REMARKS ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE DETROIT ECONOMIC CLUB

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01554R002800120001-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 26
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 25, 2001
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 13, 1978
• Content Type: STATEMENT

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REMARKS
ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER
DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
DETROIT ECONOMIC CLUB
13 April 1978
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. I am very pleased to
be here in Detroit, the city so symbolic of the industrial might of
our country. I am grateful that so many of you would take the time to
show this interest in the intelligence activities of our country.
Interestingly, one of the trends in those activities today is the
more symbiotic relationship which is developing between American
intelligence organizations and the American business community. In
intelligence we are moving more and more to the study and analysis of
international economic activities. It is a marked change in the
process of intelligence and a very significant one; one that I hope
will spill over to the benefit of the American business community.
If we look back thirty years to when a central intelligence
activity was first organized, the primary product of intelligence was
information about Soviet military affairs. That was perceived as the
principal threat to the country, so it became the principal concern of
all our intelligence agencies. Look how that has changed. Today our
country is interested and involved with many countries around the
world, much, I suppose, as many of your businesses. The Soviet Union
and its immediate satellites, while important, are but one of the
areas in which we are interested. We have intercourse with most of
the 150-some nations of the world, and that intercourse is related
much more to political and economic matters than it is to the military.
Accordingly, we have had to shift our focus from military concerns
exclusively to encompass these other spheres as well.
Let me not overstate the case to you. Our primary intelligence
concern must continue to be the military posture of the Soviet
Union because that continues to be our most serious threat. But
beyond that, the intelligence community has had to expand its horizons,
its capabilities, and its areas of technical expertise, to embrace the
problems of international drug trafficking, international terrorism,
energy concerns, and so on. It is a new and demanding challenge. It
is one where we are qualified to contribute significantly and, in my
opinion, are. It also relates directly to your concerns in the
business world because this change in focus encourages a second trend
in American intelligence, a trend toward greater openness.
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As you would suspect, traditionally, intelligence services have
operated with maximum secrecy and. minimum disclosure. That may have
been a good policy in the past; however, I do not think it is appropri-
ate for the United States today. The American public has a right to
know something of what we are doing and something of what we are
producing. They have a right to see some return on their investment
in intelligence activities. So, we are out speaking more, we are
responding to the media more, participating more in academic and other
symposia and conferences, and we are publishing more. Here, I think,
is where the American business community can benefit directly. Today
when we study some international aspect. of our nation's policies, and
develop an estimate or evaluation, we look at it carefully and
ask ourselves how we might declassify it for public use. First we
remove clues that could identify our sources. If we revealed our
sources, we would vitate their future usefulness and perhaps endanger
them as well. Secondly, we remove information whose value to the
President or a principal policy maker derives primarily from its
exclusively; that is, they know something and others do not. Once
we have removed these sensitive sections, if there is enough substance
left to support the study's conclusions, we publish it on an unclassi-
fied basis. We hope this will help the public identify important
national issues and improve the quality of debate on those issues.
Many of these studies will be of more interest to the business commu-
nity than to the general public. Let me cite a few examples from over
100 unclassified studies we published in 1977.
Just a year ago we published a study on the prospects for world
energy. We did not predict that the world will run out of oil, that
there will not be adequate reserves to carry us through the rest of
this century or further; we did predict that the slope of the curve of
demand for oil and all other forms of energy was rising more steeply
than could any possible curve of supply. That sometime in the next
eight to ten years, the world would want to consume more energy than
it could obtain, principally because we will not be able to remove it
from the ground rapidly enough to meet the demand. The basic conclu-
sion, of course, is that if these events come to pass there may well
be pressure on the price of energy.
Last summer we published a study on Soviet economic prospects.
In our view the Soviets have kept their economy growing for the last
several decades by a policy of increasing infusions of labor and
capital and, we believe, they are coming to the end of that line. If
you look at the Soviet Union's demography you will find that in the
1980s, their labor force's rate of growth will decline--not the size
of the labor force, but the rate of its growth. There were not enough
babies born in the 1960s, so there will not be enough young adults
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You would also be interested that we have published a study on
international terrorism. I wish I could report to you in a more
sanguine tone, but the conclusions of this study were not favorable.
We see no prospect for a decline in international terrorism. Instead,
over the last few years there has been a marked increase in the number
of international terrorist incidents involving United States citizens
and business interests outside this country. A disappointing conclu-
sion, but one that we have to face.
We hope that these and other studies that we are publishing will
be of value to you as citizens and to the American business community.
We are making them available on that basis. Again, I do not want to
overstate my case. We cannot open up completely. We cannot disclose
all the information we collect nor all that we study. So much of what
we do, so much of what we learn, is of value only if kept secret.
But it is my opinion that by publishing as much as we can, we improve
our ability to protect those few necessary secrets. Perhaps the
principal reason we have such a difficult time keeping secrets is
that we have too many of them. When you have too many secrets, people
do not respect them. So by narrowing the corpus of classified informa-
tion, I hope to engender greater respect for that which remains and at
the same time be able to protect it better.
