ADDRESS TO THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF NEWSPAPER EDITORS WASHINGTON, D.C. BY THE HONORABLE RICHARD HELMS DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE APRIL 14, 1971

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86-00244R000200060002-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 24
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 4, 2000
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: April 14, 1971
• Content Type: SPEECH

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GLOBAL
INTELLIGENCE
AND THE
DEMOCRATIC
SOCIETY
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ADDRESS TO THE
AMERICAN SOCIETY OF NEWSPAPER EDITORS
WASHINGTON, D.C.
BY
THE HONORABLE RICHARD HELMS
DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
APRIL 14, 1971
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GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE
DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY
Gentlemen:
I welcome this opportunity to speak to you today about the place of an
intelligence service in a democratic government.
In doing so, I recognize that there is a paradox which I hope can be dis-
pelled:
On the one hand, I can assure you that the quality of foreign intelligence
available to the United States Government in 1971 is better than it has
ever been before.
On the other hand, at a time when it seems to me to be self-evident that
our government must be kept fully informed on foreign developments,
there is a persistent and growing body of criticism which questions the
need and the propriety for a democratic society to have a Central Intelli-
gence Agency.
I am not referring to the occasional criticism of CIA's performance?the
question of whether we gave advance warning of this coup or that revolt,
or how accurately we forecast the outcome of an election or a military
operation. By necessity, intelligence organizations do not publish the extent
of their knowledge, and we neither confirm nor deny challenges of this
nature. We answer to those we serve in the government.
What I am referring to are the assertions that the Central Intelligence
Agency is an "invisible government,"?a law unto itself, engaged in pro-
vocative covert activities repugnant to a democratic society, and subject to
no controls.
This is an outgrowth, I suppose, of an inherent American distaste for the
peacetime gathering of intelligence. Our mission, in the eyes of many
thoughtful Americans, may appear to be in conflict with some of the tradi-
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tions and ideals of our free society. It is difficult for me to agree with this
view, but I respect it. It is quite another matter when some of our critics?
taking advantage of the traditional silence of those engaged in intelligence?
say things that are either vicious, or just plain silly.
There is the arrant nonsense, for example, that the Central Intelligence
Agency is somehow involved in the world drug traffic. We are not. As
fathers, we are as concerned about the lives of our children and grand-
children as are all of you. As an Agency, in fact, we are heavily engaged
in tracing the foreign roots of the drug traffic for the Bureau of Narcotics
and Dangerous Drugs. We hope we are helping with a solution; we know
we are not contributing to the problem.
As a general rule we are silent, because we must maintain the security
of our intelligence operations, but we also recognize that the people of
the United States have a legitimate interest in every arm of their govern-
ment. There is, fortunately, enough fact in the open record, and in the
pertinent legislation, to meet that public interest.
I propose, therefore, to discuss with you the legislative charter of the
CIA, the unique functions of a central intelligence organization, and fi-
nally?in order to reconcile our security requirements with the democratic
society we serve?the role of intelligence in policy formulation, and the
controls, checks, and balances under which we operate.
American intelligence did not begin with the National Security Act
of 1947, which established the CIA. George Washington personally di-
rected his espionage networks during the Revolutionary War. President Polk
had a showdown with the Congress in 1846 about accounting for the
funds he used "to employ individuals for the purpose of obtaining infor-
mation." In the Civil War, the North hired the Pinkerton Agency to expand
its intelligence services. The Department of State and our armed forces
all have had long experience in the collection of information.
Why, then, a Central Intelligence Agency? The proximate cause cited
by President Truman and the 80th Congress in 1947 was the experience
of Pearl Harbor, when, in the words of President Truman:
there had been something like coordination of information
in the government, it would have been more difficult, if not impossi-
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ble, for the Japanese to succeed in the sneak attack. . . . In those
days, the military did not know everything the State Department knew,
and the diplomats did not have access to all the Army and Navy
knew. The Army and Navy, in fact, had only a very informal arrange-
ment to keep each other informed as to their plans."
The Central Intelligence Agency, therefore, was created not to replace,
but to coordinate the existing intelligence elements of the United States
Government.
Our charter, the National Security Act of 1947, provides that in the in-
terest of national security the Central Intelligence Agency will advise the
National Security Council on intelligence activities of the government,
make recommendations to the National Security Council for the coordina-
tion of such activities, correlate and evaluate foreign intelligence, perform
additional services of common concern, and "such other functions and
duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the Na-
tional Security Council may from time to time direct."
This latter language was designed to enable us to conduct such foreign
activities as the national government may find it convenient to assign to
what can best be described as a "secret service." These activities have al-
ways been secondary to the production of intelligence, and under direct
control by the Executive Branch. Obviously I can not go into any detail
with you on such matters, and I do not intend to.
