ADM. STANSFIELD TURNER YALE POLITICAL UNION - YALE UNIVERSITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000200050001-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 22, 2007
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: December 8, 1977
• Content Type: REPORT

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Yale University
1-2-Yale Political Union h"1 (ems ~criu~~c
Adm. Stansfield Turner
L
8 December 1977
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Yale - 8 December 1977
Thank you very much. I not only have a sweat shirt with super spook
on it but a good friend of mine, a retired Naval Officer, is a wood
carver, carved me a sign that says "Super Spook." I took it to the
office--I happen to have a bathroom off my office--and I put the sign
on there and you should see the number of people that wonder whether
they should open and check on what's behind the "Super Spook."
Now, I'm really pleased to be with you. It's always important and
stimulating for us to come onto a university campus because the Intelli-
gence Community of our country is so dependent upon its universities.
We depend on them for stimulation in research and help from the people
on university campuses. We're also very dependent for gleaning some of
the best and all numbers of the very high quality of college and university
graduates to come into the Intelligence Community of our country every
year. We are going to maintain the same high quality that you have. You
might be interested in knowing that the Central Intelligence Agency has
had a very, very strong Yale flavor over the years. As a matter of fact,
we're disappointed in Yale. I was up testifying before Congress the other
day and I made the comment that we were grateful....[garbled] .... whereupon
a Senator from one of the far western states says "so what."
I want to be very informal tonight and try to talk briefly and then
open up for questions and discussion. This looks like an informal group
and I think it would be more fun to do that. But first let me address
a couple of quick questions to make clear some of the territory.
Why do we need intelligence? Why in this day of openness, a day with
wide communications between countries do we need an intelligence effort?
Well, I think if you look back 30 years when the Central Intelligence
Agency was founded in September 1947, you can see how different the world
is today. Thirty years ago we were the dominant military power. There
was nobody who could touch us. We had nothing to worry about in that
sphere. Today, we are really much closer to a condition of parity in the
military world. Now when you reach that condition of having good intelli-
gence, good information about what the other fellow's equipment is, how
much he's got, how he is going to use it; or, if you ever do (heaven help
us) go to war, how you can employ your forces to the best advantage is
just tremendously important. It's much more important when you're close
to equal than when you've got great superiority. In the economic environ-
ment - thirty years ago we were totally independent economically and we
dominated the world's economy. Today we have to emphasize the view and
the fact that we are in a very interdependent economic situation. We are
very beholden on some countries, the OPEC. countries, and we have economic
relations with almost every country in the world. And if the EEC, or
Japan, or the Soviet Union makes major economic moves, it affects you,
and it affects me in our pocketbooks. So we must be able with intelligence
to find out what's going on, or we're going to lose our shirts economically.
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Look back thirty years ago when we were so dominant politically. We
stepped forward and took a position and most of the world went along with
it. Today, we've got a hundred and forty some countries in the United'
Nations, none of whom would want to cowtow to either the Soviet Union or
us as the big powers. They are much more independent. It is critical, I
believe, that we be able to understand their cultures, their values, their
attitudes, if we are going to deal with them and not be left behind. But
why, you may ask, do we have to-do this with intelligence when there is
so much other information' around. Well, you must never forget, please,
never forget that. we are an unusually blessed people, living in an--unusually
open society.. If you are an outsider, a foreigner,' and come to our country,
walk down the street, talk to people, turn on the television, read the
newspapers; and if you are with us awhile and-if you make some effort
without having to be secretive, you begin to get a good feeling about the
United States. You can understand where this country is going,'what its
values and attitudes are. Not so in a closed society where you cannot
walk down the street and talk to people. You don't bother to read the
newspapers. You can't get that same understanding, that same view. Yet
it is very important that we have a genuine need as Americans to know what
is going on in many-of these closed societies. Why? Would you want your
government tonight to be negotiating a strategic arms limitations treaty
with the Soviet Union if I, as your chief intelligence officer, could not
assure you that I would be able to give you some feel for the overall
political, economic and military policies of the Soviet Union? Where
they're going and what they intend, or whether I could assure you that
we can verify, check whether they are going to comply and are complying
with the treaties that we make. And it isn't just a military question
because of what I said before of economic interdependence. We need to be
able to anticipate economic moves which are made by the Soviet Union or
China or other closed societies so that we can be prepared. Look at the
great grain robbery of 1972 when the Soviets suddenly entered the world
market. We need to do better in anticipating that kind of thing in the
future.
