SPEECH BY LT. GENERAL VERNON A WALTERS BEFORE THE UNION LEAGUE CLUB CIA AND WORLD AFFAIRS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000700040007-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 25
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 7, 2006
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: March 18, 1976
• Content Type: SPEECH

Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
SPEECH
by
LT. GENERAL VERNON A. WALTERS
before
THE UNION LEAGUE CLUB
CIA AND WORLD AFFAIRS
New York City MORI/CDF
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Every time I rise at an occasion like this'. I find
myself somewhat unbelieving that as the Deputy Director
of America's secret intelligence agency I am talking in
a public place. A couple of years ago this would have
been absolutely insane. I always have heads of foreign
services come to see me at Langley, Virginia, near
Washington, where our Headquarters is, and sometimes they
have a glazed look on their faces. And I said, "What is
it? You look as if you've seen something." They said,
"I did; as I turned off there I saw a great big sign and
it had an arrow pointing and it said, 'CIA' and I can't
believe it." But this is part of our American way of
doing things which is somewhat different from the way
other people do them.
Some reference is made to my languages. Well, they
are sometimes an asset and sometimes they can get you
in trouble. About ten or twelve years ago I was in
Brazil as the Military Attache and I was watching a parade
alongside of the Soviet Ambassador. He had been six years
in the United States and he spoke very good English. He
turned to me out of the blue and he said, "The trouble
with, you Americans is you never want to learn anybody else's
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
-2-
language." And I said, "Well, that may have been true a
couple of years ago, Mr. Ambassador, but it isn't true
any more." But my next thought was that he hasn't read
my biography like I've read his. He said,"Yes, you
have no gift; you are not like us Slavs, you do not speak
languages." I said to him in Russian, "Mr. Ambassador,
that's a lot of garbage," only the word I used was not
"garbage" but out of respect for the ladies present...
if any of you know Russian, the word is "gavno.." That
kind of shook him, so I stepped in for the kill and that's
when disaster struck. I said to him in Russian, "Mr.
Ambassador, would you like to try Portuguese?" knowing
that I spoke it much better than he did. He looked at
me and he said in English, "Walters, you may be good
soldier, but diplomat you are not."
When I came to my present job, one of the first
questions I asked was, "Where is Andrei Konstantinovich
Fomin" and my people said, "Who is Andrei Konstantinovich
Fomin?" "Well," I said, "ten years ago he was the Soviet
Ambassador to Brazil." So they went outside, punched
their computers and they came back in a minute or two and
they said, "He is now Soviet Ambassador to Bangladesh."
I said, "Thank you very much; I have been fully revenged."
That is not exactly a tremendous upcurve ten years later.
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
-3-
But I would like to talk a little bit about the
subject that has occupied most of my adult life, at
least after the period when I left an insurance company
here in this city where I was a claims adjuster. My
father was an old Englishman; he had been the United
States manager of this company and wanted one of his
sons to go into it. None of my brothers would and I was
the youngest son so I got euchred into the insurance
company. I had a pretty good job; I used to deal with
all the foreign language claimants who lived within a
couple of hundred miles of New York. But I knew this
wasn't what I wanted to do with my life in my particular
case. So when the war started, I went to my father
who was an old Englishman and I said, "You know what's
going to happen, don't you?" He said, "Yes." I said,
"You don't expect me to stay here, do you?" He said,
"No, you can go." So I always say that Adolph Hitler
did at least one good thing in his life, even though
he never knew about it: he got me out of my father's
insurance company, with his blessing, which I had not
expected to get.
What is intelligence? Why do we need it? Intelligence
is information, painstakingly collected, analyzed, and
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
-4-
disseminated in a time period that makes it intelligence.
No matter what intelligence you get, if you don't get it
to the policymakers quickly, it isn't intelligence, it's
history and is of no real value to them.
