REMARKS OF JOHN N. MCMAHON DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE BEFORE THE ORDER OF THE WHITE JACKET COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY 4 NOVEMBER 1982

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000600180003-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 13, 2005
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: November 4, 1982
• Content Type: SPEECH

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DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
before
THE ORDER OF THE WHITE JACKET
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DEPUTY DIRECTOR JOHN N. McMAHON: Thank you, John.
President Grace, President Howard Smith of the Order of the White
Jacket, officers of the Order of the White Jacket and their
lovely spouses and friends that were kind enough to share the
table with me this evening, and to all of you, I want to express
my personal awe at what the Order of the White Jacket really
does. I think it's a tremendous organization. It's one that I
hope is contagious throughout the United States. And all of you
should be very proud for being members of this organization and
having the imagination and the innovation to do something like
this.
I thank you for sharing your birthday with me.
I would like to say a few things about intelligence.
Intelligence certainly is worthy of the tradition that you people
are fortunate enough to experience here in Colonial Williamsburg;
not only in Colonial Williamsburg, but also in the College of
William and Mary. It think it was President Lowell of Harvard
once one asked ?1What makes the university great?" He said "Three
hundred years."
I think William and Mary can stand tall with the history
and tradition that it has in back of it. And like William and
Mary, intelligence has a great deal of tradition. It really
goes back to ou:r founding father and first President, Ceorge
Washington, who was really a master spy. He was [words unin-
telligible] to stay behind operations. He was a master in
agent deception, made great use of propaganda. I won't say
whether he did that during his wars or during his political
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life. But he realized the value of intelligence, and, in fact,
in 1971, [sic] wrote a letter to a Colonel Clayton saying that
the necessity for the procurement of good intelligence is so
obvious it need nat to be urged further.
Fortunately, the United States did not heed the warning
and the council of its first President and let intelligence wane
considerably over the years. And we paid the price for that in
World War II with the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. And it
was that attack that certainly was in the back of the mind of
President Harry Truman when he urged the formation of the Central
Intelligence Agency, resting on the structure that General
William Donovan built for O.S.S. during World War II when Donovan
reached out across this country, brought into the intelligence
fold academicians, bankers, lawyers, teachers, people from all
walks of life to form the core that not only could conduct
operations, could collect intelligence, could also properly
analyze it. And Donovan was also clever enough to attempt to win
the war through intelligence, and he was also clever enough to
try to win the peace. And he built the foundation on which the
CIA that exists today stands. ,
There are some in Boston who'll say that the real early
warning in this nation came with Paul Revere when he said "One if
by land and two if by sea," And then he took off on his horse.
There are also historians who will say that the government
finance officer, after Paul Revere made that fateful ride and
submitted his travel voucher, disallowed it because he was on a
government horse.
Well, you taxpayers should feel quite pleased that that
same finance officer is in the government today.
I had the occasion, when we speak of tradition and the
foundation of intelligence, to hear one of your colleagues, who
obviously was a historian, comment to me that Tom Jefferson came
to this college many years ago, but flunked out and went over to
the University of Virginia. I don't know if history will really
bear him out. But that whole tradition of Colonial Williamsburg
and William and Mary certainly goes hand in hand with where we
stay in intelligence. But the intelligence, as we know it today,
is a little different. In fact, it evolves very quickly and very
rapidly,
Right after World War II we were faced with a man-to-
man defense against the spread of communism. We did our utmost
to fend off the Soviets, give a chance for the Marshall Plan to
rebuild Western Europe. And then we realized that the Soviets
were up to something else, and we had little visibility into what
was going on in the Soviet Union because of the Iron Curtain.
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President Eisenhower called together key industrialists,
technicians, scientists throughout the country, formed a techno-
logical panel and asked them to address the problem of intelligence
in the United States. The recommendation of that panel was the
construction of the U-2 program. And that was certainly a mar-
velous article which went from drawing board to first flight. In
nine months and a year later we were overflying the Soviet Union.
And that opened tremendous visions. It certainly brought to the
realm of intelligence the word technology and technical intelli-
gence. And intelligence has certainly evolved over the years
since then as we become more and more sophisticated. But the
problems set fo:r intelligence also became more and more sophis-
ticated.
