PANELISTS IN CIA YOUTH AND STUDENT PROBLEMS FORUM PUT ON AND PUT DOWN CIA YOUTH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84-00780R004000060038-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 4, 2003
• Sequence Number: 38
• Publication Date: February 12, 1971
• Content Type: MF

Approved For Release 2003/05/05 : CIA-RDP84-0078OR004000060038-3
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 Approved For Release 2003/05/05 : CIA-RDP84-00780R004038-3
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MEMORANDUM FOR: Director of Central Intelligence
SUBJECT Panelists in CIA "Youth and Student
Problems" Forum Put On and Put Down
"CIA Youth"
1. On 11 February 1971 I went to the panel session
on "The Agency and American Youth," a part of the CIA
Youth and Student Forum. I went despite my conviction
that it would be of little positive value given the
Agency's general attitudes toward itself, including:
--information is acquired for its utility,
not its value to understanding;
--the Agency is so concerned with an elusive
concept called "image" (which it thinks need only
be projected, not received) that it lies to itself;
and
--perceptions which differ from the official
line are considered attacks on objective reality
rather than on official perceptions.
Despite my reservations, I was more than usually disap-
pointed in how the Agency chooses to hold itself out to
its own employees--who know better.
2. Just by way of example, I could not believe
that the Agency had decided to think well of itself when
it said, in effect,
--our recruiters are learning that 'you can't
tell a book by its cover' (when the Office of
Personnel was speaking of recruiting individuals
who affect the dress fashions prevalent among
their contemporaries);
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--that the Office of Medical Services was
surprised to find that new personnel who have
blown pot (smoked marijuana) appear no different
from their contemporaries who have not (or did
not admit it); and
--the Office of Security is so up tight about
drugs that its response to questions is to (figura-
tively) shake its finger at the audience and warn
them that all of them would have a "Drug Problem"
in their families some day.
And the examples of this kind of attitude were innumer-
able in the short space of an hour. Perhaps illustrative
is the proud announcement that the Agency's attitude
toward unwed mothers has shifted from one of discipline
to "compassion." A more appropriate characterization
would have been "condescension." When the Agency speaks
to its.own youth' that way,,it says it doesn't really
understand what is driving people but it will try to
tolerate it.
3. And I submit to you that what is at the basis
of a great deal of unrest, of changing perceptions, and
of new value structures is a decision that people are
tired of being tolerated, condescended to, and treated
as a unit of work rather than a human being.
4. Not that the Agency doesn't try in many ways.
Its fatal flaw is that it thinks it succeeds. As one
(older) member of the audience put it, the members of
the audience who disagreed with the speakers were
relatively "conservative" or they wouldn't be at CIA
--if they were radical the Agency would really be "in
trouble." I agree that the Agency would be "in trouble,"
not because it could not perform its essential missions
but because it probably couldn't adjust to a different
way of doing business.
5. And the picture that the Office of Personnel
painted of the seething ferment of new organizational
forms (from the Management Advisory Group to office-
level rap sessions) would have gone over to a naive
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TAT
outside audience, but it left CIA's own employees--most
of whom had never heard of the MAG (and haven't missed
anything thereby)--feeling that they were somehow out
of step.
6. To an increasing extent--if the Agency is lucky
--some new perceptions of doing business will permeate
upward year by year. It may come even faster as the
"CIA middle aged" see their own perceptions changing.
But resistance by feigning understanding is more likely
to destroy this trend than outright hostility.
a
Saft"tive :i t11rP
Deputy Vivector for Intelligence
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