DEPUTY DIRECTOR FRANK CARLUCCI: WORLD AFFAIRS COUNCIL Q&A SESSION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000100200002-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 6, 2001
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: November 16, 1978
• Content Type: TRANS

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Deputy Director Frank Carlucci
World Affairs Council
Q&A Session
Thursday, November 16, 1978
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[Q&A session]
Q: You emphasized the need for the human element....
DEPUTY DIRECTOR FRANK CARLUCCI: I don't know what the
exact ratios are. But it is clear that the intelligence business
is becoming more technically oriented. And indeed, we are looking
for technical people. For instance, we could hardly exist today
without computers. Data processing, information storage and re-
trieval is very important to any intelligence organization. It
enables us to take that one report from somewhere in Latin America
and link it to something else we receive from Eastern Europe, and
put together an item that might deal with Soviet weaponry somewhere
e I S E: .
In addition, as I mentioned, we're dealing with a host
of different issues than in the past. Nuclear proliferation:
technical people. Resource issues. So we do have to put an
emphasis on some technical capability there.
I would say, by and large, our recruitment effort is
much, much broader across the hoard, particularly on the analyti-
cal side -- cartographers, all kinds of people that one would not
normally associate with the intelligence business. I don't think
we have any anthropologists yet.
[Laughter.]
Q: You mentioned SALT in your presentation. How con-
fident are you of verification....?
DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARLUCCI: Well, the question and
answer is a bit premature, because until we've seen the agree-
ment we can't elaborate on the verification possibilities. And
I am sure that this will be an issue that will be subjected to
great scrutiny in the Senate when it comes before the Senate.
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My best judgment -- and I confess to you that I
really haven't put in sufficient amount of time in the SALT
area to really make an informed judgment. But those who have
think that we have a sufficient capability to monitor the kind
of SALT agreement that is presently under negotiation. But I am
sure there's going to be a lot of dialogue on this subject. And
I would hesitate to stand before you and be quoted categorically
as saying, yes, sir, we could monitor whatever agreement is go-
ing to come out. It's going to be a tough -- it's going to be
a tough question.
Q: [Inaudible]
DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARLUCCI: Well, I really don't know.
But if anybody bumps up against an umbrella, why, take a second
look.
These are being investigated by the respective countries
concerned, the British and the French. And I don't know that we've
seen any definitive reports yet. One can hypothesize. But if your
question is, do certain countries of the world engage in assassin-
ation, the answer is, yes, they do. But I'd just as soon in a
public forum not name those countries.
Q: What's the CIA....
DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARLUCCI: No, not us. We have an
executive order that explicitly prohibits it.
Sorry.
Q: What is the CIA position as far as China and its
impact on Asia, or China versus Russia....?
DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARLUCCI: Well, we don't really have
a position. We try to analyze developments. And there's no ques-
tion but that is one of the more significant developments of our
era. Up in San Francisco I was asked if that could be some sort
of a charade to dupe us. I think the answer clearly is no. There
is very genuine and historic hostilities between those two coun-
tries. We are seeing manifestations of that right now in the
Vietnam-Cambodia dispute, which is getting very serious. It's
really a bid for who will be the dominant power in East Asia.
It's more than just a border skirmish. The Chinese have made
-- they've launched, in fact, something very unusual for them.
They've launched a world offensive with trips to Europe. They're
great supporters of mail these days. All kinds of interesting
things -- sending ten thousand students abroad. And right now
they have people visiting Egypt.
They're very concerned about the Soviet Union. And
the Soviets are almost paranoid about the Chinese.
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Suffice it to say from an intelligence viewpoint that
this is one of the things that we watch and watch very closely.
Well, if you're asking "Do we try to play one off
against another?," that's a question you'll have to put to Cy
Vance, or Henry Kissinger, or Brzezinski. But the answer in
very case that they have given me is no, that's not the name
of the game.
Q: The attack upon the reporter's right to protect
his sources usually arises in a criminal context in the case of
a man on trial for a very serious crime. And what is at stake
is the r i g h t to have a f u l l and open defense. The attack upon
the CIA's right to protect its sources: I'm not clear in what
context that a r i s e s . I s that the general publ ic's right to
know; in general, a person has that type of freedom? And in
what way would you limit it? What type of a law would you like
to see that actually would restrain this type of attack on the
right of an organization to protect its information?
DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARLUCCI: Well, it's more than a right
to protect CIA sources; it is a responsibility charged to the
Director of Central Intelligence under the 1947 National Security
Act to protect intelligence sources and methods. And so it's
grounded on somewhat of a different concept.
But I would say to you that a man who is willing to
risk his life by helping us penetrate a terrorist group is
entitled to a certain amount of protection. Someone who is
penetrating a drug smuggling group is entitled to protection.
Or, agents in denied areas are entitled to a certain amount of
protection.
The point I was trying to make, if you can't give them
that protection, you're not going to get information and you can't
have an intelligence organization, which is why the Act was passed.
Q: You're not saying -- for instance, there was a mas-
sive intelligence failure in 1973 in the Middle East. You're
not saying, for instance, that if the CIA had information that
the Soviets were pulling their ambassadors and their diplomatic
personnel out of Damascus, without revealing how they got that
information, that that type of information should be, say, pro-
hibited from being printed in the press, and the other people
would pick up on it.
DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARLUCCI: I'm glad you raise that issue,
because that's one of the most difficult issues we face -- is how
you can use intelligence information, because intelligence informa-
tion is only valuable if it can help the policy-makers. We don't
gather it for the sake of gathering it. And if you know, for ex-
ample, that a certain country intends to produce a nuclear bomb,
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and yet if you go and make a demarche to that country, it's not
not too hard for them to figure out how we got that information,
and somebody's life is in jeopardy. And how do you go about
dealing with that kind of situation?
That's the constant dialogue we have, with the State
Department, for instance, quite frequently. How do we use the
information without compromising somebody that gave us the in-
formation, both because of our obligation to him, but because
of the fact that if people are compromised, we're not going to
get other sources of information.
We have made the choice the other way in some instances.
Terrorism is a case in point, where we have revealed terrorist
operations, knowing that our agents would be compromised, because
we knew that if we didn't, certain people would be killed. It's
just a tough issue that you have to make on a case-by-case basis.
Yes, ma'am.
Q: [Question is largely inaudible, but deals with former
CIA drug experiments and follow-up efforts by the CIA to contact
the persons involved, or their families.]
DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARLUCCI: Yes. And I might say I
think that was one of the more disgraceful episodes. And the
Attorney General has ruled we have an obligation, affirmatively,
to try and find the families of those people and assist them
and provide them compensations appropriately.
I might say that this kind of thing, as reprehensible
as it was, is not unique to the CIA. June, correct me if I'm
wrong. Wasn't there an HEW syphillis experiment back in the
1930s when a number of blacks were injected to track their
syphillis? Virtually the same kind of thing. And we and HEW
have an affirmative obligation there to search out the people.
Q: Who made the decision?
DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARLUCCI: Well, I don't know who made
the decision back in the 1930s. In the case of the drug experi-
mentation with the CIA, it was made by a division, which, in my
judgment, exceeded its authority. It had too much authority unto
itself. And when I talked to you earlier about the checks and
balances, it was that kind of thing that I was directing myself
at. I don't think that that kind of thing -- in fact, I'm sure
that that kind of thing could not happen under the kind of checks
and balances and escape valves that we have today.
Q:
I'd like to know how our government views events
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in Iran. And are we doing anything in Iran to help the Shah or
the military....?
DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARLUCCI: That's really a policy
question, not an intelligence question, and it offers me an
opportunity to unburden myself with a little lecture.
We try very hard to keep out of the policy business.
From time to time, we find that the press accuses us of tailoring
our estimates to said policies. If an intelligence organization
starts to do that, it's dead. And at National Security Council
meetings, when the time comes to vote on a policy issue, we don't
vote. We try to present the information and try to be as objective
as we can.
And I might say with this particular President, it's
now hard to go in with bad information. He really is a man who
takes a deep interest in intelligence and wants to know the full
range of facts.
Obviously, the situation in Iran has very serious
strategic implications for us. The President has expressed
the hope that the Shah can find a way to stabilize the situa-
tion. The last couple of days seem to show that events are a
little more tranquil than before. It's an enormously complicated
situation. We're following it as closely as we can. But I'm
afraid I can't -- I wouldn't know, indeed, if we had any mili-
tary contingency plans because that's really not our bag of
tricks.
Q: ... I heard Helms state, in the case of Ellsberg,
about the assassination of Allende in Chile. It seems to me,
as I recollect, that he admitted that was a CIA order. I'm not
sure of the details. Perhaps you could fill me in on this. How
do these things happen? And how can they be prevented in the
future?
DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARLUCCI: Well, I don't think I can
fill you in, because, as I recall, I was in Portugal at the time.
And some of the communist press in Portugal accused me -- they
accused me of having been in Chile. I've never been anywhere
near Chile. I'm not -- my recollection, and the Church Commit-
tee went into this in some details, is not quite the same as
yours. I think it was clear that the CIA was supporting some
anti-Allende groups. And there was some kind of directive after
Allende was elected to try and prevent him from getting into of-
fice. There was some contact between the CIA and certain groups.
The CIA was not involved in the assassination of Allende.
But in any event, there is, as I mentioned, a very clear
executive order, which says that the CIA should not engage in those
kinds of things. And there are very specific procedures set up.
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You may recall that I said if we engage in anything other than in-
telligence collection -- and surely this was something other than
intelligence collection -- we have to have a meeting of the NSC,
a presidential finding, and we have to brief seven committees of
Congress.
Now, my position is that we ought to be going through
presidential findings and NSC meetings, and we ought to be
briefing the Congress on these kinds of activities; not seven
committees. I think we ought to be briefing two committees,
our oversight committees. I think with those kinds of checks
and balances and with the Intelligence Oversight Board, where
anyone who is engaged in that kind of operation can go to the
board, anonymously if they wish, and say "Hey, something funny
is going on here; you better look into it." And they have full
authority to look into it.
I think with those kinds of checks that are established
today, that kind of situation could never develop again. And I'm
thankful, personally, that it never could.
[Applause; end of Q&A.]
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