THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY TODAY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84B00148R000100240012-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 23
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 5, 2007
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: October 15, 1981
• Content Type: REPORT

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I 1 .
OFFICE OF CORPORATE & FOUNDATION RELATIONS
Box 1893
[phone]
The Hon. William J. Casey
Director of Central Intelligence
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D.C. 20505
Dear Mr. Casey:
I thought you might like a few copies of the transcript of your
15 October 1981 address at Brown.
Kirk is now fully recuperated and sends his very best regards.
In June or July, we are planning a surprise retirement party for Kirk,
to which we will send you an invitation. We hope that if you are in
the area you will be able to attend. If not, however, we trust you
will send special greetings on the occasion.
Ronald D.`V en Dorpel
Associate Oi ector,
... NO. ?V
23Y8 238 USE PRIOUS
7-? EDITIONS
DOCUMENT CONTROL (13-40)
MFG 7-81
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 Approved For Release 2007/06/05 : CIA-RDP84B00148R000100240012-7
The John M. Olin
Distinguished Lecture Series
at Brown University
"The U.S. Intelligence Community Today"
The Second Lecture in the John M. Olin Distinguished
Lecture Series at Brown University
October 15, 1981
William J. Casey, Director of Central Intelligence
Introduction by Dr. Newell M. Stultz, Professor of Political Science
and Director of the Council for International Studies
Newell Stultz: Good evening. My name is Newell Stultz and I am the moderator of
this evening's meeting. I will shortly introduce Mr. Casey, but before that, let
me make a few preliminary remarks. First of all, we are sitting down here, rather
than standing up, because Mr. Casey has recently broken his leg and it is more
comfortable for him, particularly after a long day, to remain seated. Second, Mr.
Casey must leave for Washington at 9:30, and so we will try to finish as close to
that time as possible. He has assured me that his remarks should take no more than
half an hour, leaving, we hope, ample time for questions and comments from the floor.
It seems obvious from the documents that were put in my hands as I came in that
there are those among you who may share ideas different from those that Mr. Casey
may shortly announce. I assume there may be others who do share Mr. Casey's views
and perhaps some in between. This university has a long tradition of respect and
adherance to free and civil speech, and with your help we will continue that tradi-
tion this evening. With that end in view, Dean John Robinson is prepared to take
the names of persons who would like to address a question or a brief comment to the
speaker when he has finished his remarks. And alternating between recognizing
Box 1893
Providence, Rhode Island 02912
401863-2071
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persons on the floor and names that John will later give me, we will try as fairly
as we can to accommodate those of you who would like to say something.
Having said that, I will not delay introducing our speaker, for I doubt that
any of you are unaware of the high position Mr. Casey holds in the present Adminis-
tration. However, you may not know that he is the first Director of Central
Intelligence since the founding of this position to have been designated by the
President as a Cabinet Officer. And he is thus the first sitting Cabinet Officer
to have visited our campus since at least 1964 when President Johnson came to
Brown to help celebrate our 200th anniversary.
You may also not know that before his present assignment, Mr. Casey was, at
various times, at age 31 Chief of all American Secret Intelligence Operations in
Europe before the fall of Hitler, Associate General Counsel at the European head-
quarters of the Marshall Plan, Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission,
U.S. Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs, President of the Export-Import
Bank, and recently Manager of both Primary and General Election Campaigns for Presi-
dent Reagan. In addition to this, he has, at various times, won the Bronze Star,
run for Congress, practiced law in New York, served as a Trustee of his own Alma
Mater, Fordham University, and (as if that weren't enough), written several books,
the most recent being entitled Where and How the War Was Fought: An Armchair Tour
of the American Revolution. Quite obviously, due to this wealth of experience over
four decades, Mr. Casey is superbly qualified to be the speaker on tonight's topic,
"The U.S. Intelligence Community Today." Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the
Honorable William J. Casey, Director of Central Intelligence.
