STUDY STAN AT THE CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000300030017-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 28, 2007
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: November 27, 1978
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/03/01 : CIA-RDP99-00498R000300030017-1
APTICLE' APPEARED WASHINGTON STAR (GREEN LINE)
ON PACE - . C _:_. 27 NOVEMBER 1978
Washingtan Star Staff Writer
When Jimmy Carter went out to CIA- headquar='
ters at Langley-recently to give intelligence agentst-.1
a..pep talk, he .urged them to be "more pure and,'
more clean and more decent and more honest''-' than..
practically anyone else. They must be as-Caesar's -
wife, he told them. - ,
Such orders, of course,-were delivered in the con-
text of a, widespread, public impression that the
agency had been less pure, less clean, less decent.
And, while many of the excesses of the past seem
to have been curbed,-the agency` is currently under-
new. fire - on the fundamental question.of how well
it is doing its job; Critics now are saying-that Wash-
ington was caught off guard by the events in Iran,
that something is deeply amiss at the Central Intelli-
gence Agency when, one of its. personnel is found
"1t f 11;_ tical information to the-Soviets
o se
Turner's - family were sufficiently
and Mr. 'Outside"
as Turner terms
,
well off enough. to give- their children It them ?
~
good educations. Stansfield attended ToAay they meet at - Webster's
Amherst; Annapolis and Oxford.' ? 'shop' or Turner's - a friendship
He admits to being "more of a cut- must make J. Edgar Hoover, who re-
_up"-at.Amherst than at Oxford later, sented the CIA, turn in, his grave.
although his pranks were clearly in . They see each other-at the security
the Good Clean Fun category: "One coordinating meetings at the White
thing I did that was fun was getting House. And play tennis together
hold of the -master key and ' locking regularly.. Webster refuses to say
the whole fraternntY in, their r
rooms who wins.: "It's very close," he says
one night. tactfully .. u,.
At Amherst, Turner. broke briefly Annapolis, Turner was a- guard
Y on the Navy football team. He gradu-
with his lifelong teetotalism.."I was i ated 25th academically and first mili.
opposed to drinking when I went to tartly in-'a class of:.820: He remem
--Amherst -but pretty soon I gave. in "bers his fellow midshipman Jimmy
-and-went out with the boys fora beer: Carter... as "a quiet,.-very friendly
and. L:was a regular drinker from Southern young man" but they didn't
then until 1949 when my.brother-was know each other well.. "You don't,
killed yin-an automobile-, accidegU when you live in a 4,000-man dorm,
where drinking. was involved. I de- unless..you have. clubs in common or
cided then that-the dangers weren't live near each other." They came to
.worth it and gave it up. I surely know each other later when Turner
never missed it." was head?of the Naval War College at
- As CIA chief Turner is now having Newport. He invited inc governor of
"'a running battle" -:albeit gentle- Georgia to ,.lecture, as part of his
manly-with the current president?of policy of broadening the. education of
Amherst..-"He wants to know what i
1 cc:
d
h
gut '
g relations the CIA had in the past with At the center of the storm is Stanfield Turner - P
a S4-year-old admiral., who neither smokes nor Amherst,-before we foreswore deal-
drinks, a deeply religious man in a world of cunning ing with campuses. We feel that if we
made an a
reement in th
t
d
g
e pas
an
. and stealth - who has been tasked to point the CIA another blooming Yank." There was.
in a more virtuous and efficient direction. said we'd keep this secret that we
n't much 'tearing down to London.
sources any
Turner's command began dramatically enough. It won't disclose our past ? ..
mor an our present sources. We had three very intensive terms;
"Halloween started with the so-called Massacre ,, and a lot going on at Oxford: You re
The admiral ordered 212 employees to.-hang up their His"old friend William H. Webster, supposed to do a lot of your serious
cloaks and .put away their daggers - the number" now head o?: the Federal Bureau of studying on , your vacation. We
ultimately would reach 820. That same night, Oct. Investigation,. laughs when asked if Americans would-pack up a bunch of.