And may I emphasize at this point that the statute specifically forbids
the Central Intelligence Agency to have any police, subpoena, or law-
enforcement powers, or any domestic security functions. I can assure you
that except for the normal responsibilities for protecting the physical se-
curity of our own personnel, our facilities, and our classified information,
we do not have any such powers and functions; we have never sought any;
we do not exercise any. In short, we do not target on American citizens.
In matters directly affecting the security of the United States, the Presi-
dent and his National Security Council want what we call "national" in-
telligence?evaluations which reflect the considered and agreed judgment
of all of the intelligence components of the United States Government The
production and dissemination of this national intelligence is the responsi-
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bility and the primary function of the Central Intelligence Agency. We
can produce these agreed evaluations, of course, only by consulting and
coordinating the views of the entire intelligence community.
There is nothing arcane or mysterious about this term, "the intelligence
community." It is simply a name for all of the intelligence assets at the
disposal of the United States?the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency,
the intelligence components of the various armed services, the National
Security Agency, the intelligence elements of the Department of State,
and?when appropriate?those of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
and the Atomic Energy Commission. They are all represented on the
United States Intelligence Board. This board is chaired by the Director
of Central Intelligence, not as the head of CIA, but as the principal in-
telligence adviser to the President and the National Security Council.
The United States Intelligence Board coordinates the assets of the United
States for foreign intelligence collection, and sees to it that there are
neither gaps nor unnecessary duplication in filling the information require-
ments of the nation's policymakers.
Just what are these national requirements for foreign intelligence?
There are the obvious ones, of course, in the era of thermonuclear de-
terrence: What is the scope of the strategic threat to U.S. security? What
are current Soviet intentions? How soon will Communist China have an
intercontinental ballistic missile?
America's intelligence assets, however, do not exist solely because of the
Soviet and Chinese threat, or against the contingency of a new global
conflict. The United States, as a world power, either is involved or may
with little warning find itself involved in a wide range and variety of prob-
lems which require a broad and detailed base of foreign intelligence for
the policymakers.
What, for instance, caused the fighting between Honduras and El Salvador,
and what can be done to ease the situation?
What are the implications of impending British withdrawal from the
Persian Gulf for the world's petroleum supplies?
Where are the pitfalls for the United States in the confrontation between
black African nationalism and so-called White Southern Africa?
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Or, for that matter, to give you an extreme example, how deep is the water
alongside the docks in Djibouti? This question is not as farfetched as it
may sound. If France should one day grant independence to French Somali-
land?now formally the Territory of the Afars and Issas?the area would
almost certainly be a source of contention between Ethiopia, which looks
to the United States for support, and Somalia, which is highly dependent
on the Soviet Union. What ships could be used to land a UN peace-keeping
force?or unload relief shipments? Thus information on Djibouti could
suddenly become necessary to the United States Government in an effort
to prevent a new international crisis.
A mass of detailed knowledge is required, of course, for the planning
of military operations, but I would like to stress that accurate intelligence
is equally essential to the planning and implementation of actions taken to
forestall conflict.
President Nixon put it this way in March 1969, when he visited CIA Head-
quarters:
"I look upon this organization . . . as one of the great instruments
of our government for the preservation of peace, for the avoidance
of war, and for the development of a society in which this kind of
activity would not be as necessary, if necessary at all."
The ancient Romans said: "If you wish peace, prepare for war"?or, for
that matter, "forewarned, forearmed." Certainly a potential aggressor is de-
terred if he finds that timely intelligence has enabled his prospective victim
to take countermeasures. And when it comes to waging peace, it would be
unthinkable to conclude a Strategic Arms Limitation agreement with the
Soviet Union without the means for monitoring compliance.
The potential benefits of an arms limitation agreement are self-evident in
terms of reduced threat, eased tension, and economy?but only if they
can be achieved without endangering national security. That, in turn, re-
quires that the agreement should be honored by each side, and the Soviets
have traditionally rejected international on-site inspection. The United
States, then, can safely undertake such an agreement, however desirable,
only if it has adequate intelligence assets to assure itself that the Soviets
are living up to their part.
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If the two countries should agree that no new types of intercontinental
missiles will be deployed, it would be incumbent on U.S. intelligence to verify
that the Soviet Union is abiding by the bargain. If it should be agreed
that there will be no further expansion of defenses against ballistic missiles,
we must have the means of detecting new developments which might
convert one of the regular Soviet air defense missile systems into an ABM
network. We can be sure, of course, that if the Russians should decide to
exceed agreed limitations, they will make that attempt with the greatest
possible secrecy and concealment. U.S. intelligence, therefore, will have a
major and vital role in any international agreement to limit strategic arms.
Every year at budget time, there is a debate over what portion of our
national wealth we must assign to defense and survival?what weapons
must we buy, and how many?
