REMARKS OF WILLIAM J. CASEY DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE TO CIA EMPLOYEES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85-00988R000100060013-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 23, 2005
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: October 21, 1982
• Content Type: BRIEF

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REMARKS OF WILLIAM J. CASEY
DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
to
CIA EMPLOYEES
CIA Auditorium
21 October 1982
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STAT
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Good afternoon. I'm glad 'to be here this afternoon with all of you.
As we move into a new fiscal year I thought I'd like to tell you where we are,
how we're functioning and where we're headed as I see It.
I've just returned from two weeks visiting) -lour stations
In all, I've visited 1stations since I've been in this
job. In each case I've been powerfully impressed by our operations, our
support and our technical people. In each country, almost always with our
station chief and the DDO division chief, I've had good talks of an hour or
more with the King or the President or the Prime Minister and have had good
working sessions with the chief of the local liaison intelligence service and
his staff. In all, these travels have taken about 6% of my working time here.
STAT It isn't restful to hit
countries in two working weeks plus three weekends,
but I find these visits extraordinarily valuable. They make me proud of the
people we have out there. They help refine and prioritize their objectives,
develop additional support they need, and permit us to better evaluate and use
their product back here. Talks on the scene always create a better grasp of
reality in assessing intelligence and developing cooperation. More active
collaboration with liaison services is generating a network of capabilities
which can deal more effectively with threats that cut across national boundaries
like international terrorism, the theft of technology, active measures, subversion
and support for insurgencies.
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Talking to our colleagues during my trips overseas and around the country,
I have found morale to be good. I think this can be attributed to an increased
interest and value placed on intelligence, a renewed sense of mission, an
improved public opinion, greater support at grass roots levels, and strong
support from both the Executive and Legislative branches of government.
Overseas service has become more attractive with overseas pay a permanent
thing, a stronger dollar, adoption of items contained in the Foreign Service
Act, our efforts to improve personal and physical security overseas, and better
training of our people prior to overseas assignments.
This Headquarters is an exciting place to be today because the national
security apparatus, and economic policymakers as well, are placing a high
value on good intelligence, on good analysis and on the versatility and can-do
spirit that characterizes this organization. We can all take satisfaction
in the knowledge that we are meeting the needs of the policymakers and that
they are reciprocating by funding improvements for us in the face of tight
fiscal pressure.
I see as my basic job to determine what it is that we need to know and
understand, to see that the existing collection and analytical capabilities
are focused on those subjects, and to develop any additional capabilities
necessary to deal more fully with existing intelligence needs and with others
likely to emerge.
To determine what it is we need to know is the starting point. This
requires a close working relationship with the decisionmaking apparatus. For
most of the last decade the formal mechanism for that has been an annually
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prepared and agreed list of key intelligence topics produced in an inter-agency
process under the auspices of the National Security Council. That exercise
had become rather static and sterile and we have supplemented it with a review
every three months to evaluate the actual intelligence production related to
those key topics and to define the additional collection and analysis still
needed on those topics.
Probably more important in determining our intelligence needs are informal
exchanges with decisionmakers. Every day, a CIA briefer reviews the President's
Daily Brief and significant last minute reports with the Vice President, the
Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the President's National
Security Advisor. At about 11 a.m., the briefers come in to review with me
the reactions and interests expressed in the briefing. We discuss the next.
day's brief and additional collection, analyses or estimates that may be
indicated. That daily playback is supplemented by meetings of the National
Security Council and the National Security Planning Group, which the President
almost always chairs, and by weekly meetings which I and John McMahon have
with Secretary Shultz, Secretary Weinberger and Judge Clark.
This whole vast process of collection and analysis culminates in the
program of national estimates. It is the scope,,the adequacy, the pertinence,
and the timeliness of those estimates in relation to the threats we face and
the needs of decisionmakers that ultimately determine how well we are doing
our job. You've heard Admiral Inman describe how the 50% drawdown in funding
and the 40% drawdown in personnel during the seventies required the concentration
of dwindling resources on the most devastating threats and led to the neglect
of many other areas of concern.
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This showed up most vividly in the national estimates which dwindled
from an annual average of 51 in the late 60s, down to 33 in the early 70s
and all the way down to an annual average of 12 in the 6 years from 1975 throng
1980. During 1981 we did 38 national estimates and we will do 60 or more
during 1982.
The real value of this sharply Increased number of estimates turns on
their timeliness, relevance and quality. As to timeliness, we haven't matched
the starting pace of General Bedell Smith. When he was sworn in as DCI, he
was told that President Truman was leaving the next day to confer with General
MacArthur at Wake Island and wanted to take with him national estimates on
seven subjects. He called the members of the then counterpart of the National
Foreign Intelligence Board to his Pentagon office at 4 p.m. and told them to
bring along their papers and experts and be prepared to spend the.night.