Why do we need it? We need it because the United
States today is in a different situation to any it has
been in in the past, at least since Valley Forge. The
time factors, the distance factors and everything else
that always gave us the ability to sit back and look at
what was happening and get ready for it are gone. At
the dawn of our history we were told, as a nation, that
eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. But they were
talking about a country that had a two- or three-month
cushion of time on either side. Not to mention friendly
powers who would be there and interpose themselves and
so forth. But the cushion now is from 15 to 30 minutes.
Not since Valley Forge has the United States faced
another real global power. Germany, at the height of its
power, was fundamentally a European power.. It could send
some submarines. Maybe, if the war had gone on a year
more, the Germans could have gotten one airplane over here
or something psychological like that, but Germany was
not a global power.
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 ? Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CI RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
The Soviet Union is a global power. And Angola has
shown us that the Soviet Union is not only able but
willing to project its strength many thousands of miles
from the Soviet Union. For the first time
in our history as an independent nation, another nation
has the capability of inflicting grievous if not mortal
damage on us. This is the first time since our birth
as a nation that this has been true; and the time factors
are so condensed. We need intelligence for the same
reason that America has always needed intelligence. But
the urgency is far greater today than it has ever been in
the past.
Now how do we collect this intelligence that is so
vital to our country? Well, we collect this intelligence
in basically three major ways. We collect it overtly
through the press, through radio broadcasts, through our
embassies, through all of the open media available in the
world today. This probably gives you 50 percent of your
total intelligence. But it is the easiest 50 percent. And
then we collect it with the great technological systems
--which is one of the great contributions I think America
has brought to what I believe to be the oldest profession
in the world.
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3-
-6-
There are others who think another profession is
the oldest, but I always say that you had to know where
it was before the other could operate and that was
intelligence.
We collect it, with these vast technological, photo-
graphic, electronic systems that sometimes boggle the
mind. And you get a lot of very important stuff. For
instance, in the early 1960s there was a great debate in
this country as to whether there was a missile gap or not.
That debate is impossible today. We know what they have
and, more importantly, they know that we know. As a
matter of fact, sometimes in our negotiations some of the
top people in their delegation, when we've been discussing
what they have, will come to us privately and say, "Why
are you telling all these other people about this; they
are not supposed to know this".. .about themselves mind you.
These techniques get you a lot and they get you much
tougher intelligence.
But no satellite will get you through a roof. Nothing
will get you what's inside a man's mind, except another
man or someone who can tell you: the human source. For
instance, you've heard trumpeted the fact that we did not
predict the Yom Kippur war. We saw and knew what
forces were present, but those forces had been
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
-7-
present for a long time. What we did not know was the
decision to go at 2:00 o'clock in the afternoon of the
6th of October. Basically that decision was held to a
very small number of people. And one of the constant
things we have to do is to try and get somebody with
access,in the nations that are important or that could
affect our lives, to that small number of people. This
is espionage. It's against the law of other people's
countries. Someone said to me, "Isn't this illegal?"
and I said, "Yes, in other countries it's illegal."
As a matter of fact, we have in our national
character a faintly pharisaical streak which tends to
say, "Oh, that dirty stuff is all right for those dirty
old British, Russians,; French and Germans, but not for us
pure upstanding, fine Americans--we don't do that sort of
thing." Well, this just doesn't take account of our
national history. Our national history is that the
United States, in every one of its wars, has developed
a great intelligence capability and immediately the war
is over, it has set about with the same gusto destroying
it. This time we took a little longer--we had the Korean
War, we had the Vietnam War, and we took a little longer.
.The wreckers have gotten to us and have been trying
to work on us, but I am happy to tell you that they have
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3-
-8-
not had the kind of success I feared they might when
all this started.
People think always of intelligence as some sort of
form of making war, as a force for war and hostility.
Well, if you're forced to it, yes it is. But it is also
a force for peace. No American President could sign any
kind of an arms limitation with a power like the Soviet
Union unless he had the means of checking to see whether
that agreement was being complied with or not. The very
existence of an effective American intelligence establish-
ment inhibits any nation that might try and surprise us
or move against us.
