LETTER TO HONORABLE WILLIAM J. CASEY FROM DONALD L. MILTON

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86M00886R002100060002-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 19
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 19, 2008
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: November 14, 1984
• Content Type: LETTER

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STAT
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i
EXECUTIVE SECRETARIAT
ACTION
INFO
DATE
INITIAL
1
DCI
2
DDCI
3
EXDIR,
4
D/ICS
5
DDI
6
DDA
7
DDO
8
DDS&T
9
Chm/NIC
10
GC
11
IG
12
Compt
13
D/Pers
14
D/OLL
15
D/PAO
x
66
SA/IA
17
AO/DCI
18
C/IPD/OIS
19
20
21
22
Executive Secretary
20 Nov 84
3637 (10-et) Date
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NEW YORK CHAPTER
2555 WILSON AVENUE
BRONX, N. Y. 10469
TEL: [phone]
SEC: RALPH VOLLONO
The Honorable William J. Casey
Director, Central Intelligence
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D.C. 20505
Dear Mr. Casey,
Association o
Former
Intelligence
Officers
November 14, 1984
Executive I ftL
L84 -7086 1
On behalf of William Hood, myself, and all the members of AFIO, I would like
to thank you for sharing your time and thoughts with us.
You deserve a lot of credit for the fine job you have done for the Agency
and the intelligence ccxrmunity as a whole. We all feel complimented by the
honor of having you speak to our group and I know that everyone throughly
enjoyed your informative talk. We will all remember the enthusiasm and
excitement you generated, especially by your indication of a once again strong
Agency.
I would also like to thank Ifor all her help and patience; STAT
without her guidance, I am sure, our meeting would not have been as smooth as
it was.
Once again, we would like to thank you for providing us with so enjoyable an
evening. We wish you the very best in the coming years.
Very truly yours,
Dc,
EXEC
rza
L31 a--
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STAT
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8 November 1984
NOTE FOR: PAO
FROM: I O/DCI
Attached is the final version used
by DCI for AFIO/New York on 2 November.
STAT
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REMARKS OF WILLIAM J. CASEY
DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
to
ASSOCIATION OF FORMER INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS
University Club
New York City
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Looking around and seeing all the intelligence professionals and veterans
in the audience I am sort of reminded of a fellow who loved to talk about
the Johnstown flood. There came a time when he passed away, he was received
by St. Peter, who found him a pretty good fellow, heard he loved to talk
about the Johnstown flood, so he gathered a group of people around him up
there and he started out telling how the waters had gathered and came crashing
down. He was just about reaching his finale when St. Peter reached over,
tapped him on the shoulder and he said, "By the way, I forgot to tell you
that Noah is in the audience."
Well, I appreciate the opportunity to thank AFIO and its members for
the encouragement, understanding, and support you give us. You have supported
our recruiting efforts and our legislative needs. You have managed to take
the sting out of some news stories when we felt helplessly maligned, and
for all that we are most grateful.
In the wake of the bombing of our Embassy in Beirut and the crashing of
a reconnaissance plane in Salvador, we are reminded all too keenly that
intelligence officers risk and give their lives to preserve freedom and to
protect our national security.
Tonight I would like to talk to you about how intelligence has changed,
the new challenges we face, and the progress we have made in rebuilding our
capabilities in the last few years. -
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When I was appointed DCI, the President defined specific things he
wanted to see accomplished. They were:
- reestablishing the President's Foreign Intelligence
Advisory Board.
- legislation on criminal sanctions against disclosing
the identities of agents.
- relief from the Freedom of Information Act.
- undertaking an urgent effort to rebuild the
intelligence agencies.
- And to improve capabilities for technical and
clandestine collection, cogent analysis,
counterintelligence, and capabilities to influence
international events vital to our national interests
and security.
This is a particularly appropriate time to review our progress because
just last week the President signed legislation exempting CIA'/s operational
files from Freedom of Information Act requests. With this legislation, all
of the President's objectives have either been attained or are well under
way.
The Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board is functioning effectively,
Identities legislation has been enacted into law. With the approval of the
1985 budget, we now have the resources needed to complete over 80 percent of
a five-year program to rebuild from the 40 percent reduction in funding and
.the 50 percent: reduction in personnel which the Intelligence Community
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suffered during the 70s. And the balance will be in the budget which Congress
will act on next year--1985. All this could not have been accomplished
without the support AFIO has given to every aspect of this program in so
many ways.
