SPEECH BY LT. GENERAL VERNON A. WALTERS BEFORE THE KIWANIS CLUB OF MIAMI

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80R01731R002000120002-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 22
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 6, 2002
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: March 4, 1976
• Content Type: SPEECH

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SPEECH
by
LT. GENERAL VERNON A. WALTERS
before
THE KIWANIS CLUB OF MIAMI
WHY THE UNITED STATES NEEDS EFFECTIVE INTELLIGENCE
Miami, Florida
4 March 1976
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President Beale, Friends...
I am very grateful for the opportunity of talking
to a very representative group of Americans and explaining
to them why I believe the United States needs good
intelligence, more today than at any time in American
history.
Throughout our past, we have always been regarded
by other nations as unreachable and, therE~fore, unbeatable.
tiVhen we were told at the dawn of our history that
'eternal vigilance' was the price of freedom, this was a
talk about a country that had two to three months' cushion
and thou5;ands of miles on either side. Those cushions,
those buffers, are gone. Not since Valley Forge has
the United States had arrayed against it t:he capabilities
that are arrayed against it today. I am not talking
about the intentions, I am talking simply about the
existing capabilities.
Germany at the height of its power was a European
power. It could send submarines to sink ships off our
coast, but Germany had no .real capability against the
United States. The Soviet Union today is a global power.
Tomorrow China will be a global power. Recent events in
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Angola have shown us that the Soviet Union is not only
able but willing to project its power 10,000 miles from
the Soviet Union. 4Ve see today the Soviet. Union deploying
five new systems of third generation inter-continental
ballistic missiles, each one of them more accurate and
capable of throwing a larger warhead than any of its pre-
decessors. We see the Soviet Union expanding its fleet
from what was essentially a coast-guard-type navy to a
blue water navy that is showing its flag a.ll over the
world. tike see the Soviet air force developing aircraft
with a capability against the United States. We see
the Soviet conventional forces facing NATO in Europe
and China in the Far East, being constantly given new
equipment, better equipment, the training and logistics
of these units being upgraded.
This is a continuous process. We see the Soviet
Union spending more money on defense than the United
States. It is a very difficult thing to measure
because the ruble exchange is false and in a society
where the State contxols. all the~__me~.ns of production and
distribution, it is difficult to establish comparisons,
but the general impression we have is that they are
spending more money than we are out ..of, a gross national
product less than half of ours.
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Now why do we need intelligence? The United
States has always needed intelligence from. the dawn
of our history, but we are fond of giving ourselves
a phony version of our own past: that intelligence is
un-American, the Founding Fathers wouldn't: like it,
and there is something un-democratic about: it.
Well, if we take a look, and in this Bicentennial
Year, I have taken a look. And we find some pretty
interesting things. George Washington was probably
the greatest consumer of intelligence~in American
history. George Washington fully understood the
importance of intelligence. He wrote a letter to
his chief of intelligence in New Jersey, Colonel
Elias Dayton, and I quote directly what he said:
"The need for procuring good intelligence is so
obvious that I have nothing further to add. on this
subject. All that remains for me to tell 'you is that
these matters must be kept as secret as possible.
For lack of secrecy, these matters, no matter how
well conceived or how proriising the outlook, generally
fail. I am Sir, your Obedient Servant, George
Washington."
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On .another occasion he spent the nig]-it at the
home of a sympathizer, a Mr. Holcomb, in i::onnecticut.
The next morning he got up on his horse to ride on
and Mrs. Holcomb came out and said, "Pray,, General,
where do you ride tonight?" IIe leaned dr,~wn in the
saddle and he said, "Madame, can you keep a secret?"
She said, "~Of course I can," and he said? "So can I,
Madame," tipped his hat and rode on.
Then you get Franklin. Now Benjamizi Franklin,
for three years before the Revolution, when we were
all loyal subjects of George III, was the Assistant
Postmaster of British North America. You know what he
was doing? He was opening that mail like crazy. And
the British caught him and they fired him, and they
tried him before the British Privy Council. So he
went to Paris as a representative of the Revolution--
and he got his office penetrated by British intelligence
I might add--and he had the French build :him a printing
press. You know what he printed on that ;printing press?
