THE CIA - AN OLD SALT OPENS UP THE PICKLE FACTORY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000300160003-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 22, 2004
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: June 20, 1977
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

Approved For Release 2004118 : CIA-RDP88-01314R000300160003-3
40 June 1977
the MCI 4 0M
An 00""'Id Salt u"pens Up I K39 i-Pctory
No one knows whether CIA spooks
wind up in heaven or hell when they
die, but wherever they are, they must
be rattling their bones in protest. Bare-
1v a decade ago, almost no high officials
an Washington talked directly about the
Central Intelligence Agency. It was
obliquely referred to as "the pickle fac-
tory" or "our friends" or "across the
river" or, more openly, "the agency" or
"the company." When the CIA's $46 mil-
lion headquarters opened along George.
Washington Memorial Parkway in sub-
urban Langley, Va., in 1961, the decep-
tive highway sign said only BPtt, for Bu-
reau of Public Roads. Even Soviet KGB
agents laughed at that. Finally the sign
was charged to read: CIA. Now candor
has gone further. For the first time, a
photographer--from 'TIME-has been
allowed to take some pictures of the peo-
ple and operations inside the pickle fac-
tory. Guided public tours of Langley
may soon be held, if only on Saturdays,
but agents unready to come in out of
the cold will be warned to stay out. of
sight to avoid a happenctsance recog-
nition 1, ; touring friends.
Visi,ors will find that Langley looks
much like other airport-modern Gov-
ernmen'. office buildings I t has more
guards han must (nciudiog some be-
hind thick, glass walls on the executive
floor), more desktop boxes with various-
colored covers to conceal their contents,
more plastic wastebaskets whose con-
tents are for burning, more locked cab-
inets, ~.1eel vaults rnd resiricled areas.
Tourist > presumably will not see the
A SIGN CLEARLY MARKS THE CIA's SENSITIVE NERVE CENTER; MAIN CORRIDORS AT LANGLEY LEY ARE SRIGH1, WIDE & LONG
 Approved For Release 20j0411.0128 : CIA-RDP88-01314R00030016000319 NA710N
more arcane laboratories, operations
and communications centers, and
photo-interpretation rooms.
The agency, hurt by revelations of
its abuses of power both abroad and at
home, is on a much needed public re-
lations campaign. Of greater signifi-
cance, the CIA is sailing on more open
Stansfieid Turner, 53. As he tol TIME
Correspondents Strobe Talbot and
Bruce Nelan in an interview-7-We op-
formed. The information we have which
need not be classified should be in the
public domain. The public has paid to
get it."
In Turner's view, the CIA is indeed
like a company. He says that it has
"a product"-international information
and analysis-which it should share
with its "customers": the nation's mil-
itary strategists, its civilian policymak-
ers, headed by the President, and, at
least in some instances, all Americans.
Explains Turner: "I think we need to
sell our product to our customers more,
and I think we need to expand our ser-
vice to other customers-including the
public."
The notion that public relations is a
legitimate CIA function worries many
oldtimers. Though the agency has al-
ways had a p.r. official of some sort, it
did not formally admit so, and he was
rarely helpful to the press. But as the
CIA was drawn into public controversies,
the office became more professional and
OPERATIONS CENTER COLLECTS WORLDWIDE REPORTS FROM AGENTS &
OTHER SOURCES ON BREAKING DEVELOPMENTS 24 HOURS DAILY I
more open. Now p.r. is expanding to an
18-member staff under Herbert E. Hetu,
a retired Navy captain.
Turner readily recognizes that all
the new salesmanship will be useless un-
less the CIA improves its product. And
while the CIA's shrouded world of spies
and its secret efforts to influence polit-
ical events abroad have been widely crit-
icized, its more basic function of sup-
plying reliabl , intelligence has been
faulty t TIMME's Talbott and Nela
asked top o cials in the White House
State Department and Defense Depart-
Phr.,nhcrTiStevTmick
 STAT
I-
They don't want to be wrong, so they
tend to be glib and platitudinous." Yet
many Government officials say that CIA
experts are much more explicit and in-
STAT
ment who regularly receive CIA analy-
ses to grade the agency's work. The re-
port card:
For highly technical military or eco-
nomic facts: A.
For political intelligence on break-
ing developments: B.
For long-term, "over-the-horizon"
forecasts of future global problems: C.
For political predictions: D.