Mr. Stimson, in 1932 when he was Secretary of State,
was given a decoded message of another country. And he
pushed it away saying, "Gentlemen don't read other
gentlemen's mail." Ten years later as Secretary of War,
he couldn't get hold of enough "other gentlemen's" mail
to read. Not Mr. Stimson individually, but that kind of a
mentality led us to Pearl Harbor. Now the last great
intelligence investigation wehad was in 1946 when it was
asked, "How did Pearl Harbor happen? How were we surprised?"
And this brought out the fact that in many parts of the
U. S. Government there were scraps of information which
were being squirreled away by the various people who had
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
-9-
them. Had they all been brought together, I can't tell
you that we would have been able to avoid Pearl Harbor,
but the damage would certainly have been less. And so
it became clear that the United States, in this shrunken
world, needed some sort of central repository where all
of its intelligence could be brought together and carefully
analyzed as to what it might mean for us and for our nation.
And so, in the National Security Act of 1947, the Central
Intelligence Agency was created. Frankly it was created
to collect intelligence and do espionage. But the Congress
wouldn't put that in writing. What they said was that we
were to do "such other things as the National Security
Council might direct," because, as is well known, Americans
don't do that sort of thing--only those dirty Europeans
and Asiatics do it; we don't do that sort of thing.
Well, to go back to this business about the "Founding
Fathers wouldn't have approved of this,"in this Bicentennial
Year I have done a certain amount of research on this
subject. and it has brought out some interesting things-
probably that George Washington was one of the most avid
users of intelligence in American history.
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
-10-
George Washington wrote a letter to his chief of
intelligence in New Jersey in 1779. It was a very brief
letter and this is what it said, "The need for procuring
good intelligence is so obvious that I have nothing further
to add on this subject. All that remains for me is to tell
you that these matters must be kept as secret as possible.
For lack of secrecy such enterprises, no. matter how well
conceived, generally fail. I am, Sir, your Obedient Servant,
George Washington."
Just up the road here from New York, General Washington
spent the night at the home of a sympathizer of the
Revolution, in Connecticut, a Mr. Holcomb. In the
morning he left the Holcombs, and he got up on his horse
to ride on. Mrs. Holcomb came out to see him off. She
said to him, "General, pray, where do you ride tonight?"
He leaned low in the saddle and in a low voice he said,
"Madame, can you keep a secret?" She said, Of course."
He said, "So can I, Madame," tipped his hat and rode on.
Among other things, George Washington organized three
separate attempts to kidnap Benedict Arnold and I think
we all know what would have happened to Benedict Arnold
if General Washington had got hold of him. He also
attempted to kidnap King George III's fourth son who
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
- 11-
was a midshipman in the Royal Navy right in this city.
There was actually a shoot-out outside the Prince's house,
but he didn't make it. Fifty years later the Prince had
become King William IV of Great Britain and the American
Minister went to see him and told him this story and
said, "But General Washington had issued very strict
instructions that you were to be well treated," and King
William said, "Well I am damned glad he didn't get an
opportunity to prove it to me."
Then we have Benjamin Franklin. Now Benjamin Franklin
for three years before the Revolution, when we were all
loyal subjects of King George III, was the Assistant
Postmaster of British North America, from 1772 to 1775.
And I need not tell you what he was doing! He was opening
that mail like crazy. The British caught him; he was
tried by the Privy Council and fired. Then he went off
to France where he was one of the three American Commissioners
to the French government to try and get the French into
the war. I regret to tell you that his office was completely
penetrated by British intelligence.
Not long ago I was down in Florida and happened to see
Anthony Eden who is now Lord Avon. He was telling me
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
-12-
what a hard time one of his ancestors, Robert Eden, had
in Maryland, because the Americans thought he was a
British sympathizer and the British thought he was an
American sympathizer. And I said,"In the meantime,
his brother, William, in Paris was totally penetrating
Benjamin Franklin's office." He looked serious and he
said, "Oh, you know about that, do you?"
Forty-two hours after the French told Benjamin
Franklin that France was coming into the war against
Great Britain, that information was known to the British
government in London, which is just about, in those days, the time
it took a man to get on a horse, ride to Calais, take a
boat, and ride from Dover to London.
