WILLIAM COLBY

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CIA-RDP88-01070R000301400002-0
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RIFPUB
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K
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29
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December 22, 2016
Document Release Date: 
January 6, 2010
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2
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Publication Date: 
September 27, 1984
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OPEN SOURCE
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Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-01070R000301400002-0 fTV REPORTS, INC. 4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 (301) 656-4068 FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF PROGRAM The Larry King Show STATION WTOP Radio Mutual Network DATE September 27, 1984 12:05 A.M. CITY Washington, D.C. SUBJECT William Colby / LARRY KING: Our special guest in the first hour and a half will be the distinguished American, William Colby, the former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He is currently senior adviser to something with the longest name in Washington, Political Risk Assessment and Risk International Business Government Counselors, Incorporated. I think it's so big it didn't even have initials. We'll ask Bill Colby about that in a moment and the Conference on the Fate of the Earth, which was just concluded here in Washington. We'll talk about that and nuclear disarmament. KING: We welcome to our microphones William Colby, former Director of the CIA. What is Political Risk Assessment and Risk International Business Government Counselors, Inc.? WILLIAM COLBY: It's the application of the intelligence business to the private sector, because intelligence today isn't just the spy business. Intelligence today is the collection of all the information. And we live in an information age, there's lots of it all over the place. You bring it to one place, you look at it, and then you analyze it. And that's the second process, thinking about it, what does it mean, what's the significance of some of the things. KING: Can you give me like a hypothetic? Company A would use you for what? COLBY: Sure. Somebody has an investment in the OFFICES IN: WASHINGTON D.C. ? NEW YORK ? LOS ANGELES ? CHICAGO ? DETROIT ? AND OTHER PRINCIPAL CITIES ` -..~_.. ., . .. e o ....~ -1,1 ,,... null ' . -Rated or exhibited. Materbis~,cM Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-01070R000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 Philippines. They're worried about what may happen after Mr. Marcos. What's going to happen? Is it going to go left? Is it going to go Moslem? What's going to happen? Are they going to be just thrown out, their money taken away? We're asked to look at it, think about it, see whether they ought to be doing something today to protect themselves against the future, but also to think whether maybe the situation the Philippines won't be terribly different in the next ten years. KING: You, therefore, have to have your own sources COLBY: You send people out to talk to people who know about the Philippines. You think about it. KING: What took you to intelligence? You were in the Foreign Service, primarily, in the State Department. Right? COLBY: Well, I came out of intelligence in World War II. I parachuted into France. KING: CIA? I mean OSS? COLBY: OSS. I parachuted into France and Norway and got into intelligence in that time. Then I went back into it after the Korean War and served in various places around the world in intelligence jobs. KING: Was Donovan, Bill Donovan, equal to his reputa- COLBY: Yes. He was a fine fellow. I knew him quite well. I didn't really know him during the war, but I worked for him after the war in his law firm. And he was a very courageous, intelligent, thoughtful, probing man. He really was looking for the answers all the time. KING: Didn't fit that nickname. Right? COLBY: No. He was a very mild fellow, very quiet fellow, walked through a room carrying a drink or something. Never drank it, but carried it. And he just sort of walked around and was very soft and mild with everybody. But enormous courage. Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, Dis- tinguished Service Medal, all the tickets. KING: Were you surprised when they asked you to head COLBY: Yes, because I was a career officer, and normally career officers don't end up in the head of the CIA, Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 just as military officers don't end up as the Secretary of Defense. You put a political officer in, normally. But there was a particular set of circumstances that they came down to me. KING: It was Gerald Ford. Right? COLBY: Mr. Nixon nominated me. KING: But Ford kept you on. Right? COLBY: For a while. KING: Were those happy days? COLBY: Very interesting, stimulating, enormously exciting, challenging days. Yes. KING: Before we talk about the fate of the earth and nuclear disarmament, I would be remiss if I did not ask you, Bill, about one thing in current events. And that's security at embassies. What's going on? COLBY: Well, terrorism is a tough subject. But -- and you do the best you can to penetrate into the groups that are planning these things. But they're normally very small groups and there are very few people in them. They keep their activi- ties very secret, so it's hard to get a man inside. And the great technological intelligence that we have doesn't help you very much, because the satellite photographs don't show you some saboteur with a bomb. What I think you have to do is prepare yourself for the eventuality, set up your protective devices, just as we've set up the screening systems in the airports and all the rest. And obviously, there was a failure in that in the last thing in Beirut. KING: The Washington Post said today, what about simply no trucks within 300 yards of an embassy, period? COLBY: Well, that's one way. The other way is to make a truck stop, back up, and then go in. I mean set up the blocks so that you can't just wiggle back and forth to get through, but that you have to physically stop and then back up in order to get access to another place. There are all sorts of gimmicks you can use like that. KING: That wouldn't cost any money, would it? COLBY: Well, you can put big dump trucks around so that you can't get through them without conforming to their Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-01070R000301400002-0 KING: This is the real world, huh? COLBY: It's the real world. It's unfortunate. It makes an American Embassy look like a fortress, which we don't like. But nonetheless, in these days in some parts of the world, we really have to anticipate that these crazies are going to do this sort of thing. KING: One other thing. George Will said today that someone had to be to blame for this. There had to be some warnings, there had to be some fears. And there never seems to be =blame assessed when these things happen. They seem to happen and they go away, and we worry about it again when the next thing happens. COLBY: Well, in the old days, when people made a mistake or something happened wrong, they relieved people, they fired them, they kicked them out. We haven't been kicking enough people out. I think we ought to kick a few people out now and again, just to encourage the others. KING: Obviously, somebody goofed here. Right? KING: Bill Colby is our guest. We'll talk about this Conference on the Fate of the Earth, his thoughts on nuclear disarmament. KING: What was the Conference on the Fate of the Earth? COLBY: It was a discussion of the necessity to do something to protect ourselves from being destroyed. KING: In any way? COLBY: By nuclear warfare. KING: That was primarily its emphasis. COLBY: Primarily. Primary, yes. The fact is that we have these weapons nowadays, we have 25,000 nuclear bombs in the United States and about 25,000 nuclear bombs in the Soviet Union, any one of whom is bigger than the one that destroyed Hiroshima or Nagasaki. KING: Any one. Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-01070R000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 COLBY: Any one. Now,. this is a situation which we've lived with for a while, and we think that it's been fairly stable. Both countries have been very careful about them. We haven't had any get loose by mistake or anything. But the fact is that the weapons are getting increasingly more sensitive and more dangerous. The flight times are going down. We now, here in Washington, are 30 minutes away from a nuclear missile in the middle of the Soviet Union. Now, that gives 30 minutes from the time that one lifts off until it lands here. That sounds like a long time. You might think it's a short time, but in real terms... KING: I think it's a short time. COLBY: ...it's a fairly long time for the machinery to pick it up, identify it, be sure that it's really a weapon coming here, and all the rest; then go to the President, get the President's approval to shoot ours in retaliation before they're destroyed by the ones landing here. Now, that's fine. But the recent change is that in the European theater, the Soviets have put in the SS-20s, we've put in the Pershings. Those weapons have a flight time of seven minutes. There's no way you can go through the process of identification, confirma- tion, making sure there isn't a false alarm, going to the President, getting his approval, and shooting the answer. You've got to turn it over to the computers. Now, we've had a lot of computer alerts that have been force. We have a screening system that selects them out and makes sure that we don't react wrongly when there is a false alarm. But with this time of a short fuse, you're getting near to the situation where you could conceivably destroy the world through computer error. KING: So this conference hoped to do what, discuss these things, [unintelligible] and discuss them? COLBY: Primarily, to start the process of limiting and stopping the further growth of these weapons. First, I happen to believe in the nuclear freeze, mutual and verifiable. Not a unilateral one, not just we stop and hope that the Russians will be nice and they'll stop, not that; but a deal between us that we both stop. Now, the Soviets have already indicated that they're ready to accept that. We have not because we have some false idea that, somehow, they're ahead of us and we have to catch up, when in reality we both have more than enough to do the job of deterring the other. So the important thing today is to stop building new ones. Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 KING: Was there opposition to that at this conference? COLBY: No. No, the conference was obviously most people that are sympathetic to it. KING: Dedicated to it. COLBY: Yes. KING: Do you think most of the public would agree with COLBY: Well, 60 percent of the delegates at the Republican National Convention in Dallas did agree with that. Now, that's an amazing fact, because the Republican National Convention was fairly conservative, to put it mildly. KING: All right. Let's say we both had this, the panacea, we both say we stop. They stop, we stop, all building stops. That doesn't take away this seven-minute computer error, does it? That's still there. COLBY: Well, it limits the further growth of it. It stops at where it is. Then we can begin to negotiate about how to reduce it. And it's a very complicated business, because there's some things that they're a little stronger than we are, there are some things we're a little stronger than they are. And the computation of how to make it even on both sides and reduce it evenly is a very complicated negotiation. But at least you're not building new ones while you're negotiating. KING: Then, I gather, also, while you're building, it's very hard to negotiate to reduce when you're building. COLBY: Well, it's impossible because the one gets ahead and the other says, "Oh, I got to catch up." And that's been the history of it the last few years. KING: Is this new thinking for you, Bill? COLBY: No, I've been thinking about this for a long time. I happen to think that the purpose of intelligence is to understand what's happening in the world. We have had some miracles of increase in knowledge of the world, thanks to intelligence: the satellite photographs, the electronics, all the rest of it. We now know things that we couldn't have dreamed of knowing of a few years ago. We don't ask a spy to slink out of Hong Kong and work his way up to the Manchurian border and tell us what may be going on there by some great difficult communications system. Instead we look down there. We see the troop units on both sides. We Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 count the number of planes, tanks, artillery. We see them move from time to time. We know exactly what's happening with a precision and a scope of knowledge that we wouldn't have had in a million years a very few years ago. And the purpose of that is so that we can make wise decisions on a basis of knowledge. KING: Were you encouraged by President Reagan's U.N. speech? COLBY: I think the spirit that he indicated, that he wanted to move toward negotiations, is certainly to be commended. I don't think there was much content in it in terms of a clear indication that he was prepared to make some very clear con- cessions to the Soviets to match their concessions so that we could make a deal. A deal has to be on both sides, not just on one side. KING: Those opposed to a mutually verifiable freeze say what: If we stop, they have more than us and they're going to plan something sneaky and win? COLBY: No. They say, basically, that they're ahead of us in certain regards, and therefore they're stronger, and therefore they can 'impress us if we stop. And the fact is that that's nonsense because we have more than enough to counter anything that they do. Our retaliation capability is absolute. There's no question about it, that if anyone used a nuclear weapon against us, we could retaliate with overwhelming force. Now, even the Scowcroft Commission that looked into this a year ago said, well, yes, they have some heavier ones and they have some that are different from ours; but there's no question about it, we have the submarines, we have the bombers, our retaliation is total. And therefore, we're both stalemated on this. So why don't we stop building new ones? KING: It is