The lack of respect for classified information is becoming a
serious problem and typified by the number of people who decide
unilaterally to release classified information. They write books,
they give interviews, and they say things that do more harm often than
they realize. They violate contracts they have signed with the
government promising not to reveal classified information. I think we
have come to the point in this country where the public should no
longer be quite so willing to welcome these disclosures, often made in
the guise of stopping those of us in the government from doing heinous
things, but more often made for self-serving purposes. If their
logic were taken to its extreme, each one of us 215 million Americans
would be empowered to decide what secrets the country should keep and
what secrets the country should release. And that would cause nothing
less than chaos. The time has come to put more trust in elected and
public officials or, at the very least, not presume a priori that
public officials are only out to obscure the truth or cover up mistakes.
I do not ask you to take us on faith or trust alone; a third trend
in American intelligence is toward more oversight of intelligence
activities.
When you consider that we must keep a great many secrets, it
should be obvious that we cannot have full public knowledge and
oversight of our activities. How then can the average citizen be
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assured that American intelligence agencies are only doing what they
are authorized to do? Out of the crucible of three years of intense
public criticism of intelligence activities, a process of surrogate
oversight has been forged. This surrogate process relies on several
individuals and groups to be fully informed of what intelligence
agencies are doing and act in the public's stead. Let me describe a
couple of those surrogates to you.
The first are the President and the Vice President, who today
take a very active, intense interest in all intelligence activities.
I report to the President weekly. They are kept well abreast of
what we are doing and they give me complete and detailed guidance.
On top of that, two years ago an Intelligence Oversight Board
was established consisting of three distinguished Americans: former
Senator Gore from Tennessee, former Governor Scranton of Pennsylvania,
and Mr. Thomas Farmer, an attorney, of Washington, D.C. These three
gentlemen oversee the legality and the propriety of intelligence
activities. Anyone in the intelligence community, any citizen, may
communicate with them directly, calling problems, abuses, or wrong-
doing to their attention. They will. investigate that complaint
and report what they think should be done directly to the President.
Beyond that, two committees have been created in the Congress to
oversee the intelligence process, one in the Senate, another in the
House of Representatives. These committees require me to testify
regularly. I am completely forthright with them and keep them well
informed. At the slightest indication of a problem, they ask us for
an explanation and we provide it to their satisfaction.
I think that these processes give much greater. assurance than
was possible in the past that we are not doing things that the
American public would not support, or that are not in conformance with
American foreign policy. I think there are adequate mechanisms here to
which so-called whistle-blowers could-go if they were sincere in
their desire to reform. I would respect their whistle-blowing much
more if they would try the authorized, established oversight procedures
first, before taking it upon themselves to release information that
could gravely damage this nation.
To be honest with you, there are risks in oversight. There is
the risk that the more people you tell, the greater the chance sensi-
tive information will be leaked. There is the risk that the more
people you must tell about intelligence operations, the more timid you
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may become and the less willing you will be to take some risks which
must be taken in the interest of our country. We must have enough
oversight to ensure control, but not so much that we grow timid or can
keep no secrets. We are working out a proper balance and ensuring
that citizens' rights and our nation's values are protected on the one
hand, and ensuring enough privacy of the intelligence process that it
can be effective on the other.
As a result of these several trends the intelligence process is
being dramatically reshaped into a new and unique model of intell-
igence, an American model of intelligence.
Last January, the President directed a modest reorganization of
intelligence activity. In many ways he went back to the spirit of the
original National Security Act of 1947, which established a Director
of Central Intelligence--separate from the Director of the Central
Intelligence Agency--to coordinate all of the intelligence activities
of our nation. The President's order modestly strengthened the
Director of Central Intelligence's authority over the budgets of all
national intelligence organizations, and over their tasking. As
Director of Central Intelligence, I am now empowered to direct the
collection efforts of all intelligence agencies to ensure that they
are being used to best advantage and as a team. We want neither to
let anything drop between the cracks, nor duplicate effort, nor waste
resources.
Also, I have been given additional authority to ensure that
the other half of intelligence--collection being only the first half
of the job, the second half is analyzing, studying, drawing conclu-
sions from the information which is collected is also well coordi-
nated. Here one point is important. While I can coordinate the
analysis of intelligence, I cannot direct people outside the Central
Intelligence Agency on how to do that analysis or what conclusions to
come to. Independent views must come forward from the Defense
Department, the State Department, the Treasury, and others. No
one is so smart as to be able to put all the pieces of the puzzle
together exactly right. Opinions as to what a piece of information
means will differ. You need those differing opinions coming forward
so the decision makers will be aware of the strengths and the weak-
nesses of an intelligence analysis.
Finally, the President directed something new and important in
establishing a committee of the National Security Council to oversee
the entire intelligence operation and determine the priorities of our
work. The point being that I should not establish priorities. I am
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not a consumer of intelligence. This committee, composed of the
Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Treasury,
the National Security Advisor to the President, know what we need and
can give me that overall guidance and direction.
I sincerely believe that these new trends and a few others I have
not had time to mention, are strengthening our capability. We are the
best intelligence service in the world. I assure you that I am dedicated
to maintaining us as the number one intelligence service in the world
and doing so in ways that will only support and defend our democratic
institutions.
Thank you very much.
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Q&A - DETROIT ECONOMIC CLUB
Q: What is the relationship between a free society and undercover
intelligence? How can we have a dependable intelligence system
under present conditions of mass media exposures, political
interference and disclosures, and threats of legal action against
agents?