I might add that Benjamin Franklin also had designed and
had the French build him a printing press in Paris. Do you
know what he printed on that printing press? British
currency, British passports, and fabricated atrocity stories
for insertion in the British press.
One really great story...the head of a friendly European
service told me...was that on an island in the Pacific three
guys were captured by the cannibals. And the King of the
cannibals said to them, "I have bad news and good news for
you. The bad news is that we are going to have you for
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 - Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
-13-
lunch tomorrow and we'11 have to kill you quite early
in the morning so the cooking will be completed on time.
Now after that bad news, you need some good news and the
good. news is: I will give you anything you want short of
setting you free in the meantime." So he turned to the
Frenchman and he said, "What do you want?" The Frenchman
said, "Well, if I am going to be executed in the morning,
I think I'd just as soon spend my remaining hours with
that beautiful cannibal girl over there." So they said
okay and they untied the Frenchman and he and the cannibal
girl went off to the woods. Then they turned to the
Englishman and they said, "What do you want?" The English-
man said, "I want a pen and paper." They said, "What do
you want a pen and paper for?" He said, "I want to write
a letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations to
protest against the unfair, unjust, and unsporting attitude
you have adopted towards us." So they untied the English-
man, they gave pen and paper and a hut where he could
write. Then they turned to the American and they said,
"What do you want?" The American said, "I want to be led
into the middle of the village, and I want to be made to
kneel down and I want the biggest cannibal here to kick me
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 Approved For Release 2006/0 i 0: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
in the rear end." The Chief turned to his Vice-Chief and
he said, "It's a weird request, but the Americans are a
weird bunch. Since we promised, we've got to do it."
So they untied the American, they led him into the middle
of the village, and they made him kneel down. The biggest
cannibal took a running leap, kicked that American and
knocked him sprawling 15 feet. At this point the American
whipped out a Tommy gun he had been hiding under his
clothing, cut down the nearby cannibals and the rest fled.
The Frenchman hearing the gunfire came out of the woods,
and the Englishman hearing the gunfire came out of his hut.
They looked at the American there with his smoking Tommy
gun and said, "My God, do you mean to say you had that
gun the whole time?" The American said, "Sure." And they
said, "Well, why didn't you use it before now? Then this
European telling me the story said, "The American looked
at them with an expression of hurt sincerity and he said,
'But you don't understand. It wasn't until they kicked me
in the rear end that I had any moral justification for
such extreme and violent action."'
Today we have another factor that bears upon us as never
before, and that is economic intelligence. In the old
days economic intelligence was a byproduct of a military
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 - Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
is-
capabilities study. Today it is a vast science and art
in itself. Today we have a situation we've never had
before of foreign countries holding immense amounts of
American currency--of Eurodollars and petrodollars being
used around the world in ways that will affect the liveli-
hood of an American worker in Atlanta or Omaha. We have
to keep some track of this. We-have to be able to warn
our Government in some respect how this is going to be
used in ways that will affect the United States livelihood,
financial or economic position.
We have any number of these things which we are constantly
required to keep track of. Our Government looks to us
for answers and for information. We have in the United
States Government what we call the Intelligence Community,
which is all the agencies of the United States Government
which are engaged in the collection of foreign intelligence.
We meet about once a week, in the United States Intelligence
Board--we've just been reorganized, we are going to have
to re-do all this--but something like the U. S. Intelligence
Board will be reconstituted where the heads of the
Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Ageny,
the FBI, the Treasury, the Atomic Energy people, the State
Department and various other parts of specialized agencies
in the United States Government which in some way are
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 Approved For Release 2006/08/10: iCIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3 -
engaged in the collection of intelligence. Now one of
the things I would like to set at rest is the idea that
the CIA has its packet of little secrets which it is
holding out on and the Defense Intelligence Agency has its
little packet of secrets, and some of the other intelligence
services have theirs. That no longer exists. We are all
working from the same data base. We are all reading the
same telegrams. No, we don't always agree. But what we
do is we send forward to our masters--the Director of
Central Intelligence sends forward his estimate on a given
area or on a given situation. If there is a dissent, and
there often is, not only is the dissent recorded but
the reasons for the dissent are recorded, so that the policy-
makers in the United. States get not only the best judgment
of the Intelligence Community but also the views of the
people who do not agree with the best judgment.
