ADDRESS BY ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER TO THE DCI MANAGEMENT ADVISORY GROUP IN-HOUSE SPEAKERS PROGRAM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01554R003000400001-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 26
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 16, 2001
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: October 24, 1979
• Content Type: SPEECH

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Address by Admiral Stansfield Turner
Director of Central Intelligence
The DCI Management Advisory Group
In-House Speakers Program
CIA Auditorium.
Wednesday, 24 October 1979
I would like to start by thanking the DCI MAG for inaugurating
this program. This is the third in a series. If there is one
thing that will help us all in the Agency it is improved internal
communications. As large as we are, as spread out as we are around the
world let alone in Washington, and as necessary as it is to have. some
kind of compartmentation, internal communications are really difficult.
Anything like this that will help I think is just great.
I really don't want to talk very long. I want to take your
questions, your comments, your suggestions. But I thought perhaps
you would like me to say a few words on two topics: how I view the
internal situation of the Agency today, and what the status of our
external relationships are; specifically, how do our customers perceive
us and are .they using our product? Let me start here at home.
Inside the Agency, I have never been more optimistic, never
felt better about the internal state of affairs. I think in the
last year we have clearly turned the corner on those years of concern
about the investigations and the ensuing adverse publicity we received.
I think, as an Agency, and as individuals, we now have put the past
into perspective. Some of the criticism was justifiable. Much of it
was media exaggeration. I think we all recognize now that while mistakes
may have been made, they must be kept in proportion. Today we have
the right controls, the right attitudes to ensure that we go forward in
the proper manner. I sense throughout the organization today that the
spirit, the attitude, the hope, our expectations for the future are
where they should be.
One thing that has particularly pleased me over the last year and
a half has been the increasing sense of teamwork and cooperation
between the four directorates and between the independent offices and
the directorates. This teamwork is critical to our success. Most of
all, because of the quality of our people, I feel very confident
of what we are doing now and of our capability to do our job for the
future. We have been blessed for 32 years with top quality people.
Today that continues to be one of our great strengths. If there is one
responsibility that each of us shares, not just the DDCI, the Director
of Personnel, and myself, but also each of you is to ensure that we
continue to recruit and keep the same quality of people so that we have
as good a CIA in 1989 and 1999 as we do in 1979. That is absolutely
fundamental. Consequently, I have felt that personnel matters and
personnel management have been my greatest personal responsibility.
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Last. winter, as you know, we received some superb assistance from
the National Academy of Professional Administrators, a group with
an impressive background in personnel administration from all elements
of industry and the government. We are all pleased that the end result
of their 3 month study was to reaffirm that we have a basically sound
personnel management organization. At the same time they suggested
many ways in which we can better use our management system to the
individual employee's advantage more. Since that report came in last
winter, we have been working on their suggestions. We have instituted
a more uniform promotion system, based more on the panels. In fact, we
are going to panels in all promotion areas. Clerical panels, for
example, have been instituted for the first time. There is still more
to be done, but we feel that the uniform, panel-based promotion system
will ensure more equitable, utterly fair opportunity for the individual
employee to be recognized and rewarded for the contribution which he
or she is making. The new performance evaluation report is intended,
to be sure that employees put their best foot forward to the panels.
Inter- and intra-directorate rotation opportunity is being increased.
This will broaden employees experience and increase their perspective.
It will also improve their chances of finding exactly the right career
niche.
More stress is being placed on recruiting the right quality and
quantity of people. Recruiting is up in both numbers and quality. We
are now working hard to reduce the time it takes from the receipt of an
application from a potential recruit to the time we say yes or no. We
have sometimes lost good candidates because of the delays that we have
particularly with our security procedures.
We are putting more stress on helping low performers. We are
counseling them, moving them to areas which are better suited to their
talents, helping them to grow so that they can increase their productivity
and enjoy a rewarding career.
As we go through the rest of the NAPA recommendations, rejecting
some and accepting others, two basic personnel objectives are always in
mind: first, to be sure we have the right mix and quality of people to
do the Agency's job in the future, and secondly, to afford a reasonable
career opportunity to each individual employee; an opportunity to
contribute, to utilize his or her talents, an opportunity for reasonable
promotion potential as well as other rewards.
Each of those goals requires a good personnel management system,
which we have. But, we always need to keep sharpening the ability of
that system to look at each employee as an individual and ask, what is
the next career step? What training? What rotation? What assignments
will best help this employee utilize his or her talents to the Agency's
and the employees advantage? Are we helping that employee to contribute
as much as he possibly can?