--British currency, British passports, anti fabricated
atrocity stories to be published in the British press.
~Ue've always set up a good intelligence service during
our wars and we have almost always systematically
destroyed it as soon as the war was over.
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This time we waited a little longer because we
had the Korean War and the Vietnamese War. In 1942
I was sent to the U.S. Army's Military Intelligence
Training Center at Camp Ritchie, Maryland. You know
who the Commandant was? a British colonel! That was
the state of American intelligence at the outbreak of
World War II. The first ten training films I saw the
Cockney accent was so thick it was difficult for__the
average GI to understand.
So we've always gone through this business of:
Is it really right? Is it not right? Should we do it?
Is it compatible with democracy? The fact is that a
blind nation, no matter how strong, will n.ot surviue-.~
Now we Americans have brought a whole series of new
things to intelligence which have never been found before. I
always claim that intelligence is the oldest profession in
the world. There are some who claim that another profes-
sion is the oldest profession in the world.. I claim you
had to know where it was first before you. could .oper,ate,
which required intelligence.
We face, as I say, this situation with the Soviet
Union today. We face a rising China that is constantly
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improving its military capability in all sorts of
areas, which lives in a state of extreme tension with
the Soviet Union. As a matter of fact, t}sere is an
amusing story about that: Mr. Nixon went to Moscow
to see Mr. Brezhnev when he was President and Brezhnev,
in the chit-chat said, "You know, I had a. strange
dream the other day." And Mr. Nixon said., "What was
that?" and he said, "Well, I dreamt I was in Washington
and I looked down Pennsylvania Avenue and there was a
funny flag flying over the Capitol." Mr. Nixon said,
"That wasn't a funny flag; it was the Ame~?ican flag and
it flies whenever Congress is in session." And Mr.
Brezhnev said, "No, it wasn't the Americar.~ flag. It had
something written on it." Mr. Nixon said, "What did it
have written on it?" He said, "It had written on it,
'Capitalism is doomed."' Mr. Nixon said, "That's funny.
I had almost the same dream." Mr. Brezhnev said, "You,
too?" He said, "Not quite; I dreamt I was in Red Square
and I was looking at the highest tower iri the Kremlin and
there was a great flag flying." And Brezhnev said, "Yes,
that's the Soviet flag; it flies day and night." Mr.
Nixon said, "No, it wasn't the Soviet flag; it had some-
thing written on it." And Brezhnev said, "Written?
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What did it have written on it?" Mr. Nixon said, "I wish
I could tell you; but I can't read Chinese."
So, we have a rather strange situation, historically
speaking, in the world. In the past there have been a
large number of very great powers and then. some medium
powers and then some smaller powers. Today we have
a very tough, tri-polar world, in which we have three
great super-powers and then you drop a long way till you
get to anyone else--although I would not be one to put
down any of the nuclear powers. People often talk as if
there were such a thing as a 'small nuclear power' but
there .are no small nuclear powers. Nevertheless, we
have this largely tri-polar situation in the world: the
United States and its allies, China, and t:he Soviet Union.
This is an uneasy situation. The Chinese, for
instance, are very worried about the Soviet Union; but
I do not think we should be deluded into believing that
they have become our bosom ally. The Chinese have an old
saying, "That against the near barbarians, you must use
the far barbarians ." Well, I think that i:n their view
the Russians are the near barbarians and we are the
farther barbarians.
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Obviously, the Soviet Union is trying; and will
try in my view when Mao goes to restore th.e unity of
the world Communist movement. This will be very difficult.
to do. There are deep differences between. the two.
In addition to this, other new factors have appeared on
the world scene. We have international terrorism which
has become sort of an empire on a vast international
scale. We have all of these movements that are aimed at
disturbing the peace of the world in one way or another.
