that makes that nation's strength. It is the determination
of that nation to preserve their way of life, their own right
to decide what changes they will have that makes that nation
strong and perceived as strong.
The Soviet Union is very strong. The Soviet Union--to
give you some idea of relations--has a 166 divisions, as compared
to thirteen and one-half for the United States. We are moving on,
we are going to have 16 by cutting down headquarters and support
staffs, but this is still a small number. The Soviet Union has
two and a half times as many tanks as the United States, it has
twice as much artillery as the United States, and it is diffi-
cult to compare the military effort of the two countries. In the
United States, our's is in the budget, ahd caearndwe know
what it is. In a wholly state-controlled economy like the
Soviet Union, it is difficult to establish comparisons. The
amount of money won't tell you, because salaries will buy
different things in the two nations. In the United States,if
the U. S. Government buys some weapon in Cleveland and ships
it to New York, that money is paid to some railroad company;
in the Soviet Union it goes to the Soviet railroads, so that
it's just moving from one Government pocket to another. Even
within the Intelligence Community there is some difference
as to what the exact measure of the Soviet effort is. I think,
however, there is consensus that it is considerably larger than
ours. And it is coming out of a gross national product
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less than half as large as ours. So it represents a very
substantial amount of money. China, also, has a considerable
military effort but China's great strength lies in its vast
land army. It is moving, as the Soviet Union is, in the area
of strategic missiles. I might add that the Soviet Union at
this time is testing and actually deploying four different
types of intercontinental ballistic missiles. China is developing
a series of intercontinental:- missiles, but they are
still some distance behind. In fact, the other day Secretary
Schlesinger noted that there has been a sort of slow down
in the Chinese move in the field of strategic weapons. We
don't quite know what it is or why it is, but they are not moving ahead
'quite as fast as we had expected them or quite as fast as one
might have expected in a follow-on of what they have been doing.
Now in the United States Armed Forces, our mission is the
deterrence of war; it is the maintenance of stability, it is the
maintenance of peace. The President and the Congress have
decided that we would do this with an all-volunteer armed forces.
Many of doubted that,this could happen, but I think we can take pride
in the results that have been achieved within our society in this
respect.
In Europe, which after all is an area of extraordinary
importance to us--perhaps second only to the United States itself--
we stand with our NATO allies who have a common objective with
us, who share many of the ideals that we have, and there are in the
NATO forces deployed in Europe considerable assymmetries or
differences in the way the are organized. The Soviets as I
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said before, have many more tanks than we do; we have many
more anti-tank weapons than they do; they have more aircraft
than we do,, but our aircraft are of higher performance and
we think our crews are better trained for night flying, for
bad weather flying, and also the actual performance of the
aircraft is better. In number of men, the forces are about
equally matched. We have, I thinkja million 700 thousand men
on the NATO side and the Warsaw Pact has about
1,680,000, although these can be reinforced from within
the Soviet Union.
As I once said to one of my Soviet colleagues on this
question of dis-engagement, you want us to withdraw behind the
Atlantic and you will withdraw behind the Vistula, but crossing
the Vistula is easier than crossing the Atlantic. And he
laughed--he had never thought of it in exactly those terms.
In the past, we have counted greatly on the quality of the
NATO forces and the U.S. forces, but the Soviets have made a
great effort in the field of quality. All the jokes about how
incompetent, how ignorant the Soviets are no longer match.
They have made a great effort on improving the quality of their
forces and they have been remarkably successful in so doing.
As I mentioned) intanks', the US and the Peoples Republic
of China have each approximately a quarter as many tanks as
the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union has seven airborne divisions;
the United States has one, ready to go. In artillery they out-
number us two to one. We do have other advantages, such as
the tactical nuclear weapons, and these have an additional
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advantage in that as perceived by the Soviets, they do not
present any threat to the existence of the Soviet Union.