Now another thing I want to make plain is that the
Central Intelligence Agency does not have policies of its
own--I speak of the idea that the CIA is doing this or is
doing that or is doing the other. Yes, there were a couple
of occasions in the past, about which I will talk in a
minute, where some of this may have gotten out of control,
but basically the Central Intelligence Agency does what it's
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 Approved For Release 2006/08/10: 1I -RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
told to do by the proper authority in the United States
Government.
Now we have to answer to the American people, answer
to the American policymaker, for a number of great questions.
If I were asked what are the four greatest questions on
which. we owe answers to our Government, they would be: who
will be in control of the Soviet Union five years from
today; what will their attitude be-.to us and to our allies;
what is there in Soviet research and development today that
will impact upon us down the road? And those same questions
for China. These are the really great questions for which
our policymakers must have answers.
Let me illustrate what I mean about us not being a
policy organization. Sometimes I go to the White House to
a meeting where we present the intelligence picture---if they
take option one, or option two, or option three or option
four--all we say is"If you do this, this will probably
happen; if you do that, this other thing will probably
happen." One day I was there and Dr. Kissinger, who was
presiding, went around the table. We discussed this, we
presented the options, and then he asked Defense and they said
"Do it, and he asked State and they said, "Don't do it," and he asked
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
-18-
Treasury and they said "Don't do it; it will cost money."
He got to me and I said, "Do it," and he said, "You don't
have any vote," and he went on to the next guy.
We do not have any say other than by presenting the
intelligence; and, no, I can't tell it's all absolutely
objective and perfectly impersonal--it isn't, it obviously
is the distilled judgment of the people who have been
working on it for a long time. Then they make the decision
as to what they want us to do.
As I said, the time factors have been compressed. The
volume of intelligence that we are required to produce
has been increased. Now how do we do this? Well, I can't
tell you how much money we individually spend in the CIA
because the Congress this year on two separate occasions
and by two-to-one majorities has refused to make public the
budget of the Central Intelligence Agency. Why? If we
made public the budget of the Central Intelligence Agency,
the Capitol dome would not fall down; but if I could get
the budget of the KGB over a period of years, I could tell
a great deal from the rise and fall of the budget. Let me
just illustrate it this way: Had the budget of the
Central Intelligence Agency been published, the U-2 program
would have shown, the raising of the submarine would have
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
-19-
shown, and alerted them to the fact that there was some
major program underway about which they should be
particularly watchful.
What does it cost to collect this intelligence upon
which the survival of the United States as a free nation
depends? And it's not just our freedom. When you think
that in the world today about 20 percent of the people are
living in what we would call "fredom," we bear an even
greater responsibility than for the survival of our own
nation; we bear the responsibility for the survival of
human freedom in some form, because of we fall there is
no one else waiting to pick up that torch.
Now what do we spend for this? Well, I can just tell
you that less than one penny out of every dollar spent
by the Federal Government goes to this, for the collection
of intelligence. Since 1969 the number of people working
in intelligence in the United States has declined by 40
percent. In those same years since 1969, the manpower
under arms in the Soviet Union has gone up by one million
and the manpower in the United States has gone down by
one million; net difference: two million.
Now in our present situation, in this atmosphere of so-
called relaxation of tensions--which is what I must say since
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3-
-20-
other words are now inoperative--we hope that this will
lead to some sort of an agreement which will reduce the
burdens on both peoples. But we must be watchful that
it is reciprocal, it is mutual, and that no unfair
advantages derive by one side or the other in this.
It reminds me of a story about two young Americans
who were in Moscow and they were being taken around by a
.young Russian and he took them to see the Cathedral of
Basil the Blessed, and the Novodevechye Monastery and
the Palace of Congresses in the Kremlin. Then he took
them to the zoo and they saw all these animals peculiar
to the Soviet Union. He took them to this place and
there was a great,big cage and in this cage there was a
huge Russian bear, seven and a half feet high. The
only other occupant of this cage was a rather worried-
looking lamb who appeared to be in pretty good shape.
