WHY I QUIT THE CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88B00443R000903820022-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 29, 2011
• Sequence Number: 22
• Publication Date: January 2, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2011/07/29 :CIA-RDP88B00443R000903820022-9
WASHINGTON POST
2 January 185
John Dorton
~A
~ ~ ~zt -the ~
Y _~ ___ _
Earlier this year I resigned as National Intel-
i:fience Officer for Latin America because of
the pressure put on me by the Director of Cen-
t.~l Intelligence to come up with a National In-
tal!igence Estimate on Mapco that would sati-
sfy him. This is not the first time that pressure
has bean put on intelIgence officers to Dome up
Kith what their superiors consider to be the
right ansx~ers A previous director not long ago
ternarked that be was considered a "traitor"
because the estimates on Southeast Asia that
were being written under his direction were
not pleasing to the policy-makers at the time-
. tla estimates didn't say that our poLcy in Viet-
nam was working. In my own are, it was not
that the policy-makers were putting pressure
on the director, but rather that the pressure on
me and others working on the Mexico estimate
carne from the director himself.
Nothing x ~ get an intelbgenoe officer's ~badt
up faster than a sniff of that kind of pressure in
his nostr~s. It is a matter of prinaple that he not
slant intelligence judgments to crake them more
palatable to his superiors or to shower the glory
o'f rpptoval on an administration's polities. A Na-
tional Intelligence Estimate is not simply an intel-
ligeoce report or a bat of analysis, nor should it be
'any one man's opinion. It is the product of the
deh'beration of representatives of all the intelli-
gence agenties dealing with foreign affairs. As a
. member of the National Intellgence Counal, the
national intelligence officer chairs the writing of
the estimate. Being in the chair tray give him I
more irt!?trence than one of the representatives .
from CIA, from State or Army or Navy or Air
Force or the Marines, or from the Defense Intel-
$g~ce Agency. It may not But the result should
reflect the views of cell the agenties and differ-
ences in their views It is not or should not be
blandly unanimous, and it should reflect doubts as
well as disagreements '
In 1976 a distinguished inte]ligenoe officer,
in testifying bdore the Senate, spoke of the
"natural tension" between intelligence officers
and poBcy-rs>akers and said, "Policy=makers must
assume the integrity of the intelligence provided
and avoid attempts to get materials suited to
their tastes:" Much has been said-and no doubt
muds more will be said-about the motives of
poI'icy-makers for disputing or disl~cng the intellii-
gence they receive. The point to understand and
to accept is that this has happened in the past,
and it can be expected in the future. .
Soong-minded officals-Republicans, Demo-
oats, cacao people of no partisan bias---often
think they know better than intelligence officers.
Sometimes they don't care what intelligence says
as kmg as it doesn't get in their way. Attempts to
squelch displeasing intelligence reports or judg-
ments that don't bads up an administration's poll-- .
aes have a nonpartisan provenance. Wt1L'am
Casey, the current director. most differs from
previous directors of Central Intelligence in that
he is a part of the policy-making group where
Central America is involved as much as he is the
president's chief intelligence officer.
. His pazticvlar case has led to talk of a bbl to
- ensure the selection of future directors from the
career services to .prevent polititians' being put
in the job. That may appeal to us intelligence offi-
cers who have an unheahhy respell for our own
virtue, but no legislation can ensure that a direc-
tor, no matter how experienced is our work, well
rat buckle under pressure.
Ambition or the desire to go abng with the
gang-to be on the team-can lead us to ig-
nore the warnings of conscience or ~ wl-
leattues Proposals for dealing with this prob-
lem discussed on a moral p'.ane usually dissolve
in empty righteousness. Legislation inoculates
us against the disease from which we have just
recovered without coping with the next set of
symptoms. We should face the expectation that
even men of good will and integrity my be in-
tolerant of opinions they consider to be wrong
or inconvenient. A taste of power may make us
arrogant The natural tension will continue.
If we soxpt this as inevitable, our aim should
be t~ soften the cal>ision. I propose that we do so
through. a loose, informal oounal of elders-a
tn'baI pound-to ad as the public aorrstienoe,
since intelligence tnat#ars cannot by their nature
be thrown open to public savtiny and since the
early disatssion of policy does not benefit ftom.
speech-malting. The cmtna7 would sit with the di-
rector when he is beleaguered by the politiaans,
hold his hand when temptation beckons him from
the path of duty, and talk quiet]y with other par-
ties to see if the differc~oes be minor or major
and to sound xarnings if the risks to be run seem
not worth the candle. The pound would be made
up ~ members of the four different organizations
alrrady charged with the task of ommatirtg the
performance of the intelligence community and
of the CIA in particular.
In the CIA there is an Office of the Inspector
General that inspects the agency and ads as
ombudsman for employee complaints. The
President's Foreign .Intelligence Advisory
Board is made up of private citizens appointed
by the president. Two other organuations
charged with oversight of the intelligence com-
munity are the Senate and House intelligence
committees. The informal exrhattge ~ infor-
mation and views among these groups rrouM
provide an immense improvement.
What would begin as a pragmatic approach
to supporting the integrity of the intelligence
process could benefit from the participation of
.officials from State, from Defetua. The discus-
sion of other differences is foreign affairs in
discreet, informal settings could aooomplish
more than the noisy and,grudge-asakutg spats
that too often accompany .public ar~ttments.
The rhetorical sharpness of incoming adminis-
trations would sooner be honed by the stark?
Hess of the confrontation with real problems
and their obdurate nature The capture of
policy strong points by wrongheaded little ideo-
logical factions would be less likely. '
Good intelligence is vital to our seauity. Our
disatssion of foreign and defenx policy suffers
grievously from partisan exaggerations and sim-
plifications, A tabal taAang over irtteIIi-
genoe judgments, could build bridges aver petty
chasms, define real differences and increase the
arra ~ cortsatsus that seems ao far from our
f~sP ~y ~ ~ -
The writer uaa a CIA operations o/f cer /rpm .1348
to 1875 Drell served on the National Intelligence
Council /row May 1983 to May 19164. .
Approved For Release 2011/07/29 :CIA-RDP88B00443R000903820022-9