APME MEETING NOTES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000100070013-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 2, 2004
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: October 10, 1975
• Content Type: MF

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October 10, 1975
MEMORANDUM FOR: DCI
SUBJECT APME Meeting Notes
You 're to speak first. I think your address should not
be tied in any way with Sy Hersh. Shoot right over his head.
When he rises to speak he probably will do his thing
about his famous "massive" story. He may even reach back into
his heroic days in Vietnam. Don't forget he has a book coming
out, and he may strike out at NSA, for instance.
You might want to have a copy of the Rockefeller Report
around'(though your citation of the page number to Agronsky
decimated him and showed you seem to have a grasp of the thing)
because you can use it to counter Sy.
We should aim to put the speech out in advance "for
AM's of Oct. 15". That means it will be in the morning papers
across the country if they want to use it as you begin to
speak (or earlier). This is done all the time. We should
send the thing out early the afternoon of Oct. 14.
We should take 50 copies down with us.
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Use previous editions GPO : 1974 O - 533-857
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Associated Press Managing Editors Association
Mr. President, members of the Associated Press Managing
Editors Association:
When I talked to the AP general meeting last year in
New Orleans, I addressed those attending as "fellow
publishers".
I could do that today. I could also use an alternate.
form of address. I could say:
Fellow intelligence officers.
Because in a sense that is what both of us are.
It is your business to get information and tell the public.
It is my business to get information and tell the public.
Surprised? Don't think that my public is only the
President and his key advisors. He is, of course, my main
subscriber, you might say. Other subscribers are all the
top policy-makers in our government.
But we in Central Intelligence have a larger audience.
That audience is the public of the U.S.. You serve them.
We serve them.
The American public knows about such matters as the
fact that cocked missiles are poised against us -- and
how many. The American public knows that nuclear armed
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submarines of alien powers patrol the deep -- and where.
The American public knows that foreign satellites are
spinning above our heads -- and when.
Mow do they know? The American public knows these
things because the American intelligence community sees
to it that our policy-makers know these facts. The American
policy-makers make sure that we news collectors and
intelligence officers work in tandem so that the American
public is the best informed public in the world.-
We assist the policy-makers, and you, and the publicin
getting and understanding what's happening. Those of you
who have Washington correspondents know that we do a
little behind the scenes briefing of your newsmen at''
their request.
Additionally, we make many of our studies, maps and
research papers available to the public through the
Library of Congress. Although it is not CIA's specialty,
I have even heard of the word "leak". They tell me some
of our stuff gets to you and the public that way.
There are secrets left. Some real good ones. Rest
assured of that. And there will be more. They'll be
more because we still have good sources. I hope we can
keep them, even though it's hard in the hysteria of today.
We still have good sources because we protect them. Managing
editors understand that. Managing editors know that you
d:on'' t 'g:et news if you reveal your., 'confidential sources.
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In all of today's cry for openness, I hope you can ponder,
this matter as professional news gatherers. I hope you
can ponder this as American citizens concerned for'the
sources of life and death "news" we intelligence men
collect for our country and for the American public. I
hope we can march together on the matter of the sanctity of
sources.
In the light of the current hearings and certain public
statements, there are a few blunt remarks I feel that I can
make to fellow intelligence officers and fellow publishers.
I feel I should speak out and say:
Our country is safe from sneak attack.
I feel I should say:
The American intelligence record is studded with success
after success.
But when we sit and look at our television sets night
after night, we see fingers being wagged at intelligence
officers. In our papers it seems as if the old wooden type
were being picked out of the case to hit our eye with
headlines telling only of intelligence failures, of misdeeds,
of goof-ups.
What are we seeing? What are we hearing? What are we
reading?
What's going on? What's going on is this: We're
sitting in on a public Monday morning showing of the
team's private movie of the Saturday football game. Who
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didn't complete that pass? Who didn't block that kick?
Playing in. the big international game,of world
politics, we, too, do a little private Monday morning
quarterbacking. When we figure we haven't called the turn,
we sit down, we write the equivalent of that Monday morning
movie. We call it a post-mortem.
We say to ourselves:
Where did we go wrong? What methods of analysis
weretnt up to the job? How can we improve? Then the coach
singes a few hides and we move on to try to do a better job.
And that's what we're seeing on our television screens.
Not the game we won but the passe( we didn't complete,., the
end runs we didn't make. And, you might say, we made the
film ourselves. We wanted to find out where we went
wrong; how we can be better,
remember: that's what we're hearing.
What are we not hearing? I'll tell you what we're not
hearing. That American intelligence gave seven years' warning on
the development of the anti-ballistic missile system around
Moscow.
.That American intelligence pinpointed eight Soviet ICBM
developments.
That we warned of the development of each one of these
missiles from one to two years in advance of the first flight.
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That American intelligence projected an operational
Soviet'NMIRV in 1974 back in 1969.
That American intelligence identified two Soviet
submarine programs well before the first two subs slid
down the waves.
That we called the turn on conflict after conflict over
a score of years.
That American intelligence alerted the world to a
disastrous locust plague threatening 45 countries; action
was taken; a tragedy was averted.
That our analysts track the flow of petrodollars and
alert policy--makers to OPEC countries' world-wide investments.
That the total techniques of American intelligence are
turned each year to the great ta.st of assessing the world
crop prospects.
That the U.S.A. no longer has to guess in the field of
strategic arms limiations; we know what our
adversaries are doing; we know whether they
agreements.
There are some other things
fingefs shake and the headlines
possible
keep their
don't hear
about when the
We don't hear about brave men on hazardous duty in
strange lands.
We don't hear of bold thinkers in our technical
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directorate; how they go to the farthest skylines of
technology; how they make our intelligence services the
envy of statesmen everywhere.
We don't hear of the successes of brilliant analysts
puzzling out mysterious political and military moves made
by enigmatic people in far and closed societies.
And, finally, we simply don't hear what intelligence
is really about.
So what is it about? What it's about is not the
crystal ball business. Our job is to give our leaders
the deepest possible understanding of the foreign
environment in which he must protect our national interests.
The job of intelligence is to keep our leaders from
being astonished by some event to which they must react
at once. This is quite different from predicting a
precise date and a precise hour, and a precise minute for some
event that may transpire if someone who hasn't thought of
yet happens to think of it.
Etc, going on to explain intelligence
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