A: There is an inherent contradiction between having an open and
free democratic society and having to maintain a certain number of
secrets in the process of conducting the international affairs
of that society. Most of the nations of the world are not blessed
with a society as open as ours. Because of that we need an
intelligence capability to know what is going on in all societies
whose actions have daily and direct impact on you and me, our
taxes, our national policies and programs. We balance the need for
secrecy by establishing the checks and counter-checks that I have
mentioned to you today, to be sure that on the one hand you can
maintain secrets, and on the other hand that no one abuses that
privilege. I believe we are establishing a good balance today.
I have also asked you today for a little understanding to permit
that balance to stabilize. Those people who run to the press
with national security information which should not be released
should not necessarily be immediately acclaimed as heroes. Some
of them are doing it out of patriotic motives; some of them are
self-serving. The point is that we have now established procedures
so they can voice their complaints within the system and with the
proper safeguards for classified information. These procedures
provide assurance to you that improper activities, if they exist,
can be brought to the attention of oversight bodies and acted upon
without compromising lives or expensive technical collection
systems.
Q: Are you satisfied that you still have the kind of authority and
organization that can do a good job of intelligence world-wide?
A: Yes, I definitely am. In part, because of the additions to
my authority that the President has recently given me. In part,
because in addition to the standard form of collecting intelli-
gence that goes back as far as history--the human intelligence
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agent, the spy--we have a pre-eminence in the world in what
we call technical means of collecting intelligence. These capa-
bilities have been burgeoning over recent years and providing us
with vastly increased quantities of data. They have not outmoded
the traditional human intelligence agent, they have in fact
increased his importance. From a technical system, you generally
learn what happened yesterday. When I produce that information to
a policy maker, he wants to know why that happened and what will
happen tomorrow. Finding out what people are thinking and what
their plans are is the role of the intelligence agent. Both human
and technical collection capabilities are indispensable. So today,
the challenge to us, and it is an exciting one, is to bring this
together in a complementary fashion to ensure that we will fill
the gaps by technical means that cannot be filled by human agents
and vice versa. It is a new form of production line for us and a
very, very demanding one.
Q: What is happening to covert action?
A: What has gotten us into the most trouble in the past is what
we call covert political action--interfering in the politics or
other activities of foreign nations. This is not an intelligence
activity. It is a political action. It has been assigned by the
government as an adjunct to the responsibilities of the Central
Intelligence Agency ever since it was founded in 1947. It is the
most controversial part of our activities and in recent years has
been placed under very strict control. Before we can act in any
other country, today we must gain approval of the National
Security Council, obtain the signature of the President of the
United States, and I must inform the appropriate committees of
Congress of what we are doing. So we have two branches of the
government involved in this as a check and a balance. There is
just no way, without violating the law, that I can go charging
off and direct interference in other countries' political activ-
ities. I can assure you I have no desire to go to jail.
Q: What is the internal attitude of the CIA concerning agents such
as James Agee and others who have exposed CIA operations upon
their leaving the Agency?
A: We are all very disappointed with people who have assumed the
responsibilities of working in intelligence agencies and then
act irresponsibly when they leave. Mr. Agee has done very severe
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damage to intelligence operations. He has destroyed careers of
innocent people. For example, an individual might have worked for
us for ten, fifteen, twenty years; worked at great personal
sacrifice by being under cover. By that I mean he does not
acknowledge, maybe to his family even, that he works for the
Central Intelligence Agency. I can assure you that this is not
done easily and is not done without sacrifice. For instance, this
man may have climbed up in our organization and have a position of
great responsibility, yet must pretend that he is working for
somebody else in a position of much lesser importance. What do
his children think of his stature? Why didn't father get promoted?
Why didn't he advance like others, and so on. Yet after all these
years of that sacrifice, Agee may have published this man's name
in a book and subsequently endangered his life or, at the least,
reduced his usefulness; hurt his career prospects, his ability to
serve his country, to progress within the Central Intelligence
Agency. I think it is most unfortunate.
Q: Does, or did the United States have some CIA contraption high
in the mountains of Asia and if, in fact, there is a nuclear
monitoring device on Indian territory, is such an unauthorized
invasion of other countries' sovereignty considered justifiable
practice by our intelligence agencies?
A: One of the most difficult things about being in the intelligence
business with this combination of openness and secrecy, is
that often we cannot defend ourselves against accusations. If I
comment on this particular alleged activity, then I am in a spot
if I cannot comment on the next one. It just leaves one in a
very vulnerable position. So we have to take a policy of never
commenting on alleged or actual past or ongoing intelligence
operations. I wish I could do better for you.
Q: What is the CIA's position on the defection of the senior Soviet
UN executive?
A: This is a delicate diplomatic and political problem. It is
entirely in the hands of the Secretary of State and I am not
going to muck up the waters by commenting.
Q: Do you have a group of paramilitary people trained to go to the
aid of Americans that might be held for ransom abroad by a
terrorist group?
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A: No. But the President has directed the Secretary of Defense to
establish such a capability. It is in being and will be very
effective in due course.
Q: Your opinion of Panama Canal Treaties as they affect our military
strength?
A: One of the principles of being an intelligence officer is that
you stay absolutely clear of policy. And that is really a very
important point. If I ever become associated with a pro-Panama
Canal Treaty or an anti-Panama Canal Treaty position, from then
on any intelligence I might produce on this subject would be
suspect. We must scrupulously keep ourselves clear of expressing
opinions on policy matters to preserve the objectivity which is
essential to good intelligence.
