ROBERT M. GATES OPENING STATEMENT FOR TESTIMONY BEFORE THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1991

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP97B00368R000100050014-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 18
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 13, 2012
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: September 16, 1991
• Content Type: MISC

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Deputy Director for Planning and Coordination
DDPC 0509-91
27 September 1991
NOTE FOR: DDA
DDI
DDO
DDS&T
General Counsel
Attached as promised is a copy of Bob Gates
prepared remarks for his SSCI Confirmation Hearing.
As we discussed this morning, you each might want to
read through this paper looking for areas in which you
might do some advanced thinking about Agency
responses. We probably should discuss this at some
Friday morning session before Bob actually appears for
duty, and then after that with Dick Kerr to get his
guidance.
Attachment: a/s
STAT
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OPENING STATEMENT FOR TESTIMONY BEFORE THE
SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1991
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Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee:
It is a great honor to appear before you as
President Bush's nominee to be Director of Central
Intelligence. I want to thank him for his
confidence in me and for the honor of this
nomination. I am humbled by it. I welcome these
confirmation hearings to address the many issues I
know you will raise. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank
you and the Committee for the fair and professional
treatment of my nomination. I also want to thank
Senators Dole, Kassebaum, Robb, and Warner for their
kind introductions.
I have been in public service for 25 years. I
arrived in Washington 25 years ago this summer, with
all I owned in a 1965 Mustang and no money. The
Mustang is long gone, and I still have no money, but
I am enriched with a wonderful and patient wife and
two great kids. I still have the idealism that I
brought with me from Kansas a quarter century ago --
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a deep conviction in the greatness of this country,
in the uniqueness and wonder of its Constitution,
and in its mission as a force for good around the
world. My decision to commit my life to national
service springs from these beliefs. I also still
have the values I brought from Kansas -- family,
hard work, candor and truthfulness, integrity,
obeying the law, and a basic optimism about life.
During these 25 years, I have worked for six
Presidents -- Republican and Democrat alike -- and
served four of them in the White House on the
National Security Council. I have served eight
Directors of the CIA. I have worked closely and
harmoniously with this Committee and its House of
Representatives counterpart for more than 10 years
as CIA's Deputy Director for Intelligence, Chairman
of the National Intelligence Council, Deputy
Director of Central Intelligence, Acting Director of
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Central Intelligence, and as Deputy National
Security Advisor. I have appeared before this
Committee more than 50 times. We are not strangers
to one another. In short, I do not come before this
Committee as a new face, but rather as a nominee
with a long track record. I anticipate that the
Committee will want to examine both that record as
well as my view of the future course of CIA and U.S.
intelligence.
The Committees appropriately have been looking
at the future of U.S. intelligence -- its structure
and mission -- in the aftermath of the Cold War and
now, most recently, after the revolution in the
Soviet Union. Who would have thought just 5 years
ago we would stand where we are today -- certainly
not the intelligence analyst sitting before you
today. Talk about humbling experiences. The old
verities that have guided this country's national
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security policy for 45 years, and thus its
intelligence service, have disappeared in a
historical instant. Communism everywhere is dead or
dying, a number of longstanding regional conflicts
are coming to an end, the Cold War is over, the
Soviet Communist Party lies mortally wounded by its
own hand, and the forces of real reform are at last
ascendant in the Soviet Union.
Still, as ever, there are challenges, concerns
and risks. The collapse of the Soviet and Russian
Empire offers the promise of democracy and economic
transformation. But, it also contains the seeds of
grave instability, chaos and civil war in a country
verging on economic collapse and possessing nearly
30,000 nuclear warheads -- the most powerful of
which are still aimed at us. We cannot yet divert
our attention from the Soviet Union, but clearly our
priorities and our concerns have changed.
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Meanwhile, a growing number of nations have or
are developing nuclear, chemical and biological
weapons, together with the ballistic missile
technologies to deliver them. Some of our allies in
that long Cold War are now at times serious
adversaries in the global economic marketplace.
Political instability in the Third World spawns
conflict, famine and chaos, challenging us
politically, economically, sometimes militarily and
always morally. International narcotics cartels not
only feed growing global demand, but increasingly
have the capability to buy governments and rule
countries. Regional conflict, and its terrorist
stepchildren, as in the Middle East, remain a
reality despite our best efforts.
I have been deeply engaged in dealing with all
these problems. I have been by the President's side
when we prevented a coup attempt in the Philippines,
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liberated Panama,'defeated Iraq's aggression against
Kuwait, saw the Berlin Wall go down and led the
effort to unify Germany in NATO, fostered the Polish
Roundtable Agreement, completed the CFE and START
treaties, and played a role in the success of the
democratic forces during the recent Soviet coup
attempt.
The President and the Congress know that even as
some threats have diminished, other dangers remain
or have altered shape just as new challenges and
problems have emerged. The death of Soviet
Communism has vastly diminished the danger of global
war, but the world remains a very rough
neighborhood. Our nation's leaders -- at both ends
of Pennsylvania Avenue -- have no wish to walk those
streets blindfolded.
We approach the close of the most violent
century in man's history. Two world wars, a long
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and hostile peace punctuated by protracted and
bloody regional wars, the destruction of ancient
empires and defeat of two inhuman ideologies --
Communism and Naziism -- have set in motion vast
political, social and economic forces long frozen by
totalitarianism and its legacy. The path to a new
and brighter day is finally apparent, but will
require American leadership, strength and vision
-- the willingness to act against those who would
prey on the weak and skillful navigation around the
many obstacles that can thwart progress or send
newly free but fragile democracies hurtling back
into the darkness. The role of intelligence is to
help the President, his senior advisers and the
Congress understand and deal with these new and
changing realities.