He parceled out the subjects to each of seven principals with appropriate
advisors and announced that he would expect an estimate to be on his desk
early the next morning. When President Truman flew off to Wake Islard that
afternoon, he had the seven estimates to ponder on the plane. Perhaps things
were simpler and more clear cut in those days. We haven't found it necessary
to match that pace but we have turned out significant and urgent estimates in
a few days and one very complex and critical estimate in a week.
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As to relevance, when the President and the NSC addressed Libyan sanctions,
technology transfer, Soviet trade and credit, the Siberian pipeline and Western
alternatives to Soviet gas, Lebanon, the next phases in the Iran-Iraq war, the
Mexican financial crisis, the Law of the Sea, the President's Palestinian
initiative, Poland,. Kampuchea, the Horn of Africa, US strategic force improvements,
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arms sales to Taiwan and most other subjects, national estimates were on the
table. We've had a lot of catching up to do. We have completed or have in
progress estimates on important and pressing issues which have not been done
in years, sometimes in a decade. New ground has been broken.with first-time
estimates on the economic stakes in the Law of the Sea, on the dependence of
the Soviet military build-up on Western technology and 'trade, on regional
aspects of Libyan, Cuban and Soviet-backed insurgencies in Central America,
in the Horn of Africa and in southern Africa, on potential instability and
regional tensions affecting strategically significant countries, on the high
technology arms market, on the European peace movement and on INF arms
negotiations in relation to the deployment of US and Soviet missiles in Europe.
Most of you know that we have instituted a new fast track system that
can produce estimates on issues coming up for policy decision very quickly.
Perhaps more important, we have taken steps to assure standards of integrity
and objectivity, accuracy and independence, as well as relevance and timeliness
to the national estimate process. The chiefs of the various components of the
Intelligence Community -- D.II,, NSA, State's INR, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine
Corps, Treasury, FBI, Energy -- sit on the National Foreign Intelligence Board
and function as a Board of Estimates. Each chief at the table is charged with
seeing that the information and the judgments coming out of his organization
are reflected in the estimate. I'm responsible for the estimate but I charge
myself to see that all significant and substantiated judgments in the Community
are reflected so that in policy formulation and decisionmaking the full range
of intelligence judgments in the Community is on the table. I believe this
process has done a great deal to develop a new spirit of constructive collaboration
among the components of the Intelligence Community.
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STAT
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N"w
The strengthening and extension of our capabilities is being encouraged
and strongly supported. We have a completed comprehensive review of the
ifntelligence challenges we see for the rest of the decade, the adequacy of our
current collection and analytical capabilities to meet them and what it will
take to overcome the inadequacies. We have recently completed a similar review
of hostile intelligence threats, our present ability to counter them and the
additional countermeasure capabilities needed.
Although we are sometimes severely pressed as the new missions assigned
us require carrying increasing activities and rebuilding at the same time, we
are still managing to do the job. This has required many of you to put in
longer hours, many have given up leave and undertaken extensive TDYs. We will
remedy this as we rebuild. Right now the load is lightened by several hundred
retirees working with us on contract.
As we move into Fiscal '83, our budget has increased by more than I
percent. The actual real growth in light of inflation will be over half of
that. We ended FY '82 with personnel above our '82 ceiling--this was
approved by OMB and Congress which demonstrates their support for the Agency's
programs. We have just completed 0MB hearings for our '84 budget and are
encouraged with expected further growth in Agency programs.
We have started over these two years on a substantial increase in
the number of human intelligence collectors overseas and the expansion of their
activities into new areas. We've made a good start on sizeable increases in
the number of intelligence analystvacross the full range of intelligence
problems~ith particular emphasis on those areas of sharply increasing demand --
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-- Third World, nuclear proliferation, international terrorism, and global
resources. We are instituting a long-term program to upgrade the skills and
experience levels of our intelligence analysts through overseas assignments
and continuing education. These efforts are being supported by improvements
in automated data systems to provide support to analysts and in building and
maintaining expanded and improved data bases.
Initial efforts in the development of the SAFE system were disappointing
but we believe we have turned the corner. I have redirected this program to
provide an initial capability to screen, sift and store reports for at least
STAT analysts starting in March '83.
A major upgrading of our technical collection instruments and of
our ability to process and interpret the data they collect will be showing
results this year and be completed in 1986.
We are investing significant funds in our Office of Communications to
upgrade our domestic and foreign communications networks. Our training staff
and facilities, as we rebuild, are expanding and require additional resources.
As we expand, new challenges will be faced by our Offices of Medical Services,
Security, and Personnel. They performed yeoman, work during the last fiscal
year as we processed and entered on duty over
in the prior fiscal year.
percent more personnel than
Thus, you see, there are new and immense challenges for every element and
every individual in this Agency.
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In this rebuilding process, we've gone public in our recruiting. I was
hesitant but I now believe it to be a very good thing. We get a quarter of
a million letters and telephone inquiries a year. It's an open and widely
known fact that there is a broad spectrum of opportunities for honorable,
satisfying and rewarding careers in the CIA. That by itself is a good thing.