Q: Do you agree with the "punishment" given Richard Helms and would
you try to suppress the prosecution of CIA agents for illegal
activities as recently happened with the former FBI director?
A: The solution of the Helms case was one that worked out very well
from my point of view. On the other hand, had he been prosecuted,
it would have been necessary both for the prosecution and cer-
tainly for the defense to disclose a great quantity of highly
classified information. It would not have been fair not to have
done so as the prosecution proceeded. It would have hurt our
country's interest in many respects. On the other hand, the
process through which Mr. Helms went was a poignant reminder-to
all of us in the government, and particularly in the intelligence
world, that none of us stands above the law. The law of the
United States of America is the governing factor in all of our
activities and we have no license, no excuse for violating it in
any respect. Nor do I have any intention of trying to exonerate
anybody in our organization who violates the law. They know
that and they have to live up to it.
Q: Is there much possibility that the terrorism plaguing Europe and
the Mideast could spread to the United States?
A: There is always that possibility. But I think the country has a
good record in anti-hijacking and anti-terrorism because of the
precautions we have taken at our airports and elsewhere; because
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of the attitude of our people in supporting the law enforcement
agencies in that type of activity; and because we, being a free
society where dissent can be voiced, do not have the same impetus
to this kind of activity. But it is a danger, and it is one to
which we all must be continually alert. We in the intelligence
world, as I briefly mentioned, are expending a great deal of
effort to keep track of international terrorist activities as
best we can through our resources, through our liaison with other
friendly intelligence agencies. I am proud to tell you that
in a number of instances it has been our information that has
thwarted some international terrorist plans--not in this country,
but elsewhere. We think that is a valuable service and we intend
to continue doing the best we can to help out here.
Q: Pearl Harbor. and the Bay of Pigs were tremendous fiascos of the
intelligence collecting agencies. Can this happen again?
A: The honest answer is yes. The other answer is that we are doing
everything we can to prevent that. We are human. We are fallible.
However, we are trying to ensure, as I brought out in my remarks,
that differing views come forward on the trends or likely develop-
ments in different world situations. If you suppress the minority
view when it is well reasoned and set forth, you do a great
disservice and invite the possibility of overlooking signals
which could alert you to some potential problem such as the Bay of
Pigs or Pearl Harbor. In short, one of the real challenges in
intelligence is constantly to question your hypotheses. Are you
making the same assumption over and over again? For example, the
Arabs will never increase the price of oil; the Arabs will never
attack Israel; or the Japanese will never attack Pearl Harbor.
However true an assumption may seem, you must constantly probe it.
I cannot guarantee we won't make a mistake again, but I will
guarantee we are trying our best to avoid it.
Q: Do you think there are any Soviet agents in the audience reporting
on you today?
A: Is there a Soviet Counsul General in Detroit? I frequently find
a Soviet representative at my talks. I mentioned the 100 or
so unclassified publications. Any one of you can write the
Library of Congress and subscribe to our annual product of
unclassified studies for $225.00. I would just let you know that
the Soviet Union is spending $450.00 in that department. I just
happened to look at the list: the other day. But I am not giving
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away secrets today. I am trying to be as open and forthright
with you as I can and I am doing it sincerely in the interest of
keeping the American public informed and, in that process,
generating greater respect for what must be kept secret. I am
working very hard in both directions--openness on the one hand,
and tighter secrecy on the other. That which is secret must be
kept secret. All 'that possibly can be made available will be made
available.
I am so grateful to you for being here and wanting to hear about
this today. It is your support that will determine the future of our
intelligence activities in this country. I sincerely believe they
are more important to our country today in an era of near military
parity; in an era of political and economic interdependence with so
many other countries of the world, than they ever have been before
when we had great superiority in all these fields. You need the
leverage of good information to make right decisions, and we need
your support in that activity.
Thank you.
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ADMIRAL TURNER'S ADDRESS TO THE DETROIT ECONOMIC CLUB
DETROIT, MICHIGAN - 13 APRIL 1978
Thank you very much, Joe. Distinguished guests, ladies and
gentlemen. I am really very pleased to be here in Detroit, the city so
symbolic of the industrial might of our country. I am very grateful
that so many of you would take the time to show this interest in the
intelligence activities of our country.
Interestingly, one of the trends in those activities today I
believe is developing a more symbiotic relationship between the American
intelligence organizations and the American business community. That
trend is that we are moving more and more in intelligence to the study,
the analysis, of international economic activities. It's a marked change
in our process of intelligence, but a very important and significant one,
and one that I hope will spill over to the benefit of the American
business community. If I may look back thirty years to when we first
organized a Central Intelligence activity--at that time, the primary product
of intelligence was information about Soviet military activity. That was
the principal threat to the country; it was the principal concern of all
of our intelligence agencies. Look how, in the last thirty years, that
has changed; much as I assume as your businesses have changed in their
international concern and aspects.
Today, our country is, of course, quite interested, quite
involved with so many more countries than just the Soviet Union and its
immediate satellites. We have intercourse with most of the 150-some
nations of this world. That intercourse is much more in political and
economic matters than it is in military. Accordingly, we have had to
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begin to shift our focus from just military concerns to much more in these
other spheres. Now let me not overstate the case to you. Our primary,
our number one intelligence concern must continue to be the military
posture of the Soviet Union--that continues to be our number one threat.