Where are we today? Despite all the shots we take in the media, there
is a general conviction among our people that the Intelligence Community has
never been in better shape. We have rebounded from the cuts of the 70s. We
have a growing and dedicated work force. A new headquarters building has
been completed for the Defense Intelligence Agency and one is under construction
at CIA. A bigger budget. Improved morale. I think we are fit, healthy,
and have rededicated ourselves Community-wide to a search for greater excellence.
Many of you, as myself, were around at the birth of our national intelligence
service. If you were to return today, many things would be familiar. The
commitment and dedication of our intelligence officers. The willingness to
challenge the conventional wisdom. The basic principles of a sound analysis
and effective collection which endure. The can-do spirit which has always
characterized the Intelligence Community. At the same time, however, you
would find much that is new.
One dramatic difference is in the number of targets. The Soviet Union
is still our primary focus, as it was in the immediate post-World War II
period, but other targets have become important. Today, many of this country's
enemies operate mostly underground, dealing with drugs, terror, stolen blueprints
as well as weapons and subversion across international borders wherever
.instability. and revolution can be fomented.
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The Soviets continue to expand a large arsenal of nuclear weapons aimed
at the United States, East Asia and Europe. New missiles and missile-carrying
aircraft and submarines are being designed, developed, tested, and deployed
in amazing profusion. This is augmented by work carried on over the last
decade to improve their missile defenses.
In Europe, the Warsaw Pact conventional forces outnumber NATO in troop
strength, tanks, guns and planes. Smart bombs, anti-tank and anti-aircraft
missiles, along with other sophisticated conventional weapons, are being
deployed in an increasingly forward and aggressive manner. And a growing
number of long-range missiles are aimed at capital cities and military targets
in Western Europe.
But the main threat from the Soviets may lie elsewhere. As early as
1962, Khrushchev told us that Communism would win--not through nuclear war
which could destroy the world today, or even conventional war which could
lead to nuclear war--but rather through wars of national liberation in Africa,
Asia, and Latin America. Today, after 20 years of promoting end supporting
such wars, the Soviets and their proxies have bases in Afghanistan, Angola,
Vietnam, Ethiopia, Cuba and Nicaragua. From these bases, further attacks
are aimed at Pakistan, E1 Salvador, The Sudan, Kampuchea. And we wonder
daily--where next?
The costs in human despair and population displacement of Soviet expansion
and Soviet-backed insurgencies have been enormous. There are over 100,000
Nicaraguan refugees in Honduras and Costa Rica. Salvadoran refugees number
.in the hundreds of thousands. At least a quarter of the Afghan people have
left their country. Over 2 million people have fled Communist rule in Indochina
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and thousands of others are incarcerated in "reeducation camps," the Vietnamese
version of the Gulag. Vietnamese and Lao forces--under direct Soviet supervision--
have used lethal chemical agents against hill tribes. About half a million
Ethiopians and Sudanese have been driven from their homes.
Yet a difference has developed. Whereas in the 1960s and 1970s anti-Western
causes attracted recruits throughout the Third World, the 1980s have emerged
as the decade of guerrillas resisting Communist regimes. Today in Afghanistan,
Angola, Cambodia, Ethiopia, and Nicaragua thousands of ordinary people are
volunteers in irregular wars against the Soviet Army or Soviet-supported
regimes. More than a quarter of a million people have taken up arms against
Communist oppression in these countries.
Still, Moscow views the Third World as our Achilles Heel and the increasing
economic and social strains in underdeveloped countries will afford them
many opportunities in the future.
To implement its overall strategy, the Soviets use the world apparatus
of the KGB, plus 70 non-governing Communist parties, plus peace and friendship
organizations all over the world directed from Moscow, plus the East German,
Cuban and other Bloc intelligence services--all of them working to steal our
technology, to damage our reputation, to divide us from our friends, to
destabilize, subvert and overthrow governments friendly to us.
Rumors, agents of influence, kept press and radio facilities and forgeries
spreading poison around the world. The Kremlin is on a propaganda offensive
.to reverse setbacks by the failure to prevent installation of missiles in
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Europe and the shootdown of the Korean airliner. One of our tasks is
to spot and counter the forgeries and fabrications and distortions used in
Soviet active measures against our interests.