Contends a National Secs urity Coun-
cil official: "The agency is best when
there's something very specific you want
to know, preferably a question that can
be answered with numbers--or at least
with nouns. The fewer adverbs and ad-
Ijectives in a CIA report, the more useful
it tends to be."
Specialists in arms control, for ex-
ample, credit the agency with providing
what one calls "a good factual and tech-
nical base" on developments in Soviet
military research and strategic weapon-
ry. Says an Administration expert in So-
viet affairs: "The information provided
by the CIA and the rest of the intelli-
gence community has provided the
whole foundation for our position in the
SALT talks."
But the Kremlinologists note that
the CIA `failed to anticipate the sharp
Soviet rejection of President Carter's
sweeping arms-limitation proposals,
cer. "It just doesn't do us much good."
A CIA official concedes that "there's a
lot of bureaucratic ass-covering that goes
on when guys write long-range stuff.
sightful when they make verbal assess- _
ments-in meetings or on the phone
-and do not have to write and file
reports that could come back to haunt
them.
Competing Daily. But papers arc
a CIA staple. Each day the agency pro.
vides two classified intelligence summa-
ries. Cane, tailed the "President's Daily
Brief,'"goes to only five people: Carter,
Vice I4esident Walter Mondale, Vance,
Secretary of Defense Harold Brown and
National Security Adviser Zbigniew
Brzezinski. The other1the "National In-
telligence Dail'. omits a few superse
cret items and irculates to about 100
high officials. Yet atthe White House,
a competing daily intelligence summary
from the State Department's Bureau of
Intelligence and Research 11NR) is con-
sidered superior. The INR staff was
carried to Mos ow by Secretary of State shaped and honed by former .Secretary
Cyrus Vance (the State Department it-X of State Henry Kissinger, and is de.-
self should have foreseen this Nor did scribed by one White House staff memo
the agency predict the pot teal demise her as "leaner and more self-confident"
last month of Soviet President Nikolai than the CIA, c
Podgorny. Carter was annoyed at the The CIA also contributes heavily to
CIA's failure to forecast the Likud co- periodic papers called "National Intel-
alition's upset tory in last month's Is- ligence Estimates," which a tempt to
raeli election. n China, the CIA seemed pull together the expertise of all the U.S.
surprised by rise of Chairman Rua intelligence-gathering agencies, incltid-
Kuo-feng, the vilification of Madame Y,, ing those in`the military services, on spe-
Mao and the rehabilitation of Vice Pre- cific topics. The agencies' main aim has
mier Teng Hsiao-ping. "The wide- been to assess Soviet strategic capabil-
scope stuff tends to be sat and mushy," ities and, more significant, Russia's in-)
says a National Security Council offi- tentions. These reports were read c.rit
 Approved For Release 2004/10/28 : CIA-RDP88-01314R000300160003-3
ically by Kissinger, who sometimes pen-
ciled in the margin "flabby" or "bureau-
ST
cratic bullshit." They are still held in
low esteem at the White House.
Aware of these failings, Turner,
hose two-hat job as CIA chief and di-
I of Central Intelligence gives him
leadership of the entire intelligence
L community, has recruited two top as-
Tsistants for tough assignments:
- Robert Bowie, a Harvard political
scientist and director of State Depart-
ment policy planning under President
Eisenhower, will concentrate on over-
hauling and improving the "National
Intelligence Estimates."
- Robert ("Rusty") Williams, a
management consultant and longtime
friend of Turner's, will review and rec-
ommend changes in the agency's direc-
torate of operations, the much criticized
unit that carries out covert operations.
/Yet it is Turner's promise to make
greater public use of CIA expertise that
is the most striking change. The first
such move was the declassification of
the CIA's assessment of worldwide oil
and gas reserves. Agency veterans fear
that making studies public may reveal
their secret information-gathering tech-
niques and sources. But Deputy Direc-
tor Henry Knoche, a CIA career man
and its second-ranking official, argues
that "there are ways of more adroitly
writing our reports so we don't give away
sources and methods, but can impart our
conclusions." Turner believes too much
secrecy makes it harder to keep the sig-
'We Have to Be More Intelligent'
Even when he is in mufti, his erect
military bearing is obvious. And as Ad-
miral Stansfield Turner passes military
men in the CIA's spacious corridors, they
often salute automatically. When he de-
scends from his seventh-floor oWce in a
private, key-o rated elevator and steps
into his sedan, the chauffeur "calls him
"Admiral" ra er.than "Director." Tur-
ner likes it that way. After 34 years in the
nificant secrets. Says he: "The less we
classify, the better off we are in protect-
ing what we have to protect"
There is one CIA weakness for which
Turner has no ready solution: detecting
and countering the efforts of foreign in-
telligence agents to acquire U.S. secrets.