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Secondly, the personnel management system must prevent employees
from being blocked in their promotion opportunity by humps and valleys.
As people come into the Agency, if we don't look far enough ahead and
make well-founded decisions on whether we need them at the bottom or
somewhere in the middle, we can easily end up as we have in some areas
of the Agency today with too many people in some grades and qualifications
and too few in others. An employee who comes right behind a grade or
qualification hump has very little opportunity to advance. One who
comes right behind a valley, may be advanced so rapidly that they don't
have the experience necessary to do the job they are asked to do. We
must be able to level out those humps and valleys; to give all employees
the same opportunity to advance. One of the ways is through good
planning, as I have just described. Another is to take advantage of the
fact that we are one agency, with a uniform promotion and personnel
management system. If we have the interdirectorate mobility which one
agency implies, we can shift people from a hump to a valley and thereby
equalize opportunity.
Let me digress here for a moment to say that my comments at the
beginning about greater cooperation and teamwork are part of my enthusiasm
for the fact that we are becoming more and more of one agency. That is
very important. The profession of intelligence has changed over the
last fifteen or twenty years. Being one agency in which each directorate
works intimately with the others is a fact of life, and is more critical
to us today than it has ever been. The DDO provides HUMINT. Why?
Because the NFAC needs it. Then NFAC and the DDO turn to the DDS&T and
ask what SIGINT and PHOTINT are bringing in which will help us.
How do we bring all three of these disciplines together? Only teamwork
enables us to best use an agent; to build on what is known from SIGINT
and PHOTINT. It is wasteful and an unnecessary risk to use a spy, an
agent, when you can get a picture with a satellite. In turn, you
frequently target an agent to find out how best to target SIGINT and
PHOTINT. We have had some superlative examples in recent years of this
kind of teamwork. This teamwork, this thinking of ourselves as actually
being one agency where there is good communication between all of the
directorates, is utterly vital. I am very encouraged by the evolution
I see in that direction.
Let me shift to the external side. None of us would want to be
here if we didn't feel we were making a contribution to the decision
making and policy formulation of our government. That is why we are
here and without that our work would give us little satisfaction. So
let's look at our customers.
Clearly the President, the National Security Council Staff, and
the Cabinet members who deal with foreign policy, are our principal
customers. People ask me, how are we doing with the President? We are
doing very well with the President and his chief foreign policy advisors.
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Then someone always says, well what about the intelligence failure
in Iran? It was just a year ago now that we had the so-called intelli-
gence failure in Iran and the President wrote a note to the Secretary
of State, Dr. Brzezinski and myself suggesting that we could improve
political intelligence reporting. The President didn't say, nor is it
true, that that situation represented an intelligence failure. That
was coined by the American media and was an exaggeration. We would
have liked to have done better, but there was no failure. The President's
suggestions have helped us improve for the future. Among other things, a
fine political intelligence working group has evolved around the DDCI,
David Aaron of the NSC and David Newsom from State which today ensures
the same kind of communication and teamwork I've been talking about in
the Agency. As a result, we are getting a lot more support, particularly
on problems like cover.
Put the shoe on the other foot. If we had not done quite as well
as we would have liked in Iran, and the President had said nothing to
me, and incidentally this wasn't the first time he made a suggestion to
me, think of the implications of that. To me that would have implied
that he wasn't concerned, that he wasn't reading and depending on his
intelligence input. The fact that he was concerned and interested is
indicative of how important he regards what we do for him. Six mornings
a week we give him a Presidential Daily Brief--the PDB--and I guarantee
you it is the highest quality intelligence product in this or any town.
Regularly I brief him orally both on substantive matters and on what we
are doing and how we are doing it. He is intensely interested, and
wants to be kept abreast of intelligence activities.
In National Security Council meetings and meetings of subordinate
committees of the Council, very frequently it is the Intelligence
Community which leads off and sets the background of the situation
which is up for debate. Ithink--though I haven't been here long--from
what I have seen and heard, that our product is better utilized today,
more visible, more relied upon by the top Executive Branch policy-makers
than perhaps ever before in the Agency's history.
Now let me point out that there is a downside, a problem side to that.
The more you are responsive to the Administration's needs for intelligence,
the more likely it is that somebody will say you are so responsive
you are not being objective, detached from the policy process. You are
being politicized. There is nothing that is further from the truth
today than that. Let me give you an example.