31, 1977, as pink slips were carried:. home all -over he led -Turner. astray at Amherst. books, head for the French Riviera-
town, Turner threw-- "a Halloween it party, for .. and chase around. We stayed away
spooks," and guests ducked for apples.. ., . Probably'-. But Stan was a .very from England for vacations because-
straight-arrow: His nickname-was
This twist of Turner humor -- to begin the over right after the.war the food was bad;
- a
Sturdy=.:Stan'.,-: My ' wild days were
haul of the clandestine service on the night of ghosts. the climate was bad, so as soon as we
after Stan left.-Maybe my role model
s got out of school we'd -grab the boat
and ghoulies - must have appealed to the director but me loose and 1 misbehaved after
sense
-
sense of?irony. For. them was much about the he left r train and head for the sun." boat
tweedy, expensive-clothes. and the convoluted mind o ' -.They. were both-members of The He found it intellectually stimulat-
sets of the clandestine. people that wenragamst the ( Sphinx Honor Society. 'and wore the ing.-. Every evening there were so ;
grain of his own straight-arrow mind :.,,; b black, pork pie- hats with purple many things you could do: the Anglo-
This year, the Turn ers'?Halloween partyfeatured stripes that" marked members. of Israeli Club learning one side of what
"graves" of agency 'enemies, dangling skeletons. `;. what Webster-calls -"the epitomy of - David issue --the
how ,.nnow'. . -is the etweek the Arab Club where you'd;
and a game for the 60 guests of guessing many-what was best at Amherst, the junior;
pumpkin seeds there were in a jar. There were 667'x? -,leaders. I think Stan was president." hear terrible things about Lord Bal=e
Iran's Crown Prince Reza guessed 650 and his prizes ` The fact that Sturdy Stan was four and his role in setting up Israel--.4
was a packet of jelly beans. There are those who+j steadily climbing, the rungs of the - (Then Palestine.) I'm proud of my-
would argue today that the Crown Prince's-jelly?: Navy ladder is something Webster self. Loch-because Kenneth Clark was.
-beans are more-of a reward than the CIA would f would have expected., What neither a teacher and I used to go to his lee--
earn for its Iran estimates. } - ~.- c'ould ever anticipate, however is Lures., I wasn't taking art. I was,
that one day they would head the CIA reading PPE (Philosophy, Politic
t tie,
"M father left a small mill town i n.Lancashire andFBI,respectively "Mr. Inside and Economics). But that -was
y .kind of broadening opportunity Ox-_J
called Ramsbottam.when.he was eight-or nine._
Turner says. His older brother and, an, uncle had;
emigrated to Chicago-'and- he and'.his widowed
mother joined, them."-.Oliver Turner- "didn't finish'
high school. He.started out as office. boy, worked his'-
way up, and' eventually- founded.a. real-estate-
company and did well
nava o cers stu
ying t
ere. -
Turner went to Oxford as a Rhodes
Scholar, in 1948 for two- and a half
years. There, he says : `I was just
;CONTILTJi
 Approved For Release 2007/03/01: CIA-RDP99-00498R000300030017-1
universities there was no stigma
about wanting to study.", -
Asked if he did any hell-raising,
-Turner demurs, and then says: "I
pushed the present chairman of.
Honeywell up a drainpipe to get into
his college after hours one night. And
one evening after an=all-night ball,"
the former president-of the Univer-
sity of Virginia, Edgar Shannon, and
I went punting. My friend negotiated
a curve in the river very deftly and
two couples in another punt ap-
plauded his remarkable -feat. You
have to understand that we're in
white tie and tails. And Edgar. Shan-
non, standing in the stern of: the
punk, bowed to the applause and
went .right in the river.?., , t,:?
A fellow Rhodes Scholar at Oxford,
Pittsburgh University Chancellor
Wesley Posvar, admits hewas was a
bit surprised when the Carter admin-
istration chose Turner for the CIA. "I
was-surprised they were 'that smart!
He's was an-obvious choice;?.a bat=
anced internationalist with &-military
background, a? scholar. and intellec-
tual and a-man who-understands
national,- security far better. than
many others whose names were men
tinned:'"::_..
Posvar calls his old friend -"a
pretty straight guy. He behaved then,,
at Oxford,.as he does today. The only.'
difference is a little gray hair."
Turner retells an Oxford experi-'
ease vividly:
"My tutor, Herbert' Nicholas, was
writing a. book about the 1950 election
when Churchill unsuccessfully sought
to unseat Atlee. I had an automobile
and I drove him all around the coon=-
try to interview politicians. One night
we were in the Rhondda Valley. - a'
very poor- coal mining area which
was very Communist oriented.
"We went to hear Harry'.Pollitt;_.,
the -secretary general *--?~ 1 " fit into that` tight little line
bing;
It's interesting because srnmanyA -binburg .-Also =he's a : systems'-
experiences here. are just .five=or.-10'yanalyst whq?Lkes to condense ever
CONTIj riE
-years-' behind my`'military experi-':
ences. ? The. attack on this agency
' came-about-1974:-The attack. on the
-military came-Art I970.-The elan of
charging off into the wild blue yonder
in the military has changed too. But i
`they'll get used to the changes. Be-
cause -what's left'to-be-done is more
important than it was in the past . .
intelligence as opposed to covert ac-
`'-"I-don't feel circumscribed in tak-
-ing the ;. appropriate risks. I think
we're being more judicious in evalu-
ating thoserisks:'Nowmaybe the Old
Boys also' sense: that. But I tell you.,
when you look,at the- mistakes that
have been made here in the-past be-
cause people didn't ask-`is-it worth
it?' Some of the things for which they
were most criticized weren't worth
,,doing.-Zhey didn't measure the. risk
against the benefit. Now. we're 'doing
fthat.And; if they think that means we
aren't..willing to : take risks they're
full of baloneyt
"I- sat-.at--that table recently with
-'all CIA 'professionals around the
table and :I aid 'I want- to do'this,
now vote! Every one--of-them' voted
no: I said.'OK~gentlemen; you: win. I
just want the record to show that I
the only outsider - am the guy-
vot-ing to-take the risk.'