But on top of that today, we in the intelligence community have had to
expand our horizons, have had to expand our capabilities, our areas of
technical expertise, into these spheres of international economics,
international politics, the prevention of international drug traffic,
prevention of international terrorism, and so on. It's an exciting, a new
and a demanding challenge to us. It's one that I believe is called for;
it is one that I think we are doing an excellent job in. It relates to
you in the business world because of another trend in American intelli-
gence today, and that's the trend toward greater openness.
As you would suspect, traditionally, intelligence organizations
have operated'under maximum secrecy and minimum disclosure. That may
have been a good policy in the past, I don't happen to think it's
effective or appropriate to the United States today. The American public
has a right to know something of what we are doing, and something of what
we are producing. They have a right to see something of the return on
their investment in our intelligence activities. And so, today, we are
out speaking more, we are responding to the media more, we are partici-
pating more in academic and other symposiums, conferences, and we are
publishing more. Here, I think, is where there is a direct benefit and
spillover to the American business community. Today when we develop an
estimate, an evaluation, a study on some international aspect of our
nation's policies, we carefully look at it and we say, does that label--
you know we label it secret, or top secret, or destroy before reading,
whatever it may be--we ask ourselves does it really have to have that
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label on it. Or, can we take out of it two things: first, information
that would reveal how we obtained the data in the study, what was our
source. Because if we reveal that, you can well expect that we won't be
able to get anything from that source again. Or, secondly, take out of
it material that is valuable to our President, to our principal policy
makers, because they have an exclusive on it, they know it and other
people do not. If we take those things out which would hurt the national
interest to publish, is there enough of substance left to be of value to
the American public. If there is, we publish it on an unclassified basis.
We hope this is going to help the public interest and improve the quality
of public debate on important national issues. But we also think sharing
it with the business community will be of particular value because many of
these will be of more interest to people like yourselves than they will
be perhaps to the general public.
Let me cite a few examples of the over 100 unclassified studies
we published in 1977. Just a year ago we published one on the prospects
for the world energy situation. We were not predicting that the world is
going to run out of oil, that there won't be enough reserves to carry us
through the rest of this century or further on; we were simply predicting
that the slope of the curve of demand for oil and all other forms of
energy was rising more steeply in our opinion than could any possible
curve of supply of energy, and that sometime in the next eight to ten
years, the world as a whole was going to want to consume more energy than
it was going to be possible to obtain. Principally because we couldn't
get it out of the ground in the form of oil in this time frame--not in the
indefinite future, but in the next eight to ten years--as rapidly as we
would need to meet this demand. The basic conclusion is, of course, that
there may well be an increase or a pressure on the price of energy if
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these events do succeed in this way.
Slightly after that, last summer we published another study
about the Soviet economic prospects. We said that in our view the Soviets
have kept their economy growing for the last several decades by a policy
of increasing infusions of labor and capital, and that we believe they're
coming to the end of that line. If you look at the Soviet Union's
demography today you'll find that in the 1980s, there is no question about
it, the rate of growth of their labor force is going to decline. Not the
size of the labor force, the rate of growth. There just weren't those
babies born in the 1960s, so they cannot continue to infuse increasing
quantities of labor. As they look around for more capital to infuse,
they're having to reach further and further into places like Siberia, and
we happen to think they also are going to have a particular problem with
their oil supply. We believe that in the next three or four years, they
will peak out for production and decline sharply. Again, this is not a
long-term forecast, this is because they have mismanaged the development
of their oil, and they are going to reach a point where they'll hit
diminishing returns before they can bring vast new quantities that are
available to them in reserves onto the production line. Now, they may
overcome some of these problems one way or another, they can reduce their
emphasis on the military, take manpower of of that; they can do a number
of other things, they can stop selling as much oil as they do to the
Eastern European countries and so on. But we feel that those will be
difficult decisions, we don't know how they will manage them. Some of
the solutions would make them go contrary to their basic economic
philosophy, and some of those difficult economic decisions may just
happen to confront them at a time of important change of their leadership,
which appears likely to happen sometime in the next few years. So it may
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be a difficult time to take these tough decisions.
You might also be interested that we published a study on
international terrorism. I wish I could report in a more sanguine tone
to you but the conclusions of this study were not favorable. They saw no
prospect for the decline of international terrorism, and they saw over
the last few years a marked increase in the number of international
terrorist incidents that involved United States citizens or business
interests outside this country. A disappointing conclusion, but one that
we have to face up to.
We hope that these and other studies that we are publishing
will be of value to you as citizens and of value to the American business
community, and we're making them available on that basis. At the same
time, again, I do not want to overstate the case. We cannot, in any way,
disclose all that we study, all that we collect in the way of intelligence.
So much of what we do, so much of what we learn, simply must be kept
secret in the national interest. But it is my opinion that we are helping
to protect those necessary secrets about how we collect information, and
about information that is of unique value to our decision makers, by
publishing as much as we can in an unclassified form. Perhaps the principal
problem we have today with keeping secrets is that we have too many of
them. And when you have too many, people do not respect them. So by
narrowing the corpus of classified information, I hope to engender greater
respect for that which remains and protect it much better.