Yet, let me admit to you as an intelligence officer that collecting
intelligence is dangerous and that every secret which goes with collecting
intelligence is dangerous to our own society. So we have to have checks
and balances. And what I am excited about today is that we are in an
important new phase of intelligence in our country. I think we are trail
blazing a new, what I call an American model of intelligence. But
traditionally intelligence operations around the world in all countries
have been conducted under maximum secrecy with minimum supervision or
control. That's the way it has been. But we are today, I believe, moving
in two different directions contrary to that tradition.
The first is greater openness. We're trying to tell you more; first
about the process of intelligence; how we go about our business. Now we
can't tell you all. We can't tell you the detailed inside techniques of
our technical collecting methods. We can't tell you the names and
techniques of our spies. But we can tell.you, for instance, that a large
portion of the effort in the Central Intelligence Agency is what you would
call here at Yale research. It's now taking the information that we get
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from these collection systems, pulling it together, taking a little
piece here and a little piece there, and really trying to synthesize it,
trying to come up with an estimate and evaluation, something that will
help the policy makers of our country make better decisions. Giving them
an inside view of things. Giving them information which,-if,they hold it
and-other-countries don't, would be of value in our decision making process.
Now being open we are also trying to share more of what we call the
product of intelligence. What these analyses, what these estimates, what
these evaluations, actually are. We have in-recent months been publishing
a good many unclassified studies. I see that you have already been
subjected to some of these and there are more on the table. over here in
the front. One of these studies is a study of the overall energy prospects
of the world. You may have read'about it in the newspapers; it got some
publicity, some good, some bad. What we were trying to say simply, is
that our analysis indicates that -in the next seven or eight years the world
is not going to be able to pump out of the ground as much oil and gas as
it would like to burn on the surface. We are not saying the world is going
bankrupt or reserves are running out, but that you can't physically get.it
out as fast as you want to and-that means you're either going to be forced
into conservation or there is going to be.tremendous pressure-on prices.
Another study we did was about the world steel market. You know the
United States is only producing at 78% of steel capacity. And that we're
the highest; japan. is 72, European Economic Community is 60, Sweden at 48,
and many of the lesser developed countries today are adding capacity
because they want to be independent. And if they become potential-exporters
rather than importers of steel we don't think there is going to be an
increase in demand to fill up this excess capacity that I described. Last
summer we put out a study on the Soviet Union's economy.
We used to think it was.on fairly firm ground and able to handle its
substantial input to military matters, and still enhance the standard of
living somewhat. We're not quite pessimistic. We think the tide has
turned against them. They've got a demographic situation such that in
the 1980s the growth of their labor force is going to drop at 1.5% a year
to .5%. Their resources are getting more scarce and more costly. They
have no sign, in my opinion, of showing greater signs of efficiency so
that they can utilize smaller resources and get more productivity from
them. So we think they may be up against some difficult choices. They're
going to have to reduce their military, find more manpower, and more
investment. They are-going to have to stop exporting the same amount of
oil to Eastern European satellites for soft currencies in order to earn
hard currency and continue importing technology from us to make their
economy grow or will they try to borrow from us? And if so, what will we do?
We have been trying to share these thoughts with the American public.
First of all it is very helpful to us. It gives us a feedback, it gives
us a feel for what the American public is thinking and wants from us.
Secondly, we hope that while we are not always right, that it will help
sharpen the debate on at least the right issues.