So the young Americans were puzzled and they said to the
young Russian, "Why do you keep those two in the same cage?"
The young Russian said, "This is to prove that peaceful
co-existence is possible." The young American said,
"Well, that's pretty impressive," and his buddy said,
"It sure is." The young Russian looked around, and seeing
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 - Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
- 21-
no one, said, "Of course, you understand, every morning
we have to put in a new lamb." And as long as you don't
run out of lambs you're in great shape.
So we have to be watchful, we have to be in a position
to tell our masters of any'anomalies or ambiguities that
we see in any of these areas.
What about the investigations? Well, the investigations
have unquestionably revealed that a certain number of things
were done that should not have been done. They revealed
that the CIA and other parts of the Intelligence Community,
like all other large, :human organizations, had a certain
number of zealots, kooks, and people who used bad judgment.
I can't tell you we didn't have these; we did. But I can
tell. you that 76,000 people have passed through the
Central Intelligence Agency in the last 27 years. If you
examine any other community of 76,000 people, subject them
to the kind of scrutiny we've een subjected to for the last
27 years, I think our record will not prove to be too bad.
You've heard all these accusations, but nobody
has been indicted. Whatever evidence there is, that hasn't
been enough to indict anybody, at least so far.
I came to the Central Intelligence Agency four years
ago. I am not an old CIA man. People often ask me, "How
do you feel after four years there?" And I say, "Well,
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
-22-
sometimes I feel-like Jonah," because this all seemed to
start about the time I went there. I could sum it up in
one word: I am reassured. I am reassured by the competence,
by the continuity, by the dedication, but most of all I am
reassured by the people I find there. They are Americans
like other Americans; they don't have a separate set of
standards; they live by the same standards of the people
in this room. I am as proud of my association with them
as I am of the 35 years I have spent in the United States
Army.
How have they reacted to all of this? We expected a
lot of the older people who had lived in anonymity couldn't
stand it, would resign and leave. We have had less
voluntary resignations than at any time in the past, we
have had far more young people trying to come to work
for us than at any time in the past. Some of this is
undoubtedly the economy; but the numbers are so much
greater that it can't be just the economy. I believe these
people, under a bombardment unprecedented in American
history--nobody likes to be called "murderer," or "crook"
or "plotter"--are continuing today to produce the best
intelligence put before any government in the world.
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 Approved For Release 2006/08/10 :2CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
I was asked about examples of success. President
Kennedy once said to us, "You are condemned to be
pilloried for your failures and to have your successes
passed over in silence." If I've been looking through
the Kremlin window there and I see what's going on and
I tell somebody, they are going to find out and they are
going to pull the blind down, and I am not going to see
through any more. All I can say is that in a general way
we correctly predicted and foresaw all of the developments
of the major strategic Soviet weapons. Very accurately.
People say, "Oh, but you didn't predict this crisis
or that crisis." No, we didn't; we did predict a great
many but we did not predict one or two or three of four.
Really, what we're trying to do is not to pluck a gold
ring off the merry-go-round and predict that at two
o'clock in the afternoon of the sixth of October the
Middle East War will start. Our fundamental long-term
duty is to broaden and deepen the knowledge of the
policymakers about the problems they have to face. That
is the fundamental thing that we have to do.
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
 Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3
Out nation survived a naval Pearl Harbor. I doubt
we could surivive a nuclear Pearl Harbor. The need
for good intelligence is greater today, as I mentioned,
than at any time since Valley Forge.
I can't tell you to sleep quietly. The world
situation is not one where I can tell you to sleep
quietly. All I can tell you is that the people in the
Intelligence Community, in the organization to which I have
he honor to belong, know what their responsibility is to
you, the American people. We will do our best not to let
you down.
Thank you very much.
Approved For Release 2006/08/10: CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700040007-3