The United States and the Soviet Union both have a wide variety of
choices among systems to be developed, and these choices interact. The
key to choice is knowledge?knowledge of the accuracy, reliability, and
numbers of Soviet ICBMs, knowledge of Soviet progress in advanced radars
for ABMs, knowledge, if you will, of Soviet knowledge of our own
progress.
Whatever the semantics of first strike, mutual deterrence, assured de-
struction capability, or equivalent megatonnage, the answers must come
from an accurate measurement of Soviet offense against our defense, Soviet
defense against our offensive capabilities.
If good intelligence can narrow down the choices, it can save the U.S.
taxpayers many times its cost. But this prospect?however desirable?is
secondary to enabling the policymaker to arrive at informed decisions on
the defense budget?or the instructions to the U.S. delegation at the SALT
talks.
Intelligence collection, then, is essential to the maintenance of our de-
fenses, but let me repeat once more my conviction that intelligence at the
same time makes a major contribution to the much more attractive proposi-
tion of living in peace.
I have tried to give you some idea of the subject matter of intelligence
requirements, but I must attach equal importance to the nature of the
intelligence provided to the government.
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I have already said that it must be a comprehensive appreciation of the
situation, based on all available information, reflecting the coordinated end-
product of the entire intelligence community.
It must also be rigorous in analysis, concentrated in depth, and above all,
as objective as we can make it.
It is precisely in these respects that the Central Intelligence Agency makes
its unique contribution.
First, all of the Departments of Government which have components
in the U.S. intelligence community have responsibilities for the formulation
of policy; CIA has none.
And second, CIA is the only one whose primary mission is to collect,
evaluate, and produce foreign intelligence.
Objectivity puts me on familiar ground as an old wire service hand, but
it is even more important to an intelligence organization serving the policy-
maker. Without objectivity, there is no credibility, and an intelligence or-
ganization without credibility is of little use to those it serves.
We not only have no stake in policy debates, but we can not and must not
take sides. The role of intelligence in policy formulation is limited to pro-
viding facts?the agreed facts?and the whole known range of facts?
relevant to the problem under consideration. Our role extends to the esti-
mative function?the projection of likely developments from the facts?
but not to advocacy, or recommendations for one course of action or another.
As the President's principal intelligence officer, I am an adviser to the
National Security Council, not a member, and when there is debate over
alternative policy options, I do not and must not line up with either side.
If I should take sides and recommend one solution, the other side is
going to suspect?if not believe?that the intelligence presentation has
been stacked to support my position, and the credibility of CIA goes out
the window.
Another unique attribute of the Central Intelligence Agency is the depth
of professional expertise it can bring to bear on the finished intelligence
product.
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The London Economist a few years ago commented:
"Modern intelligence has to do with the painstaking collection and
analysis of fact, the exercise of judgment, and clear and quick presen-
tation. It is not simply what serious journalists would always pro-
duce if they had time; it is something more rigorous, continuous, and
above all operational?that is to say, related to something that some-
body wants to do or may be forced to do."
This is a good statement of the kindred aims of the intelligence services
and the information media, but in a sense we are the reverse of a news-
paper. The newspaper uses a relatively few collectors and analysts to
serve a mass audience; we use a great many to handcraft a special kind
of report for a very few.
Even in this day of the Information Explosion, we read everything
that comes into Washington?Department of State cables, Department of
Defense traffic, our own reports, and the American and foreign infor-
mation media. Then we bring to bear on that information every last bit of
expert analysis at the service of the United States Government.
From the time this Agency was created, we have had to deal with
the fact that some of our most important intelligence targets lie in totali-
tarian countries where collection is impeded by the security defenses of
a police state?for example, Communist China.
In the face of such limitations, the analytical process can often ex-
tract meaningful conclusions from a volume of fragmentary information.
To do so requires ingenious minds and much painstaking work. On Com-
munist China, for instance, we have assembled a panel of experts in a
broad field of specialties to devote full time to study, analysis and re-
porting.
On this analytical team the economist does not concern himself with
Brazilian inflation one day and the Gross National Product of Nigeria
the next, but concentrates on the Chinese economy?just as the nuclear
physicist concentrates on the progress China is making in nuclear weapons.
With their support, the Old China Hand on the panel need not spread
himself thin to master economics and weaponry, but can focus on what
the Chinese?being Chinese?may do next.
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,410,
The Cuban missile crisis of 1962 affords a good example of how this
across-the-board analysis?comprehensive in its scope and intensive in its
concentration?serves the policymaker.
In the early Sixties, thousands of Cubans fled their country. Many
brought valuable information. Many, in good faith, brought misinforma-
tion. Some purposefully told stories intended to provoke U.S. action against
Castro. And a few were Castro's agents, planted to mislead us.
It was obvious at the time?from shipping intelligence alone?that
the Soviets were engaged in a substantial military aid program in Cuba,
but the crucial question was whether there were any strategic offensive
weapons on the island that threatened the continental United States.