We have in the twentieth century, in the middle of the
twentieth century, probably more terrorism. and more
lawlessness on an international scale than we have had
since the Middle Ages. We have the possibility, or the
danger I should say, of nuclear proliferation. A lot
of nations doubting other nations' guarantees, and so
forth, are likely to view their salvation as being the
form of developing some nuclear weapons of their own
to make themselves unbearable to anybody who might have
plans against them.
Now, in the midst of this, vital intelligence permits
our country to establish a sound foreign policy. It enables
our leaders to talk from a position of st~'ength since
knowledge is power and intelligence is knowledge.
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We have another completely new facto~~ in the
world. And that is the factor of economic; intelligence.
In the old days, economic intelligence was regarded as
some sort of by-product of a military capability study.: .
Today, the world is so interconnected in tirade and commerce.
t:h.at~.:we have a totally new factor of foreign countries holding
enormous quantities of American dollars, whether you call
it Eurodollars or petrodollars, which car. be invested
or applied in ways which will affect the livelihood of an
American worker in Miami or Omaha, or elsewhere. And in
this enormous area of economic intelligence, it is vital
for our leaders to have some sort of warning of the
economic and monetary and financial policies of other
countries.
The one great mission which we in the Central
Intelligence Agency, and our colleagues in Defense
Intelligence, and. n.the -other intelligence elements of the
United States Government feel we have is the overwhelming
charge from the American people that we not let them be
surprised. We were surprised once at Peax?1 Harbor. We
recovered from that naval Pearl Harbor. I just wonder
whether we could recover from a nuclear Pearl Harbor.
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The fundamental thing is: if we know what is going on,
the very existence of an effective and credible U. S.
intelligence community will inhibit foreign nations
from being tempted to attempt to surprise 'us.
Now, people always tend to think of intelligence as
some sort of weapon of war. Intelligence is also a
weapon of peace. What American President could sign
agreements limiting strategic or other armaments if he
did not have the means of verifying whether those agree-
ments were being lived up to or not? It is only the
fact that our Government is able to tell what are in the
Soviet strategic forces, or the Chinese strategic forces,
that enables us to consider the possibility of signing
agreements with them limiting these weapons which present
such a tremendous burden to the American people.
Many times we have seen two friendly :nations, each
one highly suspicious of the other, afraid. that the other
one was going to jump him, we have been in the position to
go quietly to both of them and say, "Look, this guy is
deployed in the defensive stance. He is n.ot deployed in
such away that he is going to attack you." This .is ho?a
cae have avoided a number of quarrels among some of our
friends, without receiving credit.
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Now, what does this intelligence cosi:. the
American people? Less than one penny out of every
dollar spent by the United States Government goes for
collecting this intelligence which is vital to the
survival of the United States.
Since 1969, despite the growth of So~riet and
Chinese power, despite the growth of the requirements
levied on the intelligence community, the manpower in
the United States Government devoted to th.e collection
of intelligence has gone down forty percent. And the
intelligence budget today represents in regal terms a
smaller proportion of the national expend:i.tures than at
any time since World War II.
Now, what has this produced? You've heard a lot
about our failures. Most of this information on these
so-called failures was derived from post mortems we
ourselves did of things we considered we had failed to
predict accurately. But I think in the popular mind
there is a desire that we predicted. that at t ow o clock on
the afternoon of the 17th of October such and such a
thing will happen. Well that's a gold ring, and if you
can do it, it's great. I view our mission in intelligence
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as being somewhat broader, of widening anti deepening
the understanding of our leaders of the p~~?oblems and
matters they have to deal with, and if we can get an
exact prediction, and I might add without idle boasting
that we have very accurately predicted thEl development
of the weapons systems of the Soviet Union. and China
and a great many other things that simply do not make
headlines. President Kennedy once told us that we
were doomed to have our failures trumpeted and our
successes passed over in silence. We accEypt that.
If we have a success, and the other side knows that we
have been successful, if they know we havca been looking
through the window, all they have to do is pull down the
blinds and we'll be cut off from them.
