PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF DIRECTOR STANSFIELD TURNER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01554R003000050001-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 15
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 25, 2001
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: March 30, 1979
• Content Type: SPEECH

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PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
The Los Angeles Press Club
Los Angeles, California
Friday, March 30, 1979
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DIRECTOR STANSFIELD TURNER: Good morning. I'm sorry
that I just couldn't respond to Ben Kelley's request a couple
of weeks ago that we get together and testify this morning. I
know newsmen and women always favor an early morning event.
I appreciate your accommodating my difficult schedule today,
having to get on to other cities and getting together here this
morning, because I'd.like to talk with you briefly before the
question period about the fact that there are some very profound
changes taking place today in the intelligence organization of
our country. They are far-reaching; they're fundamental, and
I believe they're also beneficial.
These changes come from the stimulus, of three prin-
cipal external factors,_external to the intelligence community.
The first is the changing perception the Un'ite.d States has of
its role in the world. Second are the burgeoning capabilities
for collecting intelligence by sophisticated technical techni-
ques which are becoming available to us.
The third, directly related to you, is the increasing
interest and concern of the American public in intelligence ac-
tivities stemming from the investigation of the '74 and '76
period.
Let me briefly describe how each of these factors
are changing the process of intelligence for our country.
First with respect to our perspective on the world
scene, I think the United States is in a period of transition
in its attitude toward world affairs, a transition from a
very activist,. interventionist mode to one in which there is
a deeper recognition of the limits on our ability to influence
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events in other countries. I am by no means suggesting that
we are entering into a period of isolationism and withdrawal
from the world scene. In fact, I'm encouraged in feeling that
we are gradually coming out of our post Vietnam aversion to
any consideration of active intervention overseas, and we are
developing a more realistic and balanced view on our responsi-
bilities to the world; responsibilities which we simply cannot
shirk.
Yet the circumstances today are such that we must
gauge more carefully than ever before, I believe, just what
our role can be and should be in international affairs. Look,
for instance, today at the difficulty we have in simply deciding
whom we are for and whom we are against in any particular inter-
national issue. Traditionally, we've always been for the people
the Russians have been against, right? Look back just at 1978
and see what the application of that criteria might have done
to us.
At this time last year, there was a war between
Ethiopia and Somalia. The Russians were for the Ethiopians
against the Somalis. The Somalis: should we have been for
them? The country was led by a Marxist dictator who was the
aggressor in this war. Tough choice. Last year ended with
another war going on in Cambodia. The Russians were for the
Vietnamese, who.were attacking Cambodia and against the Cambo-
dians. Should we have been for Pol Pot, the leader of Cambodia,
perhaps the most repressive national leader on the face of the
globe since Adolf Hitler? Tough choice for us.
Besides this, aren't we coming to recognize that it
may not really be necessary.for us, the United States, to take
sides in every international issue. It's not nearly so clear
today that the consequences of some other nations succumbing
to communist influence is going to be as irreversible as we
often thought. it was in the past. We've had the examples of
Egypt, Indonesia, Sudan, Somalia, all of which were at one time
subject to considerable influence from the Soviet Union and who
have just come back and re-emerged into independence.
So today there is a legitimate question in our body
politic as to whether it is necessary for us to come to the
support of every struggling nation under pressure from the
communist bloc. But today even if we decide that some other
nation does deserve our support, there are problems in pro-
viding that support that simply did not exist a decade or two
ago.
One of those, as you will well understand, is the
revolution in international communications. Today, any inter-
national action that we take is instantly replayed around the
globe. It's instantly subjected to analysis, to criticism or
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a pprobat ion. And that international public judgment, it seems
to me, does inhibit the actions, the attitudes of even major
powers like ourselves and the Soviet Union, even though the
countries voicing their approbation or criticism of our actions
are generally second or third level powers.