They could constitute a threat to Soviet aggression, but not
to the existence of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union and its
allies have the advantage of the initiative. In democracies
you cannot start it. The NATO forces, on the other hand, have
the advantage and the flexibility of being able to decide at
what level they will respond to any act of aggression.
Now if I may say a word about naval forces. The Soviet
Union has made a great effort, both in quantity and in quality,
in improving its naval forces and they have succeeded remark-
ably. They have developed an ocean-going navy. After all,
they reach back to the will of Peter the Great who told them
they must seek out the warm waters . . the "Goriachii vodi"
. . which has been one of the goals of their efforts, and they
have done remakably well. They have navies that sail all the
seas of the world with great competence. They are building
two aircraft carriers right now which are the first aircraft
carriers they have ever had. They are building a large number
of other good and sophisticated ships.
The United States is a maritime nation. All our alliances
are in an interoceanic community. We must keep the maritime
lines of communications open to our allies. We must have the
ability to have a U.S. presence where it is creditably required.
In China, we are beginning to see the first destroyers of native
Chinese design -- not copies of Russian destroyers, but their own
destroyers. More of them are being built. The Chinese have
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--
just built two very large, very modern shipyards--as modern
as any in the world. They have a large number of guided
missile boats,
in this area.
Union has made
and they, too, are making a great effort
In the field of the air forces,
a great effort, in both quality
and China is developing a new interceptor, but
the Soviet
and in quantity
there again
we have noticed &little bit of this flagging of the defense
effort of China in some of these fields.
As we look around the world we see Europe, which,as I said
before, is second only in importance to the United States because
in Europe is thie\immense industrial capacity--this immense
pool of skilled labor. And this large number of people, who,
while their interests do not coincide exactly with ours, share
the same kinds of ideals, the same kinds of belief, and the same
kinds of feeling about the way changes should come about.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has said, and I think I
agree with him, that the best place to defend the United States
is as far forward as possible, and NATO has the forces and the
equipment to defend Europe successfully. NATO has served and
will continue to serve the strategic interests of the United
States. In the 25 years of NATO's existence, not a single
square inch of soil in the area covered by the treaty, not a
single citizen of any country covered by the treaty, has been
lost to aggression and, in fact, there has been no aggression
in the area covered by the treaty.
We do have within NATO now, various kinds of problems:
economic problems; problems of the priority of resources; but,
if we look, and we hear so often how NATO has been overtaken
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by events that it is no longer effective, that it is no longer
adapted to this time, to me one of the interesting things
is that the dissolution of NATO remains one of the prime
objectives of Soviet foreign policy. If it were not effective
and it did not have meaning for them, why would they be so
insistent on this.
So, I think that in NATO we have an instrument, which, with
all its shortcomings and, after all,I know of no case in history
where an alliance has lasted as long as NATO alliance. It has
now lasted 26 years, and I think there are few if any historical
parallels to the endurance of an alliance of that type that long.
We look around us in Latin America which is an area
important to the United States for geographic as well as sentimental
reasons. We have some areas of concern. There is some threat
from Cuba; there are Soviet aircraft and ships moving in and out
of Cuba; there is Soviet naval and air activity in the Caribbean.
There are many changes--South America is a continent of much
change. There is a new government in Chile; there is terrorism
in Argentina there are large Soviet arms purchases by Peru;
there is a surge of nationalism in Venezuela. These are areas
which are of some concern to us. These are areas that tomorrow
will be extremely important, and there is in Brazil--you
heard some reference to my being with the Brazilians--
a giant, a superpower on the way up.
