GEORGE BUSH ADDRESS TO ASSOCIATION OF FEDERAL INVESTIGATORS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000502290004-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 21, 2012
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: September 10, 1976
• Content Type: MISC

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":
~. ~ GEORGE BUSH
~..~ Address to Association of Federal Investigators
September 10, 1976
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GEORGE BUSH: Thank you for that glowing introduction, and
General Chapman and other distinguished guests at the head table.
Let me tell you how glad I am to be appearing before the
Association of Federal Investigators. If there's anybody that ought
to know about being investigated, it's the head of the CIA.
And I will say that most of you involved here were not
involved in the investigations of the CIA. That was done princi-
pally by -- and properly, I might 'add -- by the United States Con-
gress.
The CIA is still here. Some of the investigators aren't. C-SO ~~~
us`ed~to tell about a United States Senator. When his term r
t,
he deci'd~ed not to run again; and his wife, enjoying the~cial
prestige of~kalash i ngton, refused to l eave unt i l he ,ate'"-- a man of
limited means, so he sought gainful emplo t. Nobody seemed
to want him, and he pt inquiring. He f' ly went to the employ-
ment office. He said,~ook, I'm despe ate. I'll accept anything."
And they said, "We ha~~nothing, sir, for a man of your
prestige."
And he sa i d,~''M1e I I , g i ve me a ca~hl.~i f you get any I eads at
Finally he was sitting there one day with the lit~~{~ woman,
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who's handling these investigations, is kind of out in front and
handling the employment. And the phone rang, and she said, "No,
no, I don't believe anybody who can...."
"Stop," said the Senator. "Just a minute. What is it?"
She put her hand over the phone like this, and she said;
~
"It's the zoo. A gorilla died and they're looking for somebod~y"?
on temporary work to go out there and put on a gorilla suited
sit in a cage~u4ntil the new gorilla arrives."
"I' I I tak`e~, it. I' I I take it," he said.
She says...
"I'll take it. I~'m desperate."
So they signed the Senator up ~n`"d he went out and put his
suit on, and for the first week~or two?~?he was terribly inhibited.
He just sat there. And finally peop,~le started throwing peanuts at
him and kids groups came by, and h~ started to scratch, you know,
like gorillas do and he began to~move around the cage a little bit.
A high school class would come~by, and e pointed to the trapeze
and he started swinging. A"n~ he did a f tastic job at this thing
and he rea I I y got to I i ke.~'`the work and ever th"i ng .
And one day,~'i't was a part i cu I ar I y rec
he was swinging o
lions cage right
I i on coming at
against the
this was
here."
tive audience, and
its trapeze, and he flew off a
next door, you see. And so they
him, charging at him like this, and h
ire, you know, in the cage, and he finally
ilia sees this
acks up
e end of it, so he says, 11Help. Help. Get me
ust thought
of
At which the lion turned to him and said, ?'Would you shut
You're not the only United States Senate working in this...."
~u~g~~--~r~~=
When I think of the investigations of the CIA, I don't wish
the investigators anything but good luck, of course. But I -- I
should say that I -- before I make a few remarks about the intelli-
gence community,. that I'm delighted to be at the head table.
Bob Gambino, who is our, as Mark said, head of security
at CIA. It's not an easy job; it's a tough job. He does it excep-
tionally well. It doesn't necessarily interact with the professional
work of yours, where you have -- of course, he has not only respon-
sibility for the premises at CIA, but much for the security of
documents, classified information which we're dealing with as an
institution and I'm dealing with as the Director of Central Intelli-
gence in the entire intelligence community, as the General knows,
landed in the
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all the time. And Bob handles this with great skill and expertise,
and I'm just delighted that those of you haven't met him have a
chance at least to see him here today.
My job is an interesting one. That is the understatement
of the year. It reminds me only -- you're going to~think I'm queer
for gorillas, but it reminds me...
...when I went to be Chairman of the Republican Party. I
was Ambassador at the UN, kind of being nonpolitical and doing my
thing up there, I thought with reasonable respectability. And I
got summoned to Camp David, and something else was in mind for me.