Last week there was a story in the newspaper about an NSC sub-committee
meeting on Morocco. I was chagrined when I read that the Central Intelligence
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Agency had taken a position that arms should not be supplied to Morocco.
I assure you that while I did give that initial briefing, as you would
expect, I neither took a position for nor against arms for Morocco.
I merely set the background for discussions. From what we said about
the factual situation, somebody at that meeting drew his own conclusion
as to whether that meant we should give arms or should not give arms to
Morocco and then, in conjunction with leaking the whole meeting,
attributed his conclusion to us. It is a hazard we constantly run, but
we were not politicized.
If you want the best example of all, it is SALT II. If there was
ever a case where the intelligence agencies could have been put under
intense pressure to make the intelligence fit the policy, it certainly
is SALT II, the prime foreign policy objective of this Administration.
From the beginning, we have held resolutely to one position: we talk
about monitoring SALT, we do not talk about verifying SALT. We
don't make judgments on whether SALT monitoring is adequate for
verification, adequate for the safety, adequate for the security of our
country. Those are political judgments. That permits us to give
Congress and the Administration the information that they need to make
those judgments, but it does not put us in the position of supporting
or not supporting the treaty because it is verifiable or not verifiable.
I don't think that you can find anyone in the Administration, on
Capitol Hill, or, in this case, even in the media who would seriously
contend that the Central Intelligence Agency was politicized thus far
over SALT II. I intend for us to stay that way.
If we are ever accused of being politicized, pull some of these
examples out of your hip pocket. Would a politicized Agency have
disclosed in the middle of the SALT II debates that the Soviets had a
brigade in Cuba? Would a politicized Agency have undercut an Administration
policy on Korea by revealing a build-up of North Korean military
forces? Would a politicized Agency in the middile of a debate on the
Panama Canal Treaty have disclosed that some of Trujillos relatives
were dealing in drugs? Would a politicized Agency have published some
of the unclassified studies that we have published in the last couple
of years, some of which have not been very popular with the policy
makers? Of course not. I don't believe we have been politicized, and
I think the record proves it. I believe we are supporting the
President well and he in turn is supporting us well. Look at his
October lst speech on the Cuban brigade. He specifically mentioned the
need to enhance intelligence community capabilities. He specifically
mentioned the great importance of measures to protect our sources and
methods. And, while it was not in his speech, in the private briefings
he gave to members of Congress and others he laid great personal stress
on the fact that he saw no evidence of an intelligence failure or
shortcoming in connection with the Soviet brigade. I feel that uncovering
the brigade in Cuba for what it is was quite a coup on our part. One
that involved that dovetailing of intelligence and teamwork that I
mentioned to you earlier.
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Another of our important customers is the Congress. This year
we've given more briefings, provided more reports in response to more
requests from individual members, committees and staff of the Congress
than ever before. That's great. For them to be able to benefit from
our work is extremely important. Our stock in trade is that we are the
one intelligence agency of the government that has no policy axe to
grind. Consequently, we are very well received by the Congress. The
increasing flow of letters and telephone calls and requests of one sort
and another is indicative that the quality and importance of our work
is both recognized and appreciated on the Hill.
In the last several years, I believe our relations with the two
oversight committees has just been superb. Last week, by unanimous
endorsement, the House Permanent Select Committee forwarded to the
House a bill that would deliberately and directly attack Philip Agee
and the traitorous individuals here in Washingtion who publish the
Covert Action Bulletin. Almost every day, the Senate Select Committee
pushes in one way or another for more resources, more support for all
of our intelligence activities. I don't want to intimate that these
committees are in our pocket--they're in my hair half the time--but the
relationship is good. They should be and are conducting oversight.
They are doing it objectively, but also they are coming to understand
us, our needs, and our capabilities. We frequently get the kind of
support from them that we had no one to turn to on the Hill before.
And we have needed that support, particularly in staving off legislation
that, maybe by inadvertence, would have damaged us; and proposing
legislation such as I have mentioned, that will help us.
Finally there's the American public. Here again I sense a turning
of the corner; a recognition that intelligence is fundamental and very
important to our country. A recognition that while we've been criticized,
have made mistakes, that on balance the record of the CIA over the
years has been superb, and that we cannot and should not be shackled.
