JUST YOUR AVERAGE RHODES SCHOLAR TEETOTALING CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST SUPERSPY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000100140071-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 20, 2007
• Sequence Number: 71
• Publication Date: June 1, 1978
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

'ltRT!CLE A;PPE Approved For Release 2007/06/22 : CIA-RDP99-00498R000100140071-1
ON PAGE a3 THE COLUMBUS MONTHLY---
JUNE (?) 1978
Just your average Rhodes-
scholar teetotaling
Christian Scientist
superspy
When Central Intelligence Agency
director Stanfield. Turner dropped
by the Ohio State campus for dinner
in the Faculty Club (steak Diane
mediumrare, asparaguswith Hollan-
daise), he acted just like any typical
admiral, former Rhodes scholar, for-
mer head of the Naval War College,
teetotaling Christian Scientist, and
sPLooking quite comfortable among
a gathering of professors and admin-
istrators, AdmiralTurnerheld a mar-
tini glass (straight tonic water on
the rocks) and seemed continually
ready to stick out his right hand again
and ask, "And.what's your name?"
As the evening buzzed along, a re-
markable number of those names
were remembered.
The admiral, who P __
and wore number 66 at A polis
the '43 and '44 seasons, `wore a der
blue single-breasted suit,bla&-k 'ng-
tip shoes and over-the-icalf --dar
socks, a blue shirt with French cuffs
and silver disk links, and a medium
width blue-black-and-creams 6%pid
tie. His carefully styled, gray=fledl
hair barely touched the tops of his,
ears, and the deep furrows which
occasionally appeared in his brow dis-
appeared when an animated bit of
conversation lit a spark in his clear
blue eyes and called forth the old
Annapolis grin.
"Controversy? What controver-
sy,?" Frown. Pause. Big smile! "Oh!
STAT
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You mean those 820 people I fired?"
General manly laughter among the
professors.
"I intend to fully obey the laws of
the United States. I don't want to go
to jail." Pause. Eye twinkle. "Of
course I can't be expected to obey all
the laws of all the other countries in
the world." Academic chuckles.
Turner seemed genuinely inter-
ested in restorinj, a close relation-
ship, between academic circles and
the intelligence community, a rela-
tionship that wasoftenhand-in-gown
inthe'50s and early'60s, but suffered
much when some of the best and the
brightest led us clomping in steel-
soled combat boots into the jungles
of Vietnam.
"There's no more challenging job
for an economist anywhere in govern-
ment," he shot back at a professor of
economics who doubted that any
really bright student could build a
career by starting with the CIA. The
professor countered, to general
laughter, that friends of his own
generationhadgoneintotheCIA and
disappeared. When the chuckling
subsided, theecononiist explained he
had meant that the CIA wouldn't let
them publish, so they couldn't ease
back into academic jobs after their
government service.
"That was B.T.," the Admiral re-
joined. "BeforeTurner. We'll let them
publish now. Of course they'll have to
scrub it. Scrub out the classified.
But we're way ahead of State, way
aheadof Treasury. We'reagreatplace
for a career in economics, because we
have theinformation the others don't
have. I guaranteeit. You sendus your
best students. I'll guarantee, we'll
give'em a great opportunity."
Along with his effort to extend a
friendly hand and a soft recruiting
pitch to academia, Admiral Turner
was at pains to emphasize the legal
safeguards which bind the CIA. "I
don't intend to go to jail," he told 500
studentsin an evening lecture. When
a female demonstrator scoffed at the
possibility that the director of the
CIA might actually go to jail, Turner
shrugged and asserted that events of
recent history show nobody in
America is beyond the law.
When one academic type asked
whether Turner's stated opposition
to political assassinations was based
on political expediency or moral con-
viction, Turner said his own moral
convictions are against assassina-
tions. "Of course," he added, "I don't
seehowyoucouldcall it an assassina-
tion if the two countries are at war."
His fist pressed into his hand as he
stated his determination that the
CIA would never again involve itself
in U.S. domestic affairs, Turner said
such activities are "the FBI's job."
William Webster, directorof the FBI,
is an old personal friend of Turner,
close in college days and close
throughout their careers. "I meet
often with Bill for lunch," Turner
said. "He's Mr. Inside. I'm Mr. Out-
side."Turner, who spent two years at
Amherst and two at the Naval
Academy, was also a college friend
of James Earl Carter.
The admiral skipped his Faculty
Club dessert (hot fudge sundae,
whipped cream, cherry) and sought
out a few minutes of solitude to pre-
pare himself for his lecture. When he
began to speak, the microphone
wasn't working. A man in a gray suit
came up and pushed a button. Hot
microphone in hand, Turner stepped
from the podium and began a casual
delivery, well organized but without
notes. A student in the back stood up
and began to shout about Iran. An
audible groanrose from the audience.
The admiral moved back behind the
podium and wentontalldng. Later he
invited "interrogation" from his au-
dience. There were many questions
from friendly students. An ROTC
professor joked, "Some of our troops
are down there -the ones with short
hair."
A good many other students ob-
viously had come from history and
political science classes. A group of
14 from The Revolutionary Com-
munist Youth Brigade had spread
themselves around the auditorium
(they stood together in easily count-
able ranks after the lecture) and
Turner sat on the edge of a table and
tried to answer their accusations as
well as he could. About Chile and the
Bay of Pigs he said, "I'm neither here
to defend or to wear a hair shirt." He
also explained that he could not prop-
erly comment on matters of political
policy, and on several occasions he
listened to long, rambling questions
and then answered with a quick, "I
accompanying Turner, and they
stood nervously after the lecture as
several dozen students crowded
around the intelligence chief. Many
asked for autographs.
"Can you imagine the head. of Rus-
sian intelligence being surrounded
byagroupof students like that?" one
of the aides was asked.
"Not hardly," he replied.
CONTINUED
Only four aides were known to be
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"Don't you guys ever get ner-
vous?"
"Yeah."
"Are you nervous now?" Faint
smile. Suddenly someone said, "Let's
go!" The admiral had started up the
aisle, and the "horse-holders" moved
with smooth, deliberate speed.
Turner had invited a couple of old
friends, Jack and Judy Furniss of
Lancaster, to join the professors for
dinner and the students for the lec-
ture. "We haven't seen him in 30
years," said Jack. "I was a friend of
his brother, who died. I saw him last
at the funeral. It was just like Stan to
invite us up for this. That's the kind
of man Stan is. He's really one heck of
a nice guy."
After the tonic water, the steak
Diane, the Communist Youth Bri-
gade and the brief reunion with the
Furnisses, Turner headed back to-
ward Washington in the security of a
"company" plane. It wasn't hard to
accept his smiling description of his
CIA responsibilities:
"It's my job to do the indecent thing in as decent away as possible."
-Sandra Fisanick
and Burton Cantrell
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