The lack of respect today is typified, for instance, by the
number of people who have decided to take it upon themselves, unilaterally,
to release what could well be classified secretive information. They
write stories, they write books, they give interviews, they say things
that they should not say, often violating contracts with us to be sure
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that they don't release information of a classified nature. I think we
have come to the point in this country where the public should no longer
be quite so willing to welcome these disclosures, which are often made in
a guise or in a name of stopping those of us in the government from doing
heinous things that we are accused of doing. I think that if we carry
this trend to its logical extreme, you have to say that each one of the
215 million Americans in this country is empowered to decide what secrets
the country should have and what secrets the country should release.
That could be nothing but chaos in the long run. The time has come to
put more faith and trust in the elected and public officials and not
start, at least, from the presumption they were only out to obscure
things and cover up our mistakes.
Now I'm not really going to ask you just to take us on faith
or trust because a third trend in American intelligence today protects the
citizen of this country in many ways. It's a trend toward greater over-
sight. When you consider that I've pointed out that we must keep a great
many secrets, it's clear that we cannot have full public oversight of our
activities. Instead, out of the crucible of three years of intense public
criticism of some past abuses in the intelligence world, we have today
forged a process of surrogate public oversight of our intelligence
mechanisms. Let me describe a couple of those surrogates for you. The
first is the President and the Vice President, who today take a very
active, intense interest in our intelligence activities. I report to the
President weekly and he is well abreast of what we are doing and gives me
complete guidance. But on top of that, two years ago we established an
Intelligence Oversight Board of three distinguished Americans: former
Senator Gore from your near neighboring state of Tennessee, former
Governor Scranton of Pennsylvania, and a Mr. Tom Farmer of Washington, D.C.
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These three gentlemen report only to the President of the United States.
Their only function is to oversee the legality, the propriety of our
intelligence activities. Anyone in the intelligence community, any public
citizen, may communicate with them and say, look, I think something is
going wrong or I think some information ought to be published that isn't
being published. They will consider that complaint and report to the
President what they think should be done about it. It's a good relief
valve. But on top of that, in the Congress we have created two committees--
one in the Senate, one in the House of Representatives--also to oversee
the intelligence process. These committees do a superb job of that.
They have me up there regularly, we're very forthright with them, we keep
them well informed. But at the slightest indication of some problem, some
question as to what we're doing, they ask us for a report and we come up
and explain it. I think that these processes today give much greater
assurance than existed in the past that we are not off running things on
our own, doing things in the intelligence world that the American public
would not support, or that are not in conformance with American foreign
policy. I think here are mechanisms to which those people called whistle-
blowers have an opportunity to go and I would respect their whistle-blowing
much more if they would try the authorized, the established oversight
procedures first, before they take it upon themselves to release informa-
tion that should be kept private.
Out of this oversight process--I want to be honest with you--
we are encountering risks. There is the risk that as you tell more and
more people about your intelligence process, there will be more and more
leaks. There is the risk that as you recognize that you're going to have
to tell people about things, you may get timid and not undertake risks
that you should take in the interest of our country. We must be careful
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that we don't have so much oversight that we have intelligence by timidity
and lack of intelligence by virtue of too many leaks. I think we are
working out a proper balance between this in protecting the citizens of
this country on the one hand, through good oversight, and insurtng that
our intelligence activities are in consonance with our national objectives
and aims, and, on the other hand, preserving enough privacy of the intelli-
gence process that it can go on in an effective manner as is so necessary
for our country's security.
As a result of these several trends that I have mentioned to
you, which I believe are dramatically reshaping the intelligence process
in this country, reshaping it into what I would call an American model of
intelligence, a new and unique model of intelligence. Last January the
President of the United States directed a modest reorganization of our
intelligence activity. He did so by trying to go back in many ways to
the original Intelligence Act of 1947, which established a Director of
Central Intelligence to coordinate all of the intelligence activities of
our nation. I hold this position. It's a separate position from my role
as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In January the President
modestly strengthened the authorities of the Director of Central
Intelligence giving him authority over the budgets of all of our national
intelligence organizations; giving him authority to do what I call tasking,
directing the agencies of intelligence that collect information, to be sure
that we are using them to best advantage and we're using them in a teamwork
fashion, not helter-skelter, not letting things drop between the cracks,
not duplicating and spending additonal or unnecessary resources; and
finally additional authority to insure that the other half of intelligence,
besides collecting information, the half which is analyzing it, studying
it, drawing conclusions from it, is also well coordinated. But here I'd
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like to make one point: while I can coordinate the intelligence analysis,
I cannot direct people outside the Central Intelligence Agency on how to
do that analysis. We want independent views coming forward from the
Defense Department, the State Department, the Treasury, and others,
because no one is so smart in intelligence as to be able to put all the
pieces of the puzzle together exactly right. You need different opinions
coming forward so the decision makers will be able to judge what the
strength and the weaknesses of an intelligence analysis are.
Finally the President directed something new and important in
establishing a commi-tee of the National Security Council which oversees
the entire intelligence operation and gives me my marching orders as to
what the priorities are by which we should be working. The point being,
that I whould not establish priorities for us, I am not a consumer of
intelligence. This committee is composed of the Secretary of State, the
Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Treasury, the National Security
Council Advisors to the President, the people who know what we need and
can tell me and give me that overall guidance and direction. I sincerely
believe that these new trends that I described to you and a few others I
haven't had time for; and these new orders of the President, are strengthening
our capabilities in the intelligence field, and I do believe we are the
best intelligence service in the world. At the same time they are also
strengthening the assurances to this country that we are performing our
functions in ways that will protect the rights of the individuals and the
values of American society. I assure you that I am dedicated to maintaining
us as the number one intelligence service in the world and doing so in
ways that will only support and defend our wonderful democratic institutions.