William J. Casey: Thank you. I'm pleased to have such an interested audience with
such diverse views, and I will try to hold your interest. I plan tonight to tell
you something about American intelligence yesterday, today and tomorrow. There
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was a time, only forty years ago, when a New York lawyer named William J. Donovan
was a one-man CIA for Franklin Roosevelt. His World War I Congressional Medal of
Honor and his nickname, "Wild Bill," implanted on him the image of a swashbuckling
adventurer. In reality, he was a mild, soft-spoken, gentle man whose deepest inter-
est was intelligence. As the outstanding investigative lawyer of his time, Donovan
had learned how to gather a huge array of facts, sift and analyze them, assess
their meaning, arrive at a conclusion, and present it vividly. And he persuaded
President Roosevelt that it would be critical in fighting a global war and preserv-
ing the peace, to develop and apply this talent and ability on a worldwide scale.
By the time Pearl Harbor came, Donovan had gathered hundreds of the finest scholars
in America and had them processing geographic, scientific, political, and military
information in the Library of Congress. Two years later, he had scoured our campus-
es and mobilized thousands of the finest scholars in America. He also assembled
what had to be the most diverse aggregation ever assembled of tycoons and scientists,
bankers and foreign correspondents, psychologists and football stars, circus mana-
gers and circus freaks, safe crackers, lock pickers and pick-pockets, playwrights
and journalists, novelists and professors of literature, advertising and broad-
casting talents. He drew on the great American melting pot to create small teams
of Italo-Americans, Franco-Americans, Norwegian-Americans, Slavic-Americans, and
Greek-Americans. What was done with this array of talent? It was used to create
intelligence networks behind German lines, to support the resistance forces which
oppression always creates, to bring defected enemy officers over to our side, and
to manipulate the mind of the enemy through deception and psychological warfare.
But above all and beyond all of this, he created a machinery to evaluate, sift,
and analyze. And it's important to understand what intelligence is, and that it
has many facets. It is a very uncertain, fragile and complex commodity. First,
you have to get a report which has some facts. Then you have to decide whether
 it is real or fake. Then, whether it's true or false as you find out what other
intelligence supports or contradicts it. Then you have to fit it into a broad
mosaic, and figure out what it all means. You then have to get the attention of
someone who can make a decision, and then you have to get that person to act. That's
the way it was at the inception of modern American intelligence, when Professor
Lyman Kirkpatrick and I were in the O.S.S. together, and that, at bottom, is the
way it is today.
I had the privilege of working together with Professor Kirkpatrick, whom I
know many of you know, about forty years ago, and I regret that I am unable to see
him on this occasion (in fact, this is the only time that I have gone out of Wash-
ington to make a speech, and I did it because Kirk twisted my arm, and I'm glad I'm
here, so far). Kirk is a remarkable fellow. He very quickly, upon arriving in
London, came to know more about the German order-of-battle than anybody else. He
was a leader in building the O.S.S. analytical capability, and then General Bradley
took him as his briefing officer. Then he spent a great many years building and
developing the organizational structure which today is the CIA, all before he went
on to his distinguished academic career. Over the years, Kirk and my predecessors,
the Directors of Central Intelligence, have changed intelligence and made it much
more than a simple spy service. They developed a great center of scholarship and
research, with as many doctors and masters in every kind of art and science as any
university campus. They have produced a triumph of technology stretching from the
depths of the oceans to the very limits of outer space. Using photography, elec-
tronics, acoustics and other technological marvels, we learn things totally hidden
on the other side of the world. In the SALT debate, for example, Americans openly
discuss the details of Soviet missiles which are held secret in the Soviet Union,
but are thoroughly revealed by the intelligence capabilities we have developed over
the years.
 The highest duty of a Director of Central Intelligence is to produce solid
and perceptive national intelligence estimates which are relevant to the issues
with which the President and the National Security Council need to concern them-
selves. When General Walter Bedell Smith, a long time ago, took office as Director
of Central Intelligence, he was told that President Truman was leaving in twenty
hours to consult General MacArthur at Wake Island about the Korean War. Truman
wanted seven separate intelligence estimates to study on the plane as he went to
his meeting. Smith assembled the chiefs of the intelligence community in the Penta-
gon at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, divided them and their staff into seven
groups, told them they would work all night, and have their assigned estimate ready
for delivery at eight a.m. President Truman had his estimates as he took off for
his discussion with General MacArthur.
Now, we do it a little differently these days, but this all-night session can
be said to have given the American intelligence community its baptism of fire.
