REPORT ON THE CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000300040014-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 9, 2007
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: July 14, 1977
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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+ADIC.) TV rtcrvri 1 o, J,v'.
Sixty Minutes WTOP TV
STATION CBS Network
July 24, 1977 7:00 PM
Report on the CIA
Washington, D. C.
ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER: There are many things about
intelligence that are very difficult. There are many things that
are, frankly, not fully decent. My job, in collecting intelli-
gence, is to do the indecent things as decently as possible and
to keep a floor of decency below which we will not stoop.
DAN RATHER: For years, the most secret and the most
closed installation in the United States has been the Central
Intelligence Agency. It is for the first time now just starting
to open up, a little. In the controversy over how open this
country's intelligence activities should be., the Carter Admin-
istration opted for a cautious move toward more, not less, public
knowledge. That's probably the reason that the government is
talking about the possibility of public tours of the CIA Head-
quarters, and the reason that the CIA, for the first time, per-
mitted television cameras into its headquarters late this spring.
60 Minutes had to accept several restrictions for this
first televised tour. First, we agreed not to show personnel who
were scheduled for overseas assignment, and we submitted our film
for review so that such personnel inadvertently filmed could be
eliminated from the broadcast.
to film.
Second, we were limited in the activities we were allowed
And finally, we agreed not to relate one part of the
headquarters to others, so that the basic layout of the building
remains secret.
OFFICES IN: NEW YORK ? LOS ANGELES ? CHICAGO ? DETROIT ? AND OTHER PRINCIPAL, CITIES
Material suppled by Radio TV Reports. inc. maybe used for Me and reference purposes only. It may not be reproduced, sold or publicly demonstrated or exhibited.
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There were no limitations or right of review'in our.inter-
view with the new CIA chief, Admiral Stansfield Turner.
You get to CIA Headquarters by driving a few miles outside
of Washington. The main gate resembles that of a military install-
ation. No one enters without proper credentials. Beyond the .
heavily guarded gates, the thing that strikes a first-time visitor
is how beautiful the grounds are. The whole place looks more like
a college campus than a spy headquarters.
We know that many high-ranking CIA people believe it was
a mistake for us to have been allowed in at all. We did not kid
ourselves, and we urge you not to kid yourselves. Don't be misled.
This is a brief tour. Only a small portion of the CIA building
will be seen. You may be disappointed by what you see. Certainly
you will be if you expect to see spies sneaking around corners
ala James Bond.
11 This probably is the most sensitive room that we're being
allowed in, and there's a lot in this room that we can't, show you.
There's much in here that we're not even being allowed to see.
Keeping in mind that basically what the CIA does is gather infor-
mation, what's done in this room is gather information from signals.
This is the Signal. Analysis Division.
We all know that the Soviet Union, among others, is sending
out all kinds of signals on any given day to their military people,
to their intelligence people, to their diplomats.
We're not able to show you this man's face at all, but he
has agreed to tell us in general t-erms what it is that's being done
here.
What's happening?
MAN: Well, this is a Soviet radar signal. We're using
this equipment to display. the signal. We can measure the charac-
teristics of it, and from-that determine the function and.the rela-
tionship to an overall weapons system.
There are a number of Soviet radar signals that you can
hear. The one of particular interest is the one that we have sta-
bilized on this display.
RATHER: This is what? This is a stationary display of
the same thing we saw over there.
MAN: A stationary display. We've processed it with the
computer, and now it allows us to go in and really just make -- we
can make more precise measurements on the data.
RATHER: Give me an example of what you could learn from
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display by studying it in detail.
MAN: This is an aircraft radar; it's on an airplane, and
it would be used to look at other aircraft.