I first went to Brazil in 1943 and all they made were
toothpicks and elevators for the tall buildings. Last year
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they built 800,000 automobiles--they didn't assemble them,
they built them. They have great shipyards building 250,000-ton
tankers. For six straight years the gross national product of
Brazil has increased by ten percent. This is a nation larger
than the United States by another Texas. It is a nation of
110 ,million people. In Brazil every year there is born a
Bolivia, in Brazil every three years there is born a Chile,
in Brazil every seven years there is born an Argentina. I left
Brazil in 1967. In that time there have been 22 million more
Brazilians added to the total number of people. This may sound
like a population explosion to you, but I once drove a truck
from Rio de Janeiro to the Peruvian border and it took me 29
days and on the last half I was driving through an area where
there was half an inhabitant per square mile. So the population
explosion is not immediate for them. But nevertheless this is
an area which is of vital importance to us. It is an area
that controls all kinds of/imiportantresources; it is an area
with which it is vital for us to maintain close relationships.
I am happy to say, though sane people will see an evil intent
Unit, that,there are excellent relationships between the military
of Latin America and ours. They sometimeshave a different view
of their place in national life than we do, but at :least in
them we do not find a systematic hospitality to the
United States.
In Canada and in Mexico--these are two great nations WhiCh more and
more feel the need to affirm their national identity and sometimes
we have sau'abbles of various sorts, but with these two great countries.
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we have a common sense of destiny that I think will override
any economic competition or differences or perceived awkwardnesses
between us.
Then as we look around the world, we see Asia. America
is a Pacific power--this is sometimes forgotten. I was in
France when they showed a documentary on television and one of
the things that surprised people the most was a statement in
that film describing the Normandy landings, and then they said,
that unknown to most Europeans, three days later the United
States staged a landing of approximately the same size on Saipan
in the Pacific. Many people in Europe and sometimes in the
eastern part, of the United States tend to forget that we are also
a Pacific power. And this is an enormously important arena in
which there are four great powers present: the Soviet Union,
the Peoples Republic of China, that economic giant, Japan, and
the United States. And after all, two-thirds of mankind live
in that area. It is not an area that we can lightly disregard
because it is important. It is an area in which, despite our
efforts, peace is not yet present. We seek to promote stability
and peace in a large area and a credible U. S. commitment is
essential if we are to do this.
One of the interesting things that we see is the Chinese)
who perceive the Soviets as their greatest threat,' quietly
telling our NATO partners, Japan and South Korea: don't push
the Americans out yet. They do not want to see a vacuum into
which the Soviets might well move.
And while the Chinese's
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greatest problem seems to be with the Russians, they do
say we are imperialists, too. But apparently they regard
us as a slightly less dangerous brand of imperialists than
the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union's forces in this area are oriented
towards the Peoples Republic of China. The Chinese won't
talk to you very long before they remind you that there are
a million Soviets camped along their borders.
I remember when I came to Paris in 1967, the French
told me I should call on my Soviet colleague because he
was the senior military attache there, so I called him up and
said, "I am the new American military attache and I would
like to call on you." He said, "Fine, come Tuesday morning."
I said, "I'll come in civilian clothes." He said, "I will be
in uniform." I said, "So will I." So I went there and we
talked about a lot of platitudes, about the ballet, and
General de Gaulle's scraping and cleaning the buildings in Paris,
and various other things. And finally at the end, he said to me-=-
--without looking at me-=--"What do you think of the situation in
Vietnam?" "Well," I said, "you know my Government's view; you
want my personal view?" He said, "Yes." I said, "I think we
are rendering you extraordinary services for which you are
showing the most unbelievable ingratitude." He said, "What do
you mean, what do you mean?" "Well,"I said, "while we're
in Vietnam, the Chinese are worried about their southern border,
when they are no longer worried about their southern border,
they are going to worry about their northern border." I said,
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"We have difficulties with the Chinese, but we haven't taken
3 million square kilometers from them; and, thank God, we don't
have 6,000 kilometers of common border with them. And, General,
for nothing in the world would I want to be in your shoes.
Do svidanya." And I walked out and left him with that one.
Two years later I met him, and he shook his head, and he
said, "You know those Chinese are crazy, they think war is
a good thing." I said, "General, remember what I told
you the first time we met?" He said, "Yes, I do remember."