Today, we have a National Foreign Intelligence Board that we call the NFIB. Every
week, seated around the table are the chiefs of the Defense Intelligence Agency,
the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force intelligence services, the FBI, the CIA, the
State Department's intelligence and research division, and the Departments of Energy
and Treasury intelligence services. These men sit as a board of estimates.
(At this point, Mr. Casey's address was disrupted by approximately 20 radical stu-
dents and ex-students who recited the nonsensical Lewis Carroll poem, "Jabberwocky."
This disruption, in turn, was loudly booed by other students in the audience.)
Mr. Casey: When that entertainment began, we were just concluding a meeting of the
National Foreign Intelligence Board, as I remember. I was telling you that these
men sit around the table and thrash out their views and their differences to arrive
at an estimate. Each of these people has an apparatus which collects and analyzes
information to see that his special perspective is reflected in what goes to the
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President and the National Security Council. And each of them is in charge of a
sizeable apparatus which is responsible for military intelligence, for political
intelligence, for nuclear intelligence, for communication intelligence, and for
photographic intelligence. All together, all these apparatuses--i.e., various
organizations--make up what we know today as the American intelligence community.
Over the years and particularly during the last decade, a lot of criticism has
been levied at the national intelligence estimates that are produced. Much of this
is based on unrealistic expectations of what an intelligence service can do. It
does not have powers of prophecy. It has no crystal ball that can peer into the
future; it is dealing with probable developments. Now if we can't expect infallible
prophecy from the nation's large investment in intelligence, what can we expect? We
can expect foresight; we can expect a careful definition of possibilities; we can
expect professional analysis which probes and weighs probabilities and assesses
their implication. We can expect analyses that assist policymakers in devising ways
to prepare for and cope with the full range of these probabilities. The President
doesn't need a single best view, a guru, or a prophet. The Nation needs the best
analysis and the full range of views it can get. And the process of analysis and
arriving at estimates therefore needs to be as open and competitive as possible. We
need to resist the bureaucratic urge for consensus. We don't need analysts spending
their time finding a middle ground or weaseling words to conceal disagreement. Their
time needs to go into evaluating information, searching for meaning and the implica-
tions of events and trends, and expressing both their conclusions and their disagree-
ments clearly. A search to unify the intelligence community around a single estimate
serves policymakers badly. It buries valid differences, forcing the intelligence
product to the lowest and the blandest common denominator. Search for consensus
also cultivates the myth of infallibility by implicitly promising a reliability that
cannot really be delivered, and too frequently it deprives the intelligence product
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of relevance and the policymaker of the range of possibilities for which prudence
requires that he prepare. Above all, the policymaker needs to be protected from
the conventional wisdom.
Let me give you a couple of horrible examples. Before there was a CIA, Senator
Bian McMann of Connecticut and Louis Storrs, then a member of the Atomic Energy
Commission, performed one of the most important intelligence missions in the his-
tory of our nation. Together they insisted that we had to develop a program to
monitor and detect all large explosions anywhere on the globe. And the first chance
to develop this kind of system was offered by atomic tests to be held in the Pacific
in the spring of 1948. A detection system was devised by the end of 1948, but the
Air Force found itself short of funds to procure the necessary instrumentation to
do this monitoring job. About a million dollars would be needed to get it started.
Contracts had to be readied at once so that the instruments would be ready in time.
Louis Storrs, a great patriot and Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, obli-
gated himself personally for that million dollars so that the contract could be made
firm in time. This effort was launched in the very nick of time, and in September
it established that an atomic explosion had occurred somewhere in the Asiatic main-
land and on some date between August 26th and August 29th in 1949. Now, had there
been no monitoring system in operation in 1949, the Russian success in detonating
an atomic weapon in that summer would have been unknown to us. In consequence, we
would have made no attempt to develop a thermonuclear weapon. It was our positive
intelligence that the Russians had exploded an atomic bomb which generated the recom-
mendation to develop a qualitatively superior hydrogen bomb in order to maintain our
military superiority. On January 30, 1950, Truman made a decision to build the
H-Bomb, and we were able to test our first Hydrogen Bomb in November of 1952. The
Russians tested their first weapon involving an H-Bomb the following August. Had
we relied on the conventional wisdom that the Soviets just didn't have the nuclear
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capability, their success in developing a hydrogen bomb capability in 1953 would
have found the United States helplessly outdistanced. The Soviet military would
have been in possession of weapons vastly more powerful and devastating than any
we had. Another example, early in 1962: John Mc Cone, newly-arrived as Director
of Central Intelligence, saw reports coming in about the arrival of anti-aircraft
weapons in Cuba. What are they there to protect, he wondered. There are no tar-
gets there now--sugar--but nothing deserving that kind of protection. He concluded
that there had to be an intention to bring something in which might be attacked by
us, and hence, which would need to be defended. Thus, he was many months ahead of
anyone in Washington in predicting the possibility that the Russians might base
offensive missiles in Cuba. When Cuban refugees brought reports of large missiles
being brought in and installed in Cuba, McCone took this as confirmation of his
forecast, while everyone else in Washington dismissed him on the basis that the
Soviets would never do anything so foolish---until the U2 photographs came in dis-
closing the missiles in a manner which could not be denied.