But out of all this second part of our American model of intelligence
is that we also want to be sure that we are conducting it in ways that
will promote the ethical and moral standards of our country, We think
that that is a very important consideration. So while we can't be entirely
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open--we can't give you all the studies, all the secrets that we have--
what we are trying to do today is to declassify as much information as
we can. We take a study that we have (one of these), look on the cover,
and it says secret, top secret, destroy before reading, whatever it may
be, and we take out of that those things that must be kept private, We
keep- out those things wh -wauld._reytal_ how-we- got the information. We
keep out those things which are so valuable- to- our decision makers if they
are kept just to us. Will that study still be of value to the American
public? If it will, we publish it. But let me emphasize-that we are
not opening up everything. We are not trying to do away with secrecy.
We cannot conduct intelligence operations without some reasonable level
of secrecy. But. we think that in the'process of. declassifying information
we will in fact help protect our secrets. Because when everything is
secret nothing is secret. Nothing is respected if you have too much secret
information. We hope to increase the respect for what is classified after
we have taken as much as we can and made it unclassified.
Let me with sincerity suggest to you tonight that it is-time that we
increase respect for what the government believes should be secret
information. You may be reading in the press that'I'm in a little bit
of a struggle these days with a. gentleman who is a disaffected CIA employee
and wrote a book on Vietnam. He did not adhere to the honor of his oath
he had signed with us that he would give us an opportunity to check it
for secret information. And he completely went against his trust to me.
He came to me and personally assured me, cn the 17th of May this year,
that he would do. that--he would honor that oath. He published that book
surreptitiously with assistance from a publishing company and a television
studio, both of whom participated in his duplicity. I was trusting him.
And I say to you that the logical extension of Mr. Snepp's action-of
taking it upon himself to decide what should be classified and what should
be declassified--is that everyone of you and everyone of the other 215
million Americans in our country should be qualified to determine what
should be kept private and what should not. That, I suggest, is chaos and
that can only lead to great problems for our country.
I believe that it has come to the time when you and the rest of the
citizens of this country must remember that Watergate is behind us and
that we must restore some sense of confidence in your elected officials
and those public servants who they appoint. Now, let me not suggest
that I'm asking you to take us totally on trust. Because the second part
of the new American model of intelligence is a series of checks and
balances; a series of controls. These are very, very important to all
of us. We cannot, as I have been intimating here, have total public over-
sight or scrutiny of our secret intelligence process. But what we have
been evolving for several years now in the crucible of all the criticism
and all the investigation of the intelligence world; what we've been
evolving is what I call a system of surrogate public oversight. The first
surrogate is the President of the United States. The second is the Vice
President. Let me assure you those two gentlemen today are very active,
very supportive of our intelligence in this country. Let me assure you
that I keep them fully and well advised of what's going on.
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Another form of surrogate oversight are two committees of Congress -
one in the Senate, one in the House. Oversight committees, special select
committees on intelligence. I report to them. Yes sir, and I tell them
what we are doing. I answer their questions when they think they hear of
something they want to know about or they're not sure what we're doing, we
go up there and we report to them. But I also use them as a sounding
board.. They are very helpful to me in going up and saying what do you
think we should be doing in this case? What do the American people want?
Still another form of oversight is what's known as the Intelligence
Oversight Board--three distinguished Americans appointed by the President
reporting only to the President. If anyone of you here tonight thinks
I'm doing something wrong in the intelligence world you are entitled to
write them a-note. So are my employees and it doesn't go through me. They
look at this note and it says "Look that guy Turner is really.... [garbled]...."
They'll investigate it. They'll report only to the President and he'll
decide whether something should be done.