I think it is terribly encouraging. It's a reaffirmation of my personal
basic faith in the wisdom of the American people. It may take awhile,
with the distortions they have had to put up with to get their facts,
but in the long run they see through this miasma. In part, ironically,
this has been because of the adverse media attention. Media investigations
have been unrelenting as you all know. There is no way that we can turn
that off. But because they have often been so one-sided, the public
has sought the other side of the story. From that search, they have
recognized that there is something of real value here which could be in
jeopardy.
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We've turned the corner with the public in part also because we
have been more open with them and have tried to help them understand
what intelligence contributes to our national security. I know that
this is controversial, but let me say with deep conviction that there
is no way we can avoid being more open with the American public. The
secrecy of the past is gone. The persevering, inquiring reporters are
there on the doorstep every day. If they don't get it straight from us,
they are going to get it crooked from somebody else. More importantly,
there is a basic premise in a democracy that the more the public knows
about the functioning of government, the better that government will
be. I believe that. I believe that we in the government think we know
what is best for the country; that we know best how to handle complex
foreign policy and domestic policy situations. But that is not so.
The American public knows best. It takes them time, but when they
understand what is going on, and when they set their course, they will
do a better job than any of us in the government in determining which
way the country should be going on major issues. If there is any truth
to that premise, then I don't believe we should pretend that everything
we own is classified or must be classified and therefore kept from
the public. That would be false anyway. It would be dangerous for us to
try to withdraw into a total cloak of anonymity because, where there
have been mistakes in the past, it has not been because of deliberate,
maliciousness. More often than not, it resulted from an understandable
over enthusiasm which, because of the nature of our business, could be
shrouded in a secret environment where adequate checks and balances
could not function.
Our willingness today to share more of what we are about with
the American public has brought significant and positive results.
We are helping the public to carry on sensible, useful debates on
critical topics like the energy issue. We are helping the public to
understand the intelligence function and the contribution it makes to
good government. In so doing we are banking good will and understanding
that we could well have used in 1975-76. But let me reemphasize that
what. we are talking about is controlled openness; carefully controlled
openness. No openness for classified material. No openness for
sources and methods. No openness for how we go about our business. But
openness by recognizing that if it can be unclassified, there is no
reason not to make it available to the public. In so doing we help
ourselves to protect what is classified.
Better security goes hand in hand with greater openness. Everyone
of us in this room would acknowledge, I believe, that there is too much
classified material in all of our safes. As we winnow that down by
weeding out what really doesn't have to be classified, we will reduce
what we must protect and hopefully we will at the same time grow to
respect better what is left.
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Improving security is, as you know, one of our major policy
initiatives. We are working hard on Capitol Hill and in the Executive
Branch for Freedom of Information relief legislation, for identities
legislation of the kind I mentioned with respect to people like
Agee, for graymail legislation so we can be more confident in court
that we won't have to spill everything we are trying to protect to get
a conviction. We are working very hard here inside the Agency and
throughout the intelligence community to simplify, but at the same
time strengthen, the basic security procedures so that we can and
will carry them out. Congress and the Administration are supporting
us in all of these areas. We must staunch the leaks which have been
spewed over the papers just unmercifully and criminally, be they about
Morocco or intelligence techniques, or we won't be as capable and
successful an intelligence service as we must be.
We are the best intelligence service in the world. You, I,
all of us are dedicated to doing everything we can to keep it that way.
None of us has a monopoly on good ideas on how to preserve further as
well as enhancing our intelligence capabilities. I look for your
suggestions, for your advice. From the first day I came here I have
invited employees to contact me with a simple note in an envelope. I
have never guaranteed a response, but I have always guaranteed that I
would read each one. We need your help, we need your advice.
I appreciate the chance to be with you and say these few remarks
today. Now let us turn to your questions.
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DCI ADDRESS
IN-HOUSE SPEAKERS PROGRAM
DCI/MAG
24 Oct 1979/CIA Audit.
I am not sure it was a good idea before anybody's heard it to
advertise that you can apply to have this television thing given away
tomorrow. I see we are a very churchy group, front seats are all
empty. If more people come in, force them on down to the front and
have a seat.
I would like to start by thanking the DCI MAG for getting this
program going. This is the third in a series. I believe that if
there is one thing that will help us all in the Agency it is improved
internal communications. As large as we are, as spread out as we are
around the world let alone in Washington, and as necessary as it is to
have some kind of compartmentation internal communications are really
difficult. Anything like this that will help I think is just great.