Today we see that it's not just technology any more that
we have to worry about, nor is it the age-old political problem
of who's going to be -- what person's going to win an election,
or what coup will happen when. We have to keep a vigilant eye
not only the Soviet Union and its tremendous military build-up,
a country that this year is spending the equivalent of 14?b of its
gross national product on defense. We wonder how do they do
that. How does a country which is only growing at 1 1/2?b able
to stomach that kind of military expenditure?
So we look to their political leaders and wonder what
will happen when Brezhnev goes. We're clever enough now not to
try and predict when Brezhnev's going to die, since we buried
Mao at least 20 times before he finally died. But we wonder
who will replace Brezhnev. Will it be Andropov, Kirilenko, or
Chernenko? Or does it relly matter? I don't think it does
matter. We have to exert a great deal of our intelligence
energies worrying about the Soviets, worrying about their
military, worrying about their political ways of life, and
now, today, worrying about the economy and what that economy
will drive the Soviets to do.
And against this background of worrying about the
Soviets, look what else is taking place around the world that
our policy-makers demand to know about: the Mideast, and not
only the age-old Arab-Israeli conflict; what is happening in
Iran-Iraq; what will the Soviets do, might they do in Iran; what
are they doing in Afghanistan and what is their goal there; the
problems facing the emerging nations of Africa; what is happening
to the strategic metals that exist there. And again look right
out in our backyard, in Cuba, and what Castro communism is doing
in Nicaragua, in E1 Salvador, and the effort by the Nicaraguans
and Castro to spread that throughout Latin America.
And against this regional backdrop, turn and look at
what is happening throughout the world with the simple act of
terrorism, something that .really isn't new to us, but is cer-
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tainly getting a lot of attention.
Ten years ago, only 48 nations had to worry about
terrorism. Today, we've had acts of terrorism in 91 nations. In
the last ten years, 12,000 people have been killed or injured by
acts of terrorism. And today we see U. S. persons targeted by
terrorists, not because they happen to be at a bus stop or a
train station, but because they're Americans.
And then we have the problem of narcotics, a problem
that measures, by best standards, $50 billion a year, and some
will estimate that $80 billion a year flowing into this country.
And how do we strop that? Where is it coming from? Who are the
key players that are causing it?
And against all of this, we look around and we say the
United States i.s no longer the leader technologically, in all
phases, in all aspects of science. We saw the Japanese challenge
us quite adequately in Detroit with their cars. They put us on
notice that they're going after the computer market that we own.
We see them already into the large-scale integrated circuits and
rnicrochips. We have Europe now emerging as a competitor, techno-
logically. And what happens to the U. S. when it loses those
kinds of markets?
We estimate that one percent of unemployment costs us
about $25 billion a year in gross national product. And how much
can we tolerate of losing these sort of markets?
Of course, as you worry about economics, you have to
think of energy: where is the oil going? When will we run out?
Are there adequate gas reserves? What are the alternatives?
In thinking economics and thinking technology, one has
to worry what is happening with technology transfer. We have the
Soviets who are not only getting our equipment through legitimate
trade; they're also acquiring it through illegitimate trade; but,
more importantly, getting it through clandestine operations in
this country, where they can get the plan for our C-5A aircraft
before it even Flies, where their Atoll missile is nothing more
than a Chinese copy, if I can use the word, of our Sidewinder;
where their AWACS radars, laser range finders -- you name it --
all come out of U. S. technology. Somehow we have to interdict
this flow of technology to the Soviets because it's causing us to
have to build weapons systems to fight our own technology
employed by the Soviets in weapon systems.
So as you can see if you want to stand back and look at
that litany of problems to realize that intelligence is indeed a
growth industry, and we have a considerable amount to do before
us in order that we can provide our policy-makers with the kind
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of intelligence they need.
One thing that I've always taken great satisfaction in
is that my experience as a waiter prepared me for this job in
intelligence. As the policy-makers every morning will ask me
"What's new in intelligence?," I can always say "How would you
like it -- sunnyside up or over easy?"
Thank you very much. I come from the school of thought
that says the only thing worse than giving an after-dinner speech
is listening to one. So I'll be merciful to all of us. Thank
you.
[Applause.]
CHAIR: ...sip of water, I'll tell you that he has
agreed to field questions that you might want to ask. And I'll
take the liberty of saying what he didn't ask me to say, which is
that there are no bad questions, but there are some questions
that may not draw good answers. If you ask him something that's
too sensitive, he may not tell you. But please feel free to ask.
