PUBLIC AFFAIRS ADVISORY GROUP FACT SHEET

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86B00985R000100030010-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 29, 2005
• Sequence Number: 10
• Content Type: REGULATION

PUBLIC AFFAIRS
Phone: [phone]
PUBLIC AFFAIRS ADVISORY GROUP
FACT SHEET
The Public Affairs Advisory Group (PAAG) was established
on 15 August 1978 to:
provide for an Agency-wide exchange of information
and ideas related to the Public Affairs role; and
to assist in organizing and maintaining a Speakers
Bureau.
Background:
The Public Affairs Office is in daily contact with offices
throughout the Agency obtaining appropriate responses to queries from
the media and the public. The office also responds to numerous queries
from employees on a wide range of questions concerning the media.
Contacts with employees frequently reveal areas of misunderstanding
and sometimes misinterpretation of public affairs. Sometimes (but not
often enough). employees make suggestions and generate ideas that are
used to good advantage.
With the establishment of PAAG,'the opportunity for a regular
exchange of ideas will enhance the consistency, articulation, and
informed judgements that shape the Agency's public affairs.
The public attention which CIA has received in recent years has
caused a rush of requests for Agency speakers to address a wide
variety of audiences. Many requests represent important opportunities
to tell the story of U.S. foreign intelligence, to describe the role
of the DCI in government, and to generally put the Agency's best foot
forward. Lack of organization and resources cause us-to turn down
many more speaking requests than we are able to accept.
The Speakers Bureau could provide assistance, briefing aids,
travel information, background material, and current policy state-
ments to Agency speakers. A well-informed and well-supplied
speakers bureau would greatly enhance the way CIA comes across to
the public, and in the long run, build a better understanding of
the Agency.
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 WASHINGTON. D.C. 20505
PUBLIC AFFAIRS
Phone: [phone]
HISTORY OF CIA PUBLIC AFFAIRS
Born in 1947 of a war-proven need for intelligence coordination, the Central
Intelligence Agency was accepted implicitly in its early years as essential for
national security. Few questioned its activities, let alone its existence, in a
nation preoccupied with its own post-war emergence as the premier world
power.
But as peacetime normalcy returned and Agency activities expanded, the
American press and public turned. their attentions inward, and the CIA fell
under increasing public scrutiny. In its first four years CIA had no individual
officer formally designated to deal with public queries, but in spring of 1951,
current Director of Central Intelligence General Walter B. Smith appointed
Colonel Chester B. Hansen-a former public relations aide to General Omar
Bradley-as the Agency's first "spokesman."
Hansen, called back to Air Force duty after less than two years in this
capacity, was followed by a succession of press officers whose official titles
changed as their duties grew broader. CIA moved into the public affairs area
with no little trepidation. The sensitive nature of the Agency's business made
exchanges with the press necessarily limited, and often as much time was spent
deflecting media queries with the standard "no comment," as answering them.
Hard as it tried, however, the Agency could not avoid the spotlight. Indeed,
the public affairs function at CIA developed largely in response to a need for
crisis handling-a kind of ad hoc evolution by "flap." Colonel Hansen dealt
with a 1952 uproar over alleged Communist penetration of the CIA. Colonel
Stanley J. Grogan inherited Hansen's troubles with Senator Joseph McCarthy,
who continued to press the charge that the CIA was infiltrated by Communists.
Grogan also found himself dealing with public and congressional criticism for
CIA activities in Iran (1953) and Guatemala (1954), along with the U-2/Gary
Powers incident (1961) and the ill-fated Bay of Pigs landing (1962).
Grogan was succeeded by Paul M. Chretien, who encountered a new series of
"flaps" over exposure of CIA operations in Vietnam at the time of the 1963
coup and Diem assassination, former President Truman's public repudiation of
CIA covert action, and acknowledgement by MIT's Center of International
Studies that it was originally subsidized by CIA in 1.953.
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Chretien's successor, Navy Commander George F. Moran, fielded inquiries
about accusations in 1966 from Singapore's Prime Minister that the Agency had
attempted to bribe his intelligence authorities six years earlier, and prepared to
cooperate with a Senate investigation of the Agency, called for by Senator
Eugene McCarthy. Moran's successor, Joseph C. Goodwin, handled charges
from Ramparts magazine that the Agency had infiltrated and financed the
National Students Association. Angus Thuermer, who replaced Goodwin in
1971, had his own hands full with the 1972 ITT-Chile story and the Watergate
break-ins, as well as the Rockefeller, Church and Pike committee reports.
Andrew Falkiewicz, Thuermer's successor, also had his share of crises in a very
short term.
CIA press officers sometimes did have the more enjoyable task of handling
inquiries on CIA successes, notably CIA's role in the Cuban missile crisis of
September-November 1962 and the Agency's accurate reporting on the six-day
war between Israel and the Arabs in 1967. But for the most part, as President
Kennedy told CIA employees in 1961, "Your successes are unheralded-your
failures are trumpeted." CIA press officers frequently were forced to adopt a
defensive posture in dealing with the press and the public.