Just before you all came there, I said if people came in late come on
down, don't stand in the back I'm going to talk for too long.
I really don't want to talk for very long. I want to get your
questions, your comments, your suggestions but I thought perhaps you
would like me to say a few words on two topics. How I view the internal
situation of the Agency today and what the status of our external
relationships are, specifically, our customers how are they perceiving
and using our product. Let me start, here at home inside the Agency.
SECREtI,
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I have never been more optimistic, I have never felt better about
the internal state of affairs. I think we have clearly, in the last
year turned the corner, turned the corner on those years of concern
about the investigations and the ensuing adverse publicity we received.
I think we now, as an Agency, as individuals have put that into perspec-
tive. Some justifiable criticism. Most of it typical exaggeration of
the American media. I think we all recognize now that while there may
have been some mistakes we have those in perspective, and we have the
right controls, the right attitudes to ensure that we go forward in he
proper manner. I sense that throughout the organization today. The
spirit, the attitude,the hope, the expectation for the future is where
it should be. One thing that has particularly pleased me, again over the
last year or the year and a half, has been the increasing~ense of.
teamwork and cooperation that I feel between the four dir((ectorates and
between the independent offices in the directorates. I think this is
critical to our success and I think it is indicative of the attitude,
the overall teamwork which is just part of our game. Most of all I feel
very confident of our present and our future today because of renwed
faith in the quality of our people. We have been blessed for 32 years
and we have top quality people today and that is the one great strength
we have. If there is one responsibility that each of us, each of you,
as well as the DDCI, myself, the Director of Personnel, one responsi-
bility that we share is to ensure that we keep and recruit that same
quality of person into this organization so that we have as good a CIA
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in 1989 and 1999 as we do in 1979. That is absolutely fundamental
because I have felt that as my personal greatest responsibility and have
paid as much attention, I think, to personnel matters and personnel
management as anything.
Last winter you know we called on and received some super assistance
from a group from the National Academy of Professional Administrators.
A group who came in here with a lot of background in personnel adminis-
tration from all kinds of elements of industry and of our government. We
are all pleased that the end result of the NAPA Study of about 3 months
was to reaffirm that we have a basically sound personnel management
organization. At the same time they came up with a very long list of
suggestions for improvement, for suggestions for utilizing that management
system to the individual employees advantage even more. We have been
working on that. Already since that report came in~last winter we have
done a number of things, we have a more uniform promotion system a
promotion system that depends much more on the panels, we are going all
to panels. Clerical panels have been instituted for the first time,_
there is still more to be done in that area in particular, but we feel
that the uniform panel based promotion system will do the most to ensure
and equitable, utterly fair opportunity for the individual employee. We
have a new performance evaluation report which is intended, specifically,
to be sure that the employees best foot is put forward to the panels.
Stress inter and intra directorate rotation to give employees broadened
experience and more opportunities to be able to find their right niche,
to be able to have that breadth of perspective that is going to make
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them of maximum usefulness to the Agency. We put more stress on recruiting.
Getting the right quality and also quantity of people. Recruiting is up
in numbers and in quality, and we are working hard to reduce the time it
takes from the receipt of an application from a potential recruit to the
time we say yes or no. We have sometimes lost good candidates because
of the necessary delays that we have particularly with our security
procedures. We put more stress on the low performers within the Agency
counseling them, moving them, shifting them, helping them to grow so
that they can be of maximum productivity.
As we go through the rest of the NAPA objectives and sort them
out one by one. We will reject some, we will accept some. We have
two things in mind, there are two basic personnel objectives. To
be sure for the future we have the right mix and quality of people
to do the Agency's job. Secondly, to afford to each individual employee
a reasonable career opportunity; an opportunity to contribute to utilize
his or her talents to the best; an opportunity for reasonable promotion
potential, other sorts of rewards that we can give. Now each of those
requires a good personnel management system. We have one; we are
sharpening the ability of that system to look at the individual employee
and say what should his career do next. What training? What rotation?
What assignments will best help this employee utilize his or her talents
to the Agency's advantage to the employees advantage, to the mutual
advantage of being able to have employyes who feel they are contributing
the most that they possibly can.