Thank you very much.
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Q&A - Detroit Economic Club.
Q: What is the relationship between a free society and undercover
intelligence? Related to that, how can we have a dependable intelligence
system under present conditions of mass media exposures, political
interference and disclosures, and threats of legal action against agents?
A: There is an inherent contradiction between having an open and free
democratic society and having to maintain a certain number of secrets in
the process of conducting the international affairs of that society--
there is no question about it. The world is such today that most of the
nations of the world are not blessed by the wonderful openness of our
society. We must be able to maintain an intelligence capability to know
what's going on in some of those other societies whose actions have such
daily and direct import on you and me, our taxes, our national policies
and programs. You reconcile the need for secrecy in a democratic society
by establishing the checks and counter-checks that I have mentioned to you
today, to be sure that on the one hand you can maintain secrets, and on
the other hand that no one abuses that privilege. We have to have them,
so we have to have enough oversight, enough checks, to be sure that it is
not abused. I believe we are keeping that balance today. I believe that
what I've asked you for today also is a little understanding, that people
who run to the press with things that should not be released, should not
necessarily be acclaimed as heroes right off the bat. Some of them are
doing it out of great patriotism and motives; some of them are doing it
in a self-serving way. But we have now established procedures for them
to voice their complaints, to release their information, which gives the
people of this country some check, some assurance that it's not being done
to the detriment of our national interest. I hope they will use that
and that we will all encourage them to use that.
Q: Are you satisfied that you still have the kind of authority and
organization that can do a good job of intelligence world-wide?
A: Yes, I definitely am. In part, because of the additions to my
authority that the President has recently given me. In part, because in
addition to the standard form of collecting intelligence that goes back
as far as history--the human intelligence agenty, the spy--we have a
pre-eminence in the world in what we call technical means of colleting
intelligence. These have been burgeoning over recent years and providing
us just vastly increasing quantities of data. They have not outmoded the
old traditional human intelligence agent, they have in fact extended his
importance. Because, from a technical system of collecting intelligence,
you generally learn what happened yesterday. Then when I produce that
information to a policy maker, he says, but why does that happen and
what's going to happen tomorrow. And finding out what people are thinking
and what their plans are is the role of the intelligence agent. So today,
the challenge to us, and it's an exciting one, is to bring this together
in a complementary fashion to ensure that we fill the gaps that can't
be filled by human agents, by technical means; then with human agents we
fill the gaps that can't be filled with technical means. It's a new form
of production line for us and a very, very demanding one.
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[At this point the cassette was turned over and the question was lost as
well as a portion of the answer]
A: ....gets us or has got us into the most rouble in the past is what we
call political action--interfering in the politics or other activities of
foreign nations. This is not an intelligence activity. It is a political
action. It has been assigned by this government as an adjunct to the
responsibilities of the Central Intelligence Agency ever since it was
founded in 1947. It is the most controversial part of our activities; but
in recent years these activities have been placed under very strict control.
Before we can interfere in the politics or other activities of any other
country, we must today gain approval of the National Security Council,
signature of the President of the United States, and I must inform the
appropriate committees of Congress of what we are doing. So we have
two branches of the government involved in this as a check and a balance
and there's just no way, without violating the law, that I can go charging
off and direct interference in other countries political activities. And
I can assure you I've no desire to go to jail.
Q: What is the internal attitude of the CIA concerning agents such as
James Agee and others who have exposed CIA operations upon their
leaving the Agency?
A: We are all very disappointed with people who have assumed the responsi-
bilities of working in our intelligence agencies and would be as
irresponsible as this when they leave. Mr. Agee has done very severe
damage to our intelligence operations. He has taken, for instance, an
individual who has worked for us for ten, fifteen, twenty years; worked
at great personal sacrifice to himself by being under cover. By that I
mean he does not acknowledge, maybe to his family even, that he works for
the Central Intelligence Agency. I can assure you that is not done
easily and is not done without sacrifice. For instance, this man may
have climbed up in our organization and have a position of great responsi-
bility, and have to pretend that he is working for somebody else in a
position of much lesser importance and what do his children think of his
stature. Why didn't father get promoted; why didn't he advance like
others and so on. Yet after all these years of that sacrifice, Agee will
publish this man's name in a book and in many ways reduce his usefulness
to us; hurt his own career prospects, his ability to serve his country, to
progress within the Central Intelligence Agency, because of some irresponsible
individual like this. I think it's most unfortunate.
Q: Does, or did the United States have some CIA contraption high in the
mountains of Asia and if, in fact, there is a nuclear monitoring device
on Indian territory, is such an unauthorized invasion of other countries'
sovereignty considered justifiable practice by our intelligence agencies?