Still another form of oversight are the controls on what is called
covert action. Let me take just a minute and describe what I mean. Covert
action is the influencing of events or opinions in foreign countries
without it being made known who is doing the influencing. This is really
not intelligence work. Intelligence is collecting information. But for
many years the government has assigned to the Central Intelligence Agency
exclusively the responsibility for any covert action. Here's where we got
in so much trouble and so much bad publicity in the past, because it was a
very big thing in Vietnam and sometimes in Cuba and so on. It is not a
very big thing now, it is a very small thing, a very small part. of our
activities. But it is a very necessary one--that we keep it as an arrow
in our quiver when we may want it. We may have to operate against terrorists
and that kind of thing. But today, if we are going to have a covert action
anywhere in the world, I must get clearance through the National Security
Council. I must then obtain the signature of the President of the United
States, and I must then report to eight committees of the Congress. And
if you don't think all that's inhibiting, that I'm running off and doing
things without control, I assure you that it indeed is. And properly so.
So let me emphasize again, we're moving in the new American model to
a greater sense of openness on the one hand and a greater sense of control
on the other. I would suggest to you that it's going to take two or three
years for this to settle itself out, until we find that right balance
between how much openness we have and how we still preserve what is a
necessary level of secrecy. On the other hand, how much control we establish
and yet how we still maintain the necessary degree of initiative and risk
taking is inherent in our kind of activity. But I do assure you that we're
persuaded that the world is not yet so benign that we can do without
intelligence collection activities or secrets. But as this new model
evolves and we establish the proper balance which will give you, the public,
assurance that we're doing the job in conformance with the standards the
country wants, it's going to take a lot of understanding and support from
you and the American public. And as university graduates you will be
principle shapers of American opinion. We are going to need understanding
and not knee-jerk reactions that every time you see those three letters--
CIA--there is something wrong. We are sincerely trying to do the job
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right and we are sincerely trying to establish those goals that will give
you the assurance we are doing it right. We're going to need your support.
We're going to need your constructive criticism and that's why I'm pleased
to be here with you tonight. And now let me have your questions and
comments and we'll see what we can do with them. Thank you.
QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION. NOTE: Throughout the Q&A session the
questions from the audience were inaudible.
A: How accurate was the book and what's my evaluation of the CIA's
performance in the evacuation of Vietnam? I have not-read the book. I'm
told it is well written. I'm old that it has some good information
about the evacuation. I don' think anyone would question the evacuation
was not done in an ideal manner. Let me tell you that Mr. Snepp, who
wrote it, was thirty-two years old at the time and had been with us for
six years, was not the senior CIA official in Vietnam as he has portrayed
himself. He was a rather junior one. While there were mistakes made in
that evacuation, I do not believe that Mr. Snepp was in a position to
judge well, whether the mistakes were made in Washington, in the Embassy,
the CIA, or where in that process. Anytime somebody writes a criticism
of us I must pay attention to it if it's reasonably well expressed and
sounds like it has some merit. But of all the criticisms we have received,
this is one that I'm not as interested in as others. I'm interested in
them all because what I want to learn is not how to flagellate myself for
what the CIA did in the past but how to avoid what might be a repetition.
The last thing I'm seeing on the horizon of CIA today is a massive evacua-
tion of Vietnam or any other country. So I'm not really intent on learning
the lesson of what went wrong there because I don't think it's going to be
replicated. I don't want to denigrate Mr. Snepp and his effort, but it's
a piece of history that I'm not finding terribly relevant and I don't
think he is particularly qualified for it.
Q: What things do you consider the most valid criticism of the CIA?
A: Now are you taking the whole panapoly of-things for the last thirty
years? What I was trying to say to you in my talk ladies and gentlemen
is let's get on the constructive side. Let's look at what we're going to
do, let's look at what the CIA is here for and is going to try to do for
you and if you've got some complaints about what we're doing today I really
want to hear them. But, you know, one of the few frustrating things about
this wonderful exciting job that I've been given is that I have to spend
so much time looking over my shoulder. I really don't want to look that
way because the country needs an intelligence effort in the 1980s and
1990s. And that's why I'm here tonight because some of you are going to
be the ones who are leading.