There are also other difficulties today that we
didn't face a few years ago if we attempt to sway other coun-
tries through diplomacy or international organizations. In
the past, most of the free countries of the world took their
cue from us in matters of international debate. Today, in a
forum like the United Nations, there's one vote for one country,
and each of those little countries exercises that vote with the
greatest sense of independence of the major powers. And in fact,
we and the Soviets often find ourselves together on the minority
side of a vote in organizations like that.
If today, out of frustration with diplomacy, we turn
to intervention overseas militarily, we also have problems that
did not exist just a few years ago. Recollecting our problems
in Vietnam, we can recognize that with the pendulum of offense
and defense in military weaponry tends toward the defense, as I
believe it does today, even a minor military power can cause
considerable difficulties for a major military nation.
What all this adds up to is not that we are not impo-
tent on the world scene, but that the leverage of our influence,
considerable as it is, must be exercised today more subtly than
in the past if it's going to be effective. We must be more con-
cerned with long-term influences, not just with putting our finger
in the dike. We must be able to anticipate rather than just re-,
act to events. And we in the intelligence world must be able
to understand and interpret the underlying forces, forces which
can be influenced by our nation, over considerable periods of
time. In short, this has vastly expanded the scope of our
endeavors in intelligence.
For the first thirty years of our existence, our
primary concern was to keep track of Soviet military develop-
ment. Today, the threat to our national well-being come not
only from actions by the Soviet Union, nor are they restricted
purely to military concerns. The subject matter with which we
in intelligence must be intimately familiar has broadened to
include politics, economics, narcotics, international terrorism,
energy predictions, food, population, the psychiatry and health
of foreign leaders, and many, many other areas. There is hardly
an academic discipline, there is.-hardly a geographic area of the
world with which we must not be familiar in order to keep our
national leaders advised so they can make the best foreign policy
decision for our country.
Hence, this is a demanding time for the intelligence
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organizations of our country, a time of fundamental change with
this vast expansion of the scope of our work.
The second factor driving change, as I mentioned,
was the technological revolution; in effect, how we collect
our intelligence information. Basically, as you well know,
there are three generic types of intelligence collection.
There are photographs from satellites, from airplanes. There
are signals that are intercepted from military equipment, from
communications systems. And there is human intelligence, the
traditional spy. The first two of these, photographs and sig-
nals, we classify as technical intelligence. And here the
capabilities really are burgeoning in this area, thanks to
the great sophistication of American industry.
Interestingly though, rather than denigrating the
value or the need for the traditional human intelligence agent,
the growing technical capabilities, in fact, increase our reli-
ance on and the importance of the human intel I igence factor.
Very broadly speaking, technically collected intelligence tells
you something that happened sometime in the past. It often
raises more questions than it answers. People want to know
why did it happen and what is going to happen next. Uncovering
the concerns of other nations, the pressures that influence their
decisions and their intentions is the forte of the human intel-
ligence agent. And.it is indispensable that we have this input
if we're going to hope to be. able to predict those future trends,
as I was suggesting a minute ago.
The challenge that we face then today is not to em-
phasize technical or human, photographic or signal: it's to
be sure we play.them all together as a team, so they complement
each other, so we can orchestrate them, and so we can do the end
task for our country 'in-the least expensive and the least risky
way.
What questions a photograph cannot answer we may try
to solve by intercepting a signal, or by dispatching a human
intelligence agent. For instance, if you have gained a hint
from a conversation on somebody's plans, you may then go and
try to photograph something that will confirm that that kind
of an action is taking place. Or if you have a photograph of
a new industrial installation and you wonder if perhaps it's
there to produce nuclear weapons, you may then very specifi-
cally target a human intelligence agent to probe into that
installation and see if you can get a clue as to its purpose.
All that may sound very logical and very simple to
you, but our. technical capabilities are growing so rapidly and
are basically so new to us that this process of building a co-
ordinated teamwork effort in collecting intelligence is requiring
us to do business in different ways. Intelligence in our country
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is a large bureaucracy spread over a number of government de-
partments and agencies, each of which has its own priorities
and concerns. It is a fundamental restructuring that is re-
quired to be sure the concerns are brought together and meshed
in a way that is best for our overall country.