RATHER: When the CIA agreed for the first time ever to
allow in television cameras, we at CBS News frankly didn't know
how much access we would be allowed. As it has worked out, we've
been allowed a lot.. There is, however, at least one division of
the Central Intelligence Agency we are absolutely prohibited from
showing, the Directorate of Operations. This is the covert, or
secret, intelligence-gathering arm of the agency. Whatever cloak-
and-dagger, James-Bond-style work the CIA still does -- and it is
considerable, in our judgment -- it is directed from behind these
closed doors. They are never opened. The work that goes on in
here is so secret that the head of the division, the DDO, as he's
known around here, the Deputy Director of Operations, is never
publicly identified; and so secret that when it was arranged for
us to film up here, the agency insisted that the numbers come off
indicating, even, what floor this operation is on.
Now, what's behind this door, which, like most other doors
in the building, has its combination lock on it-,.-what's behind this
door is to me one of the more interesting places in the building,
although it's a small, rather confined room, interesting for this
reason: The principal role of the CIA is to gather information,
but another role is to analyze the information after they've got
it, which is what's going on in here. These are analysts working
on computers, and this person is analyzing OPEC oil prices.
What you are looking at is called a current accounts
balance. From this the CIA projects, for example, a cash surplus
this year for the Saudi Arabian Government of $23.2 billion. Use-
ful information when it comes to negotiations.
The week we filmed this sequence, the Carter Administration
was doing ju.st that, negotiating new agreements with the Saudis.
Another project being worked on in this room, this day, we
were told, is an analysis of worldwide coffee and metal prices. If
the President, for example, should ask, "Are coffee prices being
manipulated? If so, how much and by whom?" the CIA is supposed to
be able to tell him.
Despite all the impressive technology, the CIA says that
80% of its analytical work still is done by humans: one person
reading, thinking, and then drawing conclusions.
In this room, still another type of analysis. Several
weeks ago, in the home of a U.S. intelligence officer stationed
overseas, this telephone was suspected of being bugged. Because
the phone was used to contact secret agents working in the field,
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the CIA felt that the source of the bug must be'found. We were
not told where the phone was discovered, but were assured that
measures have already been taken to insure the safety of the
agents.
MAN: We have removed the instrument. We have made
checks on it, and we have made X-ray shots of this capacitor can.
A normal capacitor can would look like this here. Now, on this
particular instrument we found that an X-ray view of the capacitor
can shows much added circuitry. And now, take and analyze this
capacitor, and from a metallugrical, optical and chemical analysis
to see if we can identify the country who probably made this device
or installed this device.
RATHER: In this room is what the agency calls Data Comm,
Data Communications Center. It's a communications center providing
a wide variety of computer services for CIA terminals in stations
around the Washington area, CIA facilities inside and outside this
main headquarters building. The high-speed data switch which is
the heart of this operation also connects with the computer net-
works of other intelligence agencies, for example, the DIA, the
Defense Department's own in-house intelligence outfit.
Computer networks such as these have revolutionized the
intelligence business. Advanced computer technology, especially
that interconnected with spy-in-the-sky satellites, is one of the
advantages American intelligence experts believe they have over
the Soviets.
Let me remind you that the agency has never admitted to
the use of spy-in-the-sky satellites.
This is Communications Central to the CIA worldwide. Offi
cial name Operations Center. It is manned around-the-clock, around-.
the-year, every year. It is here that initial decisions are made
as to: who is to be informed about what and under what priority.
Should the Director be awakened and told? What about the President?
When a hot message comes in, one of the regular supervisors in this
room starts making those kinds of decisions.
Its sources are varied. Classified messages come in on
high-speed printers. Classified telephone calls are kept. secret
through the use of so-called scrambler systems. They confuse anyone
who might be listening in.
As in most newsrooms, there are the ever-present wire
servicers: AP, UPI, Reuters, The New York Times News Service. But
the CIA has another wire service printer no news agency has: FBIS,
Foreign Broadcast Information Service.
On the day we filmed the Operations Center, there was a
coup attempt in Angola. Rebel forces unfriendly to the ruling
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Marxist government and its Cuban allies attacks Angola's principal
radio station. The rebels apparently took control for a short
while, but Cuban troops quickly moved in and helped to oust the
rebels. The attempted coup was over.
Regular commerical news wire services had only started
to report the coup when special FBIS wires already were reporting
the coup had failed.