So, they have a problem; obviously a war between them
would be a catastrophe for mankind. The idea that we would
want that or would look at that with favor is nonsense; it
wouldn't, it would be a great danger for all mankind and I
think a danger of a war there is receding.
The Chinese have large forces; but they do have a limited
ability to project their force outside the Peoples Republic
of China. They have a small navy, it is largely defensive in
nature. They have a considerable number of aircraft -- a couple
of hundred medium bombers and a smaller number of heavy
bombers but they're copied from Soviet types or they are Soviet
types and they are quite old.
I personally, and I don't speak for anybody else but myself
here, have a feeling that the Chinese now feel they have enough
strength in short-range missiles, in medium-range missiles,
in conventional forces, to be intolerable to the Russians if the
Russians do anything bad to them. And that has created, I think,
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a certain stability in that area.
We do have other threats in that area. We have the
continuing pressure-Ii-7\North Vietnam against South Vietnam.
This is a controversial subject as you know. I have only
one statement to make about it. There are plenty of North
Vietnamese killing people in South Vietnam. There are no
South Vietnamese killing anybody in North Vietnam.
Cambodia is a tough situation also. We have awkward
situations in Burma, Thailand--we have some insurgencies--
the Philippines, with which we have a long historic connection,
is not in a total state of quiescence. We have the recent
Indian nuclear explosion and all the competition that could
engender. In that area we have another giant--Indonesia--
with --120 or 130 million people, which is the largest Moslem
power in the world, with enormous resources, extraordinarily
strategically located. And which is still seeking what road
it will take to provide its people with a better life. We
hope for a secure Republic of Vietnam as we feel it would be
a contribution to stability in that area.
The Middle East is the area of greatest potential for
political conflict. Great importance. It is not just a bridge
of the three great continents, but it is source of oil. It
is the source of oil in some measure for us. But it is the
source of 75% of Western Europe's oil. It is the source of
85% of Japan's oil. So, it is important to our major allies.
And to some extent it is also important to us. We also
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have our commitment to Israel. But we do seem to be improving
our relations with the Arabs, despite the controversy on the
oil and so forth. I think many of the Arabs realize they have
no interest in creating chaos in the economy of the West. It
would not be to their advantage.
In Africa there is no immediate threat of any military
aggression of any sort, but the Soviets are installing them-
selves in Somalia: they have established a naval base there,
they have aircraft there, and they also have people in South Yemen,
across the Straits of Bab el-Mandeb.
In Tanzania you have a very large Chinese peoples' effort
and you have the passage of time and the weakening of the
African links to the West of these countries that were originally
cOlonies of the West, which no longer are. You have the rise
of some of the countkies like Nigeria. Nigeria is geographically
a relatively smallecountry, but almost half the population of
Africa is in that country. Nigeria is a large oil-producing
country. And I must say--and I again I speak for myself here--
they had a bitter three-year civil war at the end of which I
think the Nigerian government and General Gowan, its president,
showed extraordinary restraint and generosity in dealing with
the side that lost the civil war and in attempting to bind up
the wounds and I think Nigeria, and to some extent Zaire which
is also a very rich and strategically located country, are
countries on the march upward that will have anever more important
role to play in the world. But to give you some idea what is
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going on in that area, the Soviet Union is rendering military
assistance to 15 African countries; the Peoples Republic of
China is rendering military assistance to 11 African countries.
In the Indian Ocean we attempt to avoid a major confrontation
with the Soviet Union, but we do wish to maintain transit
rights through this Ocean and our presence there is less than
the Soviet presence. The British and French also maintain
forces in the Indian Ocean and we welcome them, because, as
I said, our presence there is less than the Soviets.
Along with our resolution we must have the mobility.
In the United States mobility means that we have to have aircraft
and sealift. In our airlift we have our C-5's which have
the capability to be refueled in flight; but 75% of the U. S. airlift
capability is in C-141's which as of know does not have the
capability of being refueled in flight. We must maintain a
sealift across both the oceans; we must maintain the ability
to project our power if it is required of us.