The Director of Central Intelligence, since the found-
ing of that body in 1947 by the National Security Act, has been
authorized to coordinate all of these national intelligence ac-
tivities. Unfortunately, the authorities to be effective in
doing that have not existed until just recently. Just a little
over a year ago, President Carter strengthened my authority over
the various elements of intelligence in our country, particularly
over their budgets and over the directing of their collecting
activities. It's still too early to say this is working per-
fectly. It's in an evolving state right now. It's coming along
well. But it is a fundamental difference in the management of
intelligence in our country.
The third factor driving change was a greater interest
of the American public in what we are doing. The intelligence
investigations of recent years certainly brought American in-
telligence activities into greater public attention than ever
before in the history of the world of any major intelligence
organization been explored. The impact of all this added visi-
bility has been very substantial on us. In fact, I would say
it has been traumatic within the intelligence community itself.
The r i g h t k i n d of v i s i b i I ity can and has been beneficial , both
to us and to you. By the "right kind," I mean the public's ac-
cess to information which permits it to understand, at least
generically, what we are doing and why, and which confirms
that we are not doing things that we. shouldn't do, and which
confirms that the controls which have been established over
intelligence in recent years are, in-fact, working as they
should. And to achieve this greater understanding, this
greater sense. of support we need from.. the-American public,
we are trying, to be more open today, with you. in the media,
with the public in general. We are passing more of what we
do directly to you, through the regular publication of un-
classified studies and analyses.
Herb, do we have some examples of these which. wi I
be available when you leave, some of our recent studies? We
take a classified study and extract from it what we feel is
necessary to protect our national interests. If it still is
very m e a n i n g f u l to the pub l i c , we then pub l i sh it and make it
available. We're responding to your inquiries more. Herb Hetu
is our public affairs officer. And while. he doesn't always give
an answer -- he sometimes has to say "no comment" -- he isn't
stuck in that "no comment" groove any more.. .
We're speaking more in public, as I am with you today.
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We're participating more in conferences and symposia. Over all,
I can assure you that I know that our intelligence community is
doing an honorable and a vital job for our country. And I per-
sonally want you and the American public to know as much about
it as you possibly can.
Clearly, as you would appreciate, some of the visi-
bility we have is unwanted, because I believe it benefits
no American. Here I'm talking of course primarily about un-
authorized disclosures of properly classified information.
And here, of course, we come to the nexus between intelligence
and the media, because our need for some level of secrecy ap-
pears to run contradictory to your imperative of keeping the
American public as well informed as it's possible. And it is
a contradiction of purposes, of course. And yet we do have
a lot of common ground between us.
Why have I described our need for secrecy? WeII, one
of the needs is to protect our sources. And I hardly need to
stand here next to Bill Farr and try to elaborate -- [laughter]
-- elaborate on a commonality that we have on this issue of
protecting our sources. We also, of course, need to protect
some information that does of reveal our sources, information
wh-ich is of benefit to our policy-makers because they have it
and nobody else does, or because they have it and the other
people don't know that we have it. But here, again, we have
much in common with you because what is that? That's nothing
but an exclusive that we're going to hang onto as long as we
can.
So each of us,. I believe., in our different purposes
for our country has a lot in common. And we can understand
each other's motives and purposes. And as a result, as I've
said to you, -we are trying to, understand your imperative o.f
..keep I ng the pub l i c informed , and I ' m trying to keep you more,
informed and be more responsive within the necessary.limits of
protecting our sources and protecting that information which
is of exclusive value to our policy-makers.
On your side, I would not ask you to be less per-
severing or to cover up and ignore our faults. But I would
question whether some elements of the media aren't overly
eager to resurrect old, well-formed stories about the CIA
and print them as if they were today's news. I would also
wonder whether some elements of the media apply the same
standards of proof and confirmation to stories that come
from leaks as they do to other stories. And it's been my
experience that a large percentage of the leakers have
motives which. are not altruistic.