The agency's current director is Admiral Stansfield Turner,
native of Highland Park, Illinois; Annapolis classmate of President
Carter; and later a Rhodes Scholar. Turner insisted that he keep
his naval rank. Critics say this raises doubts about his commit-
ment to remain in the CIA, and they suggest that he is hoping to
use this job as a catapult to the one he really wants: Chairman
of the military Joint Chiefs. He denies that. And there is some
reason to believe that Turner sees himself remaining in intelli-
gence with an expanded role.
He brought with him six Navy officers as staff. Some CIA
oldtimers claim that this Navy Mafia, as they call it, isolates
Turner from the regulars.
On and off the record, most CIA staffers, new and old,
do agree that Turner is a quick learner with a strong sense of
command. His record of grasping quickly the complexities of the
intelligence community and managing them with sensitivity and
firmness has won him considerable respect.. His plan to reorganize
the whole American intelligence community, inside and outside the
CIA, has stirred hot debate in the Defense Department, in Congress,
and in the White House.
What Turner apparently wants is reduced Defense Department
control, with one person, having Cabinet-level rank and answerable
directly to the President and Congress, responsible for all spying
worldwide, human and satellite. Suspicions run high that Turner
wants to be that one person. The Admiral flatly refuses to discuss
the matter publicly.
ADMIRAL TURNER: I don't think it's a good idea to take up
the details of an ongoing Executive Branch discussion and proposal
in the public until we have come to a joint opinion; and I'm sure
we will and we'll do it amicably.
RATHER: Amicably.
ADMIRAL TURNER: Yes. There are attempts in the press
to portray Secretary Brown and myself at each other's throat, and
nothing could be further from the truth. We're working together,
we're meeting together, we see and understand the problem in iden-
tical terms. We...
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ADMIRAL TURNER: We may -- we see the problem in identical
terms. We may come to different solutions for it or different ways
of approaching it. But we're doing so with no rancor, with no hard
feelings, and it's a good, honest debate.
RATHER: This has been in print as describing your-point
of view, and I wanted to give you an opportunity to:.say.."Well,,
that's accurate." - '.'It's.; not accurate,." o-r.,. "I:'ia -not going to_ say
Is it. Lair to say, LdmiraL,. that :.one; of .. the 'reason::. this .
for -the National Security Agency and the. National Reconnaissance
a very important decision -- is over who is to control the budget
is an important. national decision -- you'vesai-d yours-elf_this -is
O ffice?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Well, that's one of tie many issues being
considered in this. But today I have a considerable influence on
those budgets, on all the budgets of the intelligence community..
So we're talking nuances of degree here, and there are many permu-=
tations and combinations, and by no means all of the ones being
considered were outlined in this story in the press.
Military concerns are only factor of the~ -intelligence
intelligence may make the difference... It-may be like the Ultra
If you-look back 30 years,- when we were just militarily -predominant -
in the world, whether we had good intelligence or not was important
but not critical. Today, when we do not have a large military edge,
problem'; It's a very important factor, and part'i6ur4ily t'od'ay
secret that tipped' the scales very much on-our. side.--
But today we're also in a very' differ_ent_.econom.c. po'si-
tion. Thirty years ago, when this agency was founded, we were
totally economically independent. Today we are interdependent.
And if we don't know what's going on in the rest of the world
economically, we're going to lose our shirt, like we, did in 19.72
with the grain deal with the Soviet Union.
RATHER: The new image could not have been more clearly
expressftd than by the activities Turner allowed us to fi4m. Never
before, to our knowledge, has a Director of the CIA allowed himself
to be photographed in such a wide variety of circumstances.
This says much about the man as a person. He is reachable
and open, or, at the very least, he is eager to appear that way to
the press.
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Some top officials within the agency say he is not reach-
able to them, that they hear from him only by memo, referred to as
T-grams, that he is sheltered by the Navy staff he brought with him.
We frankly don't know enough to judge how open he is asa manager
and director. We do know that he has set new standards for being
open to the press.