And after about a year and a half of that, all during the Watergate
period, trying to walk a very delicate tightrope about being fair
to the President, and yet not trying to see the party structure
linked into Watergate, Bob Strauss, my illustrious counterpart in
those days for the Democratic Party, a man of enormous ability and
enormous good cheer and a close friend of mine from Texas, he said,
10George," he said, "your job reminds me of making love to a gorilla."
I said, 11Oh, really? How come?"
He says, "Well, you can't stop till the gorilla wants to.1?
`~'"'~~"
I thought of that job as I went into the CIA about eight
months ago, at the height of these investigations, when the Senate
committee was finishing its work, when the House committee was fin-
ishing its work. And I didn't really know what I was going to walk
into.
I did know what people think intelligence is about, because
of a large degree -- largely because of the attention -- of public '
attention, which to our business, intelligence, which really much
of it has to be done not in the public eyes
And the fictional notions of what it is about we're familiar
with. I realize that '?dirty trick" artist James Bond is far more
fascinating than a scholarly analyst of foreign political or economic
trends. But in seven months as Director out at CIA, I've never met
anybody quite as lucky as James Bond and the things he gets to do in
his life, nor anything like him in the way he conducts his business.
And yet during any lunchtime visit to our headquarters -- and I hope
some of you have been there -- in the cafeteria, I could be sitting
there sharing the room with enough scho-tars and scientists who hold
enough advanced degrees in enough different disciplines to staff a
university.
That's what I think CIA is. I will readily concede that's
not the public perception, for reasons we can talk about.
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People, I think, to some degree -- and this perception is
changing -- think of 007, they think of hit squads, they think of
illegal operations inside the United States, they think of phones
being tapped. If one more friend says to me, so help me God, "Are
somebody listening in on the telephone?" when I call up to arrange
a simple tennis game or something, I going to -- I don't know what
I'm going to do. It happens all the time to the Director, and I'm
sure it happens to everybody else out there.
I saw a movie, "Seven Days of the Condor," which had
Robert Redford rusing around, wiping out his fellow CIA agents in
New York. And it ended with a real nice twi-s_t. It showed him,
in righteous indignation, having beenifhreatened by his colleagues
at the Central Intelligence Agency, between New York and McLean,
going up to The New York Times to spill all and clarify all. And
the final twist on the film was, "Well, maybe they'll print it, or
maybe they won't," implying that the Central Intelligence Agency
controls The New York Times.
Well, I don't need a group of federal investigators, my
priest, minister, or anybody else to tell me that the Central,
Intelligence Agency doesn't control The New York Times. I read it
every day, and it's simply not true. And I would like to refute
that part of "Seven Days of the Condor" here an now.
People have -- I think the public has some reason to be
concerned and, you know, to have. these misconceptions about our
agency. The investigation, indeed, pointed out some -- and I say
if you're really fair and analyze it and categorize it, a s-mall
,list, but nevertheless some very real problems.
They laid to rest -- the investigations themselves laid
to rest many charges. But some of those charges, officially laid
to rest by the Senate and House committees, are printed and reprinted
and reprinted as if fact.
I know that no member of the Federal Investigators group
would read Playboy magazine. I have that kind of confidence in you.
But if you happened to glance at last month's Playboy, you would have
seen a story in there replete with absurdities about the Central.
Intelligence Agency.
Many of my friends ask me, "Why are you....?" We're not.
These aren't true. We don't control the Hughes P~iedical Foundation,
worth billions of dollars, for example.
And that story is filled with things that's not true. It's
printed, and then it's picked up, and it's newsworthy, still, to put
the initials CIA next to something until it's reprinted, not in
Playboy, but picked up on and s,p~*read around in the newspapers.
Nobody called Andrew ~_ ~at~l-e]~ w i th me here today,
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the writer that wrote that story. Nobody inquired at CIA whether
there was validity to these charges. But after it was printed, his
phone rang oft the hook, wanting -- after, the stories were all
spread out in the country.