He"s very kindly agreed to field questions.
McMAHON: Yes, sir.
Q: During World War II, I was with the Navy Department,
and I did audits on the Carnegie Institution of Washington. And
one of their divisions at that time was giving their scientific
information to Russia, which T did not understand and reported it
to Admiral Fallwood. But he said we'll let naval intelligence
take care of it? They never did, of course.
However, I could not understand why our scientists
wanted to give them information that we were developing and they
were not returning any to us. They said we have a reciprocal
agreement, but it was a one-way street.
Is that still going on?
McMAHON: Well, no, it's not going on, because what
we've tried to do is through the voluntary agreement that the
United States has with other Western nations called COCON (?),
there are self-.imposed restrictions on the types of technology
that can flow to the Soviet Union.
But at that time, the Soviets were our allies, and the
first order of business at that time was to beef up the Soviets
so they, in turn, could put. pressure on the Germans, and later on
the Japanese. Unfortunately, those days are long over -- long
over with, and we realize that we were instrumental in creating
quite a tiger that we now have to live with.
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Yes, sir.
Q: You touched on the....
[Quest ion inaudible.]
McMAHON: No, it's a fair question.
Q: What can we do to try to put pressure on a country
such as Turkey by trying to withdraw aid to them? We do help
these countries and other countries like Turkey....
Q; ...But the important thing to stop drugs is to stop
the source.
McMAHON: That's absolutely correct.
Q: And I'm just wondering if our government, not
necessarily your agency, is able to do something. I know that
Senator Moynihan is trying to get into the Congress some ef-
fort to get the United States, the U. N., other countries to
stop the production rather than try and stop it from getting into
New York City and other cities.
McMAHON: Yes. The key to our effort is to try and
identify how the drugs flow, where they flow from, who the key
players are, so that we can first diplomatically take efforts
through the Department of State to encourage that the government,
the local government, crack down on the individuals or the
mechanism.
As you well appreciate, a good many governments have a
hand in it, literally and figuratively. And what the U. S. is
trying to do in those cases is to offer an alternative to the
country where -- since it is a cash crop to a lot of countries,
offer an alternative of some other crop, and the U. S. will go in
and help build the program.
As a counter to that has been eradication. And like
we've encouraged the Mexicans to undertake programs of eradica-
tion.
But quite recently the President himself has called out
for the U. S. to energize itself against this problem. And we do
-- we see -- I'm sure we'll see efforts on the drug producing
nations to feel the heat diplomatically, and whatever, from the
United States.
Yes, sir.
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Q: The recent elections indicated that the country as a
whole might be -- might put pressure on the administration for a
nuclear freeze. And this apparently is not what the administra-
tion stands for right now.
Would you comment on that, please?
McMAHON: Let me comment. The word "freeze" sounds so
good. It's like a motherhood term -- let's all stop doing
something, and then it won't get any worse. What a lot of people
fail to recognize is taking a look at the nuclear programs of the
United States and the Soviet Union, take a snapshot, it's like a
race, and the Soviets are almost to the finish line, and we're
halfway there, and someone says "Okay, freeze; let's all walk to
the finish line from here." And that is what's wrong with the
freeze situation.
Yes, sir?
Q: I have a question in reference to our nuclear
defense policy. I was at one time on a general staff of
Nuclear Defense Command for Europe. And right after I left
William and Mary, I went to Europe to join the Nuclear Defense
Command. I was pretty happy till we played a war game. It was
called WINTEX (?) '76, I believe it was. And in the war game we
lost the war, And it was supposed to be a realistic reenactment
of America fighting the Soviets. And the whole plan was [word
inaudible] because of the massive Soviet troops in Europe.
There was no way that we could defend it with our very small
number of troops there. We wanted to wait until the troops were
reinforced from the United States. But they had to land in
Europe. And one of the first Soviet moves was just to drop a
bomb over our airports there in Europe, and there were no rein-
forcements, and we lost. And they said "Sorry, keep the faith;
keep fighting."
And that kind of concerned me. [Words inaudible.]