Typical of the subjects-discussed at.Turner's daily 'staff
get: acros's' right now is the need for new. ways of controlling all
to reporters and cameras is part of his way of trying to get'his
message across, both to the people inside the intelligence com-
munit.y..and to the general public. The message he wants most to
wider.public understanding. and support- Making himself available.
One reason, according to him, is the agency's need for
into the Middle East. The French-are selling weapons in the. area
meeting is the one this particular morning about the flow-.of.arms_-
QL WLI L nLU A. 1 %. G LI Cl LI CL
ADMIRAL TURNER: I would have thought the ability of the
United Arab Emirates to absorb many arms would_._be fairly limited.
Isn't their population very small?
MAN: That's right. It's a small population but lots of
money. And a part of this arrangement is to provide weapons to
other Arab states.
RATHER: There is at least a mythology among reporters
ADMIRAL TURNER: There are lots of mythologies about
intelligence.
to the Soviet Union, and that ours is no better than the third-best
RATHERr Well, one-of them is that the best-intelligence
operation in the world belongs to Israel, the second-best belongs
Do you agree with that assessment?
ADMIRAL TURNER; No, I don't agree with that at all. I
suspect that the Israelis have a very capable intelligence opera-
tion, but there's no way a country with their resources can possibly
cover the scope of affairs that we can.
I think we're ahead of the Soviets. We have better tech-
nology, and I just don't think you can do the kind of interpretation
and research that we-can -- you can't get this in a closed society,
like a communist country.
RATHER: When our government gets an early indication that
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Cuban, quote, experts are moving into Ethiopia, is it the primary
responsibility of the DIA, the CIA, or the State Department to
feed to the President quickly an early read on what that means
and what his options may be?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Oh.. it's really my responsibility, as
the Director of Central Intelligence, to. get that 'factual infor-
mation to him..:.
utthe President: Looks ,to you to':give him that
RATHER Once a-weetc the Director iaeets wzth tike _Presi.
dent and the President's assistant for'nat.ional.security,,,,Zbigniew
of
ADMIRAL: TURNER::- -,The' first item. on our agenda is 'a:reprint
chart I gave you last week on the Israeli election results..
I had given him a chart which showed the results of the
Israeli election, so he was able to mathematically see where we
stood, what combination of parties could possibly form a viable
government: Is it going to be strong? Is it going to have a
particular complexion?
RATHER: Did he ask you for a last line as to whether the
outcome of this was going.to.help or hurt. the chances for peace.in
the areal
in the other direction. And-the buck stops with him.
-
that government in this direction or these factors will push them.
ADMIRAL TURNER: Well, no. That's more his judgment than
mine. He's the man who's talked with them and has a great feel for-
them, and so I don't presume to tell him exactly how things are
going'to come out. I try to tell him that these factors will push
RATHER: Unlike what he said in
now praises the CIA highly.
the campaign,
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: I don't know of anything that's
. been . a._more pleasant-surprise- . than. to -,fe.arar about- the competence
and the professionalism of the CIA and the other intelligence
agencies. And one of the great things about it is that-when I
need information in a hurry, it's always there.
RATHER: If it's human spy work that needs doing, generally
speaking the CIA will do it.
ADMIRAL TURNER: Generally speaking, yes.
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RATHER: Give me some feel, if you can, for how those
decisions are made. Does the President get directly involved in
these kinds of decisions?
ADMIRAL TURNER: In some cases, yes. Again, it depends
on the degree of risk involved. We never undertake a sensitive
intelligence operation without carefully looking at several factors:
One, can we do it in an overt way, without taking any risks?
Two, if we have to take a risk, is the potential reward
going to be worth that risk? -
RATHER: And the President sometimes makes that decision.
ADMIRAL TURNER: Yes, indeed.
RATHER: Since you've been in, have you taken that kind
of decision to him?
RATHER: Did he decide yes or no?
ADMIRAL TURNER: [Laughter] It happened in this case he
decided yes. But it's not always that way. It's a very difficult
decision in every instance.