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Secondly, the personnel management system must allow an opportunity
for each employee to feel that he is not going to be blocked in his
opportunity to contribute by what I call humps and valleys. If you
don't look f.ar enough ahead as you bring people in, deciding whether you
bring them in at the bottom, whether you bring them in laterally, you
end up as we do in some areas of the Agency today with too many people
of a certain grade and certain qualifications and in other areas too
few. So if you are an employee who then comes and is right behind the
hump, you have very little opportunity to advance. If you are right
behind the valley, you may get advanced so rapidly that you don't have
the requisite experience to do the jobs you are asked to do. We need to
be able to level that out, to give all the employees the same reasonable
opportunity. One of the ways is good planning. Another way is to
ensure that because we are one agency, with a uniform promotion and
personnel management system, that we can shift people from a hump to a
valley and give them that same kind of opportunity. That we have
interdirectorate ability because we are, indeed, one agency.
And I would like to divert there by saying that my comments at the
beginning about greater cooperation and teamwork are part of my enthusiasm
for the fact that we are becoming more and more of one agency, and it is
very important to us. The profession of intelligence has indeed changed
in the last fifteen or twenty years. And being one agency in which each
directorate works intimately with the others is more critical to us
today than it has ever been. The DDO provides HUMINT. Why? Because
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the NFAC needs it. How? First because the NFAC tells them what they
need. Secondly because they turn to the DDS&T and they say, what are
getting in SIGINT and PHOTINT that will help this. How do we bring all
three of these disciplines together? You don't want to use a spy; an
agent when you can get a picture with a satellite. You want to have a
teamwork operation and you best utilize the agent when you build on what
is known from SIGINT and PHOTINT. You frequently target the agent to
find out for you how best to target the SIGINT and PHOTINT in turn. We
have had some superlative examples of that in recent years here. This
teamwork, this being one agency where there is good communication
between all of the directorates, is just utterly vital to that and I am
very encouraged by what I see of evolving in that direction.
Let me shift to the external side. None of us would want to be
here, none of us would be happy if we didn't feel we were making a
contribution in terms of the kind of intelligence we are providing.
That is what we are here for and without it we get no satisfaction. But
let's look at our customers. Clearly the President, the National
Security Council Staff, the other members of the Cabinet that deal with
foreign policy, are our principal customers, not exclusive but very
important ones. People often ask me, how are we doing with the President?
Well, I tell them we are doing fine. We're doing very well with the
President and his chief foreign policy advisors.
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Then someone always says, well what about the intelligence failure
in Iran? It was just a year ago now that we had the so-called intelli-
gence failure in Iran and the President wrote a note to Secretary of
State, Dr. Brzezinski and myself suggesting ways in which we could do
better in political intelligence reporting such as Iran. The President
didn't say, nor is it true, that that situation represented an intelli-
gence failure. That again is the normal exaggeration of the American
media, something that they coined. Now we didn't do as well as we would
have liked in Iran. We didn't have a failure. It was a tough one.
We'd have liked to have done better and the President's suggestions have
helped us improve for the future. They have forced a very fine political
intelligence working group to evolve around the DDCI, David Aaron and
David Newsom, from NSC and State respectively. We are doing and getting
a lot more support, particularly on things like cover, to help us do
better in the future as a result of the President's suggestion.
I ask you to put the shoe on the other foot. If we had not done
quite as well as we should have and would have liked to in Iran, and the
President had said nothing to me, and incidentally this wasn't the first
time he made a suggestion to me, think of the implications of that.
That would mean that he wasn't concerned, that he wasn't reading, relying,
depending upon his intelligence input. The fact that he was concerned
and interested is an indicative of how important what we do for him is.
And everyday, or at least six days a week, every morning we give him a
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Presidential Daily Brief--the PDB-- and I can guarantee you it is the
highest quality intelligence product in town or any town. Regularly I
give him oral briefings which he takes the time to hear, both because we
cover substantive matters and because he wants to know what we are doing
and how we are doing it. He wants to be kept abreast of intelligence
activities.
And when there are National Security Council meetings or meetings
of any of those subordinate committees of the Council, very frequently
it is we, the Intelligence Community, who lead off. We set the background.
We set the facts as to what the situation is that is up for debate in
this particular circumstance and play a very critical role in that. I
think--though I haven't been here long--from what I know and what I have
heard, that the product that we put out today is better utilized, more
visible, more relied upon by the top Executive Branch policy makers than
perhaps ever before in the Agency's history. Now let me point out that
there is a downside, or at least a problem side to that, because the
more you get in with and are responsive to the administration's needs
for intelligence, the more likely it is that somebody is going to come
along and say you see, you are so responsive you are politicized. You
are not following the normal practice of being objective, detached,
not a part of the policy process. Let me tell you that I don't think
there is anything that is further from the truth than that, today.
