COMMENTS OF GENERAL WALTER B. SMITH AND HIS ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED AT THE 8TH AGENCY ORIENTATION COURSE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-04718A000900030021-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 4, 2001
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: November 21, 1952
• Content Type: SPEECH

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COMMENTS
OF
GENERAL WALTER B. SMITH
AND HIS ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
SUBMITTED AT THE 8TH AGENCY ORIENTATION COURSE
21 November 1952
* * * *
GENERAL SMITH: (Opening Remarks) I want to remind you that the service of
national intelligence and of national security has become a permanent,
honorable career. It is in effect a fourth service as compared with the
three military services, and its operation will be continuous and accel-
erated in time of war, ender its own command and under its own organiza-
tion. Since the passage of the National Security Act, intelligence is
able to offer you permanent, secure and honorable careers and it is to
your credit and to our advantage that you have accepted intelligence ca-
reers earnestly and seriously. I do not think that many of you will ever
feel that you have made a mistake.
QUESTION: Is the national intelligence which we are now making a good sup-
port,for the national policy?
GENERAL SMITH: We think it is. We think that the product of national intel-
ligence has been steadily increasing in quality and that it has now at-
tained a standard of excellence which justifies its acceptance as the ba-
sis for national planning. A good deal remains to be desired. We have
consistently been confronted with the impossibility of making certain es-
timates in the absence of military assumptions. Only recently the entire
intelligence community was asked to participate in the preparation of an
estimate of Soviet capabilities for defense against air attack. Obviously,
it is quite impossible to estimate the capabilities of the Soviet Union to
defend itself against an attack if there is no knowledge of our own capacity
for attack. When a requisition for this type of estimate is made, and in
the absence of definite assumptions as to the scope, caliber and materiel
to be used in an attack, it is only possible for the intelligence community
to prepare a sort of a bill of materials of Soviet assets and let it go at
that. The time will come when those who are charged with formulating in-
telligence estimates will be provided at least with basic assumptions on
which to prepare their counter-estimates.
QUESTION: To what extent is the intelligence product actually used by those
who formulate national policy?
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GENERAL SMITH: We have a good deal to learn in methods of using intelligence
to get the best value out of it. This is a situation which will correct
itself in time as the intelligence product becomes more and more reliable.
As it now works out, we prepare certain intelligence estimates on the na-
tional or strategic level which are based on a schedule for production de-
pendent largely on the problems which will confront the staff echelon which
supports the National Security Council. When those estimates are prepared
and are turned over to the members of the National Security Council and
their subordinates on the staff, they become, or at least they should be-
come, what in military parlance is called the G-2 annex on which operational
plans are based, and they are more and more being used in that way. Regret-
tably, the demand for intelligence estimates exceeds our ability to supply
them. Consequently, we are having a little difficulty getting estimates in
in'a timely way so that the staff officers who do the work for the Security
Council will have them well in advance of their own job, which is the prep-
aration of draft policy papers. In some cases, we have been a little be-
hind the policy papers, but more and more we are keeping up to date and a
little bit ahead of the parade.
QUESTION: It has been said that the military commanders didn't have reliance
or confidence in the intelligence people and, therefore, much was known to
them which was not to the intelligence men, and that that had an effect on
the estimates. Would you comment on this?
GENERAL SMITH: I don't think that reliance or confidence has anything to do
with the problem. It is simply the acute realization of the necessity for
security in connection with military plans and operations which has been
driven home to the personnel involved in exercising command. By a long
series of tragic events over a period of years, the inescapable conclusion
has been arrived at that the more people who know about these things, the
more insecure are plans and operations. Consequently, the tendency always
is to hold on to information as tightly and closely as possible and not to
give it out. It's the "need to know" theory raised to the h power. Ac-
tually, we do disseminate information much too widely; that's inherent in
our bureaucratic system. Everybody wants to know; a lot of people who want
to know and who don't really need to know are able to establish their right
to know regardless of what the intelligence chap or the operational chap
feels about it. Where military or other knowledge is required for the pro-
duction of an intelligence estimate, the solution, in my opinion, lies in
providing the intelligence producer with a series of assumptions which need
not reveal the plan, or which need not be entirely accurate, or which may
even be fictitious, because it is possible with such assumptions to produce
an intelligence estimate which the operational commander himself may scale
down. I don't think that anything better will ever be produced until we
set up on the highest level some machinery for coordinated G-2 and G-3 es-
timates; and whether that is possible or not, I don't know.