I have heard through the grapevine -- I don't know if it's
accurate or not -- that during the recent fighting in Lebanon,
it was discovered there were large caches of Soviet weaponry
stationed not far from the Israeli border. So it's obvious more
sophisticated and could handle more troops than any of the Near
East/Middle Eastern countries could stage [sic], and that it was
obvious the Soviets had for a Soviet invasion of Israel, wiping
out our one remaining ally [sic].
And I wanted to know if you could say whether it's true,
one, that they found weapons i.n such excess there in Lebanon,
and, (2), in your opinion, is a Soviet invasion of Israel, our
last ally, almost imminent?
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McMAHON: As far as the caches are concerned, I don't
think we've verified completely the extent of the caches. I
don't think the word "sophisticated equipment" goes with it,
because there aren't many sophisticated people there training to
handle what you'd call the Soviet sophisticated weapons. And I
think there's been an exaggeration on the extensiveness of those
caches. And I don't know of any plan that's imminent about the
attack by the Soviets on Israel. I don't think they'd be that
foolish.
Yes, sir?
Q: How do you feel about the media and the liberals
[words inaudible] El Salvador? [Rest of remark inaudible.]
McMAHON: I won't editorialize my answer like you
editorialized your question.
The difficult thing in Salvador, which is true of any
effort by a government against guerrilla insurgencies, the guer-
rillas can pick their place, they can pick their time, and a few
guerrillas can tie up a number of government troops.
I would say that if we don't have -- well, I'd say we
have a situation there where at least the government can sort of
function. But we suffer highs and laws of guerrilla activities.
And right now we're going through a high period where the guer-
rillas are very active. Then the government forces, mobilized,
move against them, neutralize the area, usually capture same
arms and guerrillas. Then the guerrillas will go underground
to refurbish themselves with supplies and then attack again.
The situation in E1 Salvador, other than just the
guerrilla one, also requires an economic recovery. And that I
think is the most difficult thing because a guerrilla situa-
tion doesn't encourage investment. What the U. S. is trying to
do is stimulate, through aid and through outside investment, E1
Salvador to grow and grow by itself so that the people won't turn
to the guerrilla type of activity.
Yes, sir?
q: We've been using the analogy of the....
[End, Side 1.]
Q: ...every race has a terminus. If that be the case
and using how you worked it out before, the running or the
walking to the finish line. are we to assume that it's the belief
of the administration and all agencies, intelligence agencies,
that whoever gets to that finish line first is going to do some-
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thing about being there first, like war?
McMAHON: Yeah, I hope not. I hope what we can do is
have an arms agreement that really works. One thing you don't
want to do is move rapidly into an arms agreement where, as you
begin to cut down, the one who's behind is at a disadvantage to
start with very quickly. And that's why I think we look for a
balance of arms first before the reduction.
But you're absolutely right. I think arms reduction is
the answer for the Soviets and ourselves. But not to mention
that there is proliferation of nuclear weapons elsewhere in the
world, and that?s something that we also would have to keep our
eyes open to. Technology is rather available worldwide.
Yes, sir?
Q: My wife is going to say that I ask impossible
questions. But....
[Rest of question inaudible.]
McMAHON: YesF~~ It's a process that filters through the
entire government. The intelligence not only flows daily, but we
also have the mechanism for making assessments which suggest what
does all this daily intelligence mean and where is it going. And
we put 'the latter form out in the form of estimates. We'll take
a look at a given country or a given situation and say "Here is
what's happening, and this is where we think it's going, or here
are several courses that it could take."
And that flows not only through the various departments
of government, whether it's State Department or Commerce or
Treasury or Defense, or what have you, but also to the National
Security Council. And the National Security Council does meet
often, sometimes several times a week. And they're addressing
not only a given crisis or a yiveri situation, or the decision-
making point, which is the culmination of intelligence that
has been fed in over a certain time period. Or they're just
addressing a long-term look of what should our policy be for the
next -- given the next years, whether it's two years or five
years, or what have you.
And our purpose in life, in fact Bill Casey's desire, is
to get the intelligence out i.n a fashion, in a timely fashion, so
that the people making policy, even if they don't like the intel-
ligence, at least have to kick it aside. If we don't have it out
on the table, then they can ignore it because it's not there.
But if we put it out on the table, then there has to be a very
willful act for someone to postulate a policy that isn't in synch
with the best intelligence that the United States can offer. And
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that happens daily. That process just goes on 24 hours a day.
Yes, sir?