The weakness stems in part from a
shake-up in which veteran counterspies
were replaced. The shifts took place be?
fore Turner arrived, but Knoche be-
lieves such work requires a periodic
turnover of agents who will go all-out for
a time and then take on other duties. Ex-
plains Knoche: "The work by its nature
-where you constantly have to build
negative or paranoid assumptions--can
almost guarantee a form of illness."
Overall Czar. Another problem is
the prohibition against CIA investiga-
tions of spying within the U.S. By law,
that is an, FBI duty. "The textbooks
say the two agencies shall consult,"
says Knoche, "but the relationships of
people involved at the working level
may differ. We may keep book on a So-
viet intelligence operative in Geneva,
but the minute he transfers, say, to the
Soviet U.N. mission in New York, we
notify the FBI, and then it's over to
them. But the guy following it in New
York may not get himself sexed up
about it at all." Yet Knoche concedes
that giving one unit control of both in-
ternal security and counterintelligence
abroad "would be too much power for
one department." -
No proposal is in the works for that
School in Monterey, Calif., this fall. Tur-
ner points out that Geoffrey is not re-
placing anyone at the CIA and gets only
his regular Navy pay. The admiral sees
the assignment as a chance "to have a
little fun, with a father and son having
something in common to talk about. and
share."
e much attention has centered
on Turner's Annapolis ties with Presi-
ST T14avy, he is all salt.
The admiral and his wife Patricia
dent Cartef, he >ywo were not friends
are living in an officer's house at the ra a ion in 1946 and his selection by
Washington Navy Yard. He plays tennis Carter as CIA director. Turner is, howev-
at 6:45 a.m. twice a week on Navy courts er, working to develop a closer relation-
with a neighbor, Vice Admiral Robert /ship. Although CIA directors have al-
Monroe. He jogs in the evening with his
golden retriever Hornblower, occasion-
ally plays squash at the Pentagon. , r~ c r
Some veteran CIA hands complain
that the naval invasion of CIA has gone
too far. Turner's executive assistant, two
special assistants, his speechwriter and
his staff schedulemakers are all on active
Navy duty. His public affairs chief is a
retired Navy captain. In what even an
aide says was a mistake, Turner brought
ways carried the extra title of director of
Central Intelligence, Turner is the first
4o u~a office away from Langley for
rack for his second hat is a suite of five
rooms in the Old Executive Office Build-
ing next to the White House. He spends
at least a fourth of his working hours
there and sees Carter alone for a half-
hour every Tuesday and Friday. He also
ant, to work temporarllr'1} laP i 1' MR[ K%
kind of centralized authority. But the
creation of an-overall intelligence czar
with Cabinet-level status is being con-
sidered favorably. This intelligence boss
would supervise the budgetsofall the in-
telligence agencies, including those in
the military.
A parallel proposal is being worked
t by a Senate subcommittee under
Kentucky'sk Walter Huddleston. The
Ian wouliTalso: create a National Secu-
rity Council subcommittee to review
proposals for covert operations, ban the
hiring of outsiders to conduct illegal acts
abroad (such as burglaries and antigov-
ernment protests), prohibit political as-
sassinations and require the FBI to secure
federal court orders before conducting
surveillance of suspected spies.
. Congress and the White House must
still work out how uch control the new
czar should havdnver military intelli-
gence officials. A gentlemanly argument
is developing between Turner and De-
fense Secretary Brown over this
some trends are clear. The director of
Central Intelligence will be strength-
ened; his control over budgets, assign-
ments and the collection of information.
will be tightened; and he almost certain-
ly will be Admiral Stansfield Turner.
TURNER IN HIS LANGLEY OFFICE
since an officer can return to active dut
later. Apparently in line to become th
intelligence czar, he scoffs at the notio
Chief of Naval Operations or Chairma
lous!" he says. "I can do as much here fa
military assignment." And why? Says
he: "Thirty years ago, we were hands-
down the predominant military power.
We were a totally independent econom-
ic power. We were the dominant power
in the political sphere. Today we aren't
4
to. tha
MR,
he enters the Naval Defense Intelligence in taking the CIA post. To have done so, means we have to be more intelligent."