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QUESTION: Do you feel that unanimity reduces the strength of many of the es-
timates?
GENERAL SMITH: We rarely have unanimity, and we don't strive for it. We
don't make any effort to obtain it, so that itself is an academic question.
As a matter of fact, the dissenting opinion is encouraged if it's a valid
one; and if the dissenter is easily argued out of his position, then prob-
ably his dissent isn't worth very much.
QUESTION: Regarding the stability of the Agency, will the change in the Ad-
ministration have any effect on the Agency?
GENERAL SMITH: Since this is a statutory Agency supported by a career service,
there will be no change with changes in the Administration. The Director
and his principal Deputies and Assistants are non-political appointees and,
while the Director himself must undoubtedly be a man whom the Chief Execu-
tive is willing to accept, and to whom he will give a certain measure of
confidence, it is unlikely that you will ever have a Director whose status
will change with changes in the Administration.
QUESTION: What changes would take place as a consequence of a hot war?
GENERAL SMITH: There would be no change in wartime, except that, in theatres
of active operations, our personnel under the senior representative present
would automatically report to and carry out the orders of the senior mili-
tary commander in the theatre of operations, just as they are now doing in
Korea. In addition, our personnel would have missions targeted outside but
based on a military theatre of operations. These missions would be trans-
mitted to them from headquarters with the concurrence and knowledge of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, and they would be supported by the Theatre Commander
concerned.
QUESTION: Are the Senior Representatives overseas your alter egos?
GENERAL SMITH: Yes. With relation to myself or to any future Director, they
occupy the same position that the commander of a theatre of operations, in
a military sense, would occupy with respect to the military heads in Wash-
ington.
QUESTION: If a "real" peace is achieved, what effect would this have upon the
offices under DD/P?
GENERAL SMITH: Well, I'm afraid that the question is academic insofar as the
lifetime of most of us is concerned, and while I would have to answer that
I don't know exactly, I don't think that that is anything that you need to
worry about in the immediately foreseeable future. Let's reserve that one
for, let us say, the 28th or 38th or 58th Orientation Course.
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QUESTION: With regard to the official ceiling on T/O's, do you anticipate
that there will be further cuts in the organization?
GENERAL SMITH: No. We'll have to increase a little bit for training purposes.
It's a simple fact that while we have budgeted for a rather large personnel
ceiling, we can't get qualified people to fill that personnel ceiling. They
just simply don't exist. We've gone about the limit. Occasionally one may
get from the outside very highly qualified men or women, tempt them in,
twist their arms and get them to sign up on a career basis. But they are
becoming fewer and fewer, so we must depend on theyounger people that we
are bringing up through the ranks. Of course these people are, in any tech-
nical service like our own, the heart and soul of a career organization.
Unless every private carries the baton of a field marshal in his knapsack,
he hasn't very much to look forward to. Unless every junior officer has
the right to expect promotion through the grades and ultimately the oppor-
tunity to occupy the highest post in the career of his choice, there is very
little to hold him in his job. So, my intention is to keep our numbers down,
to be selective instead of expansive, and to look more and more to the ju-
niors to fill the senior posts.
QUESTION: Is the policy of rotation of individuals in key spots in keeping
with the career concept?
GENERAL SMITH: Well, since I've ordered the rotation policy, I'm obviously
in favor of it. In the first place, one cannot conduct global operations,
as we conduct them, exclusively and entirely controlled by a desk in Wash-
ington. In the second place, our people in the field believe, and unfor-
tunately in some cases they've had grounds to feel, that the men who are
telling them what to do have never been on the sharp end of the stick.
There is a third and very impelling reason. An Agency of this kind, like.
a military agency, is extremely ill-advised if it keeps its best talent at
home. It should get the best people that it can, get the most experienced
people it has, the most reliable people that it has, out to the point of
impact. Then, when you issue an order to a man in the field, knowing him,
knowing his capability and his reliability, you have every assurance that
the order will be properly carried out and that the duty will be well per-
formed. Accordingly, it is desirable to get the people occupying key po-
sitions, who have demonstrated their fitness for trust and competence, as
rapidly as possible to the critical places outside of the United States
which are the key to our effective operations.
QUESTION: Is there enough working level cooperation between CIA Offices today,
within the limits, of course, of security?