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Q: What do you think should be the plans and policies.....
A: None. We are not in the policy business. Today I get involved in
advocating a policy. We should recognize Cuba, or do this over in Asia,
of whatever it may be. We are in great danger that intelligence would
be slanted to support policy. The reason we have the Central Intelligence
Agency separate from the intelligence organizations elsewhere in the
government, is that this is the only one not related to policy making.
It is the only one where there is not a temptation.- I don't say other
people do this in the intelligence business, in Defense and in State, and
so on. But I'm saying it is a natural concern when: the same man is making
policy and sending forward intelligence. We're trying to be as aloof
from that as we can.
Q:
A: Military matters are a very large percentage of the whole intelligence
community's effort at the beginning. But as we become more entwined inter-
nationally with other economies, international economics is becoming a
more and more important function of our activities and I think it will
become more and more so in the future even because much of the competition
in the world today is economic. So much of what we do and the cost of
what we buy is dependent upon other countries' economic policies. Look
today in the newspapers--what are we in with Japan--a major struggle over
their economic policies and the fact that they have a great surplus of
foreign sales and all the rest of us have a negative balance with them.
So we must be aware of what's going on in those countries and help our
policy makers decide how to handle those problems. So that's why we're
in these particular things. Now I will also say to you, sir, that it is
a little easier to declassify an economic study than a military study.
We get to where in a military study there is so much classified information
that it's hard to publish as much on those. So we do publish more in the
economic sphere and it may look a little disproportionate. But we also
hope that this kind of a study is really easily understood by the public
and therefore it is of more value to publish it.
Q:
A: Yes, I've done that. I don't think there is a lot of stress in the
press about Mr. Colby trying to suppress the Glomar Explorer, is that's
what's on your mind? I don't think there is anything wrong with Mr. Colby
doing that. I don't think there is anything wrong with Catherine Graham
and the Los Angeles Times and others assisting her. Most people were
being patriotic. Now it turned out it was futile and the one time I've
asked the press to withhold something it turned out it was futile also
after awhile. It got out. But I don't think there is anything immoral
about asking people to be patriotic, if the information is truly classified.
If it is not classified and we're trying to withhold it to protect our-
selves or our Agency's reputation, why that's clearly wrong. Now when the
Snepp book came out, a leading columnist wrote an article very shortly
thereafter and said the only reason the CIA wanted to screen that book was
to protect its own reputation. I resented that. Because that's not my
function. That's not in accordance with the laws and the policies of our
country. Our function is to screen the book for genuine security infor-
mation and the basic implicit knee-jerk reaction that we would, as good
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public servants, simply try to coverup, .I think is unjustified and incorrect.
And I wrote a two column rejoinder in the Washington Post two days ago.
I was so infuriated at that basic assumption. Now, there's nothing wrong
with exploring to see whether that's what I'm doing but don't just assume
that I'm a scoundrel.
Q:
A: Yes, I am still in the same pickle that George was, and I talked with
him about it yesterday morning. When an agency has been attacked for two
or three years as this one was morale can't help but go down. - I talked
to one of our senior employees the other day and he happened to mention to
me that his son was there on the campus unable to tell people that his
father was in the CIA.... jtape ended]....the whole fabric. Then, they
were just getting over that and along came Carter and ?Mondale and now
Turner administration of the CIA. And they wondered what these people
were going to do and there had. been a lot of rhetoric in the campaign and
they were nervous and understandably so. Now the first thing the President
did was sign a directive to study the organization of the intelligence
community. They were nervous and felt it was going-to be a subtle way
of doing away with the CIA. A study came out and I tell you it's intended
to strengthen the CIA; it's intended to strengthen the Intelligence
Community and-everybody is reasonably happy with it. Then along comes
Turner and says boy we're just over-strength here and we're going to
eliminate 820 of you people and that shattered morale again. What would
you want me to do--keep 820 people on the payroll that you don't need?