I tell you these stories to emphasize that protection against the conventional
wisdom is essential and the CIA, military intelligence, and every other element of
the intelligence community should not only be allowed to compete and surface differ-
ences, but should be encouraged to do so. The time has come to recognize that the
policymakers can easily sort through a wide range of opinions, but they cannot con-
sider views that they do not receive. The time has also come to recognize that
the intelligence community has no monopoly on truth, on insight and on initiative
in foreseeing what will be relevant to policy. For that reason, we are in the pro-
cess of reconstituting a President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, made up
of strong and experienced individuals with a wide range of relevant backgrounds.
To get all of the intelligence we need, we must reach out beyond the formal intel-
ligence organizations. We have got to tap the scholarly resources of the nation
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and the perspectives and insights developed from business and other activities
around the world. We are geared to do that in open and direct contact with the cam-
puses, the think tanks, and the business organizations around the country. We will
need to do this even more in the future to cope with the intelligence requirements
of our increasingly complex and dangerous world as it generates new threats. Back
at the O.S.S., we were lucky. We were doing pretty well if we knew where the enemy
was and how he was really deploying his forces. That was the extent of the task.
For the first twenty years of peace-time intelligence, most of the efforts went into
understanding the production and capabilities of weapons. It is only in the last
decade that it has dawned upon us that we have been threatened and damaged more by
coups, by subversion, and by economic agression, than by military force. So, while
we still devote a large slice of effort to military estimates--we rely heavily on
them in formulating defense budgets, weapons development of force structures--they
have to be supplemented by increased efforts to assess economic vulnerabilities,
search for technological breakthroughs, and increasing the priority attention that
will go to the need to identify social and political instabilities and how they can
or are being exploited by propaganda, by subversion, or by terrorism.
Now let me say a few words about what we face. Our first priority is still the
Soviet Union. It's been the number one adversary for 35 years; it's the only coun-
try in the world with major weapons systems directly targeted at the United States
which could destroy it in half-an-hour. For that reason alone, it remains the num-
ber one target. Less lethal, but perhaps more dangerous, is the threat of world-
wide subversion and insurrection and tiny wars of so-called national liberation.
Over the last five years, we have seen the combination of Cuban manpower, Libyan
money, and Soviet arms and transport substantially seize and thoroughly threaten
the African continent from Angola to Ethiopia and across the Sudan and Chad and to
the western Sahara. We have seen the same forces take over Nicaragua and threaten
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to infiltrate all of Central America. We have seen the crossroads and the oil
resources of the Middle East threatened from Iran and Afghanistan in the east, Syria
from the north, Yemen from the south, and Libya from the west.
