ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER'S PRESENTATION TO APEX SEMINAR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01554R003100160001-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2005
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 5, 1980
• Content Type: SPEECH

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+imirdi Stansfielc -Jurrer
- esentation to Apex Seminar
Monday, 5 May 1980
Thank you all for being here. I thought I owed it to you to
give a little explanation of how we got here, and how this all started
not quite two years ago.
Actually, it started before the Kampiles case, but that was
an important catalyst in bringing this subject to the fore in the
Intelligence Community. It actually started at a retreat that I
held with the leaders of the Intelligence Community, where we talked
about the problem of security and the example of Kampiles, and leaks
in general. When the codeword system came up, I went around the room
and asked for an explanation of a list of codewords I brought with me
and which I did not understand. I found that even the leaders of the
Intelligence Community couldn't explain what each of them was intended
to achieve. That was embarrassing, but it made us feel, as a group,
that we had a system here that had just grown up over four decades and,
quite understandably, had grown in different sequences as the different
systems had come on the line.
There were separate systems, they were uncoordinated, they
sometimes had conflicting or at least different instructions. There
were instructions that particularly hurt people where there were
multiple disciplines involved and particularly in industry--when a
contractor had contracts with different programs that operated
under different, compartmented, control systems. It also had the
feature that more and more of our material was gravitating into the
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compartments. So we resolved to try to study whether something could
We had two objectives in mind. The primary and the foremost one
was to increase security. But, almost equally important was to make
access to material that was then compartmented more available where it
was proper to do so, with less encumbrances.
I asked. retired General John Voght, United States Air Force,
to come and give us some help. I knew him as an individual with deep
experience in these areas. As someone who, because he was a senior
operational commander before he retired from the Air Force, could well
represent the operational side of the house and the need for access to
the kind of valuable information we produce in the compartmented categor-
ries. But, also someone who had a deep understanding of the need for
preserving our secrets where they had to be preserved. He used the old
studies that had been done--the Pettibone study, the Taylor study, the
Cook study. With a very short deadline, re came up with an outline of
much of what we have today. His objective was to simplify, if it could
possibly be done., to get uniform standards and measures and rules and
procedures, to downgrade or declassify as much as was compatible with
preserving our sources and methods, to strengthen the need-to-know
principle in the system and, overall, to protect what really are the
true secrets.
My response to what he did was very favorable. I turned it over
to an NFIB Working Group which tried to get total unanimity in our wide
Community on the report and how to go about it. Clearly, the NFIB
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work ng Group did make some very substantial changes and improvements
because they represented the view of those who really were going to
put the new system to work. As a result of their very fine effort,
we have a single Community-wide system here. It does provide for more
dissemination to the consumers, but it also provides for tighter control
of what really needs to be controlled.
We try to control what needs to be controlled in two principal
ways. We have created operational compartments which really are not
much different than the existing plethora of compartments that we
have today. They are needed to protect tFe technical methods by which
we collect intelligence information. It is important, however, that
not as many people know the details of those systems as in the past.
The Kampiles case again being a prime example of a document which
contained far more technical information about the workings of a technical
system than was necessary for the people in the operations center where
Kampiles was located, for instance, to use. We have, however, recognized
We have, however, recognized that analysts do need an interface with
the collectors. That is a critical point in our intelligence efforts.
Therefore, we have created an.operational subcompartment category where
a limited number of analysts' supervisors will have access to a limited
amount of the operational technical details on these collection systems.
So, in that one sense, we are trying to close down access that is not
needed to the details of our operational systems which, if spewed out as
they were by Kamplies, would cost this country billions of dollars and,
perhaps, our security.
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We are also creating what is known as the ROYAL category in APEX
in which a very limited number of extremely sensitive content data will
be set aside. We do not have the final procedures for establishing what
is in ROYAL and what is not in ROYAL ironed out at this point, but we
are very close to it. There will be tight controls on what can be put
into this category so that it does not grow out of all bounds. These will
be the real exclusives; those few pieces of information which provide our
policymakers a real advantage if the other side does not know that we
know them.