Let me give you an example. Last week in the newspaper there was
a story about a PRC, that is a sub-committee of the NSC, meeting
on Morocco and I was very disappointed, chagrined when I read that
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the Central Intelligence Agency had taken a position that arms should
not be supplied to Morocco.I assure you, as you would expect, that I
neither took a position for or against arms for Morocco, but I did give
that initial briefing. I did set the background for this. Somebody at
that meeting drew his own conclusion from what we said as to the
factual situation as to whether that meant we should give arms or should
not give arms to Morocco and then in conjunction with leaking the whole
meeting rather improperly, leaked that as attributable to us. It is a
hazard we run, but we were not politicized on Morocco and if you want
the best example of all it is SALT II. If there was ever a case where
the intelligence agencies could have been put under intense pressure to
make the intelligence fit the policy, it certainly is SALT II, the prime
foreign policy objective of this Administration.
I can assure you that from the beginning, until today and on into
the future we have held absolutely resolutely to one position. We
talk about monitoring SALT, we do not talk about verifying SALT, we
don't give judgments on whther the way we monitor is adequate for
verification, adequate for the safety, the security of our country under
these circumstances. That leaves us able to give the information that we
believe is needed to the Congress and to the Administration in order to
make those judgments, but it does not put us in the position of supporting
or not supporting the treaty because it is verifiable or not verifiable.
I don't think that you can find anyone in the Administration, on Capitol
Hill or in this case even in the media who could seriously say that the
Central Intelligence Agency was politicized thus far over SALT II, and I
intend to stay that way.
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If you are berated ever by other people as to whether we are
politicized, pull out of your hip pocket some examples. Would a politicized
Agency have disclosed in the middle of the SALT II debates that the
Soviets had a brigade in Cuba? Would a politicized Agency have undercut
an Administration policy on Korea by revealing a build-up of North
Korean military forces? Would a politicized Agency in the middile of a
debate on the Panama Canal Treaty have disclosed that some of Trujillos
relatives were dealing in drugs? Would a politicized Agency have published
some of the unclassified studies that we have published in the last year
or two? Some of which have not been popular with the policy makers. I
don't believe we have been politicized. I believe we are and have
supported the President well and he in turn is supporting us well. Look
at his October 1st speech on the Cuban brigade. He specifically mentioned
the need to enhance the capabilities of our intelligence community. He
specifically mentioned the great importance of measures to protect our
sources and methods. And, I would also mention to you that while it was
not in his speech that in the private briefings he gave to Congress and
others he laid great personal stress on the fact that he saw no evidence
of an intelligence failure or shortcoming in connection with the Soviet
brigade. I personally feel it was quite a coup on our part, one that
involves that dovetailing of intelligence that I mentioned to you
before.
Another of our important customers is the Congress. This year
we've given more briefings, provided more reports in response to more
requests from individual members, committees and staff of the Congress
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than ever before. That's great because they're important in the decision
process and for them to have the benefit of our Agency's subjective and,
you know, that is our greatest stock in trade at the CIA. We are the
one intelligence agency of the government that has no policy action.
For us to be able to go up and provide support to these lawmakers who
determine so much, is just super. I think we are being very well
received and the increasing flow of letters and telephone calls and
requests of one sort and another is indicative that we are being appre-
ciated and recognized there.
Let me also mention that I believe, in the last several years, our
relations to the two oversight committees has just been super. Last
week, by unanimous endorsement, the House Permanent Select Committee -
sent forward to the House a bill that would deliberately, directly
attack Philip Agee and these traitorous people here in Washingtion
who publish the covert action bulletin. A unanimous endorsement by that
committee. The Senate Select Committee, almost every day, is pushing in
one way or another to demand more resources, more support and more money
for all of our intelligence activities. I don't want to intimate that
these committees are in our pocket--they're in my hair half the time--but
the relationship is good. They should be conducting oversight. They
are doing it objectively, but also they are coming really to understand
us, our needs, our capabilities, and we frequently get the kind of
support from them that we had nowhere else to turn to on the Hill
before. Lots of support, particularly in staving off legislation that,
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maybe by inadvertence, would damage us; and proposing legislations such
as I have mentioned that will help us.