The intelligence community established a joint interrogation center
in Florida to sift and winnow and evaluate these thousands of reports
centrally. It was a mammoth undertaking, but where possible we checked
every weapon report against U-2 photography of Cuba, and against other
intelligence sources.
One report, for example, claimed there were underground submarine
pens at Matanzas. Our analysts had the facts to disprove this, given the
geological structure of the shoreline and the crucial inshore depths in the
bay.
Another report alleged that light bombers were being stored in a
particular cave. We have a comprehensive speleological survey of Cuba,
which showed that this particular cave curved sharply a few yards in-
side its entrance?too sharply to admit a vehicle, let alone an air-
craft. We also had the photography to show that there had been no
work to alter the shape of that cave.
A merchant seaman gave us a detailed description of what he thought
might be a rounded concrete dome covering missiles?complete with
range and bearing from the pier where his ship had docked. A map of
Havana and a recent city directory established that it was a relatively
new movie theater.
The watch for missiles, however, was complicated by the fact that
there were defensive surface-to-air missiles in Cuba, and to the un-
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trained observer, one missile looks pretty much like another. In fact, some
of these "missile reports" we checked turned out to be torpedoes, fuel
tanks, and even industrial pipe and mooring buoys.
Our intelligence files in Washington, however?thanks to U-2 photog-
raphy of the Soviet Union and to a number of well-placed and courageous
Russians who helped us?included a wealth of information on Soviet
missile systems. We had descriptions or photographs of the missiles, their
transporters and other associated equipment, and characteristic sites in
the Soviet Union. We knew what to look for.
Guided by this background, the interrogators were able to sort out
from the flood of reports the ones which established the arrival of MRBM
and IRBM equipment in Cuba. We were then able to locate the sites
under construction by reconnaissance, and tell President Kennedy the
exact scope of the threat.
There remained the question?for the policymakers?of what to do.
This required a determination?among other essentials?of whether the
Soviets would be able to strike at the United States with their weapons
in Cuba in the event of a U.S. ultimatum.
Again thanks to all our collection sources, and to the central analytical
process, we were able to inform the President precisely how long it would
take to make the missile sites in Cuba operational. The rest of the Cuban
missile crisis is history.
The intelligence analysts who participate in reaching these conclusions,
of course, run the gamut from some who have just begun an intelligence
career to others who have devoted a lifetime of study to their specialty.
To strike a more typical mean, one of the experts who enabled us to give
President Johnson a correct appreciation of the Middle Eastern situation
in May, 1967?just before the start of the June War?held a doctorate in
Near Eastern studies, had lived for several years in Arab villages, and
at the time had spent 12 years with CIA.
I do not wish to imply that we require a Ph.D. of everybody we
hire, but in general we recruit our principal substantive analysts from the
graduate schools Or in the field, with some years of area study or
overseas background already under their belts.
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About half of our substantive analysts have graduate degrees. Al-
most one in three has his doctorate. We have capabilities in 113 foreign
languages and dialects. We can call on the expertise of anthropologists, chem-
ists, metallurgists, medical doctors, psychiatrists, botanists, geologists, en-
gineers of every variety, statisticians, mathematicians, archaeologists, and
foresters. Our people have academic degrees in 298 major fields of spe-
cialization from accounting to zoology.
And as catholic and competent as our "in-house" capability may be, we
do not stop there. We make copious use of consultants, from the estab-
lished "think-tanks" to selected individuals outside government whose help
we seek on specific problems. To the extent that security considerations
permit, in fact, we encourage our substantive analysts to participate?
identifed as CIA employees?in professional conferences, and to write for
publication, so that they will remain in touch with the great centers of
study and knowledge in this country, and benefits thereby.
Ironically, our efforts to obtain foreign intelligence in this country have
generated some of the more virulent criticism of the Central Intelligence
Agency. It is a fact that we have, as I said, no domestic security role,
but if there is a chance that a private American citizen traveling abroad
has acquired foreign information that can be useful to the American policy-
maker, we are certainly going to try to interview him. If there is a compe-
tent young graduate student who is interested in working for the United
States Government, we may well try to hire him.
The trouble is that to those who insist on seeing us as a pernicious
and pervasive secret government, our words, "interview" and "hire" trans-
late into suborn, subvert, and seduce, or something worse. We use no
compulsion. If a possible source of information does not want to talk to
us, we go away quietly. If some student groups object to our recruiting
on campus, we fall back to the nearest Federal Office Building. Simi-
larly, we welcome the opportunity to place research contracts with the
universities, but again, these are strictly voluntary.
And so I come to the fundamental question of reconciling the security
needs of an intelligence service with the basic principles of our demo-
cratic society. At the root of the problem is secrecy, because it is axio-
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matic that an intelligence service?whatever type of government it serves?
must wrap itself in as much secrecy as possible in order to operate
effectively.
