CONVERSATION WITH SENATOR PERCY, 3 MARCH 1978

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81M00980R001700080057-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Sequence Number: 57
• Content Type: MEMORANDUM FOR

Approved For Release 2006/12/18: CIA-RDP81 M00980R001700080057-4
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8 MAR ;i7
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director, National Foreign Assessment Center
FROM: Director of Central Intelligence
SUBJECT: Conversation with Senator Percy,
3 March 1978
1. On 3 March, I had a discussion with Senator Percy. He would
like to bring the Board of Directors of the "Alliance to Save Energy,"
a non-profit philanthropic organization, to the CIA in April for a
briefing on world energy problems. I agreed that we'd be happy to
provide this briefing. Some of the members of his Board are Henry Ford,
Vernon Jordan, Henry Kissinger, Tom Murphy of General Motors, Dave Packard,
Tom Watson, and Bill Seamans.
2. We will host a luncheon for them and then follow with a 45-minute
briefing to be fillowed by 45 minutes of questions. The date is not yet
firm.
3. I think this would be a marvelous opportunity to revisit our
energy study that was published last March. I think we should emphasize
the critiques we have received on it and what we have done to adapt the
study, how well it has stood up or not stood up, and what needs to be
done. in the future to verify the direction the world energy situation
is going. I'd appreciate receiving something on this soon after I get
back on the 1st of April from my forthcoming trip.
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Approved For Release 2006/12/18: CIA-RDP81 M00980R001700080057-4
 Approved For Release 2006/12/18: CIA-RDP81 M00980R001700080057-4
MACLEAN'S MAGAZINE
Toronto, Canada .
ARTICLE APPEARED 6 March 1978
ON PAGE 46
This is Stansfield Turner. He killed James Bond
Admiral Stansfield Turner may be the
most powerful spy master in all of history.
Not only has he been director of the Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency for the past year,
he now has control over the entire seven-
billion-dollar budget of the United States'
"intelligence" machine. Turner is suave ?
and smug. His commanding manner
comes from years of giving orders that
were obeyed without question. So for
Turner, it's not easy being subjected,as he
is these days,to a barrage of criticism, much
of it from his own agents.
"If you want happy spies,
I'm not here for that," he is
explaining to a large group
of reporters quizzing him
over a hotel breakfast a few
blocks from the White
House. "But if you want ef-
fective spies, I can provide
them. I've made a proles.
sion of leading men and
women. I'm good at it. [By
this time he is banging on
the big oval table.) And I'll
continue to be good at it."
By William Lowihe
Admiral Stansfield Turner-Amherst It is a cold winter morning. Breakfast
College, Annapolis Naval College, doesn't please the admiral. It's not the
Rhodes scholar, U.S. Navy-likes to think _ food, it's the indignity the prospect. of
f hi
lf
o
mse
as Socrates; a cntical, question- being quizzed. He has turned out to eat
ing gadfly. He is more of a Captain Bligh; .with the press only because it's the best lac-
brilliant with a brutal streak. He has a bar.. tic fora bad time. His public image is ap.
Eel chest and a red, seafaring face. Silver palling, but his prospects are enormous.
sideburns and a rugged profile. And an He is out to change the course, the direc-
abrasive style and a cannonball diplomacy Lion, the aims, of U.S. espionage. It's a sub-
that have made him notorious since Presi- stantial objective. And he might well
dent Jimmy Carter brought him into the achieve it.
CIA directorship a year ago this month. He was Carter's second choice for the
CIA job-the first was liberal'lawyer and
onetime Kennedy aide Theodore Soren-
sen, but the Senate wouldn't have him.
Tumerseemed more respectable. Yet de-
spite a distinguished naval career, he was
something of an unknown quantity. And
that's the way, you might reason, it should
have stayed. After all, spies don't normally
seek a high profile. But this one is different.
The ciA was in a mess when he arrived.
Three years of congressional probes and
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of the more secret secret places (above),
a standardclipboard, and a bum basket
Prime Minister what the President thinks'
the Prime Minister ought to know. What
emerges from Langley in the form of ana-
lytical reports is known in espionage jar-
gon as the Cia's "product:" Behind almost
every sentence lies extensive backup from
deep-cover agents, spy-in-the-sky satel-
lites and economic, political and social
"observers:' And the admiral's new
course, insofar as he is allowed to take it,
will naturally be reflected in the flow of in-
formation from Washington. And that, as
can be demonstrated, may not be for the
best.