One of our difficulties at the present time is that there
is no really clearly perceived threat by the American people.
A whole generation of Americans is growing up who have never
known the dangers and the threats that some of the older ones
of us have known. The Soviet Union is
embarked on a policy of detente. We welcome this and we look
forward to pursuing this insofar as :it can. But we do this
with some prudence.
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I must tell you a story that someone told me recently
about detente, which doesn't necesarily reflect my opinions,
but nevertheless is quite a good story. It's about a young
American couple that goes to Moscow and they go to visit the
zoo and they are being taken through the zoo by a young
Russian and he finally takes them to this cage and in this
cage is a great big Russian bear with teeth that long and
claws that long. And in the same cage is a lamb--a small white
lamb, looking fairly uncomfortable. And this seemed to them
an odd couple to put into the same cage. So they turned to
the young Russian and they said, "Why do you do that?" He
said, "Why do we do that? To prove that peaceful co-existence
is possible." The young American said, "Well, it is pretty
impressive and it is pretty convincing." And his wife said,
"It sure is." And the young Russian looked around and seeing
no one, he bent towards them and said, "But, of course, you
understand. Every morning we have to put in a new lamb."
4-Much-laughterY
So these things require a certain amount of caution before
you go forward.
Now it would be difficult for me to just stop here without
talking about intelligence. It is somewhat in the news in these
days, and, as you know, we are appearing before various Committees
E o explain various things that we have done or not done and so
forth and so on/ at the end of which it is clear that we
are going to be reorganized in some form. And reorganization
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is an old, old custom. I would like to read to you what was
said about it by Petronius Arbiter in 210 B.C. "We trained
hard, but it seemed that every time we were to form up into
teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in
life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing.
And a wonderful method it is for creating the illusion of
progress while producing inefficiency and demoralization."
So the world has not changed too much from then until now.
One of the problems we have is that really we see a very
old theory being applied in-the world today. In 500 B.C. a
Chinese writer by name of Sun Tzu, drawing on earlier sources
from an earlier military book called 1-Chen, wrote a treatise
called The Art of War. Now The Art of War has been published
in English although the first four editions of it were in
Russian. I describe reading it as something like swimming
in a pool full of molasses. It's in the form of a dialogue
and if you're not Chinese it's pretty hard to do. But
anyway, he distills up his advice in 13 maxims and he starts
out with this one: "Fighting is the crudest form of making war,"
And then he starts out with the maxims-- donrtworry,, I'm not
going to give you all thirteen.- Number one: "Cover with ridicule
everything that is valid in your opponent's country." Number two:
"Denounce their leaders and at the right time turn them over to
the scorn of their fellow countrymen." Three: "Aggravate by all
means at your command all existing divergences and differences
in your opponent's country." Number four: "Agitate the young
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against the old.'" And I could go on with the rest of them.
Some of them are out of date and ,everything else, but they
do show that human nature hasn't changed all that much in
that time.
Now people have tended in the past to think of intelligence
as something you use to make war or to threaten war. And I
think one of the interesting things that has happened is that it is
also a weapon for peace. For years we and the Soviets discussed
various of forms of limitation--of arms-r?Stkategic arms. But
we ran up against the problem that they refused to allow any
on-site inspections since they regarded this as a violation of
their sovereignty. And the question became: how can any
American president make an agreement unless he has the means,
in light of his responsibility to the American people, to know
that there is no cheating going on. It was only as we developed
in intelligence the means of checking, of monitoring, of counting,
that the President of the United States was able to make this
kind of an agreement. It is only because we have the power to
monitor any future.agreements that we are able to look forward to
perhaps reaching other agreements in other areas. The Soviets them-
selves have recognized this fact in the SALT Agreement where
they say neither side will interfere with the national technical
means of verification. They didn't want to say specifically
what they were because they have them too; but they did want to
commit themselves that they would not do this. So in this case
it has opened the possibility for us to reach certain agreements
in the past and it opens the possibility of reaching further
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agreements and diminishing the burden of these extraordinarily
high costs of strategic weapons systems for tomorrow. In 1962
we had a great discussion in the United States and a great
national difference as to whether or not there was a missile
gap between the Soviet Union and the United States. That is
no longer possible. We know what the size of the missiles are on
both sides. We know what we can check and what we cannot check.