The bulk of APEX material will be in the four product compartments:
Technical, Humint, Comint and Imagery. But even here, we are looking
toward a major decompartmentation effort which has already been estab-
lished within the rules of APEX. Under certain categories, this will
take what now is codeword material and move it down into the genser
categories. Let me emphasize here that we are not talking about
declassifying. We are talking about respecting the classification of
CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET and TOP SECRET as they should be, and moving into
them what we can if it will not jeopardize the technical methods of
collecting this information, or Humint sources. By moving more infor-
mation into these categories, more people can have access to it and do
something useful with it for the country. We hope this will reduce
the volume of compartmentation, which will be an important step for
security. When everything is overclassified we have a disregard, a
distain for classification, and we do not pay as much attention to the
details of handling and caring for that information that we should. So
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tiie decompartmentation effort to reduce the quantity of material in these
four APEX codeword 'compartments is a very important element"of this program.
Making more information available in the SECRET, CONFIDENTIAL, TOP
SECRET categories is of particular importance to the military. A great
deal has been done in the last three to four years to try to make the
national collection systems available to the military commander. There
is still a great distance to be covered for these systems to have real
potential for helping the military commander to do things that he just
cannot do with his own tactical systems. In some cases there is an
overlap. Understandably, there should be. But, there are capabilities
well behind the front lines, in particular, where our national systems
can provide almost critical support to the military commander. -Getting
this to the point where it can be managed and handled in a timely manner
is going to be of great importance to the military commander. So we
hope in this effort to decompartment, to find the important judgment
lines between what, if it does get out--which it should not even from TOP
SECRET, SECRET and CONFIDENTIAL--will do serious hare, and what will not.
Overall then, we hope for better security within the four major
compartments of APEX and the operational compartments and the ROYAL
compartment. We hope, because volume will be reduced, that there will
be fewer resources needed and there would be a greater economy of effort
in the whole program. That does not help you as you sit here today
because there is going to be a great deal of additional effort required
to get started. How you undertake that, how you indoctrinate, train those
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who are going to make this system work in your departments and agencies,
will be absolutely critical to the success of this program.
But it is much more than that. It is critical to the country. We
have made a very important and a very fundamental decision here. There
is no walking back from it. If we do not make it work, we will not have
the old system to fall back on, and we will not have a good new one. The
security of the country would be in serious jeopardy. This was a very
studied, a very thorough, a very deliberate decision. It was a difficult
one to take because clearly it was going to be costly in terms of effort
to make it effective. We have made that decision. We have crossed that
bridge. It is now up to you in very large measure to provide the impetus
to get it going and get it going on the right foot. I hope in that process
that in addition to teaching people the specific details, you will keep in
mind that basic security consciousness, basic discipline in handling
classified material is the ultimate measure of success of this country's
security. .
Therefore, as you revitalize people in the process of installing APEX,
you will also be doing what is needed regularly, regardless of what security
system is in effect. That is bringing to people's attention the importance
of being attentive, being exacting, being disciplined in their handling of
highly classified information. That, I think, we have to do in any event.
I hope you will achieve that also in the process of installing this new
APEX system. Between the two--the general indoctrination and the renewed
attention to the specifics of how you handle individual types of classified
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material, we have a marvelous opportunity here to direct the attention
to security throughout the national security establishment: I can assure
you that picking up the paper and groaning as I do at what I see, I do
not believe there is anything more important to the Intelligence
Community of this country today than to tighten up on our security. We
talk a lot about getting new laws passed. I am up there lobbying all the
time. We talk a great deal about what other people can do and why the
leaks come from this department or that, or about official spokesmen who
say things they should not say. I assure you those things all bother me
tremendously. We are working as best we can to correct them. But at the
root of it all is the day-to-day security procedures and system of the
government. That system is now APEX. It is now up to you to help us get
APEX installed, to get it moving so that nothing drops between the--cracks--
as we shift from the old system to the new. And, in the process, we
heighten the interest, the attention, the sense of dedication of all
of our many thousands of people who handle sensitive material so that
we can, in fact, begin again to keep secrets where they belong. Thank
you very much for what you are going to do.
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