Now, we've got some problems because of the misperceptions,
in my view, of the Central Intelligence community. One book printed
a st-ory, since I've been Director, that -- one magazine -- that the
CIA gave Tom Dewey a million dollars when he was running for Presi-
dent in the year 1948.
Well, they had a Democratic President. I forget who the
Director was at that time. All investigations indicate that CIA
didn't give Tom Dewey anything, financial cash, in 1948, and yet
the story is taken by the author, printed, and then is reprinted.
So, I do understand some of the perceptions, what I would
say are misperceptions, about this agency. I will say, if you
would permit me, this great agency that I'm privileged to head.
I would say that not all of these misperceptions and all
of these stories -- they're not necessarily mischievous. They are,
many of them that create these misapprehensions, are sensational..
There are some people who want to destroy the CIA. There are some
who want -- former employees, for example, some far left-wing groups,
that are dedicated openly, and they'll tell you this, are dedicated
to the destruction of the Central- Intelligence Agency, or dismantle-
ment thereof.
There are some honest -- I would give them total credit for
that -- I would say, from my vantage point, misguided people who have
in common that the way to solve the abuses that I've conceded existed,
small in number though they may have been, is to dismantle the agency,
to take some parts of it and put it off in some other departments,
the State Department or something, and hoping that that will guaranty
against abuse.
I don't believe, however honest that approach may be, that
it would result in more effective intelligence, and I don't believe
it would be more of a safeguard that the American people -- the kind
of safeguard that the American people not only demand, but should
have, in terms of seeing that this great agency live within the
Constitution -- constitutional ,constraints imposed on it, and that
should be imposed on it.
I'm pledged to see that the CIA respects the constitutional
rights of Americans, and I'm determined to do that. Ism also dedi-
cated to the concept that we need an intelligence, foreign intelli-
gence capability second to none. And with the help of fantastic
professionals, I'm going to fight for that as well.
Let's look now, if we could, just briefly -- Mark is rather
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stringent on the time there. He said, you know, "Fifteen to 30
minutes." I don't want to overdo it. Some of you have to go to
work . - -- --------
I always remember the story about the kind whow~"t to
churc w i th h i s grandmother, 'and he said, "Gran.d~~"t'"~ier, what are
a I I those ags a I ong the s i de of the chu~~cfi""~there for?"
She said;`~'~.WeII, that'. for those who died in service?"
And the k i d sFa~i'~d, ?1'0?h,, rea I I y? The n i ne o! c I ock or the
eleven o' c l ockser~v~^i e?"
tighter]
...will try to live by his delicately phrased c n~~r~.,a?ints.
But let's look, if we could, for a second not at the mis-
conceptions -- you can sort out what they are; you've got your
opinions of what they are. We need to perform to satisfy you that
if it is a misconception, it's just that. But let's look at what
I think of as reality.
First, our mission. I don't think I need to dwell on it
with this group. You!re informed, perhaps not so much on foreign
intelligence, but your -- the matrix of this group, investigation,
would imply that you have an intellectual and professional curiosity,
that perhaps you know more about the mission of the Central Intelli-
gence Agency than most other groups.
But our attention to and bringing to the attention of the
present .policymakers of the Soviet threat is a terribly important
part of the mission. We monitor, as best we can, the SALT agree-
ment. We advise the President on what the Soviets can do. Some-
body's got to tell him how far we think the missiles go [unin-
telligible], how far, what the submarines are capable of. It's
terribly important to the legitimate national security requirements
of the United States. How far and how fast can the bombers go?
What's the missile strength? And the new tanks of the Soviet Union,
are they better than those of the United States?
And it's our responsibility, it's my responsibility, if
you will, under the law, as Director of Central Intelligence, to
provide this. kind of information to our President.
One thing that worries me, and I suspect it would worry
you: the question of nuclear proliferation. If you look around
the world and you think, "My heavens, if every country comes up
with a nuclear weapon, what's it mean?" Look at terrorism today.