There are many levels at which the Soviet Union challenges us today. First,
there is the strategic arena, in which the increasing accuracy and the power of So-
viet missiles thoroughly threatens the survival ability of our own land-based mis-
siles, and this has led to a Presidential decision to accelerate the strengthening
of our air and sea capability and to basically defer the decision on the basing of
the more powerful land-based missiles until the role that anti-missile defense and
cruise missiles can play in maintaining our current capability can be more thorough-
ly reviewed and assessed. Secondly, on the Central European front, Soviet and
Warsaw pact forces vastly outnumber by four- and three-to-one NATO forces in tanks,
planes, and troops. Thirdly, in the ability to project military power over long
distances, the Soviets, together with their Cuban proxies, have demonstrated a
capability in Angola and in Ethiopia, while the rapid deployment force we have re-
cently created remains untested. In numbers and experience and freedom to act, the
ability of the Soviets to survey other governments and propagandize in other coun-
tries is unrivaled. A few years ago, the United States was providing twice as much
military equipment to Third World countries as the Soviet Union. Today the Soviet
Union is providing 50% more equipment to a larger number of Third World countries;
military advice and influence go along with these relationships. The Soviets,
along with East European satellites, Libya, Cuba, and the P.L.O., engage in the
widespread training of guerrilla fighters and terrorists, and sometimes use them
with de-stabilized governments, thus laying the ground for their support of revolu-
tionary violence. Large and specialized segments of the KGB and the Soviet mili-
tary intelligence known as the GRU, together with trained and scientific delegations
roaming the advanced world, are acquiring western technology and using it to build
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a military threat which we will have to defend against and to reduce the drain which
that process imposes on the Soviet economy at a rate which we have only recently
come to realize. Only recently have we come to realize the enormous advantage and
enormous cost that the theft and illegal acquisition of our own technology imposes
on us as we have to defend against the things that we created ourselves.
So this is the range of the threat. So much of it new and beyond the tradi-
tional range of capabilities of western intelligence which we are now called upon
to deal with. To meet it, we need to develop economic, psychological, and scien-
tific capabilities, as well as political and military research facilities. Having
the ability to exercise influence in the world requires a strong industrial base.
And there are tough questions to ask ourselves about what's happening to that base:
where is our economy really headed? For example, what will the increasing globali-
zation of the automobile industry do to the industrial base on which we must depend
for national defense? How will the attrition of our computer and semiconductor
industries, under the impact of the drive the Japanese have mounted to capture this
market, undermine our defense capability? And how will it affect our ability to
make our way in the world, through the manufacture of machinery and equipment which
will be increasingly controlled and guided by microprocessors and which the Japanese
may soon outdistance us in producing? And if the French, Germans, and Japanese,
and less developed countries, like Korea and Brazil, convert more rapidly than the
United States from fossil fuels to other kinds of energy, how rapidly will lower
power costs in those countries be converted into important competitive advantages
in manufacturing costs?
Now, let me sum up briefly; what do we see if we look around at the world?
We see a Soviet Union, rapidly building its military strength, as ours has been
permitted to decline. We see the United States falling behind in economic competi-
tiveness, as the Japanese and Germans save, invest, and innovate more, and Koreans,
 Singaporeans, Taiwanese, Brazilians, and Mexicans all increase their share of the
world market as our share diminishes. We see political and economic instability
in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, where we get the fuel and the min-
erals to keep our economy going. And the Soviet Union, with its Cuban, East German,
Libyan, and Syrian proxies, demonstrates a remarkable ability to exploit these in-
stabilities by well-orchestrated subversion and paramilitary operations, conducted
with guerrilla fighters they train, equip and direct. And we see large numbers of
tanks and guns, stockpiled in Syria, Libra and Yemen, on the fringe of the Arab
Peninsula, and transported to Cuba, Angola and Ethiopia, and used in Chad, Lebanon,
El Salvador, and Guatemala. Now, I'm not here to frighten you, but to say that the
world is full of economic, political, and military dangers which need to be taken
seriously and watched closely, and to say, finally, that the outlook is not all
black. Russia has fallen into a hornet's nest in Afghanistan, where after 18 months,
freedom fighters are able to contain Soviet troops to half-a-dozen cities and to
their barracks at night; they dare not walk out in the streets at night. And in
Poland, the Soviet Union has been caught in a dilemma between concern that develop-
ments there could unravel the Communist system, while on the other hand, brutal
suppression would entail heavy economic and political costs and bring bloodshed and
prolonged resistance from militant Poles. In addition, the Soviet Union's economy
gasps under its inherent inefficiencies and the burden of enormous military expen-
ditures; and the many billions each year given to Cuba and Viet Nam, to providing
cut-rate oil to East European satellites, and to paying for its huge, worldwide
propaganda and troublemaking machines for sprinkling guns around Africa, the Middle
East, and Central America. What will count here and around the world is a renewal
of confidence, among our people and among other nations, in the strength of purpose
and the reliability of the United States to do what needs to be done to make our
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own society stronger and more efficient, and to work efficiently with our friends
and allies in support of freedom and justice around the world.
