PROPOSED REMARKS BY R. JAMES WOOLSEY DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AT THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS PROGRAM 11 MARCH 1993

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP97M00518R000600780004-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 28, 2011
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: March 11, 1993
• Content Type: MISC

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Proposed Remarks
By
R. James Woolsey
Director of Central Intelligence
At The
Smithsonian Institution
Distinguished Speakers Program
11 March 1993
"The End of the Cold War: Where Do We Go from Here?"
Having been a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution, it gives
me a special pride to appear at the Resident Associate Distinguished
Speakers Program. I'm told that this is the first Smithsonian
sponsored meeting here at CIA Headquarters, and I think your
presence here tonight helps to underscore the importance this
Agency attaches to being as open as we possibly can about the work
that we do.
Last December, we dedicated a new and important monument
right here at CIA. It's a plain monument -- it has a simple concrete
base that holds erect three sections of the Berlin Wall. I'm told that
these three slabs of reinforced concrete were removed from an area
near the Brandenberg Gate in the wake of the peaceful revolutions
which swept communist governments from power in Europe.
For members of,CIA and the intelligence family, this monument
is much more than concrete and steel, it represents an important
part of CIA history. Few realize that in 1961, as the wall was being
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built, we were beginning to occupy this Headquarters building. And
for the next 29 years much of our work was devoted to breaking
down the barriers to peace and freedom created by the Cold War.
Now that the Cold War is over and a portion of the Wall rests at
the foot of our building, some have wondered, to paraphrase the title
of this speech, "What's Next ForACIA?"
Some of our sb esl'critics complain that CIA and the
Intelligence Community are stuck in some kind of a Cold War rut --
unable to move forward because of a mindset mired in the past.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
But before I talk to you about how we are changing and
evolving to meet the future challenges to our country, I want to
reflect a bit on how our past has prepared America's intelligence
service to meet the future.
When people think of CIA, they think of urrep dgileetings
and secret spy swaps at midnight 4 = o while much of the mythology about CIA has to do with clandestine
operations, the history of American intelligence is just as firmly
rooted in the traditions of academia -- of painstaking research and
objective analysis.
Bill Donovan, the father of modern American intelligence,
realized that merely collecting information from spies -- or any other
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source -- was not enough. The information had to be analyzed,
placed in proper context and most importantly, the finished
intelligence product had to be timely -- a lesson made painfully clear
at Pearl Harbor. And so in creating a central intelligence organization
after the war, Donovan enlisted the support of noted Harvard
historian William Langer, Sherman Kent of Yale and others, who
together built a strong tradition of scholarship in intelligence.
Building on this tradition of scholarship, and over the 46-year
history of CIA, we've accumulated a wealth of knowledge and
developed unique insights into different peoples, languages, cultures,
economies of countries in all corners of the globe -- information that
has relevance today.
In earlier years we were concerned that underdeveloped and
unstable countries would be susceptible to communist influence.
Today, many of these same countries are still unstable, threatened
by fanatics ior facing humanitarian crises that not only endanger
their sovereignty but also challenge regional stability. We had to
understand how sophisticated weapons technologies could influence
the outcome of war -- the same technologies that some unfriendly
third countries now seek to acquire to threaten their neighbors.
In many other areas -- from understanding the Soviet
economy, to defense conversion, from the problems of Soviet oil
production to understanding the many important religious and ethnic
rivalries -- our knowledge, gained from decades of careful study and
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research, can be placed in a broader context, important for
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understanding the issues of today. OurAleaders -- both civilian and
military -- rely on our vast reservoir of knowledge. They count on
our analysis of global events, and they look to us for judgments that
are not only sound, but objective and fair.
Yet, while we focused on Cold War issues we were never
wholly consumed by them. We had experts looking at everything
from the stability of major foreign currencies to water resources in
the Middle East. On economic issues, our analysts monitored both the
international economy -- trade, finance, economic competition -- and
the domestic performance of countries around the world. We had --
and continue to have -- recognized authorities on international
monetary affairs, advanced technology developments, the inner
workings of regional economic groupings, and many other economic
issues of direct interest today. We've learned from our past and we
are using that knowledge as a springboard to the future.
Make no mistake about it. The world has changed in
fundamental ways. In his inaugural address just a couple of months
ago, President Clinton said that, "today, as the old order passes, the
new world is more free, but less stable. Communism's collapse has
called forth old animosities and new dangers."