Finally, I would say there are times when I believe
the press should recognize it may not be in the public interest
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to publish valid security information which you may receive;
the narnes of our agents, for instance. And yet I also wou l d
not accept the excuse that you must publish it because if
you don't, Joe or Bill or Mary will; or that if you have the
information, it's certain that the KGB will have it also, and
you might as well put it out. I think those are not valid
reasons.
All in all, of course, you face very difficult
judgments in these i ssues, and we face them too in terms of
what we can release to you, in the courts and in other ways.
We each v iew the probl ems differently, but I say again we have
much in common. And I would also say that I believe this period
of greater visibility that we have gone through and are in is
basically a net plus for the intelligence community of our coun-
try. It's a plus because we must regain the full confidence and
support of the American public, and because we must not permit
abuses in the future. There are those, the minuses, the in-
hibitions on the actions that we can take. The risks that
we will take under these circumstances are less perhaps than
before.
The important issue before our country today is how
much assurance does the nation want and need against invasions
of the privacy of our citizens and against the taking of foreign
policy actions which are considered unethical. How do we balance
these desires for privacy and propriety with the resulting reduc-
tion in our ability to collect intelligence or to carry out covert
actions overseas?
Today, the Congress is, I hope, about to give expression
to this question of that balance. It will do so in legislation,
enacting charters.for our intelligence community. Such legis-
lation will set out, on the one hand, the authority for what we
do and, on the other hand, the restrictions on how we can do
it. My hope is that such legislation defining. charters will
be passed by this Congress. If it is written with care and
sensitivity to the kinds of problems I've been discussing,
it may help to resolve some of those difficulties. If there
is overreaction and an attempt to tie our hands, or under-
reaction and an attempt to put no restraints upon us at all,
it will not be good. The one will invite continuing abuses;
the other will emasculate our necessary ability to garner in-
formation.
After these numerous comments of the pluses, minuses
of where we are and where we're going, let me sum up by assur-
ing you that, in my view,.the intelligence components of our
government are, today, strong and capable. The intelligence
community is undergoing substantial change. That is never an
easy or a placid process in a large bureaucracy. But out of
the metamorphosis is emerging an intelligence community in
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which the legal rights of our citizens and the constraints
and the controls on intelligence activity are bound with the
continuing need to be able to collect the information necessary
for the conduct of our foreign policy. This is not an easy
period of transition, and we are not there yet. But we are
moving rapidly and surely in the right direction When we
reach our goal, we will have constructed a new model of in-
telligence, a uniquely American model, reflecting the laws,
the ethics of our country. As we proceed, we do need your
support and your understanding. And that's why I'm grateful
that you would come out this early in the morning to let me
be with you.
Thank you.
[Applause.]
MAN: ...field some questions. I'd like to have
the questioner identify himself, and I'll try to repeat the
questions so that....
Q: [Inaudible.]
DIRECTOR TURNER: ...it seems to me has led to so
much more disclosure by irresponsible people, people writing
books and disclosing information. And it's been very injurious
to the country overall.
Q: The failure to conclude the prosecution was
because of violations of the man's civil rights. Do you re-
gret that?
DIRECTOR TURNER: I very much regret that the man's
civil rights were.violated, and therefore we couldn't proceed
with a legal case. Absolutely. And I certainly don't believe
in invading people's civil rights.
MAN: The question was by Mrs. Auch (?) of Associated
Q: [Inaudible.]
MAN: I'm not sure that I can rephrase that. Did
most of you hear that, I hope? The questioner is asking whether
the ultimate in retrieval of mass information by intelligence
ability is being accomplished....
DIRECTOR TURNER: That's a very stimulating thought
to disseminate our intelligence information on capital ray
tubes (?), in effect, with computer storage, so there won't
be hard copy around which can be Xeroxed and given to the
media.
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We're not going to be there, as the reports indicated,
by 1981. We're not moving nearly as rapidly as I would Iike.