Thank you.
Stultz: In the interest of having as many people as possible have a chance to say
what's on their mind, either in the form of a question, or, please, a brief state-
ment, would you make your question or remarks as brief a period as possible.
Q: Mr. Casey, there was an article in the London Times over the summer; it was
talking about relative strengths, and usefulness of the armed forces. What it was
saying was that the three services, meaning the Navy, the Army and the Air Force,
are no longer necessary--they're obsolete at this moment. With the new regard to
the threat in the Third World and feeling that in Europe they are no longer neces-
sary, what the author was talking about, instead, was that he said a new force is
necessary; something that's designed on two levels, one, a conventional level, one
a strategic level. As far as the conventional level goes, it should be organized
not on divisions or armies or corps or anything else; instead, on a brigade level,
and it should be very fluid so it can be organized to be moved to the Third World...
Casey: Could you sum it up in a question, please?
Q: The question is: they're talking about brigade levels and being fluid enough
so that they can be used in the Third World or in Europe whenever it's necessary.
What are your feelings on this, is this a realistic thing; are you looking at this,
or what?
Casey: I don't understand your question.
Q: The question is: what are your views on this? Do you think the three forces
are obsolete and should be replaced by a conventional and a strategic force which
would be fluid enough to be used in the Third World, as well as in Europe when
necessary?
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Casey: I think you're saying that--what are my views as to whether we should put
more effort into conventional arms which can be used anywhere, Third World or else-
where, instead of only in Europe. Is that right?
No, I was talking more about whether or not the three forces are obsolete or
Casey: Obsolete?
Q: Obsolete and instead should be replaced by these two forces, one being stra-
tegic, one being conventional?
A: Of course, weapons systems are always getting obsolete. I don't think I have
any comment on that.
that it was very important. My concern is with CIA activity within the United
States, and I have a question about that. President Reagan is speaking of cutting
back on federally-funded programs to aid education; for example, tuition tax credit
and student loans for college students. I feel that programs such as these are far
more valuable to the institution of democracy than internal workings of the CIA
within the United States.
Casey: I agree with you.
Q (cont.): How do you explain the reason for the fact that the CIA, according to
these articles, wishes to expand their program, whereas other programs that I feel,
and I'm sure all of us as members of the University, feel are more important?
A: Well, I can assure you that the CIA has no intention and no desire to operate
within the United States. The sole purpose of the CIA is to acquire foreign intel-
ligence for the purpose of guiding federal policy and national security policy of
the United States. Those articles are way out of focus. There is an interest in
modifying the executive order and releasing some restrictions, in order to facili-
 15 -
tate Americans in the United States who want to support this foreign activity.
But there is no intention, and there will be no spying or activity on the part of
the CIA in the United States.
Q (cont.): This was given to me before: it's the New York Times, Tuesday, Octo-
ber 6, 1981, and the headline reads: "Reagan Draft Order Said to Allow Wider
Intelligence Activity in the United States"--it appears to me that there are two
conflicting stories; one is from the New York Times---
Casey: Well, the New York Times does not have a 100% record of infallibility in
understanding what it says.
Questioner: Thank you very much.
Q: Mr. Casey, according to the new Reagan order, the Central Intelligence Agency
will no longer have to "reasonably believe that the United States citizens and
corporations living abroad are agents of foreign power involved in terrorism or
involved in drug traffic to be put under surveillance"--does this provision not
violate civil liberties of Americans living abroad?
A: No, I don't think it does. I think it's necessary if we're going to really
follow up and investigate and learn about terrorism or terroristic espionage activ-
ities on the part of Americans abroad.
Q (cont.): So you justify violating the civil liberties?
A: No, I justify authorized self-defense where it's necessary. If you have to
know that a person is engaged in espionage before you can find out, you are at a
dead end. All we're saying here is if it's done in the course of a legitimate,
authorized foreign intelligence investigation, you can follow and investigate the
activities of Americans abroad. It is not an established civil liberty to do any-
thing you want abroad, without constitutional authority trying to find out what
you're doing.
