ISSUES FACING THE CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000401880001-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 22, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: August 26, 1991
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
The Real Story
August 26, 1991 8:00 P.M.
Issues Facing the CIA
Washington, D.C.
CASSANDRA CLAYTON: Tonight we begin our special
correspondent series called In Focus. Each week we'll examine a
major issue with a leading journalist. Tonight, Charlie Rose
reports on the Central Intelligence Agency.
Charlie, thanks for joining us.
CHARLIE ROSE: It's nice to be back.
The CIA's been in the news recently for a variety of
reasons: one, the nomination of a new Director to succeed
'nlilliam Webster; two, revelations that it kept funds in the
scandal-ridden BCCI; three, a guilty plea by one of its top
officials accused of withholding information from Congress about
the Iran-Contra scandal; and questions about its performance
before the Persian Gulf War and before the recent coup attempt in
the Soviet Union. And then, looking to the future, .a debate has
begun abaout the role of the CIA now that the Cold War is over.
Our report begins with former CIA Director William Colby
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addressing the conflict within the Agency between two key
factions: operations and analysis.
WILLIAM COLBY: Gates is obviously a struggle, but the
change to analysis is not a struggle. That's inevitable, I
think. The change in the world, the opening up of Eastecn
Europe, the Soviet Union, the lack of the Cold War, all of this.
No longer does some little fight in some lost corner of the world
immediately become the basis for a confrontation between the
Soviet Union and the Americans.
ROSE: Former CIA operative Vincent Cannistraro.
VINCENT CANNISTRARO: The problem is that the Agency
does not have a sense of mission now, after the collapse of the
Soviet empire.
ROSE: Have they had a sense of mission?
CANNISTRARO: They have, at certain periods in their
history, had a sense of mission. They don't have a sense of
mission now. They are, in some respect, demoralized. And no one
has articulated for them what it is the Central Intelligence
Agency, as well as other intelligence agencies, ought to be doing
in the new realities. That's the problem. And the problem
really is one of leadership.
The old mission was oriented on the Soviet Empire and
the necessity to collect against Soviet intelligence, Soviet
communism, and Soviet government's attempts to extend its
hegemony aver Thicd World countries.
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GEORGE CARVER: For four decades-plus the CIA has been
very much involved in the conduct of the Cold War, which has now
been won and we're going into a new and uncertain world. And its
importance has not diminished, but its missions and functions and
responsibilities and priorities are certainly going to have to
change.
ROSE: The Persian Gulf War points out one dilemma for
the CIA: finding the balance between human intelligence, spies,
and the use of technological intelligence, satellites in the sky.
CARVER: The intelligence community did a superb job of
collecting the kind of hard data that tells you down to a gnat's
eyelash what the enemy's capabi -- what your potential adver-
sary's capabilities are and the changes therein; but that the
whole policy structure of the U.S. Government, including parts of
the intelligence community, misread Saddam Hussein's character
and misread what he intended to do with those, because they were
looking at him through blinkered eyes and through a perspective
that they were unwilling to let facts change.
ALEXANDER HAIG: I think, in terms of battlefield
intelligence or tactical intelligence, that it was very, very
efficient and very effective. In terms of strategic intelli-
gence, clearly there were a number of serious breakdowns.
For example, we knew where the Iraqi forces were before
the conflict, but what we didn't know was what they were going to
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do with those forces. And that was an important setback or a
failure on the part of our strategic intelligence.
ROSE: And now this question: How well did the CIA do
in predicting the unsuccessful coup in the Soviet Union?
CARVER: Dick Cheney, in February of this year, said
that Gorbachev's days might well be numbered because of a coup
attempt against him. The intelligence community certainly paid a
lot of attention to the mutterings in June by the head of the KGB
about how the U.S. was using perestroika and glasnost as a device
for corrupting Soviet society, the similar mutterings that came
out in July. .They certainly paid attention when Politburo member
Alexander Yakovlev resigned from the Communist Party shortly
before he was canned, just Friday before the coup, and said that
a coup was imminent.
So, the actual timing may have come as a surprise, but
then it came as a surprise to Mikhail Gorbachev, too.