And this is where we get into the quf;stion that
people ask me: "What has been the effect of all the
disclosures of recent time?" Well first, let me say one
word about that. I cannot tell you that in the last 27
years since the Central Intelligence Agenc_:y was created
that we have not had people who have done things they
should not have done; we have not had people show bad
judgment; we have not had some kooks and ?r..ealots who
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have done things that have embarrassed us. But in
that time, 76,000 people have passed through the Central
Intelligence Agency. I would ask you to consider any
community of 76,000 people and subject them to the kind
of scrutiny that we have been subjected to and tell me
how our record would look compared ~aith:the;xs, I think
it would-look quite good. To my knowledge+ as of today,
not one of those 76,000 people has ever been convicted
of any crime.
Now you've heard a lot about assassination, but the
end conclusion was that nobody was assassinated. You've
heard a lot about toxins, but the end conclusion was that
they were never used. Why did we do these sort of things
like the drug experiments? Well, we saw the Soviets kill
a number of people in West Germany in the 50's by using
these toxins. We were afraid they might be used against
us. We had to find out about them and we :had to find
some means of defending ourselves against them.
_ ? Let's look at the drug experiments. Nle saw a~. man like Cardinal
Mindszenty, who had resisted every kind of torture and
pressure from the Nazis., suddenly appear before the movie
cameras to confess every crime his Hungarian Communist
captors.- wanted him to confess. Those of you who are
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old enough to remember will remember as I do, we were
convinced this was done with mind-bending drugs. We
thought they might be used against us. We studied the
problem to see what should be done. And I might add,
it was not just the CIA and the defense establishment
who were making this kind of experiment. Very important
universities in the United States were conducting the
same kind of experiment. Yes, we have had. people do
wrong., But if you take any great corporation with
76,0.00 people, or any :great number of people; and~.s.ubject
it ao-the.kind of scrutiny we've been subjected to over
the last year and a half, I submit that ou.r record will not
look all that bad. Yes, there have been some abuses.
They have been few and far between and they have been
magnified out of all reality.
For instance, we have been charged with illegal
telephone taps. Yes, over 27 years we staged 32 illegal
telephone taps, or allegedly illegal telephone taps. That's
one and one-third per :y ear. But I would remind you that
the Director of Central Intelligence is the only person
in the United States Government who is charged by law
with protecting his sources and methods.
I think one of the results of all this will be
that we will have stricter guidance as to what is
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tolerable and what is not tolerable. Thi:~ changes
with the passage of history. The signers of the
Declaration of Independence owned slaves. If we judge
them by the regulations of today, we would find that
offensive. In the early part of our coun~r_ry's history,
there was no universal sufferage. We wou:]Ld find that
intolerable today. But I think that we have to find in
the guidance that is being given to us some mechanism
for change as the perception of the Amer:i_can people
of what is tolerable and what they want done changes.
We are being pilloried for our alleged sins of
commission. I fear .that 10 or 15 years from now, our
successors ~ will be pilloried for their sins of omission.: ,
You mean: "You didn't do this?" "You mean: you tiveren't keeping
track of that?" But, nevertheless, we livE~ in the United
States. We know that secrecy cannot be used to cover
abuses. We know that we cannot run an intelligence
service that is not run along lines that ~~.re acceptable
to the American people. We ourselves in many of the
cases of these abuses that you've heard recognized them
before these investigations started and plat out directives
prohibiting them. For nearly every one of these things you've
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heard of, we had a directive out as far? back as 1971
or 1972 saying that they were not to be dome.
I t;iink we have guidance from the American people,
we have guidance from Congress, and we have guidance
from the President. We know what is tolerable and we
know, in a general way, what is not tolerable. I can't
tell you that there will never be an abuse again anymore
than you can take any group of 76,000 people and say
there there will never be anything. I don.`t mean there
are 76,000 people there now; that is the total number of
people who have passed through the Agency.
Has this harmed us? Yes, it has some. Some people
have pulled away from us and some friendly services who
used to give us reports, now give us summaries; some
who used to give us summaries, now say,.".Sorry, we can't
do anything for you." I think the greatest loss, however,
we will never be able to measure. And that is the people
who might have volunteered information to us but did not
because they feared in some way they would. be publicized.