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Q: The problem of Soviet-U.S. conflict has been a lot more popular in the news in
the last few years during the Reagan Administration's tenure, and I'm concerned
about the use of Mr. Reagan's propaganda that most of our foreign policy problems
can be reduced to this U.S.-Soviet conflict. I'd like you to address problems in
Latin America and especially our support for Nicaragua and some of the other--well,
you can choose your own country. I'd like to think that the United States can have
a constructive role in South America, one in which we don't necessarily decide
who's in power, or supply military weapons, or other types of support for govern-
ments that we may not find morally acceptable, but which may be our friends. What
kind of a role do you think the United States has to play in South America, Latin
America, and what kind of role does the CIA have to play there?
A: Well, the CIA's role is one of evaluating what's going on in those countries,
and what's happening. The United States' policy is to work with those countries
in South America to have positive political and economic relations with them. Where
some of them are under attack, where weapons and intervention from outside is occur-
ring, as it is occurring in some countries in Central America, we have been helping
those governments build up the ability to defend themselves and maintain order in
their country.
Q: But do you consider that many of those governments are not reflective of the
wishes of the people that live in those countries?
A: Well, we're encouraging elections in those countries in order to find that out.
Q (cont.): I don't find that the situation in El Salvador has been conducive to
elections.
A: Well, they do have a government, which like most governments, seeks a renewal
of its mandate by having an election. There's nothing extraordinary about it.
Questioner: Well, our government doesn't eliminate those opposed to it, we hope.
Thank you, sir.
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of questions for you. You, tonight, mentioned that the Soviets have 3-4 times the
number of tanks and planes in eastern Europe and the Pentagon study recently re-
leased gives similar figures, but I'm more interested in comparative figures. For
instance, can you tell me the number of tanks the United States has, and our capa-
bility in anti-tank weapons?
A: Oh, I haven't got the numbers, exactly, but I think it's something like 12,000
tanks on the NATO side and 50,000 on the Soviet Warsaw pact side.
Q (cont.): Can you indicate whether the United States is superior, inferior, or
comparable in its technological anti-tank warfare capabilties? And would this off-
set the Soviet advantage in tank numbers?
A: Well, we hipe it does. We do our best to make it. We do worry about this.
We have a superior technological capability; we have superior research and develop-
ment capability; but, the Soviets are very good at somehow acquiring the advantages
that we build into our weaponry. They get it very quickly and they develop counter-
measures, so it's a continuing race. I agree that numbers are not everything.
Quality is important, and in some respects we're ahead qualitatively, and in some
respects they are.
Q: I'm wondering how the United States intelligence community, with its nuclear
task force, makes its estimates on Soviet submarine capabilities and United States
ICBM vulnerabilities, because your statement tonight indicated that the United States
was quite vulnerable in the ICBM leg of the triad. I'd like to know where you get
your estimates of Soviet circular area of probability, and their capability of knock-
ing out our ICMBs, and how you make these estimates as accurate as possible?
A: Well, I really can't go into that. It's very technical; we have experts who
spend all of their time doing it, and there are methodologies which we don't talk
 about publicly. So I can only give you the conclusion on that, and I think it's
generally agreed. I see no dispute about the contention that the Soviet missiles
are getting increasingly accurate and increasingly have the capability of striking
and knocking out most of our missiles in the first strike.
Q: Mr. Casey, in a Washington Post article of October 13th, the most recent pro-
posal. from the Reagan Administration to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
was discussed. Whereas the first draft included a provision insuring that the CIA's
investigation would guard against violations of civil liberties, the most recent
eliminates this provision altogether, replacing it with a call for a more "agressive"
CIA, which will "protect basic American principles." Please give us a specific
explanation as to why the clause protecting civil liberties was eliminated, and also
if you wouldn't mind, explain what your agency means by basic American values.
A: Well, anybody can quarrel with the way that order is designed. It seeks to
simplify the requirements and simplify the operation, so that the people who are
working under it will not be deterred by complex legalities that they may not under-
stand, and it provides that all activities are to be conducted under the law and the
Constitution. It provides that the Attorney General will have to authorize many
areas of activity. Those are the precautions to see that the activity is conducted
under the law. The purpose of the law and the Constitution is to protect civil
liberties.
Q (cont.): But, Mr. Casey, why have civil liberties at all if they are not going
to be enforced?
A: Who said they're not going to be enforced?