A: One of the most difficult things about being in the intelligence
business with this combination of openness and secrecy, is that often we
can't defend ourselves against false accusations. Because, if I comment
on this particular alleged activity, then I'm in a spot if I don't comment
on the next one, it just leaves you in a very vulnerable position. So we
have to take a policy of never commenting on alleged or actual past or
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ongoing intelligence operations. I wish I could do better for you, but
Joe pointed out to me at lunch, it's like somebody asking him are you
really trying to take over Marshall Field--with a merger or something
like that--you know you just can't, in his position either, comment
sometimes on that because if you say no to one, then you are in a spot
if the next one has a true answer of yes, you can't say no when you need
to, to keep things private. So, I'm afraid I can't answer that question,
Joe.
Q: What is the CIA's position on the defection of the senior Soviet UN
executive?
A: CIA's position is that this is one of the most delicate of diplomatic
and political problems and that it is entirely in the hands of the
Secretary of State and I'm not going to muck up the waters by commenting
on his problems.
Q: Do you have a group of paramilitary people trained to go to the aid
of Americans that might be held for ransom abroad by a terrorist group?
A: The answer is no, but the President has directed the Secretary of
Defense to establish such a capability and it is in being and will be
very effective in due course.
Q: Your opinion of Panama Canal 'Treaties as they affect our military
strength?
A: One of the principles of being an intelligence officer is that you
stay absolutely clear of policy. And that's really a very important
point because if I ever become associated with a pro-Panama Canal Treaty
or an anti-Panama Canal Treaty position, from then on any intelligence I
produce on that kind of a subject is suspect. We must scrupulously keep
ourselves clear of expressing opinions on policy matters in order to
preserve the objectivity which is essential to good intelligence.
Q: Do you agree with the "punishment" given Richard.Helms and would you
try to suppress the prosecution of CIA agents for illegal activities as
recently happened with the former FBI director?
A: The solution of the Helms case was one that worked out very well from
my point of view. On the one hand, had he been prosecuted, it would have
been necessary both for the prosecution and certainly for the defense to
disclose a great quantity of highly classified information. It would not
have been fair not to have done so as the prosecution proceeded. It
would have hurt our country's interest in many respects. On the other
hand, the process through which Mr. Helms went was a poignant reminder to
all of us in the go-ernment, and particularly in the intelligence world,
that none of us stands above the law. The law of the United States of
America is the governing factor in all of our activities and we have no
license, no excuse for violating it in any respect. Nor do I have any
intention of trying to exonerate, or in any way get off the charges of
the law, anybody in our organization who violates it. They know that and
they have to live up to it.
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Q: Is there much possibility that the terrorism plaguing Europe and the
Mideast could spread to the United States?
A: There is always that possibility. But I think the country has a good
record in high-jacking and terrorism because of the precautions we have
taken at our airports and elsewhere; because of the attitude of our people
in supporting the law enforcement agencies in that type of activity; and
because we, being a free society where dissent can be voiced, don't have
the same impetus to this kind of activity. But it is a danger, and it's
one to which we all must be continually alert. I would say, if I could,
Joe, that we in the intelligence world as I briefly mentioned are spending
a great deal of effort in keeping track as best we can through our resources,
through out liaison with other friendly intelligence agencies, of interna-
tional terrorist activities. I am proud to tell you that in a number of
instances it has been our information that has thwarted some international
terrorist plans that have been maturing--not in this country, but elsewhere.
We think that is a valuable service and we intend to continue doing the
best we can to help out here.
Q: Pearl Harbor and the Bay of Pigs were tremendous fiascos of the
intelligence collecting agencies. Can this happen again?
A: The honest answer is yes. The other answer is that we are doing
everything we can to prevent that. We're human, we're fallible, we're
trying to ensure, as I brought out in some of my remarks, that differing
views on what the trends or likely developments in different world
situations are, do come forward. If you suppress the minority view when
it is reasonably well reasoned and set forth, you are doing a great
disservice and you are inviting the possibility of overlooking some
potential problem such as the Bay of Pigs or Pearl Harbor. In short, one
of the real challenges in the intelligence world is constantly to question
your hypotheses--are you making the same assumption over and over again:
the Arabs will never increase the price of oil; the Arabs will never attack
Israel; or the Japanese will never attack Pearl Harbor. Whatever the
assumption may be that seems so true, you've got to constantly probe an
aspect. I can't guarantee you we won't make a mistake again, but I will
guarantee we're trying our best to avoid it.
Q: Do you think there are any Soviet agents in the audience reporting on
you today?
A: Is there a Soviet Consul General in Detroit? I frequently find a
Soviet representative at my talks. I mentioned the 100 and some unclas-
sified publications. Any one of you can write the Library of Congress and
subscribe to our annual product of unclassified studies for $225.00. I
would just let you know that the Soviet Union is spending $450.00 in that
department. I just happened to look at the list the other day. But I'm
not giving away secrets today. I'm trying to be as open and forthright
with you as I can and I'm doing it sincerely in the interest of keeping
the American public informed and in that process, generating greater respect
for what must be kept secret. I'm working very hard in both directions--
openness on the one hand, and tighter secrecy on the other. That. which
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must remain secret must be kept secret. All that possibly can be made
available must be made available. I'm so grateful to you for being here
and wanting to hear about this today. It's your support that will
determine the future of our intelligence activities in this country. I
sincerely believe they are more important to our country today in an era
of near military parity; in an era of political and economic interdepen-
dence with so many other countries of the world than they ever have been
before when we had great superiority in all these fields. You need the
leverage of good information in order to make right decisions and we need
your support in that activity.
Thank you.
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