George Washington on July 26, 1777, wrote to Colonel Elias Dayton,
his intelligence chief for New Jersey:
"The necessity of procuring good intelligence is apparent and need
not be further urged?all that remains for me to add is that you keep
the whole matter as secret as possible. For upon Secrecy, Success de-
pends in most Enterprizes of the kind, and for want of it, they are
generally defeated, however well planned and promising."
Nations have vital secrets they are determined to keep secret. They
surround them with the greatest possible security, and they play rough
in preserving those defenses. Accordingly, the intelligence service which
is assigned to obtain this information must begin by looking to its own
security.
If, at the outset of our operation, the opposition can identify the agents
involved, or the means we propose to use, the enterprise is doomed from
the start.
If, at the conclusion, we disclose how much we know, the opposition is
handed on a platter highly damaging indications of how and where we
obtained the information, in what way his security is vulnerable, and who
may have helped us. He can seal off the breach in his defenses, roll up the
agents, and shut off the flow of information.
If any significant portion of our secret organization is exposed, it
gives the opposition a starting point to work against us. That is why we
seek to preserve a secrecy which, I should note, is honored without question
in many thoroughly democratic countries.
In Great Britain and other European nations it would be unheard of
for the head of the intelligence services to talk to a non-governmental
group as I am talking to you today. In London, in fact, the location of the
intelligence service headquarters and the identity of its chief have long
been respected as state secrets by the British public, press, and officialdom.
In contrast, here in the United States the area of intelligence over which
we can maintain the traditional secrecy has been steadily reduced.
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:me
We have made it our practice not to answer criticism. Former Senator
Saltonstall summed it up pretty well when he said that in an open society
like ours, it is impossible to inform the public without informing our
enemies.
I cannot, then, give you an easy answer to the objections raised by
those who consider intelligence work incompatible with democratic prin-
ciples. The nation must to a degree take it on faith that we too are
honorable men devoted to her service. I can assure you that we are, but I
am precluded from demonstrating it to the public.
I can assure you that what I have asked you to take on faith, the
elected officials of the United States Government watch over extensively,
intensively, and continuously.
Starting with the Executive Branch, the Central Intelligence Agency
operates under the constant supervision and direction of the National
Security Council. No significant foreign program of any kind is undertaken
without the prior approval of an NSC subcommittee which includes repre-
sentatives of the President, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of
Defense.
In addition, we report periodically and in detail on the whole range
of foreign intelligence activities to the President's Foreign Intelligence Ad-
visory Board, a group of men who have distinguished themselves in gov-
ernment, industry, education, and the professions. This board, originally
created in 1956 under the chairmanship of Dr. James Killian of M.I.T.,
has been headed by General John E. Hull, Mr. Clark Clifford, General
Maxwell D. Taylor, and currently by retired Admiral George W. Anderson.
Our budget is gone over line for line by the Office of Management
and Budget?and by the appropriate committees of the Congress as well.
There are, in fact, four committees of the Congress to which we have
reported regularly?not just on our foreign intelligence product but
on our operations, our plans, and our organization?ever since CIA was
created in 1947. Periodic calls for a "Congressional watchdog committee"
may have suggested to you that no such mechanism exists. On the contrary,
there are elements of the Appropriations and Armed Services committees
in both the Senate and the House which?like the President's Board?are
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in* ANA
told more about our activities and our operations than is known to most
of the personnel in our highly compartmented Agency. But whether we
are to be supervised by these committees or under some other arrange-
ment is for Congress itself to decide.
In short, the Central Intelligence Agency is not and can not be its own
master. It is the servant of the United States Government, undertaking
what that government asks it to do, under the directives and controls the
government has established. We make no foreign policy.
All in all, I think, President Truman and the 80th Congress recognized
that the CIA was to be both an important implement of the government,
and a legitimate object of public concern. They sought to recognize the
inherent contradiction between intelligence methods and democratic prin-
ciples by establishing elaborate controls.
The same objectivity which makes us useful to our government and our
country leaves us uncomfortably aware of our ambiguous place in it. We
may chafe under the criticism we do not answer, but we understand as
well as anyone the difficulties and the contradictions of conducting foreign
intelligence operations on behalf of a free society.
We are, after all, a part of this democracy, and we believe in it. We
would not want to see our work distort its values and its principles. We
propose to adapt intelligence to American society, not vice versa.
We believe, and I say this solemnly, that our work is necessary to permit
this country to grow on in a fearsome world and to find its way into a
better and more peaceful one.