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19 -
ties, and the Constitution with its Bill of Rights, which establishes those civil
Q: Mr. Casey, you've stated that you believe the CIA should be exempt from the
Freedom of Information Act. The Act has been used to provide the public with infor-
mation regarding many controversial CIA activities. Such information is crucial in
a democracy, helping to keep government officials accountable to the people. As
you know, there are already nine exemptions which allow agencies to avoid disclosing
information, including both national defense and foreign policy. Given these exemp-
tions, what is your rationale for desiring total exemption from the Act?
A: Simply because it's impossible to effectively command the cooperation of other
governments and people who go out and undertake intelligence missions if they feel
that their identity and information they provide us with is subject to demand on the
part of any hostile force, or any hostile government. We have confidentiality of
doctors, priests, tax returns, many other segments of our society protected by law,
and if we are to have an effective intelligence apparatus as a first line of defense
we have to have confidentiality with the information we get and with our relation-
ships with people who work for us similarly protected.
Q (cont.): Again, if there are already two exemptions dealing with national secu-
rity and foreign policy, why do you think you deserve total exemption which would
basically make you above accountability from the people?
Casey: I thought I just explained that.
Q (cont.): I think what you mentioned comes under both national security and
foreign policy, the two provisions, so I'd like to know why you think you need total
exemption?
A: I suppose we have a disagreement on this.
Questioner: Yes, there is. Thank you.
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Q: My question concerns nuclear capabilities; nuclear armaments. I hear increas-
ingly in the last couple of years about the idea of a limited nuclear exchange.
I'm sure you're familiar with it. My question is not your agency's predictions,
but your considerations, Mr. Casey. Do you think that that is a possible occur-
rence? Do you see it as--I hate the word--viable?
Casey: Do I see what as a possible occurrence?
Q: A limited nuclear exchange, like between the United States and the Russians,
there's talk about maybe killing ten or twenty or thirty million people on each
side. Do you see this as a possible route? Do you see this as a feasible occur-
rence?
A: I hope not. It would be a devastating occurrence.
Q: Do you see, then, the possibility of a full-scale exchange?
A: It's certainly possible. I hope it doesn't occur; I don't think it will occur,
but it's possible.
Q (cont.): And you don't think that it's possible that a limited exchange could
take place?
A: As I said, it's possible that any exchange could take place. When you have
two sets of weapons, it's possible. I don't think it's likely unless you have a
madman on one side. The question is, would _dolf Hitler have fired a nuc ?.. >aapon
if he had one?
Q: My question is one of interpretation, and I'll keep it simple. In your synop-
sis of world resistance movements, you mentioned the two movements now facing the
Soviet Union: Afghanistan was composed of freedom fighters fighting the Soviet
Union and the Polish resistance movement was brutally repressed. The resistance
movements facing the United States were being manipulated by the Soviet Union and
their agents. My question is this: do you think that in all the resistance move-
 Approved For Release 2007/06/05 : CIA-RDP84B00148R000100240012-7
ments around the world the United States is always on the side of the people? Or
do you think that the exact opposite is the case? Thank you.
A: Well, that's a rather sweeping question.
Q (cont.): Would you have us believe that the United States is genuinely on the
side of people's resistance movements around the world? In South America, for
example? In Europe?
A: I can't answer questions like that; you have to give me specifics.
A: I think--
Q (continuing to interrupt): Recently, Iran? Chile?
Casey: Do you want to make a speech or do you want to ask a question?
Q: No, I was being specific.
A: You talk about El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala; there's no question there
that those resistance movements have been organized from the outside, and are being
supplied from the outside.
Q: Do you believe that those resistance movements have no support from the people
at all? Do you believe that we have the support of the people?
A: They have support of some people, certainly. Of course they do; there are
some people in there fighting. But there is an established government and the in-
surgency wouldn't have the magnitude it has if there wasn't outside support and if
weapons and trained people and leaders were not being sent in from other countries.
Q: Does the United States--
Casey continuing: We are helping these people defend themselves.
Q: Has the United States ever engaged in such activities?
A: Well, there was the American Revolution.
 Stultz: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This brings our meeting to a close.
Great universities exhibit their greatness by how they deal with controversial ideas.
With your help and Mr. Casey's help, I hope we have maintained Brown's tradition
for greatness this evening. Thank you.