Now, we have very clear regulations for certain types of
what we call covert activities, where we are required to get. the
President's signature before we go ahead on something that sensi-
tive, and then we are required to notify the appropriate committees
of the United States Congress.
RATHER: Realistically, can we keep many secrets that way?
Can we keep a covert action covered if you have to go through that
many steps?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Yes, I think we can. The committees of
the Congress involved in this have been very responsible in this
regard. Obviously, the more people you involve in any secret, the
more the probability of disclosure goes up.
RATHER: I have to believe, Admiral, that if I'm a spy on
the line, I'm going to be very nervous, particularly these days,
to hear you talk that way.'
ADMIRAL TURNER: Absolutely. We have had a poor record
in recent months. The disclosure of the King Hussein allegation;
that cost us a great deal, not just in Jordan, but around the world
The number of people who work for us who have come in and said,
"Can we risk continuing working for you?"
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RATHER: How did it leak?
ADMIRAL TURNER: ...to the press.
If I knew, we'd be..taking.. some.-.very. definite. actions t
it_ again .but. I_. don't have that, pinned: down.
RATHER: I don't want to spend too much time on it, but in
the. King Hussein case, do you blame the press for that?
fact that this kind of information would leak...
ADMIRAL TURNER: I don't blame the press. I think the
press has its own code of ethics, its own decisions to make on
what it prints and what it doesn't, and whether they're harming
the national security in doing so. I'm very concerned about the
RATHER: Do you see a line -- is there anything, in your
judgment, immoral, unethical, illegal that you wouldn't do overseas?
ADMIRAL TURNER: There are many thing's.--about intelligence
that are very difficult. There are many things that are, frankly,
not fully decent. My job, in collecting intelligence, is to do
the indecent things as decently as possible and to keep a floor
of decency below which we will not stoop.
RATHER: Realistically, is that going to insure that we
do not have happen again what has happened before? That is,.em-
ployees of the National Security Agency doing such things as moni
toring the telephone calls of Americans to South America.-
. TURNER: I'm not accepting your allegations. I'm
not either deny#iing them or confirming them, because I haven't got
into that particular instance you've raised in any detail at this
point.
That kind of a charter will help, but basically it's the
sum of oversight procedures that have been established that are
going to and do give you and me the assurance against any possible
abuses by any element of the intelligence community.
RATHER: Let me say to you frankly that one of the cases
that has always intrigued me. and, frankly, frightened me the most
was the case of the shellfish toxin. The rough outline Hof this
case, as alleged: President Nixon. issued a written order saying,
"We don't want any more shellfish toxin. We don't need that kind
of thing. We want it destroyed." The allegation is that the then-
Director of the CIA, Director Helms, issued a verbal order to
destroy the shellfish toxin. Five years later we find that not
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all of the toxin was destroyed.
This was the allegation. This is a rough outline of
the story.
Now, where is the mechanism to keep that from happening
again?
ADMIRAL TURNER: That mechanism is in the Director's sense
of control of his operation, and there's no formula, there's no
rule or law that's ever going to guarantee against it. But you've
got to tell them when you give them order you expect it to be
carried out. And then you've got to look through your agency
and you've got to, with your-intuition.,-with your best senses,
find who are the people you feel have real integrity here, who are
the people who have enthusiasm for carrying out the orders the way
you want them carried out; and you've got to put them in charge of
things.
I assure you if I found something like that going on,
there'd be a lot of heads roll if I'd given an order and found out
some weeks or months later that it wasn't carried out. You can't
tolerate that in this kind of an organization. We have too sensi-
tive a trust.
RATHER: In the building's main lobby, this is the Wall
of Heroes. It is an unpleasant truth that some CIA agents have
done things that were illegal and immoral. Partly because of that
truth, it is often overlooked that other agents have performed
acts inspirational and heroic, and that some die in the line of
duty. Their acts are not heralded in newspaper headlines nor
extolled in television newscasts. In some cases, even in death,
there can be no names, only stars.
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