Now I: don't say they.-were-wrong
 Approved For Release 2007/03/01: CIA-RDP99-00498R000300030017-1
thing to 'a' neat ? statistical 'matrix. He as not, embarrassed by the
Turner's-uneasy with words, which Arkady.She , enko.case in which it
means has tendencies opposed to 11 was revealed `that- the- former Soviet
those intelligence agents who want to I
' ' dipfonat had 'spent large sums of
caveat everything
- Retired-"Admiral'- Elmo? "Bud" CIA provided'.money ort a woman. I
Zumwalt-recoriiriended Turner for don t want to be a prude: I don't ap-
several 'important Navy posts in the
.past. But he-sees the:,'CIA -as "in-
creasingly acting a - a?-propaganda
arm of the presidency rather than
absolutely ruthless about coming out
with objective criteria:"'This tilting
'towards presidents began-'with Henry
Kissinger, Zumwalt -says; and- today
"Carter -makes .--pu tc -=statements
and the. .next CIA analyses .lean in
dhatdirection. ,,
CIA morale in the.field is so lows
he. insists..''that it you evaluate on a
one-to-lO.scale in comparison with,
-the KGB, the CIA would have gotten
a - five:. at - its highest- effectiveness.
Right now they operate at the level of
.one. The KGB operates,-ateight,"
Zumwalt. blames Carter rather
than Turner;"I don'. t:tliink:anyoneat
.the. CIA -could perforth differently
given a.president who--operates from
-the-naive-base Mr.: Carter.operates
from, who thinks that the same idea
:logical and . xheological orientation
effective, at,Camp, David with two,
religious -men can ,be applied to `the:
Soviets:, So they're. taking 'him right
.mg -the. president,-exactly' what he
wants, which is what one should ex-
pect -from. a -loyal':,presidential ap-
"
pointee
Turner flatly : denies.thaf,'-he has
politicized- the..: agency.'s_intelligence
,reports for the benefit of the adminis-
tration: "What' you 'are' seeing is a
greater-..openness. regardless :'of
whether it. supports or detracts (from
administration .positions). I'm, not in -
.the policy :game? I'm . declassifying-
what can,beAe-classified.;Sometimes
-I'm : praised ..and.-:sometimes. -'I'm
damned,-I'm nothere.to undercut the
president but.I'mi not-,here to support
:him_in:a:political sense,. because I
havetabe.objective "`*`~ : -,
-He.also-denies theaccusation:that
.he restricts dissenting;: views. in "CIA .
analyses:.: 'IL .there is ::one; thing's
'haves done. successfully ' it 'is . to
.emphasize minority views.: in the
intelligence' rports..: You; can't find
anybody that" would -deny'`that I've
-driven footnotes-out because before I
came here I never. read the'footnotes..
I assumed they carne from some wild:
-guywhohadtodissent
Today; if a dissentis, necessary. it
goes-right in-the.text?of.theestimate.
You, have-.to-read it. Then'thedeci--
sion maker'?s=got the whole'picture. I
am just-ezcitedwhat:it s-iibne to im-
.prove the:estimating process.and: I.'m.
-curious: to -know ,who ' accused -me of,
suppressing-. minorityi` views. If "" I
.
knew I_'d` probably bang him: up, by.
,his thumbs
4.4
ambassador they ever had. He leaves
everything behind in order to accept
our way of life. We all ought to be'
However Turner is embarrassed
prove -Ur my own life: of the kind of ham Kampiles, having been con-
i
d
f
v
cte
o
selling satellite secrets to
things- Shevchencko.:-was doing. But".. Moscow. "I've tightened= security
it's his-private life:,He's an unmar-' procedures here. -I'd like'it not to
. ried man. He has the right to do what i have happened. It's:very difficult to
he likes with hie Money and his, spare establish such tight procedures that
time,.We're trying to help him.transi- ! it can't happen. All'thepapers on my
tion.into- being an American, without desk are highly classifieds It's the
,.'invading his constitutional and legal medium of doing business... If- hhave
rights to privacy- to-sign for each' one we can .get our-
4 ''He hasn't:, done anything crimi- selves tied in knots:: So you' Rave:to
nal. We. had do .part in his private `? compromise. between efficiency- and
female. companionship relations. We security. I think-:.the: whole govern-
did not pay him: to pay her. We paid ;m'ent in- the passt+10 years has- leaned
'hi'm, what he deserves on the grounds a'Iittle bit much toward -more effi
of- what he is.doing-for us.:I'm-proud :cient ways of handling; their, paper
we h
ou
t
ave a c
ntry;
hat will attract athh wf
raer tan to secureays o han i liber 'man.
- I -- -
sea in deathe;rSo et dungthem
He had everything going for him
in his 'country.;.-he-was, the youngest