GENERAL SMITH: Yes, I think so. You have to try to arrive at a happy medium
between the necessity of knowing and the actual need of knowing. The desire
to provide cooperation exists, although the machinery, from time to time,
has not been as effective as one would like. I hope to increase cooperation
by the gradual transfer of qualified personnel from one Division of the
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Agency to another, to a greater extent than has heretofore obtained, so
that each officer will have a broader perspective than that given him by
work within one particular Division in which he may well specialize. But
he should have one or two alternate specialties, particularly when he goes
out into the field.
QUESTION: Does the fact that a CIA employee has reserve status hinder his
career or help it in CIA?
GENERAL SMITH: In my opinion, reserve status is an asset because it increases
the scope of the usefulness of a CIA officer. There are many jobs that we
do in which past military training or military experience is an essential
quality. There are also many jobs that we have to do where it might be de-
sirable to have a person actually identified with the military service, in
which case we can have him ordered to active duty and assigned to us.
QUESTION: Are you concerned about personnel turnover and are you taking steps
to minimize it?
GENERAL SMITH: Very much so. Our personnel turnover is by comparison rela-
tively small, but it's still much too large. That's one of the reasons why
I brought an Inspector General down here and made him available to anybody
in the Agency who had any complaint of any kind. As you know, you all have
opportunity also for a direct appeal to myself or Mr. Dulles if you feel
that you have been a victim of injustice. So there is no excuse for any-
body going unheard if they have a complaint or a legitimate question to
raise with regard to their official or personal lives within the Agency.
I will not, however, tolerate anybody going outside the Agency. I had a
case about six months ago. Since it was a special one, I have decided to-
ignore it. One of our employees wrote a letter to the President. Of course,
he handed it to me. But we have an Inspector General for that.
QUESTION: Since we can not tolerate mediocrity in CIA, what does an employee
do when he finds it on the job?
GENERAL SMITH: If he is an executive, who is responsible for eliminating medi-
ocrity, he should promptly eliminate it. On the other hand, no one likes
to be a talebearer, and no one likes a talebearer. In dealing with your
subordinates, be completely cold-blooded in eliminating mediocrity. When
you encounter it among your colleagues on the same level, just grit your
teeth and hope that your immediate superior will be as quick to recognize
it as you are. t
QUESTION: Are we ever going to get our own building?
GENERAL SMITH: We have one authorized, but. we are torn two ways. At the pres-
ent time, the very fact that we are scattered and living and working in
shacks, while it militates against working conditions, at the same time it
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contributes indirectly to our security in that nobody knows just exactly
where we are, or how many people work for us, or what they do. On the
other hand, it poses security hazards because in our scattered condition
it's pretty hard to guard us. We want a building badly, but on the other
hand, as soon as we put one up it will be bigger than most people think
and we will undoubtedly attract attention. The answer will probably be
that we will use half measures and put up something of a permanent nature
for certain of our operations and make "several bites of the cherry."
QUESTION: Shouldn't we be proud of the fact that there is a CIA in the United
States coordinating intelligence and, therefore, do more to win a better
understanding of what we do and why we do it on the part of the press and
the American people?
GENERAL SMITH: There's a great deal to be said for that idea, but the United
States needs one silent service and I think that it would be all to the
good if we could so qualify. We can't, of course. Under our laws and un-
der the rights of Congress, there are necessities for discussion. We could
not, for instance, get the money that we need if we didn't tell a good deal
about our operations; and as their scope increases and as their cost in-
creases, the necessity increases for telling more people about it - in Con-
gress, for example. So the only happy medium that we can draw is to say as
little as possible consistent with the necessity for safeguarding our sources
and our methods of operation. The American press generally, at least those
who are deserving of consideration, who know something about the problems of
securing and utilizing information because that's their business too, are
basically respectful of an institution that talks as little as possible.
QUESTION: Are our relationships with Congress good?
GENERAL SMITH: Yes, although they are extremely limited, and that, of course,
in itself is all to the good. In our actual dealings with Congress, our
discussions have been limited to only two or three people on the appropriate
committee in each of the two Houses, and they are fully alive to the neces-
sity of security. During the time that I've been here, there has never been
any, even the slightest, breach of security from those members of the two
Houses with whom we have dealt. As a matter of fact, they are extremely re-
luctant to have it known that it is they who look into our little business
because they fear, and quite justly, that there would be a demand from
others to be permitted to know.
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