Finally looking at our customers, there's the American public. Here
again I sense a turning of the corner. A recognition that intelligence
is fundamental, very important to our country. A recognition that while
we've been criticized, have made mistakes that unbalanced the record of
the CIA over the years has been superb, and that we cannot and should
not be shackled. I think it is terribly encouraging. It's a reaffirmation
of my personal basic faith in the wisdom of the American people. It may
take awhile, with the distorted media they have to put up with in order
to get their facts, but in the long run they see through this miasma,
this distorted picture that they often get. So today, they are supporting
better intelligence and better national security in general because they
come to recognize the importance of that despite all they have heard
that may be derogatory to us.
We have turned the corner with the public, ironically in part
because of the focus of often adverse attention of the media. Because
since the investigations the media are unrelenting in their probing, in
their inquiries and there is no way that we can turn that off. But out
of it, as I just said, comes a distillate that the public gets and
recognizes that there is something of real value here. We've turned the
corner with the public in part because we have been more willing to be
open with them and to help them to peer in and understand what is good,
what is important, what is contributory to our national security in the
intelligence function. I know that this is controversial, but let me
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say with deep conviction that there is no way we can avoid being more
open with the American public. The days of the past have gone and the
persevering, inquiring reporters are there on the doorstep every day and
if they don't get it straight from us, they are going to get it crooked
from somebody else.
More importantly, the basic premise is the government will be
better in proportion as the public understands as much as possible about
what is going on inside the government. I really believe that. I
really believe that we in the government think we know what is best for
the country. We know best how to handle these complex foreign policy
and domestic policy situations. No. The American public knows best.
It takes them time but when they set their course and when they understand
what is going on, they will do a better job than any of us in the
government in telling us which way the country should be going on
major issues. That is my personal opinion. And therefore, I don't
believe we can or should pretend that everything we own is classified or
must be classified, it would be false, it would be contrary to the
basic principal of our government to pretend that and it has never been
the case. It would be dangerous for us to try to withdraw into a total
cloak of anonymity because if there have been mistakes in the past, it
has not been because of deliberateness, maliciousness. It is because of
overenthusiasm in a shrouded, secret environment where there were not
adequate checks and balances.
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We have today really positive results from being able and willing
to share more of what we are all about with the American public. We are
helping the public to carry on sensible, useful debates on critical
topics like the energy issue. We are helping the public to understand
what they can of our intelligence function and in so doing we are
banking brownie points, brownie points that we could well have used .in
1975-76 had we had them. But let me reemphasize that what we are
talking about is controlled openness, very controlled openness. No
openness for classified material. No openness for sources and methods
or how we go about our business. But openness by recognizing that if it
can be unclassified, there is no reason not to make it available and
that in so doing we in fact protect what is classified. Everyone of us
in this room would acknowledge, I believe, that there is too much
classified in all of our safes. As we winnow that down by making it
clear that something that used to be stamped "Top Secret" and we all
knew was unclassified, really is unclassified, hopefully we can and we
will protect that which truly is top secret much better in the future.
And one of the major things we are doing today, one of our
major policy initiatives from this Agency is to press for greater
security. It goes hand in hand with greater openness. We are
working hard on Capitol Hill and the Executive Branch to get
Freedom of Information relief legislation, to get identities
legislation of the kind I mentioned with respect to people like
Agee, to get graymail legislation so we can have more confidence of
trying cases in court without having to spill everything we are
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trying to protect. We are getting great support in all of these
areas and we are working hard here, inside the Agency and throughout
the intelligence community. To simplify, but at the same time
strengthen the basic security procedures so that we can and we
will carry them out. Because the leaks, be they Morocco or intelligence
techniques which have been spewed over the papers just unmercifully
and criminally, we have got to staunch these kinds of things or we
won't be as capable and successful an intelligence service as we
absolutely must be for our country.
We are the best intelligence service in the world. You, I,
all of us are dedicated to doing everything we can and have to to
keep it that way, and I would like simply to say that none of us
has a monopoly on good ideas on how to preserve further and enhance
our intelligence capabilities. I want and look for you suggestions,
your advice. I have advertised from almost the day I came here
that any employee can contact me with a simple note in an envelope.
I have never guaranteed a response to each one, but I have always
guranteed that I would read each one. We need your help, we need
your advice. I appreciate the chance to be with you and say these
few remarks today, and now let us turn to your suggestions, your
questions and your advice.
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