The United States is a giant. It produces twice the gross
national product of the next largest nation in the world, but
a blind giant is a pretty helpless guy if he cannot see what is
coming. If he cannot look ahead,as we have the responsibility
to look ahead, not at the childish things but at the important
things. Who will be in control of the Soviet Union five years
from today? What will their dispositions be towards us and the
rest of the world? Who will be in control of the Peoples Republic
of China five or ten years from now? What will be their disposi-
tion towards the rest of the world? What is going on in Soviet
or Chinese research and development that will be important, that
will have an impact on us and what we must do in the years ahead?
These are the really big problems that we have to face and
answer. These are the problems on which we have to report to
our masters, to the Executive Branch, to the President and to
the Congress, we report to the Congress on an average of once
every two weeks a full briefing, nothing hidden, to our oversight
committees. We tell them anything they want. Each year the
appropriate committees know what our budget is; they know what
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our program is and they vote the money for it. We report also
to the President's Foreign Intelligence Board--a distinguished
board of private citizens from both parties, who have no ties
with the Intelligence Community. We report to our oversight
committees. The idea that we have a foreign policy of our own
is nonsense. We don't. We do what we are told. We work--
we make suggestions to our masters--but we must work within the
framework of U. S. policy. We know that we have to work within
the kind of intelligence system, the kind of reporting and the
kind of control that the American people want and demand. But
we do not feel that we have to do everything, as the saying goes,
in Macy's window. You don't get very far. You lose the confi-
dence of some of your allies. And as we have been cut in
personnel--and we have been cut very remarkably in personnel--
we need the help of our allies' intelligence services. Some
people don't think they are good; well, I have some news for
you, some of them are very good. I'll just tell you a story
that happened to me.
Many years ago I went to Italy as Military Attache and I
got briefed in Washington; they said, "Well, the Italians have
pretty good intelligence system, but they don't have much money,
you know, but they do pretty well." So I arrived in Italy and
I made arrangements far my first visit to an Italian unit which was
the Third Corps in Milan. And the Pentagon was in one of its
phases of economy, so I couldn't take my driver, so I drove
myself. But when I got to Milan the Italians would give me a
car and driveit. So I drove up to Leghorn, which is an
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American base on the west coast of Italy, and I spent the
night there so I knew there were no cards going in as they
go in from every hotel in Europe to the police at 10:00 every
night. And the next day, instead of going straight to Milan,
I remembered a terrific restaurant in Florence where they had
the
get
any
the
best green
to Milan a
difference
Italians.
lasagna I
couple of
because I
have ever eaten. So I thought, I'll
hours later but it doesn't make
don't do anything until tomorrow with
So I drove to Florence, parked in front of the
station, went in and the green lasagna was just as good as ever.
And while I was eating, a man came up to me and clicked his
heels and said, "Senor Colonelo, there have been several changes
in your program in Milan and the Chief of Service wanted you to
get them before you got there." Now since Florence is a city
of 720,000 people and I had not been conscious of anybody follow-
ing me, I concluded I was getting a demonstration from the
Italian service that they knew where I was and what I was doing.