Of the many issues that have come to the forefront in recent
years, few have more serious and far-reaching implications for global
and regional security and stability than the proliferation of weapons
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of mass destruction. Weapons proliferation poses one of the most
complex challenges the Intelligence Community will face for the
remainder of the century, and no doubt, beyond.
Today, over two dozen countries are seeking advanced
weapons, including nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, as well
as missiles to deliver them. And our job is getting more difficult,
because as international awareness of the problem increases,
countries and their suppliers are becoming more clever in devising
networks of front companies to frustrate export controls and buy
what would otherwise be prohibited to them.
The challenge we face in controlling proliferation is
multifaceted: we must decipher and untangle the complex web of
suppliers, middlemen, and end users; we must distinguish between
legitimate and illicit purposes and help interdict the flow of material,
technology, and know-how to potential proliferators.
The Middle East represents an area of special concern, because
half of the countries have nuclear, chemical or biological weapons
programs, at least in development.
Iran, for example, has embarked on an ambitious across-the-
board program to develop its military and defense industries -- and
this includes their weapons of mass destruction programs. Tehran is
shopping,Western markets for nuclear and missile technology and is
trying to lure back technical experts it drove abroad in the 1980s.
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Because it hasn't been able to get what it wants from the West, it has
turned to Asian sources; Iran's principal suppliers of special weapons
and technology since their war with Iraq have been North Korea and
China.
Iran has an active chemical weapons program and it makes no
bones about its right to chemical weapons -- especially in light of
Iraq's use of chemical weapons against it. Iran has produced at least
several hundred tons of blister, choking and blood agents -- possibly
as much as 2,000 tons -- at a steadily increasing rate since 1984.
Iran's behavior in rearming and rebuilding its military and
developing a strategic deterrent is ominously analogous to Iraq's
action in the 1980s -- and could pose a grave threat to regional
stability. The development of an Iranian nuclear capability would
not only dramatically alter the regional power balance but probably
would trigger an even greater arms race.
The Middle East is an area in which our core strategic interests
are engaged. Access to oil at market- (not politically-) determined
prices is vital to the world's economic health. And as we learned
during the Gulf War, it matters who controls this vital resource.
Israel's security is an abiding concern, and one complicated by our
wider interests in the region.
But these strategic concerns cannot be viewed in isolation.
Rather, they are caught up in a vortex of growing regional tension
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and instability into which we are increasingly drawn. Even our
definition of what defines the Middle East is changing: the large and
potentially unstable states of Central Asia, with their ties to
neighboring Muslim states, are now part of this region. Tired
authoritarian regimes identified with failed nationalist and socialist
ideologies are being challenged from below by their ex oding and
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economically desperate populations. ma &&ers are drawn k-
/iron e,ing ,,,, _ b i to a radical brand of politicized Islam which
draws on deep-seated anti-Western feeling. Frustration and a sense
of powerlessness give rise to terrorism and put some of our friends
in the region at risk.
Thus, the transfer and introduction of important and new
weapons technology has an incendiary effect on the stability of the
Middle East and Central and Southwest Asia. And the Intelligence
Community is on the look-out for systems and technologies that have
the potential to alter the power balance in the region.
We are also paying careful attention to R&D developments and
trends in technology that could affect our nation's security. For
example, semiconductors under development promise to
revolutionize segments of the electronics industry -- and will likely
lead to a new generation of smart weapons that were used with such
devastating result in the Persian Gulf.
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ButCIA and the Intelligence Community are not just focused on
weapons technology, because in many other areas new technologies
contribute to the complexity of the issues that we face.
In the financial marketplace for example, rapid
communications are bringing countries, organizations and individuals
closer together. Sophisticated computer networks move literally
billions of dollars across international borders instantaneously. This
has fueled a increase in world trade and has led to
greater economic prosperity for many countries. But those same
financial networks are being used with increasing frequency by drug
kingpins and organized crime syndicates -- groups that now have a
vehicle for moving laundered money quickly among a variety of
front companies. This of course, complicates our job -- trying to
unravel the complex trail of illegal drug transactions. It also makes
more difficult the job of our partners in law enforcement, who seek
to prosecute those responsible for the flow of illegal drugs into this
country.
All of us have had terrorism on our mind recently. The tragic
bombing at the World Trade Center in New York and the deadly
attack on CIA employees just outside our gates reminded us that the
world -- including at times our own country -- remains a dangerous
place. While we hope we are not now beginning a new chapter for
terrorism, we have the organization needed to meet the challenge.
CIA and the Intelligence Community -- through its Counterterrorist
Center -- are working closely with law enforcement on these cases.