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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Annual Awards Ceremony
18 September 1970
Address by Mr. Richard Helms
Director of Central Intelligence
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In honoring all of you -- and I believe the number this year came
to some 1,577 in the 20, 15 and 10 year categories -- it reminds one
that the whole Agency is getting older. The 23d birthday in itself is
not so significant, but it reminds us that, even with the large number
of retirees who have departed this year, there are many still behind
them, and the center of gravity of the Agency tends obviously to get
older with the passage of time. On the other hand, early retirement
and the understanding of some of us older ones that we have got to move
along and keep the center of gravity from moving too far up in years is
permitting, I think, a decent balance in the Agency. For those of the
younger group who feel that there is not any motion and the prospects
are limited, I would say just the contrary is the case and that in this
Agency the chances of advancement are better than in any other agency
of government of which I am aware. In making such a sweeping statement,
I recognize there are certain groups that get grafted on to government
from time to time to do special jobs that may last for 5 or 10 years
and then go out of business. I am not talking about them; I am talking
about those agencies that have a reasonable permanence.
I suppose that on the 23d birthday one should look at some of the
pluses and minuses. On the plus side, there is no doubt that, as we
have said in the last couple of years at these ceremonies, the Agency
has come of age and has reached its place in the Washington community --
the Washington bureaucracy, if you like. In addition, there is no
question in my mind that the Agency is remarkable for two things. First,
it is one of the best disciplined organizations I suppose the government
has ever seen, and its discipline is almost entirely self-imposed.
Second, I do not think this Agency in the year 1970 bows to any other
in the quality and calibre of the people who are associated with it.
Now both of these things are vitally important in my opinion, par-
ticularly in the work in which we are involved.
The discipline has derived almost entirely from the intelligence,
the good sense, and, if you want to put it this way, the wisdom of the
individual CIA employee. There is not a soul in this room who does not
recognize that the discipline of oneself is the most difficult of all
disciplines. I am equally sure there is not one of you who does not
realize that it is the only one that makes any sense. There are other
devices which have been used through the years, and are still in use,
to inculcate discipline in various types of organizations -- military
services, police forces, law enforcement agencies, various other
organizations.
But, I do not think there is a single general who ever commanded
troops who would not be the first to say that if those troops in and
of themselves are self-disciplined, his problem is minimal. It is when
this discipline has to be exercised from above with an iron hand that
the problems loom large. The general may come out successfully but he
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has had a tough time of it.
This is not true in this organization and I think it is one of the
most remarkable things about it. We have people disposed all over the
world and it rarely occurs to me to wonder whether some individual in,
say, Ouagodougou, is going to carry out his instructions. I not only
assume it, but in 99 percent of the cases -- maybe 99.44 percent -- this
is true. That is remarkable. Those individuals far from Washington
know that they can goof off; that they can do a whole lot of things that
they will rarely be caught at. There is no device for checking this.
If we were to set up an inspectors corps that spends its time trying to
catch people in minor infractions of rules and regulations, we not only
would waste a lot of time and money but we would prevent a lot of good
work from getting done.
But I want to leave with you and with those who are not in the room
that this is the way we regard discipline in the CIA; that it is not
taken for granted in the sense that we are cavalier about it, but it is
taken for granted in the sense that we have come to expect it. There is
no other way to run the organization.
As far as the quality of our people is concerned, I do not think
there is one of you who does not agree with me about this. You leave
yourself aside, obviously out of sensible humility; but you look around
at others and it is pretty hard to find in Washington or in any large
corporation the brains, honest dedication, and devotion to duty of this
particular organization. It is worth pondering and it is certainly worth
keeping.
On the negative side, one of the problems of age is that an organi-
zation is inclined to develop a certain amount of staleness: a certain
amount of humdrum quality; a desire to keep doing things the way they
were done last year because it is easier that way; a facility for turn-
ing the crank over and over and over again because it is easier to turn
the crank to the right than it is to turn it to the left because you
have gotten used to doing it that way. These are things I think we
should pay some attention to. What staleness creates is, simply, fixed
attitudes-- a laziness about challenging your own assumptions or really
looking hard at a problem in order to find a new and better way of doing
a task which you have had to do perhaps a hundred times. But I can not
believe that the people of intelligence we have here do not have built
into them the resources which would permit an avoidance of this kind of
staleness; resources which generate a feeling in the morning that when
we shave or powder our noses, whichever the case may be, that today we
are going to find some new and different and better way to do something
that we have been doing as a matter of routine for weeks and months.
I do not think either that there is any time when we ought to be
complacent about the ability of the human being, each of us in turn, to
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develop certain convictions, certain notions, and certain conceptions,
and then stick to them through thick and thin. The experts in this
Agency, and they are validly called experts, have an inclination to
make some pretty firm judgments based on the long period of time they
have spent dealing with the material. This is not in itself bad. The
only trouble is that the world does change, new things do develop, new
things do happen, and old attitudes are not necessarily going to deal
with new situations. I think it would be very healthy if each and every
one of us challenged within ourselves some of our conceptions and
convictions, re-examined the evidence to see if we are indeed all that
accurate, and faced up to the fact that we as an organization have a
lot of questions that are left unanswered, particularly about the
Soviet Union and Communist China.