But I have been encouraging and trying to find the money to
put into that kind of research. And I think it will -- the
day wi l l come when, say, in the Washington environment, I
will put together the morning intelligence report for the
President, and he will press a button on his desk when he
wants it. It will appear on a capital ray tube at whatever
rate of speed reading that he can handle, the graphics beside
it. But he'll have a button on his machine that says "P" for
President. There'll be another one for "D" for Defense, for
Secretary Brown. He may not get the same information as the
President. Do you see what I mean? I may share something
with the President -- I could make one up here now -- that
I wouldn't share with [the Secretary of Defense].
[Words inaudible.] And in that way we can really
control the dissemination and not have so many copies going
around.
Unfortunately, we're unlikely to ever get where
somebody doesn't have to have a written version of this.
And Mr. Xerox has really done us in.
[Laughter.]
MAN: Any other questions?
Q: What is your rating of the. cooperation between
the press and the CIA? Average? Above . average?, Or excel l ent,
or poor? If that is not classified information.
MAN: The question, Mr. Hetu, was how does he rate
the present cooperation between the press and the CIA?
DIRECTOR'TURNER: Well, basically, I think the type
of cooperation that exists,'that we encourage, is within the
new limits. That is, we no longer have contractual relation-
ships with the members of the American media. We are proscribed
in that. So there isn't that same intimate relationship that
existed a dozen years ago or so.
I think the basic relationship is good. I have listed
.for you in my talk three of my principal complaints, so to speak.
I really do feel that it's a little unfair when we get a story
in the press with the big headline "CIA Tests People With Drugs
and Sent Three Mice to the Moon,"-or something like that, you
know. But buried in the last paragraph is "It was done in 1952."
[End of Side I.]
Q: What does the restructuring of CIA in our country
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have effect upon its cooperation with the similar intelligence
activities in other countries in the international scene?
DIRECTOR TURNER: How does our restructuring affect
our cooperation with other intelligence activities, countries,
services? .1 think it will help that, those relationships, but
on l y- i f we can stanch the flow of unauthorized releases of
classified information. Nobody, as an individual in a foreign
country, intelligence service in a foreign country, wants to
share innermost secrets about sources, about sensitive informa-
tion with you if it's going to appear on the front page of the
American press in a week or two.
So we have to be ab I e to g i ve better evidence that
we can keep secrets that are shared with us.
Q: I'm Mo Schl emer (?), a retired newspaper and maga-
zine publisher. What happened, or failed to happen, in Iran?
MAN: ...He asked what happened or failed to happen in
DIRECTOR TURNER: I wondered if we'd get to that.
[Laughter.]
Starting.over a year ago, we in intel I igence were re-
porting to our policy-makers that there were lots of problems in
Iran. And some of them were disaffected people who weren't in
on the political action. Others were disaffected because they
didn't have an adequate share of economic growth. Others were
unhappy because the Moslem religion was giving in to Western
modernization. Others were just unhappy with the form of the
government and the Shah as a person.
What we did was continually to report the rising tide
of unhappiness. What we did not anticipate was that the series
of individual, small volcanoes that were bubbling around would
suddenly come together into a Mt. Vesuvius, as the result of
the catalytic efforts of one 78 year old cleric who'd been out
of the country for 14 years. And what we did not appreciate
was that this bringing together of the pressures would be such
that the Shah, with his extensive military and police forces,
would not be able to step in at the right moment and handle it.
So, yes, we missed these predictions of what I believe
is one of the few true revolutions that we've witnessed in many,
many years. We did keep people aware that there were problems
developing. We underestimated the ability of the cleric to bring
this together. We overestimated the likelihood that a strong
police power would be brought to bear and would keep these
forces under control, at least to the last minute.
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I think you'd have to say the Shah missed the same
message. And I would say that I don't know many people in the
media or academie or other intelligence services who did much
better. But I don't want to try to exonerate ourselves. We
would have liked to have done better. We'll try harder in the
future. But at the same time, please don't judge the overall
performance of the intelligence community on.whether we predict
immediate outbursts of coups, assassinations and overthrows of
government and unexpected election returns. It would be nice if
we could do it. But what helps our policy-makers is that we are
keeping them alert for the longer-term trends where they can rea l l y
do something that will be of influence and importance.