a kind of insanity, isn't it? COLBY: It's an adolescent, it's playing king of the mountain. You know, I want to get higher than you. And mean- while you build up these terrible amount of terrible weapons, oceans of them, 25,000 on each side, and you take the risk that it get out of control. KING: Do you buy the scenario -- a psychologist offered this -- that if one side keeps building and the other side keeps building, and the other builds and the other builds, one day a rational head of state will first-strike? COLBY: No, I don't think a rational head of state would Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 first-strike, because, again, the retaliation is absolute. A first strike, theoretically, knocks out our land-based systems. But we have submarine-based, we have airborne systems, we have cruise missiles, we have many ways of retaliating. KING: Therefore, you don't think it's ever going to happen. COLBY: No, it's not going to happen. KING: But this is a better preventative than the other? COLBY: What I'm not worried about is a World War II scenario, where a Hitler or a Tojo decides to conduct a Pearl Harbor. No, that's impossible today. KING: What are you worried about? COLBY: What I worry about is a World War I scenario, where the various nations in World War I began the process of mobilization, putting their forces into position to move, began to shoot at each other, and sooner or later they were all in a big war. Now, that war lasted four years, it killed 20 million people, and nobody knows what the war was all about. KING: Still don't. COLBY: The politicians lost total control to the mechanistic systems of general mobilization and of the military there. KING: What about a third party with a nuclear weapon? COLBY: Not a great problem yet. The fact is that if a third party had a nuclear weapon -- there are a few that do. But if a Mr. Qaddafi used a nuclear weapon. on Cairo or something, it certainly would be disastrous for Cairo, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. KING: It'd be the end of Libya, wouldn't it? COLBY: Well, it'd be the end of both Egypt and Libya, perhaps, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. What I'm mainly concerned about is the massive arsenals of the Soviets and ourselves. That's the problem. KING: You told me before we went on -- I just asked you off the cuff, are you optimistic or pessimistic? And you said optimistic. That makes me feel better because you know a lot more than I do about what's going on. But after what you've just Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 said, with all these arsenals, how can you be optimistic? COLBY: Well, because they're stalemated for the moment, and I happen to think that there's enough good sense in the American people and various of the other peoples in the world that they're going to insist that this sort of madness be constrained, be controlled, be reduced. And I think that's the process. I think the President's speech the other day at the United Nations is an indication of his recognition of the strength of this feeling in the American people that he must lead us to some kind of a decent arms control relationship to the Soviet Union. KING: I guess if we could have a worldwide referendum with the simple question of a mutually verifiable freeze of the superpowers... COLBY: It would win hands-down. KING: It would be a joke. The public don't want this. COLBY: It would win hands-down. But Madame Gandhi said something rather interesting, you know, when people were telling her not to develop a nuclear weapon. She said, "Look, don't you great powers give me sermons about nuclear weapons until you get yours under control." And I think that makes a lot of sense, that if we will show the example, the Soviets and ourselves, of putting our nuclear systems under control and not continuing this kind of madness, then we can insist on the others adhering to that kind of a system. KING: Are you concerned that the two men currently involved in this are both in their mid-seventies and are not likely to be affected by it? COLBY: No, I'm not concerned, because they're both responsible leaders of their countries. And as I say, the Soviets have indicated that they're prepared to move to a freeze. They're very concerned at the continuation of this race. They're very upset at the President's Star Wars idea because they have enough respect for the American technological capability that they're convinced that if we really wanted to do it, we probably could do it. Now, there are a lot of scientists who say we can't do it, but the Soviets are not sure of that. And so they're frightened of the possibilities. Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-01070R000301400002-0 KING: You say we've had a couple of misses, the computer was wrong or something. Are we accident-free? COLBY: We have a whole series of controls, checks, cross-checks, all the rest of it, to make sure that the false indicator that comes in is not then used immediately as a response. We have fail-safe systems and all the rest of it. And they've worked to date. Even though we've had the false alerts, the confirmation requirements have been such that we have not gone to war by mistake. But as I say, if you get down to shorter terms, then you begin to eliminate the human selection of whether it's right or not and you begin to depend on the machines more and more. KING: William Colby is our guest. KING: Our guest is William Colby, the former Chief of the CIA. He is currently senior adviser to -- we had the old name of that firm. The correct name is International Business Government Counselors, or IBC. We're ready to go to your phone calls, and we begin with Fairfax, Virginia. WOMAN: ...You remember the Phoenix program in Vietnam? WOMAN: Did you run that, or was it Robert Komer? COLBY: No, I ran it. And it was a program to try to improve our knowledge and intelligence on the Communist under- ground there. KING: Second question. WOMAN: I am very glad you've come to the nuclear freeze position. But in Vietnam the war went on so long, with so much loss of life, was there ever any question of using any nuclear weapons there? COLBY: No. Absolutely not. No. KING: Never even discussed? COLBY: Not that I recall. Absolutely not. KING: Atlanta, Georgia. Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-01070R000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 MAN: I have many questions, but I shall limit them to three. One -- and I don't remember the guy's name, but whoever the head of North Korea is, allegedly... COLBY: Kim I1 Sung. MAN: ...has decided that he is going to, before he dies, take South Korea. The man is old. What's happening there? COLBY: Well, he'd like to, but he's deterred by a very substantial South Vietnamese [sic] army and an American force that's there. And our government has decided to keep our forces there rather than reduce them. And I think that's an effective deterrence against his ambitions to take South Korea. He's still going to try, but he just has to be stopped. KING: How old is he, close to 80? COLBY: No, no. He's around 65 or 70. He's not that old. But his son is going to take over. And he's, if anything, worse than his father. KING: Second question. MAN: Second question. Mutual and verifiable. How do you propose to verify? COLBY: Because our intelligence system these days is telling us what kind of weapons the Soviets has, whether there's an agreement between us or not. It's doing a good job. We know exactly what the Soviets have. We haven't had a surprise for 20-odd years, and we can tell these things long before they become a strategic threat to us. Now, this kind of intelligence is made easier by a treaty because there are a lot of provisions in the treaty that are designed to facilitate that monitoring. KING: Because we only have one hour we're going to limit the callers to, tops, two questions each. We go to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. MAN: I have a couple of questions here. One, there was a growing concern, I guess, back in 1981 that President Reagan had signed a bill into law allowing the CIA more domestic spying in the U.S. to zero in on subversive organizations and people who are potential John Hinckleys. Now, has this started any? And if so, to what extent or... COLBY: No, not the CIA. The CIA's job is abroad. Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 MAN: It is abroad? COLBY: It is abroad. KING: By law, by edict. COLBY: By law and by presidential directive. Now, what we did do is relieve certain of the restric- tions put on the FBI for some of the activities here in the United States that can be dangerous to our Presidents or to our fellow citizens. MAN: My second question is regarding the issue in Central and South America. How are we keeping abreast of the troop movements that are by Soviet and Cuban troops? And was the CIA in any way involved in Grenada prior to... KING: That's two questions. Just the Central America. COLBY: Well, on the Central America thing, we have a very extensive intelligence coverage of shipping, of aircraft movements, of logistics movements. We cover various kinds of indications from communications, from observers in various places. We have techniques of flying over certain areas and seeing ships that are on the ground there. We have a variety of ways of covering what's happening in that area. KING: Do former CIA Directors keep in touch with each other and the current CIA Director? Are you pretty much aware of what's going on? COLBY: No. I don't want to know the secrets because that's no my business these days. I've talked to the present Director, Mr. Casey, and I've been out there a few times. But I let him run his own business. KING: Toronto, Canada. MAN: Considering Canada's special relationship with the United States, its involvement in NORAD and NATO, do you see severe diplomatic limitations on what Canada -- what role Canada can play between peace between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.? COLBY: Canada and the United States have a very close alliance. We're totally involved with each other. And we have the utmost confidence in the Canadians and the Canadians support to our mutual defense. There are many things the Canadians can do to help us, and there are many things we can do to help Canada. And that's the way it ought to be. KING: Without acid rain. Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-01070R000301400002-0 COLBY: Right. KING: Bethesda, Maryland. MAN: Mutual assured destruction. Valid or invalid? COLBY: Basically, valid for a while, although it's a silly way to keep the peace. We'd do better not to have weapons like that. But if the other side has one and we have one, then the two threatening each other mean that neither dares use it. And that's the way the peace has been kept for a number of years. The problem is that it's getting very fragile because the potential for a so-called first strike is coming out of the improvements of technology, and we have to stop this race in these weapons before that happens. MAN: Well, how about the Soviets' [unintelligible] versus ours. I know that we are not effective in hitting their hardeneded silos, which they are most effective in hitting ours. And that is the imbalance in the first-strike capability. COLBY: Well, we have had a greater accuracy than they have for a long time. The fact is, we chose to have small weapons rather than big ones because we had greater accuracy. The problem is that they have increased their accuracy in recent years; and, with their large weapons, they've become dangerous to our silos. But that's a very esoteric subject. The fact is that these weapons are so dangerous to both sides that neither can use them. KING: With William Colby, former Director of the CIA. New York City. WOMAN: I'm hearing nothing but technology. Luckily, I'm not a technological person. I understand the value of it. So is the inter-human relations of when you have talks. Are you effective -- not you, personally -- but whoever represents the U.S. of A.? We do not have a Churchill nowadays who can drink Stalin under the table. KING: What's the question? WOMAN: ...the people all over, including England and America. Now, that's where it's at, as far as I can see, apart from the arguments back and forth, you know, of how many... KING: What's the question? COLBY: We have people who speak Russian, who understand Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-01070R000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 the Soviet Union, who can deal with them very straight across the top of the table. WOMAN: Is Solzhenitsyn being consulted, for example? COLBY: Well, Solzhenitsyn gives everybody his views. I don't think he has been consulted. KING: We do have Russian experts, although our chief Russian expert has never been there. Does that matter to you? COLEY: No, not necessarily, because one can study the Soviet Union in great detail. I think he should visit there, and I arranged for a number of our experts to visit the Soviet Union, even as tourists, not to get involved in a particular operation, but to be tourists. KING: William Colby. He attended and spoke at the Conference on the Fate of the Earth, just concluded here in Washington, speaking in favor of mutual and verifiable freeze. He is senior adviser to International Business Government Council and the former Director of the CIA. By the way, he has been decorated with the National Security Medal, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, and the Norwegian St. Olaf's Medal, among many others. And he wrote a hell of a book in the late '70s, HDn-o-rable--Men-:- _. -M -Life- -in- -t-h-e -CIA, which Simon and Schuster published. KING: Madison, Wisconsin MAN: Mr. Colby, I have a question about the CIA's hiring practices. I was recruited by the Company about a year ago at the University of Wisconsin, and my recruiter was the Deputy Director in the Office of Central Reference. Now, he told me that if I was to be denied employment, that I would not be told what the reasons were. Now, I feel very strongly that I was qualified, but I was denied consideration. I suspect also that I didn't fit the, quote, mind-set that is in the organization. My question is this: Is it still true, as former CIA administrators have contended that have written about this problem, that the CIA recruits largely either from conservative Ivy League type colleges or from people with conservative political orientations? COLBY: No, that's