ROSE: The BCCI scandal points out another dilemma for
the CIA. When does the opportunity to collect intelligence
outweigh, on the one hand, dealing with unsavory characters, and,
on the other hand, the possibility of being tainted by illegal
activity? The CIA says they had funds at BCCI branches but their
involvement was absolutely legal. Others say the BCCI connection
helped the CIA in tracking terrorists worldwide. Some ask: Did
the CIA connection provide BCCI with a national security cover?
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Jack Blum was one of the leading investigators of BCCI
and testified before Congress.
JACK GLUM: There comes a point at which one has to ask
why intelligence agencies exist. The game is supposed to have a
purpose. If the purpose is controlling terrorism, protecting the
interests of the United States, you don't further that purpose by
using facilities and working with the guys who are making
terrorism possible, the guys who are making criminal ar_tivity --
for example, narcotics, smuggling -- possible. You, rather,
shut it down and you go after them. You don't help them.
And I think this is a very serious question. Were we
finding it convenient to use the same kinds of facilities that
the criminals were using to support intelligence operations? And
if so, where did common sense go?
ROSE: Before any issues about the future of the CIA and
its new role can be worked out, it has to get a new Director.
The President's choice is Robert Gates. He's currently the
Deputy National Security Adviser at the National Security
Council. Before that he was Deputy Director at the CIA. His
confirmation hearings begin September 16th. And that's the
subject of part two tomorrow.
CLAYTON: All right, Charlie. Now, that was a fascin-
ating report, and a lot of people do have questions at this time
about the CIA, and they've raised those questions about the
Persian Gulf. Why didn't we know Saddam was going to invade?
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And then just recently with the Soviet Union. You indicated the
CIA did know that there was a coup plot underway, but why didn't
we know when it was going to happen?
ROSE: Evidently, the CIA felt some pressure because of
what happened during the Persian Gulf War, that they did not know
or did not necessarily tell, say exactly what Saddam Hussein was
up to. They knew that he had moved the tanks. They could see
that from satellites. But they didn't know when. And at the
same time, there were some countervailing evidence coming from
friends of teh President saying he -- King Hussein and people
like that said, "He's told us he's not going into Kuwait." So
there was reasons to not know the timing there.
Interesting about the coup, that
the CIA learned from
the Persian Gulf and they had been warning of a coup for a long
time. Now, there were other warnings coming from the Soviet
Union. On August 16th, Alexander Yakovlev, one of the former
close advisers, quit the Communist Party and warned of a coup.
And the CIA had been warning of a coup.
So, most people believe they came off with good marks.
They just did not know any more than Mikhail Gorbachev knew when
a coup might take place.
CLAYTON: What do you see as the role of the CIA in this
new world order? Has it outlived its usefulness?
ROSE: No, it hadn't. What it is is really a balancing
of the sort of assets, deciding how to reassess and redeploy the
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assets. Clearly, we need more human intelligence in the Middle
East. Clearly, the Cold War is over, and so therefore there's
less of a need fvr some of the deployment of assets with respect
to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
So, that kind of debate is going on. There's clearly a
new role, a more important role, which is assessing information.
CLAYTON: And in different areas of the world.
ROSE: Yeah. Especially the Third World. Especially
areas that have not received a lot of attention on the part of
the superpowers. The United States need for the CIA to provide
the best and most timely information, and especially interpreta-
tion and analysis of that information, so policymakers have
~~ptions to make their decisions.
CLAYTON: How much has the CIA's ability to do what it
needs to do been compromised by the fact that it's been the
center of many controversies lately, including this BCCI scandal?
We'll probably be hearing a lot more about that.
ROSE: BCCI is interesting, in that the CIA says they
did absolutely nothing illegal. But as Jack Blum points out, a
lot is yet to be determined about what in fact went on. And what
scandals may lie within that uncovering, we don't know.
The CIA's role and the CIA -- what they have to do, you
know, is continue tv find the right balance.
CLAYTON: All right. Thanks a lot, Charlie Rose. And
we look forward to part two tomorrow night.
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