What would it mean if somebody had some kind of a small nuclear
device to add to this awful. arsenal terrorist activity around the
world? And we have some enormous responsibility to the President,
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in terms of intelligence, to do something about international ter-
rorism.
And as some of you know directly from your work, CIA has
a lot to do with the intelligence, foreign intelligence on the con-
trol of narcotics. One question that -- I'm just clicking off a
few examples, 'cause I find that groups don't focus on the breadth
of our mission.
I'm concerned about Cubans in Angola, for example, Cubans
in Africa. What's it mean? You know they're down -- you read the'
debate about Angola. You each have your views as to whether we
should have been involved or not. But the policymakers need to
know what are the Cubans doing in Angola, and what does it mean
when they spill. over into other African countries, and who's paying
for that?
And these are the responsibi~li-ties that I have for briefing
the President on this and the policy makers and, indeed, the United
States Congress.
What does it mean if OPEC raises its price? This affects
every household in America.
What's the significance of the recent Soviet space shot?
Korea, a few days ago: a couple of American kids blud-
geoned to death with ax handles. Was this an isolated incident,
or did this have some rather longer-range policy implications or
indications of policy shift?
And so, I cite a wide array of things that add :up to a
terribly important mission. And all these things had in common
the fact that the DCI, the Director of Central Intelligence, has
the obligation, under the law, to keep the President informed of
developments. Every President has to make awesome decisions on
national security, and they've got to be informed, and it's not
easy, and the state of our art is not so definitive that we can
guaranty that an assessment is correct.
It's my job as DCI to keep the President totally informed,
and with the help, as I indicated earlier, of an enormously compe-
tent professional staff, not only at CIA, but in the Defense Inte?'Ili-
gence Agency, the iational Security Agency, other components of the
intelligence community for which I'm responsible. I think we do a
pretty darn good job. And I think it's proper to look at how we're,
doing.
I think we've recovered -- I was telling the General and
Mark here at lunch -- somewhat from the battling of a year ago.
And by that I don't mean retrench, go back to the old ways. I
think it's proper that every agency, the agencies you work for',
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the agency I work for, examine itself and find ways to do things
better.
The President came out this winter with an Executive Order
which, for the first time since the Central Intelligence Agency
was founded, resulted in major executive reorganization of the
intelligence community. Included in it was not just systems and
committees to make the intelligence product better, but was many
things to safeguard the constitutional rights of Americans, to
guaranty proper oversight. And then along with the Executive Order,
the presidential instruction, which we're adhering to to the letter,
to cooperate fully in oversight with the United States Congress.
You know, I'll give you an example of what I'm talking
about. I don't believe, and my predecessors before me didn't
believe, and the President doesn't believe, and two out of every
three congressmen and two out of every three senators don't believe,
that the CIA ought -- I say this because of the two votes -- ought
to make its budget public. Now, that is our opinion. But most
people in this country don't understand that, given that position,
we still make public every single penny of what we do to the proper
committees of the United States Congress.
I report to seven committees in the United States Congress.
I've been in this job less than nine months.. It could have been --
less than nine months, and I think I've made 35 or 36 official
appearances on Capitol H-ill, to say nothing of those when you just
go up to negotiate with or discuss matters with senators or con-
gressmen. That's a lot of oversight. And I welcome it, but I would
welcome consolidated oversight, so we could still do the same
thorough job, but not have the duplication that results from
briefing seven separate committees.
The new Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Dan
Inouye, with Howard Baker as the ranking minority member, I think
offers a lot of promise. It is an additional committee, it's the
seventh one I report to, but it could be the pattern that will
lead to consolidated oversight. And I hope they feel the way I
feel, and that is that we are having excellent cooperation with
that committee.
The intelligence community is vibrant and it's strong.
It's been through a great deal, and I'm not about to reorder, re-
argue with you the damage or the effectiveness, either one, of the
hearings that were held. I've told you I think there were-some
excesses. I know there has been some diminishing of our effective-
ness, in some-ways, abroad. I think, however, that diminishment,
that caution-that came abroad from some who wondered if they cooper-
ated with CIA, would they see their names spread out in all the
papers in the United States, I think that is being -- going away
somewhat, and I think we're now in a position where we can move
forward, shore up those foreign relationships that are desperately
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important in the field of foreign intelligence.