not true. The present recruitment is all over the country. When I was in the CIA last, I counted the 12 senior members of the agency around my table in the morning meeting. Ten of them came from non-Ivy League colleges, two of Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 them came from Ivy League colleges. The fact is that they don't seek conservatives. We've had liberals. If anything, CIA was known to be kind of a liberal institution for a number of years. KING: It's known in Washington, first of all, it has more Ph.D.s than any other governmental agency. COLBY: Well, it probably has enormous number of advanced degrees. But it's neither liberal nor conservative. It's professional. KING: To Springfield, Illinois. MAN: I'd like to ask Mr. Colby if the American people will ever know what happened to Nick Shaddren? COLBY: Well, I don't know that anybody really knows, outside the Soviets, what happened to Nick Shaddren. There have been several books written about it, several investigations. But I don't think -- I certainly don't know what happened to him, and I don't think anybody really knows, other than perhaps the Soviet Union. MAN: So you think they grabbed him in Vienna? COLBY: I suspect that may have happened. Yes. KING: We go to Allentown, Pennsylvania. MAN: Let me first of all say thank you for your dedication and effort. KING: That's to you, Mr. Colby, not to me. MAN: Going back to '64, I'm curious what the effect of a Dr. Strangelove had on this, and maybe you personally, and just the system in general. KING: Did that movie have any effect? COLBY: No. It was an interesting movie and it was a fictional account, but there are all sorts of fictional accounts, from War -and Peace by Tolstoy on up. There are lots of fictions that `are very dramatic and they have an impact, but not a direct impact. KING: I discovered, from having visited the CIA, one looks at the bulletin board that employees look at and put up. It has a great sense of humor, that agency. Most of the cartoons Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 COLBY: Oh, sure. Well, you want to tell people what's being said about them. KING: Atlanta, Georgia. MAN: I have a seven-year-old grandson that visits me on the weekends. And one night not long ago we were sleeping side-by-side in the twin beds, and he woke up in the middle of the night screaming and crying and yelling, "They're going to kill us all. They're going to kill us all." And I calmed him down and found his teacher had been talking about possible nuclear attack in this country, and she was telling him what to do, you know, get under the desk and get downstairs and all that. What psychological thing is this going to have on our children, the threat of nuclear attack? COLBY: Oh, it has a considerable psychological effect, both on our children and on Soviet children. This happened 20-30 years ago when it was believed that if you hid under the desk it would help you. Now it's really pretty well understood that that doesn't help much. But you're getting more dramatic presenta- tions, like the film "The Day After," and so forth, that frighten a number of children who are afraid that they're not going to grow up, that they're going to die in a nuclear attack. KING: Children of both nations are scared. COLBY: Of all nations. Yes. MAN: One more question. What can I do, as an individ- ual, to stop this insaneness of nuclear buildup? COLBY: I think speak out among your neighbors, speak to your friends. Get involved in some of the programs, the activi- ties, the associations and organizations that are trying to do something about it. You make the choice as to the one that seems to represent what you think, and support 'em. KING: Brooklyn, New York. MAN: Mr. Colby, I have two comments, plus a question. One on, supposedly, the arms race and one that's happening in Beirut. You don't take the fact that they have the ABMs, the Soviets, which would violate the ICBMs, they could also hit us from Siberia within five-six minutes. I mean, you know, the Soviet Communists don't compromise. They only compromise what's in their benefit. Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-01070R000301400002-0 KING: Then what's your answer, sir? MAN: I'll say something about that after I finish. In Beirut, why don't the CIA try and infiltrate the Islamic Jihad, these crazies? COLBY: I am certain the CIA has tried to infiltrate it. It's very tough to infiltrate a small terrorist group. On some occasions, I think we have infiltrated them and we stopped the operation. Now, that doesn't get much publicity because you don't brag about it. You just stop it and that's the end of it. The time you fail, they run the attack. Therefore you have to have a protective device in addition to intelligence. KING: One of the great problems with the CIA is we don't know of its successes. COLBY: Well, President Kennedy said that your successes are silent and your failures are heralded. And that's a fact of life in the intelligence business. KING: Our guest is William Colby, the former Director of the CIA. KING: Bethesda, Maryland. MAN: Mr. Colby, are you familiar with the core of the KGB's military headquarters in Moscow, Department 8? I was told by a Jewish emigre that they have one thousand soldiers in almost an impenetrable fortress that guards the military communications of the entire military command in the Soviet Union and if there were a coup or someone in the Politburo were to assassinate someone for a military coup. Could you explain? Do you think that would be a problem on a fictional basis -- I mean on a reality? COLBY: Well, the KGB is responsible for the security of the leadership of the Soviet Union. The KGB is not the opposite number of the CIA, it's the opposite number of the CIA, the FBI, the Secret Service, the border police, everything else, the Bureau of Prisons and so forth. They even have full divisions. And one of their jobs is the protection of the senior leadership against coups. And their job is to protect the communications line, also, to the outlying districts of the Soviet Union. KING: When people complain that the KGB is much larger than us, they don't take into consideration that it encompasses all of those. Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-01070R000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 COLBY: That it has all those jobs, yes. Although its foreign operations are also larger than our foreign operations. KING: How well are the Russian embassies protected? Nothing ever seems to happen to Russian embassies. COLBY: Well, they don't -- occasionally you get a terrorist or something against a Soviet Embassy, but not very often. They take their security very, very carefully. They have lots of protection around their embassies. KING: Chicago, Illinois. MAN: Three quick questions, yes or no. Do we have any operatives, active agent operatives still within the Soviet Union? COLBY: I hope so. MAN: Second question. How much did Stansfield Turner hurt the CIA when he took over? COLBY: I don't think he hurt it. I think he changed a few things, like any Director does, and he was controversial in some respects. I was controversial on other respects. Bill Casey is controversial. Any leader is going to be controversial about various things he does. MAN: Third questions. The real hangup about a mutually verifiable freeze is the question of mutually verifiable. And hasn't that been the real crux, the Soviets' unwillingness to allow on-site inspection? COLBY: Well, your right that the crux has been the verifiable question. The fact is, I think that the freeze is verifiable. Now, if you accept the fact that you're not asking that we get the last item of evidence for a court of law, but that we're really interested in protecting our country, then I can guaranty that any substantial threat to our country will be identify long before it becomes actual and give us plenty of time either to negotiate about it or to react and counter it. That's the fact of verifiability. KING: Winnetka, Illinois. WOMAN: Mr. Colby, considering the fact as far as stopping this nuclear insanity on the part of this Administra- tion, particularly, but on both sides of the aisle, when it comes up talking about these arms, the senator and the representative are always for that limit -- I mean are often for that limita- tion, except when it's in his constituency and it Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 means jobs and votes. Do you not think that is a problem? COLBY: It's a problem, but there was a congressman down in Arkansas who voted against the resumption of the manufacture of poison gas, even though the factory was going to be in his district. I think he deserves a great deal of credit for that. KING: Is there a lot of that, though? COLBY: Yes, there is considerable of that kind of a --it's the people in Utah and Nevada who stopped that idea of the racetrack protective device for our MX missiles. KING: Two very conservative states. COLBY: Yes. KING: Alexandria, Virginia. MAN: Mr. Colby, there's a great deal of talk about the necessity for the President retaliating in the case of terrorism. One of the things that is essential is very precise and accurate intelligence. Now, what do you feel -- I'd be very interested in your viewpoint on what the CIA, that is constantly being un- dressed in public, requires in the way of protection in order to provide that kind of intelligence so we can act, or rather react, in a way that is effective and expeditious, such as we've seen in the case of Israel, for example. COLBY: Well, I would say that the first point is that we ought to protect our national sources, just as our journalists insist on protecting their sources. That doesn't mean we have to protect everything about the CIA or make it totally secret, but we do have to protect our sources. Secondly, with respect to retaliation, I happen to think that if somebody is my declared enemy, he declares it, and I get hurt, then I can retaliate quite legitimately at him without having to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he actually did the deed. Because if he stands up and says -- states his hostility, then he's responsible for anything that happens to me. KING: A fair assumption. Burlington, Massachusetts. MAN: Mr. Colby, my question is, what courses of study would you suggest or recommend for any future recruitment candidates? KING: Good question. Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 COLBY: I think a course of study of foreign affairs, languages. We have a crying need for languages: Arabic, Chinese, Soviet -- Russian, all that sort of thing. MAN: I see. But I speak Serbian and German fluently. MAN: And I'm interested in the Foreign Service. I took a test last year, in December, and I missed it by a couple of percentage points, as far as the grade that's required for consideration. And, the intelligence community has interested me for many years, through reading and through the newspapers. And I was hoping someday, that if not one, the other. COLBY: Well, there are advertisements in some of the press that give an address for one to send in one's application to the CIA. And the DIA is recruiting people. There are a lot of different agencies that recruit people for intelligence work. KING: His languages help him. Right? COLBY: They help a great deal. MAN: The average age, sir, of... COLBY: Generally a little over the normal hiring age. In other words, they like to take people who have done something, not just gone to school. KING: Twenty-five? COLBY: Twenty-eight, 29. MAN: I'm 26, so that would give me three years to get... KING: We have a half-hour to go with William Colby. KING: We're going to go right back to your calls. Houston, Texas. WOMAN: Bill, I'm a longtime admirer and friend. I just think that any hope for world peace can only be done and aug- mented by the support of someone with your experience and stature and ability. And I just want to say thank you for your Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-01070R000301400002-0 COLBY: Well, thank you very much. It's awful nice of KING: Nice when you get compliments, huh, Bill? Buffalo, New York. MAN: I'm pleased with your positions on nuclear freeze. My question is this: In view of the fact that the Western European countries spend a much smaller part of their GNP on military, is it possible that they take over the lion's share of defending Europe to save us some of the expense? COLBY: Well, the Germans, for example, do contribute considerable. Some of the other countries do not, but some of the other countries will point out to you that they have the draft and we don't, which makes a big difference in some of them. It would be preferable that they contribute more. It probably would be preferable that we contribute more to the conventional level of defense there. But at the moment we're at about a balance point, not as good as we should be, and we ought to do better. KING: Norfolk, Virginia. MAN: With the number of Russian atomic submarines patrolling the East and West Coast of the United States,and considering the amount of trouble that they've had, what do you think would be the effect on both the government and the people near the coast if one of these submarines would explode with a force of about ten megatons, either accidentally or by design? COLBY: Well, if they blew up out at sea where they are, several hundred -- a couple hundred miles out at sea, not very much on the initial stage, although you'd have a fallout problem. On the West Coast that fallout would come toward the coast. On the East Coast the fallout would go out into the Atlantic. MAN: What do you think the response of the government COLBY: Of our government? COLBY: If it were an explosion and not a direct attack, then I think we would try to work our way around the explosion rather than take it as an attack. Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-01070R000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 KING: We would treat it as an accident. COLBY: Right. KING: Williamstown, New Jersey. MAN: Sir, a question to a great American patriot, whom I missed meeting on your recent visit to Southern Pines. COLBY: Oh, thank you. MAN: I asked my mentor, General William P. Yarborough, this question, and he did not know. Are you the man who led the remarkable 50-man Norwegian operations group for OSS during World War II? COLBY: I read -- yes, I did lead a group up into Norway, operations group for OSS there. It was not the so-called heavy water operation. It was an operation against a railway in Northern Norway. We went in in the spring of '45 and blew up the railroad a couple of times. KING: Is that what won you the Norweigan St. Olaf's MAN: Sir, you might be interested in knowing, in a book that's going to be coming out entitled Th-e--Devil's-Bodyg,uard that ?operat-ion will be mentioned. COLBY: Oh, thank-you. KING: Minneapolis. WOMAN: It seems unconscionable that the CIA funded experiments on unsuspecting Canadian mental patients. COLBY: It is unconscionable. WOMAN: And one must -- well, I must then question whether similar experiments that use things like ECT -- shock treatments, in other words -- drugs, or behavior modification techniques were also done on United States psychiatric patients. And I'm wondering whether you would care to comment on this possibility. COLBY: During the investigations of CIA ten years ago, a few cases showed up where CIA was involved in some tests of various kinds of people, the potential use of drugs and so forth. The motivation was to find out what those drugs did so that we Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 could protect ourselves against a hostile use of them, and sometimes the possibility of using them in our interest. Now, it is totally unconscionable that those were used in a violation of the standards on experiments, medical experi- ments. The rules have been made very clear since that time that CIA will stick to the rules proper to the medical profession for experimentation on patients. KING: We'll be right back with William Colby. KING: Canton, Ohio. MAN: First I'd like to say that Mr. Colby is white- washing the CIA, and I think it's a criminal organization, a secret police for the transnational corporations. I do believe that this doubly underscores the absolute necessity and credi- bility of a nuclear freeze and how mild as milk such a policy would be. And even the fact that most people don't realize that the Soviets have refused to ever strike first, they've officially renounced that. We have not renounced that. They've called for a nuclear freeze. We have refused that nuclear freeze. They've said they'd get rid of all of their nuclear weapons within Europe if we counted the British and French weapons which could destroy the Soviet Union. And Reagan has refused to do this. KING: What's the question? MAN: Do you believe that most people don't realize this? I think because much of the media are not bringing it to their attention. And yet they support even a unilateral freeze within this country. Do you think this could be strengthened if these facts got out to the people. with the help of a media that is, I think, fronting for Reagan and the military. KING: Rather than make a speech, if you ask a question it's much more effective. COLBY: I think I got the question. I don't think that the media has misled. I think the subject is so complex that the ordinary citizen has a tough time distinguishing the various positions. As for the Administration's position, I think they've been a little sticky on a few things, although I give them good-faith concern about the safety of our country. I think we should move ahead to a negotiation of a mutual freeze. And I think the Soviets are ready because it's very much in their interest to achieve it, and it's very much in our interest to achieve it. Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 KING: It'd be a nice world if we didn't need CIA or COLBY: Yes, but we do. The fact is that there are secrets in the world, and the secrets can be dangerous to us, and we have to discover those secrets. KING: Rockville, Maryland. MAN: Two questions, please. Mr. Boyce, who handed the Soviets the satellite technologies book in Washington state, could you tell me the extent of damage that did and if it had any effect on the start of the White Horse system or any of the satellite-killer systems? And the second question. There was an explosion in the North Sea about -- I think it was in early March or April, about 35 percent of the Soviet nuclear missile depot at a naval base was destroyed. Could you tell us -- elaborate on that, please? COLBY: Well, the explosion was up in the northern part of the Soviet Union. Obviously, a weapons depot got out of control and it was an enormous destructive -- it was an accident, apparently. They are fairly sloppy in the way they handle those sorts of things. And I think with respect to the Soviet naval activities generally, they are not as efficient as our Navy. There's no question about it. KING: What about the gentleman in Seattle and the handing over? COLBY: The movement -- Mr. Boyce's operations certainly did hurt us. I wouldn't say that they put us behind the Soviet Union, but it was one of those things that exposed something that we were using against them that now they can counter fairly easily. KING: Pittsburgh. MAN: Mr. Colby, this is a little different, but some of my friends and I were often wondering about this. If you can't answer this question, nobody can. When the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, the two prominent Slovaks in power or running the country at that time were Dubcek and Swoboda, I think his name was. What ever happened to them? Were they executed or are they still alive? COLBY: I can't answer the question, I'm sorry. I just have forgotten. I really don't know. Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-01070R000301400002-0 MAN: ...find out that out? KING: I'd call the Czech Embassy. COLBY: I think Dubcek died, but I'm not sure. KING: To Springfield, Massachusetts. MAN: The President likes to speak about the window of vulnerability. Since it's been pointed out on this program that there's a fair amount of parity in weaponry between us and the Russians, I wonder if he's deluding himself. That's my feeling. COLBY: Yes. There is no window of vulnerability. If there were, the Soviets would exploit it. I don't have any sympathy for the Soviets, and I know they're tough and hard. The fact is, we have the weapons that can prevent the Soviets from using their weapons against us. KING: Omaha, Nebraska. MAN: On the strategic defense initiative, how do you think we would deal, or the Russians would deal, with the unfissioned plutonium fuses on the warheads that would theoreti- cally be destroyed? COLBY: Well, I think the strategic defense initiative, the so-called Star Wars, is probably not really feasible in any realistic sense. It's 25 years ahead, it's $25 trillion ahead, and it probably wouldn't be more than 90 to 95 percent efficient, which if a thousand missiles came toward us, that would leave 50 or 100 landing on us. So, the fact is that once we actually hit a number of those in the sky, or in space, you would have the plutonium there. It would have a certain poisonous effect, but it would have a lot less poisonous effect than the weapon landing in the United States. KING: Marshall, Minnesota. MAN: I just wanted to call and compliment you on a job that's being well done by the CIA. I really appreciate what you're doing to counter what our enemies are trying to do to us. And that guy who called earlier and called the CIA a criminal organization just doesn't know what he's talking about, you know. I think you guys are doing an effective job. COLBY: Well, I appreciate that. I've retired from it, but I'm sure the people still in it appreciate your sentiments. KING: Chicago for William Colby. Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-01070R000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 MAN: Mr. Colby, much has been made of the nuclear threat and the danger surrounding nuclear proliferation. Balanced against this possible danger, I think, is the present slaughter of millions of innocents by the Soviet Union and the continuing enslavement of almost a billion human beings by those despotic cretins in the Kremlin. My question is, how does Patrick Henry's statement, "Give me liberty or give me death," jibe with your support of the nuclear freeze as a method of reducing the possibility of the nuclear threat, and your total disregard, at least on this program, for the sea of human beings which are enslaved right now by the Soviets? We seem to be in frenzied activities to save our own necks. What are we doing for the life and liberty of those poor people? COLBY: Well, the Soviets and ourselves are both exposed to destruction and the elimination, plus the other countries, by the present nuclear stocks. The fact is that if we had a freeze, we could then begin to communicate with the Soviets and not live in quite so much fear of each other. As we have in the past times, sometimes when we have made a nuclear agreement, as Mr. Nixon did, it has opened the possibility to change in the Soviet Union. When we are in a firm hostility, there's no change in the Soviet Union. KING: What is your alternative, sir? MAN: Well, I think that we should make positive plans, first, to defend ourselves and bring ourselves to as large a state of invulnerability as possible. KING: And then? MAN: Exert some kind of an economic or a pressure against the Soviet Union. COLBY: Well, we do have our protections; and there's no question about it, we are going to maintain our protections against the Soviet Union. As for changing within the Soviet Union, I think the main thing is to open them up. And it is precisely through agreements such as this that one opens their habits and them to outside influences. MAN: Mr. Colby, what do you feel are the full implica- tions of the story that's come out in the last `few months that the English Navy threatened to use atomic weapons against Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-01070R000301400002-0 the Argentine city during the Falkland Islands war, and that's why the Argentines pulled out of the war? COLBY: The British Government has denied that. And I don't think that the British Government was contemplating the use of nuclear weapons there. KING: Boston again. MAN: Mr. Colby, I fully agree with you on the issue of the nuclear freeze. However, in my opinion, the real threat to world peace currently is proliferation. To what extent does CIA try to prevent people like the Islamic Jihad or Muammar Qaddafi from getting an atomic device? COLBY: Well, in the first place, we try to follow what's happening in this field. We try to see what other countries are developing nuclear possibilities, trying to follow terrorist groups and any plans that they may make. The fact is that proliferation is a secondary danger. Because if a small country gets a few bombs, it's dangerous to its neighbor but it's not dangerous to the world. The massive stocks that we and the Soviet Union have are dangerous to the world. And Madame Gandhi once said, rather pointedly, I thought, that we shouldn't give her lectures about the nuclear weapons until we got our own arms race under control. I think there's a certain amount of logic to that position. KING: Toronto, Canada. MAN: I wanted to ask Mr. Colby two points that I'd like him to respond to. He's been talking very much about verifi- ability, and all I have to work with is Jane's, and not his immense experience in the field. But given that warhead sizes are now down to about a cubic meter or a little under that, how does he propose that we can keep track of simple swapping operations on things like torpedoes, cruise missiles? It's very difficult to determine whether they're nuclear-armed or not. And the other point that I wanted to make was you can't verify what's going on in a laboratory by national technical means. The American deterrent seems to me to rest purely on the invulnerability of its submarine base, and not on the missile base. So, if the Russians are continuing to develop anti- submarine technology, what assures -- what enables you to continue and to keep that edge? COLBY: The fact that the warheads are getting smaller certainly does present a problem, but it's not an insoluble problem, because it's not just the warhead, it's the whole Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-01070R000301400002-0 support structure that maintains a warhead. These stocks, the depots, the protective places to store them, and all the rest of it, that give indications as to whether nuclear warheads or ordinary warheads are there. And it's that kind of hint that you can get, put little bits and pieces together. Now, secondly, if it's absolutely impossible, you can adopt a system with the Soviets where you count anything that could have a nuclear warhead as having one. That's what we did with SALT I. Anything that looked like it, had ever been tested with it was counted as having a nuclear warhead. This is a device, but it's a way of handling that kind of a problem. On the submarine situation, we are far ahead of the Soviets in anti-submarine warfare. There's no question about it. We are going to keep on. The fact is that our submarines are one of the ways we have to retaliate. One is the land-based missiles, one are the bombers, and one now are going to be cruise missiles. So you have a variety of ways to retaliate, if necessary. Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0 KING: Last call for William Colby. St. Petersburg, MAN: Mr. Colby, a quick hypothetical question for your regarding employment. I don't know how far you were aloof from the employment at the CIA. But let's say a person was approached and eventually filled out the applications for employment, you know, in the electronics end of it, and a couple of months later he received notification that he was wanting to -- they wanted him to fly to Washington. What are the possibilitis of employ- ment? COLBY: Well, if they've gone that far, to invite you to fly to Washington, then I think the chances are pretty good. It'll depend on the interview, but they've obviously looked at the background, they think there's enough there to make it attractive, and they want to see the person and look into him. They then will have a security clearance. They then will have a psychological test to see about stability, to make sure that we don't hire people that are unstable. There are a number of other tests. But if you've been invited to fly there, the chances are pretty good. MAN: Thank you very much. KING: Bill, I want to thank you very much. It's been a great pleasure meeting you. I've admired you for many years. COLBY: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be with you, Larry. Thanks a lot. Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000301400002-0