The challenge, then, to CIA and U.S.
intelligence is to adapt to this changing world --
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not just in places like the Soviet Union or Europe,
but to the very idea of change, the idea that for
years to come dizzying events, changes and
uncertainty will dominate international life; that
the unthinkable and the not even thought about will
be commonplace. For us in Intelligence to adapt to
such a changing world will require unprecedentedly
close collaboration of the President and his
advisers, the Intelligence Community and the
Congress. If confirmed, I look forward to a close
partnership with this Committee in this remarkably
challenging and stimulating process.
Normally, a nominee would be circumspect about
specific ideas for change. However, my nomination
comes at a time when this Committee is deeply
engaged in looking at the future of U.S.
intelligence and has considerable interest in my
ideas about the future, and what I would do, if
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confirmed, to help guide CIA and its sister agencies
toward the 21st Century. I believe Director
Webster's emphasis on "flexibility" is central to
being responsive in a time of radical change and
unpredictability. What follows are my ideas on
where we ought to go from here.
First, this remarkable moment in history affords
us a not to be missed opportunity to reassess the
role, mission, priorities and structure of American
intelligence in the aftermath of the Cold War. This
should not be done off the cuff. If confirmed, I
will recommend that the President launch, with the
direct involvement of his most senior national
security advisers, a major effort to determine the
intelligence needs of the United States for the next
decade or more. He should then charge the DCI to
identify what the intelligence community must do to
meet those needs. The two intelligence committees
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should have the opportunity to participate even
before proposals come before the Congress.
At a time of revolutionary change abroad and
government-wide fiscal constraints at home, U.S.
intelligence cannot remain fundamentally unaffected.
Accordingly, we -- the Executive Branch and the
Congress -- must reach agreement on mission and
priorities. Once these are determined, we can then
logically address structure and budget. Admiral Bob
Inman as DDCI managed a similar process for the
intelligence buildup during the first half of the
1980's. It is time to follow up that effort with an
even bolder, much more far reaching effort. This
effort ought to be completed by the end of the year,
in time to influence the next budget cycle.
There are other problems and innovations that
must be addressed as we change to cope with a
different world:
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-- The intelligence budget should be
considered by the President, his
senior advisers and the Congress
within but independently of the
Defense budget.
-- We must dramatically expand our
clandestine human intelligence
collection effort. At the same
time, we must consider the
implications for our covert action
capabilities of a dramatic decline
in Soviet aggressiveness and
disruptive activities in the Third
World.
-- We must remedy the gap between 21st
Century collection systems and a
19th Century system for informing
policy makers.
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-- We publish too much intelligence of
questionable relevance to
policymakers. Less and better
should be the rule.
-- CIA's relationship to and support
for the U.S. military must be
improved.
-- The process by which the information
needs of policymakers are translated
into intelligence requirements must
be strengthened.
-- The relationship between our
national and tactical intelligence
programs must be dramatically
improved.
-- Finally, the intelligence community,
and CIA in particular, must build on
the openness Director Webster has
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encouraged to develop better popular
understanding and support for U.S.
intelligence activities. President
Kennedy once said that CIA's
successes remain secret while its
failures are trumpeted. However,
things have gotten out of hand when
most outrageous allegations against
the Agency are taken seriously; when
the honor and integrity of thousands
of patriotic public servants are
suspect merely by virtue of where
they work. CIA and its people
deserve better. But changing
perceptions first requires greater
openness from the Agency.
I can elaborate on the proposals I have just
described and others I have in mind, but my point is
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clear: CIA and U.S. intelligence must change -- and
be seen to change -- or confront irrelevance and
growing sentiment for their dismantlement. I look
forward to tackling this challenge with you.
Contrary to popular perceptions of an adversary
relationship, Congress has long been a strong
supporter of a vital and effective intelligence
service. It was the Congressional Intelligence
Committees that launched the rebuilding of U.S.
intelligence capabilities in 1979 -- and their
support helped sustain that rebuilding in following
years. This Congressional support, not
surprisingly, is valued in the Intelligence
community. But the Community also recognizes and
values the role of Congress in making intelligence
accountable and in assuring that it operates within
the law and in a manner consistent with American
principles. Access to our assessments by Congress -
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- Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservatives,
and moderates -- helps assure our objectivity and
independence.
We know that many Americans are uneasy about CIA
and U.S. intelligence activities. They understand
the need for information and even on occasion for
covert action, but they are uncomfortable with
secrecy. Therein lies the value of Congressional
oversight -- the reassurance to Americans that the
laws are being obeyed and that there is
accountability. This then, puts a special
responsibility on intelligence agencies to be
truthful, straightforward, candid, and forthcoming
in the dealings with the Congress.
For more than ten years, I have had a strong and
positive relationship with this Committee. I
understand and respect its role (and that of its
House counterpart) as surrogates for both the rest
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of the Congress and the American people.
Consequently, a relationship of trust and confidence
between the Intelligence Community and the two
Intelligence Committees is of vital importance.
Accordingly, I commit to you that, should I be
confirmed, whatever differences may develop from
time to time between the two Intelligence Committees
and the Executive Branch generally and CIA
specifically, I would resign rather than jeopardize
that relationship of trust and confidence.
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