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We are looking at all the angles -- including the possibility of
international involvement. While this investigation is on-going, our
people are working hard -- checking our sources, following up on
leads, using our knowledge of people and organizations, and making
judgments about who is capable of performing such an act. And we
are reporting our findings to law enforcement.
Weapons proliferation, narcotics, terrori m, understanding the
interaction of dynamic forces like religiot4 an ethnic tensions -- its
clear that we have a pressing set of intelligence priorities on our
plate. But we also have been shifting our resources in ways that not
only accommodate, but anticipate new issues that are important to
our policymakers.
For example, our leaders are increasingly asking CIA to study
environmental issues because we have special skills, resources, and
unique insights.
Last November, we brought in a group of well known and
highly respected environmental scientists to CIA. After giving them
the appropriate clearances, we briefed them on the technical
capabilities of some of our most closely held intelligence collection
systems. The scientists were then offered the opportunity to review
what we collected. All of this was done with an eye toward
determining if intelligence can help answer some of the most
pressing environmental issues of our time -- ozone depletion, the
effect of the diminishing rain forest and global warming.
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But it may surprise some of you to know that we have been
looking at environmental issues for some time now. CIA has
monitored Soviet handling of nuclear waste since 1948, when the
reactor that produced the plutonium for the first Soviet nuclear
weapon began operation. We now look at environmental
contamination due to a variety of nuclear activities -- most of which
supported weapons production -- and questions about the safety of
stored but radioactive liquid and solid waste. This includes
reprocessing of fuel from civilian and naval reactors, and naval
nuclear activities.
Since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, CIA experts have worked
closely with other US government agencies to prepare detailed
studies of Soviet-designed power reactors. And we are now working
with these agencies to determine the most effective way to improve
the safety of these reactors.
Just as narcotics was considered a nontraditional intelligence
topic ten years ago, today other issues -- such as the global impact of
the AIDS epidemic -- have assumed greater importance for
intelligence. We began to focus on AIDS in the mid-1980s. The
Intelligence Community's role is not to study the medical aspects of
the AIDS virus itself, but to collect and analyze information on the
impact of AIDS on people of foreign countries -- and their leaders --
and on the responses of foreign governments to the epidemic.
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Tonight, I've identified just a few of the issues of concern to us.
I have not mentioned for instance, the detailed intelligence support
we provide our military in humanitarian efforts such as we saw in
northern Iraq, in Somalia and most recently, in the airdrop of food to
the Bosnians. I haven't mentioned our support to arms control
negotiations, the reports and background briefings we provide to the
President and to Congress on countless topics, or the whole host of
other tasks for which we are responsible.
It is clear that in dealing with the aftershocks of the fall of
communism and all of the new issues, that we in the Intelligence
Community cannot handle tomorrow's problems using yesterday's
solutions. We must continue to reinvent ourselves on almost a daily
basis.
S But of all the challenges that the Intelligence Community
fact, perhaps our most difficult assignment in the coming years will
be to provide an expanding level of service within a contracting
envelope of resources.
In the coming years, IA and the Intelligence Community will
be y about 17 and a half percent. We face this,
wx~si~ing knowing full well that;Ias other defense organizations
scale back, e e will be greater emphasis placed on intelligence to
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.y the military.
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We will meet this challenge by revising our collection priorities,
refocusing our technical collection systems -- learning what we can
do and what we can live without. We know that more emphasis
needs to be placed on the front end -- the collection of intelligence --
and less in the way of support. This means that our people will in
some areas, need to be retrained; it means that the intelligence
community will need to rely more heavily on artificial intelligence ?J
andAa whole range of new technologies to help us sort through an
s
ever expanding set of information. But most of all, it means we must
be flexible -- in the way we use our collection systems -- and
creative in our approach to new problems.
But as we work to reinvent ourselves, we know there is a set of
core responsibilities that willerrcchange In is and will
remain the eyes and ears of -- not just for warning our
leaders of impending crises, but in providing information, insight and
a context from which Q & elders can make informed foreign policy
decisions.
I've barely scratched the surface the wide array of issues
that confront American intelligence. But while the topics are many,
the history and traditions of American intelligence -- the traditions
of scholarship, unique insights, effective collection and timely
analysis -- provide for us a sturdy guide for meeting the challenges
of the future. American intelligence is focused on the important
issues of today -- issues that represen barrieis to peace and
freedom for our people and for our allies. And like the Berlin Wall 4
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part' o- Rhichr utsidT&ir-brxi these barriers too will
come down.
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