Discourage people like yourselves when you come into the Agency and you
find you are over supervised and under-employed. We're::trying to build
an Agency for 1985, 1995 and you've got to attract fine young people and
keep them in the Agency. You can't do that when you're not properly
employing them. So I said I'll take the hard bullet, I'll make these
reductions. But beneath it all the people down there are first class.
They're capable and they're dedicated and I haven't any question that
they're going to come out and the morale will come back up, I know the
President and the Vice President and I are behind them 100%. We want a
very strong and capable, properly run and properly controlled intelligence
organization. That message will get through and there will be pretty good
morale too.
Q:
A: Yes, if a terrorist organization abroad has acquired a nuclear weapon
and has threatened New Haven, Connecticut with, it, I think the country
would be very made at me if I didn't have a good handle on what they were
doing and where they were doing it and some means of getting in and
castrating the thing.
A: -Yes, with the demise of J. Edgar it has disappeared very much and with
a recognition on both sides that there must be cooperation with a clear
resolution of the Latin American jurisdictional issue. The problems have
really gone away. We have good cooperation with the FBI-. We are in charge
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of counterintelligence--countering enemy intelligence efforts overseas--
they are in charge in the United States. But, of course, if a foreign
agent gets on an airplane from overseas and comes to this country, we've
got to have a handoff. We've got to have real cooperation. And it is
working and it's working well.
Q: Going back to something you said earlier about-the work of politics
and intelligence. One of my major complaints against the CIA is that
most of the data that they've put out in the past ten, and certainly the
past 15 years, about the economics of the Soviet Union.... [inaudible]
A: Well, I haven't had a question like that George and I'm not sure 'I
accept your premise. I'm not sure the estimates are that biased-and while
you're' saying that they were always over, it was just two years ago that
we made a major increase in our estimate because we thought it had been
under evaluated; that their gross national product was not about 6-8% but
11-137 going into military things. This was a re-costing exercise. We
just found their industry, their military industry , was inefficient and
it was proportionately costing 'them more to do the same. It wasn't
increasing the number of tanks they had. I'm not sure-that they've
always underestimated but your question is a valid one. How do we prevent
bias. To begin with, and you won't like this, but I hired an eminent
Harvard professor to head this thing up. I brought-in an outsider,
somebody new to the organization; a very eminent man who headed the Center
for International Studies, Dr. Robert Bowie, at Harvard. Secondly,
Dr. Bowie and I are engaging a series of about 30 or 40 distinguished
outside acquisitions, former government people, and we're making them a
series of consultants. When we do a study like any one of these, we'll
ask three or four of them depending on their skills and depending on the
spread of both expertise and possible bias that we have in our own internal
study group. If I don't have somebody way off on the right wing, then I
will take a man in my own family, then I'll go to this roster of 40
consultants and I'll ask somebody who has that sort of coloring, a real
anti-Russian, to come with me on the group. Or, if I need somebody who's
very dovish, I'll ask him to be on the group-if I don't have that in my
own stable. Therefore, they will be consultants who will come in at the
beginning, the middle, and the end of the study and sort of follow along
and give me a detached review of whether the study does have a bias in it.
Or whether it answers the questions properly, or whether it gets to the
point. We're trying to do that but we're human and we'll make mistakes.
But if we publish them, hopefully people like you will write us and point
out our shortcomings. I have a professor at the University of North
Carolina who thinks we've done this costing of the rules all crazy. He
wrote me a long paper, a very erudite good paper, wonderful. We've
invited him up to really go over it with us, in detail. It will help
us, and maybe help him.
Q:
A: -That's a very delicate and difficult question because I don't think
this country is ready for an official secrets act like the British. I
don't know that we could have any more laws. It's possible that you could
have a law that either would have civil or criminal sanctions for this
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kind of thing. It is very difficult because it gets into the freedom of
the press and the Constitution. I think really what will do it as much
as anything is if public opinion fails to make heros out of Ellsburgs and
Snepps; fails to instantly accept this kind of conduct, this kind of
performance with approbation and if Random Houses and CBS' don't engage
in the kind of things they've done with them.