In the 1970's there has been growing perception that CIA has a critical public
affairs function extending beyond the traditional handling of media queries
provoked by controversy. As public interest in the Agency has increased, the
number of personnel required to handle that interest has grown accordingly,
and their tasks and responsibilities have changed. Admiral Stansfield Turner, in
setting up a special office designated the Public Affairs Office in 1977, with
Herbert E. Hetu as its head, made the Agency's first formal acknowledgement
that CIA's public affairs function had assumed identifiable significance and
proportion.
Thus, CIA Public Affairs today has expanded in many areas: media
responses, arrangements for public appearances by the Director of Central
Intelligence, pamphlets and brochures, background briefings for the media,
chairing of the Publication Review Board for manuscripts to be published
outside the Agency by employees or former employees, handling of public
inquiries, and providing advice to Agency departments on matters involving
the public.
The Public Affairs Office still has the responsibility, as does every CIA
component, of protecting intelligence sources and methods, and of maintaining
secrecy where secrecy is necessary. But no longer is the office encouraged to
say as little as possible about the Agency. The once traditional two-man office
charged. with answering media queries with a "no comment" has become an
expanded office intent on informing the public as extensively as possible about
CIA, within the bounds of necessary security.
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PUBLIC AFFAIRS
Phone: [phone]
PUBLIC AFFAIRS CHRONOLOGY
22 January 1946 Central Intelligence Group (CIG) was established by
Presidential Directive and first Director of Central Intel-
ligence was appointed. No one formally designated to
deal with public queries.
18 September 1947 The National Security Act of 1947 replaced the CIG with
the Central Intelligence Agency. No one yet designated to
deal with public.
14 May 1951 The first "CIA Spokeman," Col. Chester B. Hansen (a
former public relations aide to General Omar Bradley)
was appointed by the then DCI, General Walter Bedell
Smith. Hansen was charged with dealing with the press
and drafting DCI presentations to Congress.
29 September 1952 General Smith, testifying at a court hearing, stated that
there were Communists in the CIA and that these "adroit
and adept" persons probably had sneaked into all other
security groups. The statement precipitated a rare press
conference held the next day to clarify and modify the
statement.
7 October 1952 Col. Stanley Grogan, an Army public affairs specialist,
took over as CIA spokesman and his office was designated
the Office of the Assistant to the Director of Central
Intelligence. Serving in the position for 10 years, he dealt
with the McCarthy hearings, Agency operations in Iran
and Guatemala, the U-2 incident, the Bay of Pigs and the
Cuban missile crisis.
10 November 1963 After suffering a heart attack, Grogan was replaced by
Paul M. Chretien. During his tenure, the first book
critical of the Agency-The Invisible Government by
David Wise and Thomas Ross-was published. Also
Chretien retained Col. Grogan on a consultative basis and
added John A. Mellin to the office.
ca
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28 April 1965 The new DCI, Vice Admiral William F. Raborn, named
Cdr. George F. Moran to replace Chretien. Moran acted
primarily as the personal aide to Admiral Raborn and the
maintenance of press contacts and the day-to-day opera-
tion of the office was left to Mellin and Grogan.
29 August 1966 Joseph A. Goodwin, an intelligence officer in the Direc-
torate of Plans (DDP) and a former Associated Press
editor and war correspondent, was named by then Direc-
tor Richard Helms to replace Moran as the Assistant to
the Director. During his period in office, the Ramparts
magazine charges concerning CIA infiltration of the
National Students Association were published. The re-
porting on the six-day war between Israel and the Arabs
won plaudits during Goodwin's tenure.
1 November 1971 Angus Thuermer, a former Associated Press correspon-
dent and veteran intelligence officer, was appointed
Assistant to the Director. The ITT-Chile story broke in
March 1972 and the Watergate break-in followed in
June. In addition, the New York Times stories alleging
CIA conduct of "massive illegal domestic intelligence
operation during the Nixon administration. . . . " ap-
peared and the Glomar Explorer revelation followed.
13 June 1976 Shortly after George Bush replaced William E. Colby as
DCI, he appointed Andrew T. Falkiewicz, a career USIA
officer, as Assistant to the Director.
28 March 1977 Admiral Stansfield Turner, in his first appointment
after becoming Director of Central intelligence, named
Herbert E. Hetu to head a new Public Affairs Office
with a mandate to inform the American public about the
role of the intelligence process.
24 July 1977 CBS 60 Minutes aired "Report on the CIA" marking the
first of several times cameras were to be allowed into the
Headquarters building.
24 January 1978 Executive Order 12036 reshaped the United States intelli-
gence structure and charged the DCI to "act, in appropri-
ate consultation with the departments and agencies, as
the intelligence Community's principal spokesperson to
the Congress, the news media and the public.... "
15 April 1978 Public Affairs acquired status of independent office.
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