Terrorism is a new weapons system which is dissolving the boundaries
between war and peace. We've seen terrorists move from plastic charges, to
assassinations, to highjacking, to car bombs, and we now worry about nuclear
and biological terrorism.
Major terrorist organizations and a great many more "mom and pop shops"
can be hired by aggressive and radical governments to serve as instruments
of foreign policy. And U.S. facilities and people are their major targets.
These terrorists operate in small groups on a need-to-know basis. Last year
there were more than 550 serious terrorist attacks worldwide and all of us
feel all too keenly the three disasters that we've suffered in Beirut. Yet
we have developed a worldwide counterterrorism network through intelligence
exchanges, technical support, training and close relationships with intelligence
and security services around the world. Terrorist attacks haye been thwarted
and rescue operations have been carried out in many parts of the world.
Narcotics is another problem that is engaging more and more of our
attention. The methods by which drug smugglers bring narcotics into this
country defy the imagination. Americans spend tens of billions of dollars
each year on illicit drugs. Even more significant from an intelligence
standpoint, the world's drug traffickers are corrupting Third World governments
and disrupting their economies and American drug money also gets into the
hands of terrorists and insurgents.
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Another challenge of great importance is the task of determining the
state of Soviet technology and science and the Kremlin's potential to carry
out a strategic military technological surprise.
In some technology areas, Soviet capability rivals our own, although
the periodic estimates we produce show that the U.S. remains in the lead in
most critical categories. However, we cannot afford to be complacent.
Soviets are making remarkable progress and they are doing it with our help.
During the late 1970s the Soviets got about 30,000 samples of Western
production equipment, weapons, and military components and over 400,000
technical documents, both classified and unclassified. In 1981, we organized
the Technology Transfer Assessment Center which established the increased
power, accuracy, precision, and sophistication of Soviet weapons which we're
now incurring budget-busting appropriations in order to counter. All this
has come from the acquisition and use of our technology to a much greater
extent than we ever dreamed.
How do the Soviets get so much of our technical know-how? In many ways:
they comb through our open literature, buy through legal channels, attend
our scientific and technical conferences, and send their students here to
study. They use dummy firms in sophisticated international diversion operations,
some legal, some illegal, to purchase Western technology. We know of some
300 firms operating from more than 30 countries worldwide engaged in these
trade diversion schemes. Finally, technology acquisition has become probably
the highest priority of the KGB and GRU. For some 15 years they have brought
about 100 young engineers and technicians a year to develop a specialized
unit of perhaps 1,000 people devoted to espionage and theft of Western technology.
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During 1982, this emerging threat and its cost was briefed extensively to
our liaison services. Over the last year and a half well over 150 Soviet
agents, most of them engaged in technology theft, have been arrested or
expelled or defected in well over 20 countries around the world. Successes
have been achieved in recovering stolen technology, blocking shipments and
breaking up technology smuggling rings. And yet there is much more to be
done in this area.
Enhanced technical and human intelligence collection will intensify the
challenge of processing and analyzing the vast amount of information that's
coming in every day. We will cope with this by using supercomputers and,
further in the future, probably with artificial intelligence of various
kinds counterdirecting in the national defense. Plans are under way to
improve and expand the Community's computer databases so that analysts in
different components can better share their ideas and hundreds of analysts
now have terminals right at their desks to read, compose, edit and file.
Meanwhile NSA struggles valiantly with the demanding, serious security
aspects of these new communications systems.
A great deal was heard about the purging of the clandestine apparatus
in the late 1970s. Less well known is the massive departure of professionals
from the analytic side of CIA during the same period. Nearly half of our
analysts left between 1977 and 1981. The strength of our analytical corps
has been restored and the quality of its work improved.
From a low point in 1980 of only 12 national estimates, we now publish
some 50 national estimates a year, as well as 25 other intelligence assessments.
In addition, we complete about 1,000 major research projects on a nearly
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inconceivable range of subjects from Soviet weapons systems to political
instability, the now worldwide reach of the Soviet Union, heroin production
and distribution, black market arms trade, population and debt problems, and
so on. All in addition to the regular stream of periodicals--dailies,
weeklies, monthlies and quarterlies.