It's often too late when we come to the brink on whether
the Shah's going to fall or stay in a particular circumstance to
do something.
. Q: You say your authority has been increased recently.
What do you need that you haven't got to do the best possible job
of gathering intelligence for our government?
DIRECTOR TURNER: What do we need to do the job that
we haven't had?
One of the most important things that I would like is
some enhanced legal authority to bring to prosecution people who
deliberately release classified information. We have made some
progress recently in having an Attorney General who was willing
to take to court a man named Frank Snepp,who published, a book,
without giving it to us, as he had promised to do in his contract
with us, purely for checking classified content, not for clearing
the substance of the book. And the appeals court has recently
upheld that case. And that's a step in the right direction.
But we need some tightening of the. laws here` to inhibit
people from doing this.
Q: Well, can I extend that question one little bit?
Q: What is the score comparatively where, let's say,
I go rob a bank or I go release something that damages your
operation? What is the punishment now?
DIRECTOR TURNER: If you work for the Department of
Commerce and you release some statistical predictions on the
wheat harvest, or something, in this country that people can
then speculate on for their personal profit,,you'II go to jail.
I f you release information to the media in this country, not to
a foreign power, the Espionage Law just doesn't cover you. The
only way -- well, we just can't get to people like that if they
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disclose classified information. We need some tightening of that,
at least some law that says if you disclose the names and identities
of our intelligence personnel, like this traitor called Agee does
a I I the time, that you can be prosecuted. Today we couldn't at-
tack Agee for many of the things he does, even though they are
very, very detrimental.
Q: Yes. I heard William Colby debate Dan Ellsberg at
the USC seminar. And Colby's, William Colby's comment was that
they should have the government legislature take more action to
know what's going on, that they could help to balance it. Do
you think that our government, I mean our Senate and Congress
-- that that would be fair....?
DIRECTOR TURNER: Yes. And we are very pleased that
we have two committees of the Congress today devoted entirely
to oversight of the intelligence process. They are the kinds
of people who are looking into just this sort of thing. On
the one hand, they supervise us; they check on us; they can
scold us. On the other hand, they po.sitively try to help us.
They try to find what we need in a legitimate way, and then
they try to get that by congressional action.
.One more question. Ms Steele?
Q: ...There has been lots of criticism that in-
telligence agencies have kept top secret much information that
should not be kept secret from the American public. And I'm
wondering if-changes are taking place. Now, are you changing
your criteria on what is and what is not classified, and what
is and what is not available to the United States' people?
DIRECTOR TURNER: -Yes. Are we changing our criteria
on what can and should be classified originally or kept classi-
fied? And very definitely, the President in recent months has
issued a new .executive order on classification and'declassifica-
tion. And the standards for classifying something have been made
more specific and they've been tightened. The authorities to
classify have been limited. And a very specific notation must
be made on each classification as to whether there is justifica-
tion not to automatically declassify it after certain periods of
time. Different levels have different automatic downgrading or
declassifying dates.
So there is real, positive action in the direction you
were suggesting. Beyond that, as I've said to you, we have pub-
lished much more in the last several years simply by addressing
this question head-on and not letting one paragraph of classified
information in a 50 page report deter us from releasing the 49 3/4
pages that we could.
We rea l l y are trying hard. And you know, I don't want
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to sound as though I'm just doing this for you. I'm doing it
for me too, trying to declassify as much as we can, because my
interest is in protecting secrets. The fewer secrets I have
to protect, the better they're going to he kept. And so by
releasing information that appears to be classified and need
not he, I then concentrate our efforts on that which really
must remain classified. And truly, one of the reasons there
are so many leaks today is that we have lost respect within
the government for the classified label, because so much has
become classified that need not be kept there.
So we're trying . We do have a lot in common with you.
Again, thank you very much for your....
[Applause. End of tape.]
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