We have got a lot of work to do in these two areas if in no others.
We have had a mixed record in the area of Soviet intentions; therefore,
I am not all that comfortable about our understanding of what the Soviet
leaders are up to a good deal of the time. So I do not think that we
have any cause to be complacent, or to go around town saying that we are
the only ones who have the answers.
Now I do not want to dwell on this and there is no sense in beating
this horse to death. But I do want to leave with you the thought that,
if we are going to continue to advance and continue to maintain the high
standards which the Agency has established for itself, we are going to
have to rethink some of these problems, and we are going to have to be a
bit more aggressive in our own attitudes.
When I spoke here on the 19th of June in what we referred to then
as the State of the Agency message, I had planned to answer questions
from the audience but was prevented from doing so by being called down-
town to see the President. So I would like to answer questions today.
Since there are obviously other people around and about who would like
to have a crack at this, we will try and set up another such meeting at
some reasonable time. For the next 30 minutes or so I would be glad to
answer questions from the floor. If those of you who have questions
will speak up, I will repeat them. In the interest of sanity, let us
keep the questions short. In other words, let us not have a speech to
which you want my response.
Who has the first question?
Question: With the influx of Russians into Egypt and Africa, are
we increasing our language support so that we can send more qualified
linguists into these areas?
Answer: I would assume that we have not changed our language train-
ing program on the basis of this development. And I would think that the
reason for this is probably a relatively simple one; that is, we are
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having an uphill battle as it is to keep up with our language require-
ments and I believe that as far as Russian language studies are
concerned, we have as many people doing this now as we think we can
afford. I grant you that those who are involved in planning language
studies lock horns very readily with those who are not over the number
of people and the amount of emphasis that we should put on language
training. I frankly believe that we are not doing enough, but I am
pragmatic enough to realize that we have got to keep operating while
language and other kinds of training are going on -- the demands on us
have been pretty heavy here of late. As far as I am concerned I am
solidly behind language training, and I feel that we could push it
harder and intend to look in that direction.
Question: Would you care to comment on the implications of the
FitzHugh Report on the intelligence community?
Answer: First off, let us be sure we are all talking about the
same thing. Mr. FitzHugh was the chairman of what was known as the
Blue Ribbon Review Panel which was appointed by President Nixon and
Secretary Laird to review the organization of the Department of Defense.
There is a secret intelligence annex to that report which deals with the
Defense Intelligence agencies, such as DIA, NSA, and so forth. I do not
think that it would be very useful for me to try to get into what the
recommendations in the report were because it will only be important if
they are carried out. The FitzHugh Report, you must remember, is a
report of an outside group and it does make a number of rather specific
recommendations. How many of them the Secretary of Defense is going to
accept is another question, and I think we ought simply to wait and see
which recommendations are going to be followed. The recommendations
concerning intelligence were not of a type that were unanticipated. Let
us just live with it and see what comes over the horizon. We could
spend an awful lot of time boxing the compass on the right way to organize
the intelligence community and I do not think this is the time and place
for it.
Question: What will be the impact on the Agency over the next
several years of the austerity program existing in the government now?
Answer: We have been involved in tough budgets here for the last
two years and I can only anticipate that it is going to get even tougher.
What one reads in the newspapers about the plight of the federal budget
is all one needs to recognize what the President is up against. On the
one side are the pressures from those who believe that we are not spend-
ing enough federal money on domestic problems, such as the ghettos,
poverty, hunger, health, education, and so on. On the other side are
those who feel strongly that we must not dismantle our defense establish-
ment, that the United States stands across from the Soviet Union which is
building apace a substantial establishment -- certainly good enough and
strong enough to stand off what the United States has -- and that if one
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continues to dismantle one's commitments and one's defenses, then one's
diplomatic credibility will be affected and will in the end reduce the
United States to a second rate power.
Now I come back to your question. We are going to be cut and one
of the ways to cut any federal agency these days is to give it next year
the same amount of money it had this year. The rise in costs simply
makes it more expensive to operate and therefore you take a cut right
then and there if you stand still in actual dollar amounts. I think it
probably will be worse than that. We are busy in the Agency right now
to see what we can do to live on less. As you all know, there has been
some reduction each year in the last five in the total number of people
we have in the Agency. This reduction is going to continue. We can do
that through recruiting fewer people, through retirement, through
attrition -- various ways. We can meet these figures without in the end
causing too much anguish, although there are going to be places where we
are going to have to ask people to leave; and that inevitably involves
some unpleasantness. But there is no way out of it.