The quarter of a million inquiries boil down in round numbers to STAT
STAT D
interviews, 0 applications,~eople cleared and accepted as suitable,
STAT
r-~
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---.. ? " a 4J 42 yeah. za, we're or1 ngi ng on the new people we need
while maintaining a high standard of selectivity. When they come in we intend
to test their ability to meet high standards of performance early on and impose
responsibility as rapidly as possible.
One of the things we must work toward is moving our people back into
Headquarters. Today we are housed in over F-Ilocations in the metropolitan
STAT
area. This is an inefficient and costly way of doing business and requires
duplication of extremely scarce resources. I have authorized leasing STAT
Ito reduce current crowding and to provide
for our '83 increase in staff. Beyond that, we are planning for a new building
here on this campus. We have obtained approval by the National Capital Planning
Commission, the Fairfax Supervisors, and have the concurrence of local interest
groups. We appear to have Congressional support and we have selected an
architectural and engineering firm to design the new building during this year.
I am seeking funds in the '84 budget for construction of the new building.
How are we gearing ourselves to carry forward a long-term rebuilding and
at the same time handle the new pressures we face right now -- destabilization
and external support of insurgency and subversion in friendly countries,
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spreading terrorism, instability threatening disruption in strategically
situated countries, technology transfer imposing heavier defense burdens on
us, intensified espionage and active measures by the KGB and its partners.
We've created new centers -- a Technology Transfer Center, a Center on Insurgency
and Instability, co-located DI and DO units on terrorism and counterintelligence,
We are strengthening the support we get from our intelligence liaison with
friendly countries by briefing and training their officers and providing technical
capabilities to generate greater assistance from them in counterintelligence,
anti-terrorism, and intelligence support of counterinsurgency.
One of my prime objectives has been to get better mutual support among
the components of the Intelligence Community and between the Directorates
and the offices of the CIA. The Defense Intelligence Agency and INR at State
are carrying as much as one-third of the drafting of the expanded estimates
program. Monthly warning meetings did not yield a close enough watch and
they are now supplemented by a watch meeting every Thursday in which the
chief of our Intelligence Directorate meets with the chiefs of DIA, State/INR,
and NSA to provide the President with a weekly watch report on Friday morning.
One of my special interests of late has been to energize analysts to actively
and regularly specify information gaps their analytical work points up. We
need this to assure that our extensive technical and human collection abilities
are driven primarily by the intelligence needs of analysts and decisionmakers
rather than by our collection capabilities. We need more analyst tasking of
the clandestine service and more contributions from field stations to analytical
products. DDI use of DDO reporting is up
percent and DDO reports are up
STAT percent over last year. In every crisis we've had and every hot spot from
Namibia to Poland, from the Falklands to Central America and Lebanon, the
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Operational Directorate and its stations, the Intelligence, Directorate and the
Science and Technology Directorate have been intimately involved in a mutually
supportive way, and the DDA has supported all of them. Throughout the Agency,
high quality performance from each and every segment is critical to the performance
which the government and the national interest requires from intelligence and
this is a challenge to every person here. Security, for example, which is 'so
essential to meeting our responsibility, depends not only on the vigilance of
the security office but also on the attention and discipline of each one of us.
Just because we have large needs and have thus far enjoyed generous support,
we need to prune wasteful, uneconomic or unproductive activity. I have tasked
our managers, in accordance with Administration directives, to search areas
where we may reduce waste and perform our jobs more efficiently and economically.
Significant savings have been realized by use of Government Travel Requests
whenever feasible. . Automation has significantly reduced overtime costs and
improved efficiency and production in some areas. Through investments in
capital equipment, we have been able to both increase efficiency and improve
our responsiveness in a variety of ways -- as an example we have increased
our computing power three times in the last four years. I would encourage
each of you to make use of the Suggestion Awards-Program to help us further
improve the cost effectiveness of operating our Agency.
In analysis we cannot tolerate reluctance to entertain alternative inter-
pretations or controversial views, defensiveness against outside criticism
or failure to lean forward and be specific about future trends, intentions and
alternative scenarios. In all our activities we cannot accept mediocre
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performance, lack of realism or failure to apply rigorous standards of review
and quality control. We are not prepared to apply scarce talent and resources
to projects of marginal value or interest to the policy community and this has
led to a certain amount of pruning and focusing of our research, development
and operational activities.
We are looking for outside input, challenge and criticism of our work.
Some 65 conferences and seminars bringing in experts from academia, think
tanks and business are scheduled for the fourth quarter of 1982. Our outside
contract research is broadening in scope. Work in the weapons area dropped
FAT from Flpercent in 1980 to F-1 percent in 1981 to make room for more outside
political, economic and strategic research.
In conclusion, let me say again that I appreciate what all of you have
done to get as far as we have. I know you will meet the additional challenges
ahead as I've tried to outline today and recognize new ones as they emerge.
Now I'll be glad to try to answer your questions and comment on any
additional subjects you'd like to suggest.
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