Another dramatic difference, certainly from the earlier days of intelligence,
is a closer public scrutiny of all our activities. Congress is more involved
in our activities through the Congressional oversight process and the press
covers us more assiduously.
In this relationship with the press, some tension is inherent. Journalists
are committed to finding out the most they can about us. We are committed
to protecting legitimate secrets. But while intelligence should not be
divorced from public opinion, neither should it be overly concerned with the
daily shifts, and ups and downs, of public criticism or praise.
To get the assistance of people around the world who share our values
and want to help us, the American Intelligence Community must maintain a
reputation for integrity, confidentiality, reliability and security. The
quality of the intelligence produced, the loyalty and dedication of our
people, and a large number of Americans interested in joining our ranks--there
were 150,000 applicants last year--demonstrates that we do maintain that
kind of reputation despite a steady drumbeat of criticism in the media.
With few exceptions the highly publicized charges made against the CIA during
the mid-70s turned out to be false. The charges were on the front pages
and their refutations buried away so that few people noted them.
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For decades CIA has generally not responded to criticism publicly and
certainly not in detail. Public understanding and support is so vital today
that we can no longer always suffer in silence. Sometimes the record needs
to be put straight. We do sometimes succeed-in getting false stories retracted,
distorted stories corrected.
Our relationship with the press has been through several swings of the
pendulum--from freer, though cautious, access to "batten down the hatches."
We have found that the best approach is to maintain a dialogue when possible,
always making clear that our first priority is to protect classified sources
and methods. I think journalists realize that while my press people may not
be able to tell them much, what they do tell them is the truth. Most journalists
are responsible and most do try to be right. But even one inaccurate story
that we are helpless to rebut can cause a lot of damage to sources and methods,
to U.S. credibility, to crucial negotiations, as well as provide propaganda
fodder for our adverseries and save the KGB time and money.
We put a lot of effort into giving the Congress the infor,nation it
needs for it to discharge its oversight and legislative obligations. We
have a substantial legislative staff and give close to 1,000 briefings a
year by intelligence analysts. It is vital to maintain public and policymaker
confidence in not only the quality but the integrity of our assessments.
For that we depend on the integrity of our analysts in a process which is
designed and operated to assure that all substantiated points of view are
heard, considered and reflected in estimates.
Nearly all of our assessments go to the two Congressional oversight
committees whose members or staffs are in a position to detect any bias.
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All estimates are reviewed by the chiefs of all of the components of the
Intelligence Community sitting together at the board of estimates. They are
encouraged and charged to stake out dissenting views. In a recent estimate,
which the media claimed to have been slanted, it turns out that half of this
board held one view, the other half another. Each view was spelled out on
the first page of the estimate. And that is exactly the way it should be
done.
We also work to openly gather information from the private sector. Our
use of outside expertise to critique our analysis has almost tripled and
we've conducted a massive campaign to put our analysts in touch with experts
in the private sector, universities, think tanks, and private businesses
here and abroad.
These assessments of ours are not produced in an ivory tower atmosphere.
The debates and clash of ideas sometimes are rough; no one's views--from the
Director to the newest analyst--are protected from challenge and criticism.
It is not a place for delicate egos or mediocrity or people with a special
agenda. But out of that process, despite its imperfections, comes the best,
the most comprehensive, most objective intelligence reporting in the world.
And our critics help keep it that way.
To keep our performance up over the long term we must go on attracting
some of the best young people in America. We are hiring about one out of
every hundred who want to tackle the challenge of our work and even less if
we're talking about operations officers or analytical work. Our recruitment
work is exacting and-exhaustive but our standards remain high and will not
be lowered. A number of the future leaders of our organization have been
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spotted and recruited by the alumni in this audience. I ask each of you to
exploit any avenue open to you to help find superior quality people we need,
and to encourage them to consider an intelligence career. Here you can and
have helped us enormously.
Finally I would say that these years as Director of Central Intelligence
have been a rich and gratifying experience for me. I am honored to serve
with the dedicated officers who are carrying on a fine tradition of quality,
hard work, and commitment that many of you here started. Today as a nation
we are facing up to some hard realities--realities that a democratic society
often finds it difficult to acknowledge. We have rebuilt our defenses as
well as our intelligence service. These twin pillars, if backed by a national
will to remain prepared, will ensure the peace and preserve our freedoms.
Thank you for your continuing support and for listening to these comments
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