Q:
A: I'm doing my best to see to it that promotion in the different branches
of the Agency is dependent upon the.man's abilities, not what branch he
comes from. The people who have gotten to the top have probably been more
from the operations and covert side. But there have been quite a few-
the highest ranking professional in the organization today is a non-
operational type. The one before him who was the most senior was also.
He retired a few months ago. I don't know that there is that-same bias
today that there was in the past. But I can only say to you that I hope
to make my selection for top assignments based on the man's ability not
his gender.
Q:
A: Well it does. The people overseas are part of-the Agency and they're
our operating edge for the collection of intelligence. The analysis, of
course, is in Washington. I don't know that I agree with Mr. Schlesinger
on that one at all, because the people in the field are really no different
than the people in the operations part of the Headquarters. That is, they
rotate around and people in the Headquarters all go over to the field, and
again, I'm talking about the operations section, I'm not talking about
the analysis section. So I think they are all birds of a feather myself
and not more sophisticated in one place than the other. The analysts
are more sophisticated in some sense but their job is quite different.
A: Qas it 'because Allende was a terrorist? I don't know why the CIA was
involved in Chile. I haven't gone into that history either, or just what
its involvement was. But today I'm saying to you that if you are going
to get involved in anything like that it's well controlled.
Q:
A: Well if we're going to get involved in foreign policy through what
I've defined as covert action, we have to go through this control procedure.
Q:
A: No, these procedures are relatively new.
Q:
A: That's correct, that's new. It's not in the last year, it's in the
last year and a half of two years. I forget the exact date, I think it
 Approved For Release 2007/03/23: CIA-RDP99-00498R000200050001-7
may be within the last two years. The Hughes-Ryan Amendment which required
us to report to the Congress--it was February 26, 1976. President Ford
signed an act that required this to go into the'National Security Council
for signature of the President and so on. It's been gradual pieces. But
one of the things I didn't really mention, that- is within the next year
starting with the next session of Congress starting in January, Congress
will pass what we call charters for all the intelligence agencies. And
these things will be spelled out. What you can't do, what you can do,
the rules, the reporting-and so on. It will be a very interesting process
to spell them out because it is not easy.- They're very delicate, you
sometimes can't carve that granite precisely in a straight line and still
A: That's a very, very broad question.. For instance, I'm fully supportive
of a specific prohibition in law that we will not plan, participate in, or
conduct assassinations. It doesn't seem to me that it's -the -proper thing
to be in our quiver. I think that there will be other prohibitions and
controls in the charters, such as the Hughes-Ryan Amendment will be recast
now, for this reporting procedure. I have to report to eight committees
today. That's too much, I'm hoping that they will get that down to the
appropriations Committees and the Intelligence Oversight Committees. So
that kind of legislation can be very helpful to us. There will be specific
prohibitions on the utilization of American media people. -I have a regula-
tion against that now but, of course, I can change that tomorrow afternoon.
Congress will put that in a statute, you see, that we don't hire a news
broadcaster or a newspaper man to be an agent for us. We don't want to
realign, or rather to pervert the purpose of the American media.
A: I have to again check your premise because the Intelligence Community
did not try to quash it. An individual employee of the National Security
Agency wrote them a letter and suggested that it was inadvisable and
possibly illegal to publish their findings on this coding material. The
Intelligence Community did not support him and has not taken that position.
A: We have done so. He is not, has not been, we have never had any
association with Anatoliy Scharanskiy.
Q:
A: I'm sorry, I've obviously overstated it. You're absolutely right.
I do want to learn the lessons from the past. It's also a question of
division of effort here and how much time I can put on what. But, really
there are a number of past actions of the Agency I've gone into in
innumerable detail because I really felt that there was a lesson to be
learned there. They aren't always-the ones that get publicity, that end
up on the front page, is what I'm trying to say. Snepp has not uncovered
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something that is of great value to me in his two accusations taht we
botched the evacuation and that we misrepresented the reporting in Vietnam.