Looking at this quite coldly, I would hope that we could continue
to have enough money to do the important and the basic jobs that we have
in our mission. We are going to have to be leaner, and we are going to
have to be more efficient and work more effectively. But I think we can
stand that. I would like to ask all of you a question. When you enter
the door of the building in the morning, at whatever hour it may be, and
you leave after the required amount of time later in the day, have you
really put out during that period as hard as you might have? I think
when one asks the question that way there are very few of us who would
say that we have really worked flat out all day long -- that there had
not been quite a few diversions along the way which might have been put
to better use. And I think that if you consult your consciences you
would recognize that you probably are capable of more output than you
have produced, let us say, in the last 3 or 4 days. Whether you are
prepared to put it out or not, I do not know, but I am inclined to think
that you are if it is required. I am never a pessimist about these
things. I have worked around this Agency too long. I have seen what
we can do when there is really a reason for doing it -- in a crisis, a
push, we produce -- without any argument about it. I assume it is still
that way.
I think we can live with what we have, or, getting a little bit
leaner, still do a good and effective job. After all, what is the use
in acquiring experience and expertise and knowledge if you can not do
a good job better, faster, and more effectively? If we needed "x"-
number of people ten years ago, do we need the same "x"-number of people
ten years later? I rather doubt it. And I for one am not interested in
expanding our mission or taking on more jobs than we already have. I am
concerned about our doing the jobs we have now better, not taking on
additional ones. I am not interested in having a large bureaucracy
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around here which is hard to administer, which involves more and more
people in support, which simply gets us involved in other fields when
I do not think we are up to snuff in some of the fields we are already
in. This has been a long answer to a budgetary question but it gave
me an opportunity to get some of these things off my chest.
Allow me to end here by saying that I very much appreciate, and I
know that General Cushman and the Deputy Directors very much appreciate,
the support that you have given us in the year past. There is no sense
in getting maudlin about these things, but I do have a very strong
feeling about human relationships. With the pressures on all of us,
there is too little time for amenities and the personal touch in the
expression of appreciation among all of us involved in the common job.
So, this is my opportunity to thank you for the support you have given
me. I, you realize, am frequently a "Charlie McCarthy." I simply go
to meetings and I say what you ladies and gentlemen have told me to say.
I will confess that I normally read it first. But by and large I have
little reason to cavil with what is presented to me -- either with the
speed or the efficiency with which it is done.
Also, I must say that these are peculiarly difficult times in the
world. Not only is human life involved with violence, drugs, and the
peculiarities of human behavior; but also the relationships in the world
are in a very peculiar state of disarray. It is therefore, a time in
which intelligence as such is challenged more than it ever has been.
Oddly, this is happening at the same time that intelligence has become
more important to this government than it ever has been. To cite one
particular instance, if it is possible for the United States and the
Soviet Union to negotiate a strategic arms limitation agreement, we are
the ones who are going to have to verify that agreement, and it is our
ability to do this that will make the agreement possible. I do not know
how many of you have thought about it in precisely those terms, but that
is where it stands. And, therefore, intelligence is going to have to
play a role- which to the best of my knowledge it has never played in the
United States government before.
Strangely enough, Presidents particularly, since they are extra-
ordinarily busy men and are subjected to so many differing kinds of
pressures, usually turn to those devices that they need and almost every-
thing else gets pretty well pushed aside. I am not sure they would like
to hear me say this, but that is the truth of the matter. They are not
very interested in intelligence for its own sake. They are interested in
it when it is something they need and is an essential tool for them to do
their jobs. There are periods wherein one is asked, "Well, is the
President paying attention to what you are sending him?" and the answer
is, "I do not know." But you can certainly tell when he is paying
attention to it because then the requests start to come through and the
tempo of action is different. I have made my peace with this, using the
old adage, "You can lead a horse to water but you can not make him
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drink" -- you can send intelligence to a President but you can not make
him read it, you can not make him understand it, and you can not force
feed him. Attempting to do that simply ruins your welcome. But when
he needs it, he is all for it and wants it in quantity; and I have
watched this now in three Presidents. In this particular and peculiar
time, President Nixon wants it badly. He wants the best we can get on
the Vietnamese and Southeast Asian problem. He wants the best we can
get on the Middle East. He wants the best we can get on the Soviet
Union and the possibilities of verifying the treaty of the kind that I
have just mentioned. So, there is a vast amount of work to be done in
the weeks and months ahead, and it is going to be reviewed even more
critically than it has been reviewed in the past.
As you leave the auditorium today, I wish you would take with you
the thought that I particularly am most appreciative of your efforts.
I would like to underline again that I think we could all review some
of our ideas and conceptions and see if we can find some better ways
to do our job. Last but not least, I would like to extend congratula-
tions to all of us for having survived 23 years, and I would think that
at the rate we are going we might survive for 23 more. And I can only
tell you that in 1947 when the Agency was founded, there were not too
many of us around who were prepared to predict that we would survive
23 years.
Thank you.
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