Normally, the "product" is kept top se-
cret. But now, so much do so many dis-
approve of Turner that his blunders have
been leaked in the hope they will do him
political harm.
Item: Back last summer, Soviet Am-
bassador Anatoly Dobrynin told Carter
that Moscow had evidence the South Afri-
can government was building an atomic
test site in the Kalahari Desert. This prob-
ably meant that Pretoria had The Bomb
and was ready to surprise the world with a
demonstration. Carter called Turner. In
line with his policy of de-emphasizing day-
to-day world watching, the agency had not
been giving-top priority to searching the
details of satellite photographs. But the
Kalahari Desert was rechecked on that,
week's pictures and there itwas-evidence
that a nuclear site was under construction.
The United States' was embarrassed at
being beaten by its rival and Pretoria was
subjected to such a barrage of diplomatic
pressure that it dropped (so to speak) its
bomb arrangements.
Item: Last summer the admiral reported
publicly what he had been telling the Pres-
ident privately for weeks, that Soviet grain
morning and spends half an hour alone
with Carter on Tuesdays and Fridays. He
often sits in on Monday morning cabinet
meetings. That schedule of Oval Office ac-
cess-equalled only (outside of personal
staff) by Vice-President Walter Mondale
and national security affairs adviser Zbig.
niew Brzezinski-is graphic indication of
the admiral's influence.
Despite his continued faith.- however,
the President is worried about the CIA's
personnel problems. And for this reason
he has upset the admiral by appointing
Frank Carlucci. 47, to a powerful "deputy
director" post. In an effort to reestablish
the long lost agency morale. Carlucci. will
take over "day-to-day operating responsi-
bilities." Carlucci is something of a mys-
terious figure himself: Before his latest job
he was ambassador to Portugal and had
previously worked as a domestic polity
maker in the Nixon administration. 1-1
t&
was assigned to the U.S. embassy in
Congo at a time when the ctA was plan.; s
assassinations there. "I was not aware
nobody talked to me about the plot to ` ;.
Congolese premier Patrice Lumumb.3,
Carlucci said recently. However, the wel-
come he is getting. from old CIA hands has
given rise to some suspicion that this is not
Carlucci's first connection with the agency.
With an effectivedeputy in place the ad-
miral is expected to spend more. firne now
working on budget and major policy pro-
posals, keeping as much away from direct
contact with the spies as possible. There
seems little doubt that his ambition is still
to become navy secretary or chairman of
the joint chiefs of staff. Both these jobs
Back at the reporters' breakfast, Turner
is cooling down. "Look," he says, "the CIA
has been run like a family business for 3t`
years. We need a personnel managernei=
system that is run on a non-familiar basis,
',am very excited about thefuture of U.S.
telligence. A strong momentum is gather -
ing behind me now. There'snothingwron,
with agency morale,:' The admiral's last
sentence is uttered more as an order than
-as a statement of fact.
lion tons. The United States has a five-year
contract to sell Russia eight million tons of
grain each year at a fixed price. Any addi-
tional purchases are supposed to be at a
higher cost per ton. Then suddenly Soviet
leader. Leonid Brezhnev announced that
grain production would in fact be misera-
bly low-just 194 million tons. At the same
time it emerged that Moscow had already
bought an extra 15 million tons of U.S.
grain through European agents. And they
had done it at the usual low price, thus sav-
ing themselves a fortune. If Turner had
been able to report the real state of affairs,
that the Soviet crop was poor, extra grain
sales would have been more closely
watched and the Kremlin would have been
forced to pay perhaps another $100 mil-
lion. But, just as important, the President
could have used the need for grain as a chip
in the ongoing SALT negotiations. It was a
bad boob. One former White House aide
commented: "We can tolerate a certain
margin of error. But if all Admiral
Turner's satellites, meteorologists, de-
briefers and spies can be so wrong about
the way the grain is growing or rotting in
open fields in the Ukraine, can we be con-
fident of his recent intelligence estimates in
more sensitive and more closely guarded
areas like the production and development
of intercontinental missiles?"
It is nearly impossible to make a valued
comparison between Turner and former
CIA directors-except that he may be the
first with a deep sense of public morality..
There is no way that he would condone or
allow clandestine operations abroad that
were not approved directly by the Presi-
dent. There will be no more assassination
attempts. No more domestic spying.
And this is at least one of the reasons
why he continues to enjoy Carter's con-