Q: Are we winning?
McMAHON: I think the United States has a lot of work to
do. Its position in the world has suffered over the years. It
suffered not only in the size of the military; it has suffered in
the size of its intelligence capabilities. It has suffered in
the economic power that it had throughout the world.
So if you add up the box score of where we are today
versus where we were years ago, you'd have to be an optimist to
say we're winning. That doesn't mean you're losing, however,
because you can take steps to rectify that. And I think you see
the rebuild in 'the intelligence community taking place over these
past two and three years, and you see the effort by the President
to rebuild the defense establishment. So that rebuilding process
is taking place. You have the Commerce Department and Treasury
Departments very active and very concerned about technology and
the technology transfer. We're concerned about the bonanza that
our Western allies gave the Soviets with this pipeline for gas.
And I think we have to do more. But that doesn't mean we're
losing.
Yes, sir?
Q: [Question inaudible..]
McMAHON: Well, it's not a question of just overkill.
It's a combination of factors, which include what are the
targets? How strong are their targets? Where are they located?
How many weapons does it take to put out one of those targets?
Etcetera, etcetera. And this is why you see the United States
right now going through a very deliberative process trying to
identify the MX deployment, where, how, what configuration, and
what factors have to be put into that.
So it's not just a simple equation of overkill or not
overkill. Certainly there's a great deal of destruction
available by both sides. But the question is, can one side
strike and neutralize the other side completely, or will the
other side have enough capability to make that first strike
undesirable. Those are the key questions.
Yes, sir?
Q: Mr. McMahon, I visited South Africa recently, and I
was impressed. But I'm curious to know what the intelligence
community feels of the strategic position of South Africa in
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relation to the African continent and as far as their material.
You mentioned earlier Africa and....
McMAHON: Yes. Of course, a lot of the attractive
materials that South Africa has is gold and diamonds. They
certainly are strategically located geographically by the sheer
nature of their existence. But South Africa has a very diffi-
cult problem internally. And I think it's something that they
have to recognize, that this is one thing that the United States
has done, and I would encourage all the nations of the world to
emulate it, and that's the dignity of an individual. And I think
that's what makes the United States great, and I would like to
see every nation great by offering the dignity of every individual.
MAN: John, I think it's been said that you can point
to a corporation and say that corporation has a great public
relations program; it doesn't have a good public relations pro-
gram, because it's been obvious that it's been orchestrated, and
so on.
Your organization i.s in the unfortunate position of not
being able to defend itself o.r to develop public relations, and
so on. And so frequently over the years you've been attacked,
or your organization has been attacked, because of your failures.
And yet we never know of your successes, which I think is appro-
priate.
As a career officer of your agency, how do you now feel
your agency sits with our people? And what is the prognosis?
McMAHON: Well, I think that the people of the United
States were the first to recognize that the United States needed
a strong, viable and honorable intelligence organization. And it
was really the people of the United States that put pressure on
Congress several years ago to start the rebuild of CIA and to get
off its back.
That pressure from the people is really manifested in
our oversight committees, the Senate and the House Select Commit-
tees on Intelligence. These committees are extremely responsible.
They realize the awesome confidence that has been place in them
not only by the people of the United States and the Congress of
the United States by having them oversee our secrets, but they're
also responsible in realizing that they want to have intelligence
organizations that can do the job.
The biggest problem with intelligence is that it's best
known in its absence. And what Congress is interested in doing,
at least the committees that we've been fortunate to be blessed
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with -- they want to build a strong and effective intelligence
program. And I find that that's very healthy. It's not only
healthy for the American people at large, but it's healthy for
the intelligence institutions.
I take a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that
representatives, your representatives, know what I'm doing and
approve, so that five or six years from now when operations are
long over with and people might start questioning why did we
ever do that, it won't be just John McMahon or Bill Casey
standing tall to say why we did that. We have two committees of
Congress that can share that limelight.
And so I take a great deal of satisfaction....
[Laughter and applause. End of Q&A.]
CHAIR: I'm happy to be able to tell you that your board
just took advantage of the advance intelligence we had about Mr.
McMahon. And knowing that he was indeed one of us, an ex-waiter,
we prepared a suitable plaque, which will be accompanied by a
certificate of honorary membership. And John, we take great
pleasure in presenting this to you.
[Applause.]
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