We had one man behind the Iron Curtain wha asked us,
"If I am ever executed, please never reveal my connection
with you."
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We will go forward. It is not easy. It is
difficult to run something like this. As I say, we
have this American feeling about intelligc~nce. If I
may just tell you one story I think it will illustrate
our attitude. On an island in the Pacific, three
individuals were captured by the cannibal>. One was a
Frenchman, one was an Englishman and one was an American.
And the :chief of the cannibals said to all of them;
"I have bad news for you. You are going 'to be executed
and eaten for lunch tomorrow. But I also have good news
for you. We'll give you anything you want in the mean-
time, short of setting you free." And he said to the
Frenchman, "What do you want?" The Frenchman said;
"If I'm going to be executed in the morning, I would
just as soon spend the remaining hours with that beautiful
cannibal girl over there." So they said; "Okay." And
they untied him and he went off in the woods with the
cannibal girl.
Then they said to the Englishman; "What do you want?"
The Englishman said, "I want a pen and paper." They said;
"What do you want a pen and paper for?" ~~e said, "I want
to write a letter to the Secretary General of the United
Nations to protest against the unfair, unjust and unsporting
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attitude you have adopted towards us." So they untied
the Englishman and they gave him a hut, a pen and paper,
and he started to write, "Dear Mr. Waldheim."
Then they said to the American, "What do you want?"
The American said, "I want to be led into 'the middle of
the village. I want to be made to kneel down and I want
the biggest cannnibal here to kick me in the rear end."
The chief said to his vice-chief, "It's a weird request,
but the Americans are a weird bunch anyway, and since
we promised, we'll do it." So they untied the American
and they led him into the middle of the village and
they made him kneel down. The biggest cannibal took a
running leap, kicked the American in his rear end, knocked
him 15 feet. As the American sprawled down on the ground,
he pulled out from under his shirt a submachine gun he
had been hiding and he cut down the nearest cannibals
and the rest fled.
The Frenchman hearing the gunfire came out of the
woods; the Englishman hearing the gunfire came out of
the hut. There stood the American with the smoking machine
gun in his hand. They looked at him and said,
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"You mean to say that you had that gun the whole time?"
And the American said, "Sure." And they said, "Why
didn't you use it before now?" This story was told to
me by the head of a friendly foreign serv'.ice. And he
said the American looked at them with an expression of
hurt sincerity, and he said, "But you don't understand.
It wasn't until they kicked me in the rear. end that I had
any moral justification for such extreme and violent
action."
So we have a tough situation but we owe the American
people and their leaders the answers to four important
overriding questions. You know we carry the millstone
of James Bond around our neck. This represents maybe
five percent of our activity but it derives ' 99 percent of the
public attention. But you do need it because you can
get some of the intelligence by public means, you can
get some of it by technology, which America has developed
beyond anybody in the past, but the really hard stuf j
about decisions to go or not to go, you have to get from
people.
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We owe. the American people and their leaders
continuing answers on, to my mind, the four-great
questions of our time. 4dho will be in control of
the Soviet Union five years from now? ;~Vha.t will their
attitude be towards us and our allies? What is there in
Soviet research and development today that. will impact
on our lives five or ten years from now? And the same
questions for China.
I am not an old CIA man. I came there four years
ago for the first time and I found there exactly the
same kind of people I had found in military service
intelligence. Americans like others, living by the same
standards of right and wrong and highly dedicated to the
United States. We know the respnsibility we bear. We
know now fairly clearly what we think therAmerican people
want us to do or not do at this time. We know that if we
fail there is no one to pick up the torch. I think the
real issue before the American people is not these abuses,
most of which are more than twenty years o:ld, but the
real issue as we move into the last quarter of this.
century is: will the United States have eyes to. see and
ears to hear, or will we stumble into the :future like
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a blind, helpless giant until the day we have to
choose between abject humiliation and nuclear black-
mail. I do not think the American people want to
accept that kind of an alternative. I think we who
work in intelligence understand the responsibility
we have to the American people. We will d.o our best
not to let you down.
Thank you very much.
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