Among other things, I have a memorandum from Snepp three weeks before he
left Vietnam defending the quality of the reporting and its independence
from the Ambassador. So I'm not very enamored at his change of heart.
But in other areas, and some which I can't discuss with you, I've found
things from the past that I felt really merited my personal close attention
to be sure there was nothing of that possibly returning again--you're
absolutely right.
Q:
A: Well, I want to make it clear that we have no role in the domestic
intelligence against American citizens. What we do in the United.States
is that we overtly ask American-citizens, American companies, for info r-
mation. We're in the phone book. We call you up and say we work for the
CIA, you've just come back from the Soviet Union, could you tell us some-
thing about what you've learned. That's the kind of thing we do. And
very frankly if there are foreigners in our country and we think they may
be willing to be on our side when they go home, we look at them and talk
to them. But we don't operate in this country-here, so to speak.
Q:
A: They have total oversight in the budget appropriations because there
is not a penny we get that doesn't come through both the oversight committees
and the appropriations committees of the Congress. There are four committees.
that have to approve our budget. Now it is a secret budget but not secret
from those people, that is, theyknow all the details they want practically
because they've got to. All they have to say is you won't get any money
if you don't tell us about this. Seriously, we work it out, we don't want
to tell them the names of agents, we don't want to tell them details they
wouldn't want to hear because it's so fragile that you wouldn't want to
know the name of one of our agents because-his life is immediately in your
hands. So we have a good working relationship with them and to the best
of my knowledge they are quite satisfied with the amount of effort and
the amount of information that we are giving them to do their oversight job.
Q:
A: Are there guidelines to our agents in the field as to what actions
they may take, do they exist and have they changed? There are guidelines,
they have not specifically changed. But you can't write all these things
down in specific rules. I'm really showing terrible bias tonight, but I
engaged a Harvard professor to help me write a code of ethics only
because he wrote an article saying we need a code of ethics and I took
him up on it. I said help me write one which would be for these people.
It's very difficult to do. If it's so specific it may be unreasonable
and inhibiting. If it's too general,. it's not really guidance. I think
and- hope there is new guidance going out .to people in the field but it's
the sense of what Carter, Mondale and Turner want them to do. It's the
general direction and thrust that I give in my overall direction to them.
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I have not gone out with a tablet of commandments and changed their
instructions. And I don't think they needed a major change. I made a
very thorough review of this clandestine covert side of the house in the
first six months I was there and I gave one man nothing to do but that
for me--an outsider. When he was finished and when I was finished, we
made adjustments but didn't make major changes because they're running
the thing well. And they're trying to be responsive to-the direction
they get. They are not.a rogue elephant running off on, their own. They
just don't have that attitude. That's a false impression.
A: No, I don't think so at all. All I believe that we're going through
now is not a period of retrenchment and -isolationism in the wake of
Vietnam. I think we're going through a more realistic appraisal 'of what
a potential power is likely to do to influence events abroad and where
our national interests lie in doing that and really evaluating the risks
of these things much more objectively than we have in the past.
A: I will not contract with any academic institution without that insti-
tution knowing it. My relations with professors and administrators in
the institutions is another thing. I do not very candidly believe in
the Harvard guidelines. I believe in the Yale guidelines. I just discussed
this with Mrs. Gray this afternoon. The Harvard guidelines say that any
professor contracting with the Central Intelligence Agency or any intelli-
gence agency in the United States must notify the administration at Harvard.,
The Yale guidelines say any Yale professor contracting with anybody, IBM,
Intelligence. Community, United Fund, anybody he's getting paid by, must
notify the administration. That's non-discriminatory.' But, to live near
Salem as you do in Harvard and to issue a discriminatory thing against
one group of people is awfully witchy.