And, indeed they did. Fourteen years later in my present capacity
I went back to Rome and I finished my business with the Italians
on Friday night and I was due in Paris on Monday morning. So
I decided I was going to go up and see my old World War II
battlefields near Florence, so I drove up to Florence with my
assistant and checked in to the hotel and went for a walk. It
was about 1:00 o'clock and I was in the square in front of the
station and I said, "Gee,) Otello's; I wonder if the green lasagna
is still as good." So I went over there and it was still
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as
?
as good. And when we finished eating I called the waiter and
I said, "May I have the bill?" I was in civilian clothes, and
he said, "Senor Generale, there is no bill." I said, "What
do you mean there's no bill? Four of us have just had lunch!"
At that a young man at a neighboring table stood up and he
said, "Senor Generale, in order that you may know that in 12
years the Service has not lost its skill, once again you are
the guest of the Service."
Well, I told this to my French colleague and I could see
that his nose was a little bit out of joint at this. You know,
at this rather remarkable performance by his Italian colleagues.
But at the same time I told him of an unfortunate incident that
had occurred to me. On one of my trips to Paris I had bought
a book, a geography published in Paris in 1754. And it really
was good because it described all the countries in the world
from the French point of view and all the known geography of the
world. It had some interesting comments on the various
countries. For instance, it said "The Germans are very musical
and very intelligent, but they are somewhat warlike. The Russians
are frustrated. Their Prince will not let them travel; they are
great soldiers and take out their frustrations in liquor. The
British have such a high opinion of themselves that they have
no room for a high opinion of anybody else." Well, I left this
book on the airplane coming back to the United States and I was
really put out because I collect old books and this was a really
good one. So I mentioned this to my French colleage and he
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said, "What was the name of this book?" I said, Gee, I can't
remember." He said, "Who wrote it?" I said, "Gee, I can't
remember." He said, "Well, what do you know about it?" Well,
I said, "I remember there was a printed dedication on the flyleaf
to Mademoiselle de Croizat." "Well," he said, "you know, trying
to find the name of a 250-year-old book that you don't know the
name of and you don't know the author of is not the easiest thing
in the world."
Not long ago he paid me a visit. Guess what he put on my
desk? He found one; I don't know where he found it, but he found
a copy. So we do need the help of friendly foreign services and
if friendly foreign services get the feeling that we are exposing
their secrets or their help, we will get no more of it. And the
United States, at least in that respect will be a blind giant.
Now I want to say one more word. I am not an old CIA man;
I have not spent my whole life there, I came there a little
under three years ago and if people ask me what my feelings
are after three years, I can sum them up in one word: reassurance.
I am reassured at the caliber of the people there, I am reassured
at the competence, I am reassured at the continuity, hat I find
there.
To give you one idea that things aren't qkliteas black as
you might wonder. Every two weeks we normally get about 700
applications from young people to work there. In the last two
weeks of January and the first two weeks of February, we got
1750 applications. Some of this is the economy unquestionably,
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some of this is also what the Hollywood actress said, "I don't
care what they say about me as long as they spell my name
right." But there is, in this country, an understanding of
the fact that the United States ?cannot stumble forward into the
future completely blind. Whether we like it or not, there is
a silent battlefield--a silent battlefield of intelligence. We
are conscious of what is going on. People don't notice it
because it isn't noisy. Every morning when I walk into my
office, I look up on the wall and I see the gold stars that
commemorate those members of the organization of which I have
the honor to be Deputy Director who have fallen unsung, unheralded
in the service of their country; and across from them is the motto
of that organization which says: "Ye shall know the truth and the
truth shall make you free."
I think that in the world we live in that that should be
changed slightly: You must know the truth and the truth will
keep you free. There is an old biblical quotation from the
Prophet Isaiah, which I think is applicable to this silent
battlefield, where if America is to live and to go on being
what it is to us, "the home of the brave and the free" as we
said earlier, especially the free. That quotation says:
"Whom shall I send; who will go for us?" Since World War II,
the men of your Intelligence Community: Defense Intelligence
Army Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence, Naval Intelligence,
and Central Intelligence, have said, steadfastly and unerringly,
"Here I am, send me."
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