I challenge those who claim that secrecy in`~intelligence
work is inconsistent with freedom and democracy to give us a real-
istic preview of what this nation's freedom and democracy would
look like if we alone, the United States alone, in this imperfect
decided to abandon this essential protection against our adver-
saries. We've got to have secrecy.
We're not going to give out the names of people that
cooperate with the Central Intelligence Agency. I'm foresworn
from doing that under the law. "Protect sources and methods,11
says the 1949 act. And if they want a Director of Central Intel-
ligence who's going to give the name of agents or double agents
or services that we cooperate with abroad, they can get somebody
else to do it, 'cause I take that responsibility extremely seri-
ously. And yet l see nothing inconsistent with my insistence on
this, nothing inconsistent with full cooperation with the United
States Congress and with safeguarding the liberties of the American
people.
And so, this is 'a rather quick brush at this terribly
complicated subject of foreign intelligence in the year 1976. I
would be remiss, however, if I didn't end with this comment: I
didn't know what I'd expect. I'd had a varied past, as Mark said,
some in politics. When I went to the Congress, they said to me,
"How can you -- you were involved with politics. You headed one
of the great parties. You served, just like us, as a partisan.
How can you suggest that maybe you should b.e the Director of Cen-
tral Intelligence?"
'And I pointed out to them, 01Yeah, I did, and I think it's
fundamentally important to our system that people who are involved
i n politics be partisan, wo,rk,-~I,~iwke he I I at i t for what you - be I i eve
i n. I d i d i t. ,~I'"',_,,, m n o t?~.,.a_s..h e m e d~o f its I' m p r o u d o f i t. B u t I a I s o
served as Ambassador to Peking, United Nations; and I think I did
those jobs with an absence of partisanship, and I think I should
have. I don't think you should be, when you're in that kind of a
responsibility, be partisan."
And the Senate agreed. There was some understandable
question. There was some, certainly, as far as I'm concerned,
honest and understandable debate. And those who voted against me,
I have only one determination, and that is to make them understand
that a person who has been involved in partisan politics can indeed
devote his life and his professional endeavor to succeeding in a
job which calls for total lack of partisanship.
But I didn't know, because of this, you see, what I was
going to run into when I went out to the Central~lntelligence
Agency. I didn't know how -- I expect they were wondering what --
how I was going to look at them after all the publicity. And I
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think my colleagues now, my peers now think they were -- certainly
had every reason to kind of look at me, although wondering, 11Vdhat's
this guy going to do?01
Well, I don't know what they think, but let me just tell
you what I think. I mentioned the numbers of -- the degree of
academic excellence we have. I mentioned the graduate degrees.
I mentioned my -- if I didn't, I should have -- the respect I have
for not only those in the production side of the -- in the produc-
tion side of intelligence, but those who risk their lives, unher-
alded, in the collection side. I'm talking about human intelli-
gence,. and I happen to be one who thinks the nation need a covert
capability to fight against forces that are awfully strong in this
world.
But whether it comes from the analytical side, whether it
comes from the security side of the house, whether it comes from
the administrative side or the spying business or whatever, there's
a commonality at CIA. I expect the General and I hope those of the
rest of you who've had contact with this agency wouled agree. There's
a commonality,'there's a matrix, and the matrix is dedication.
Yes, there were a handful of mistakes made, but there is
a tremendous dedication at that agency. They don't get the applause
and the accolades that, you know, more-public agencies can get. We
are a secret business, to some degree. But I ask you to examine us
close enough to make your own determination; and I know you'll con-
clude, as I have concluded after nine somewhat frustrating but cer-
tainly full and fascinating months at this agency, that instead of
having the kind of job that Mr. Strauss alluded to about that
gorilla, I'm one of the luckiest guys in the United States.
Thank you very much.
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