ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER AT THE COMMONWEALTH CLUB OF CALIFORNIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000200040003-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 16
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 26, 2007
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: August 5, 1977
• Content Type: REPORT

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L-3
MODERATOR: Welcome. Welcome to the regular Friday
luncheon of the Commonwealth Club of California. And we are
especially happy to see our new members seated across the room
from me, and request the new members to stand so that we can
greet them.
[Applause]
MODERATOR: We are so happy to have you with us and hope
you'll continue to attend these meetings and meet some of the
wonderful members of this organization.
Next Friday, Paul Erdman, international banker and author,
will speak, and the subject of his talk will be "The Crash of '79:
Fact or Fiction?" It's a special ticket luncheon. You must buy
your tickets prior to the meeting because you cannot be assured of
seating if you try to buy them the day of the meeting. We apologize
in advance if you cannot be seated that day. The same applies to
the meeting the next week, which will be Dr. Richard F. Starr
speaking on the subject, "The Soviet Union's Colonial Empire," which
I think will be somewhat of a sequel to Paul Erdman's talk.
Today's speaker, as you are aware if you've been reading
the news, just has stepped into somewhat greater responsibilities
than those designated in the announcement for the meeting. I won't
outline those to you. I think you're all aware of them.
Admiral Stansfield Turner of the United States Navy was
sworn in as Director of Central Intelligence on March 9th, 1977.
He heads the intelligence community, the foreign intelligence
agencies of the United States, as well as the Central Intelligence
Agency.
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He's a native of Highland Park, Illinois and he entered
Amherst College in '41, and two years later was appointed to the
Naval Academy at Annapolis. And after graduation in '46, he served
a year at sea before entering Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar
for work on a masters degree in philosophy, politics, and economics.
After Oxford, he held a variety of sea assignments, including
command of a mine sweeper, a destroyer, and a guided-missile frigate,
which he placed in commission. His shore assignments included the
Political and Military Policy Division in the Office of Chief of
Naval Operations, the Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Systems Analysis, the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business
School, and Executive Assistant and Naval Aide to the Secretary of
the Navy.
He was promoted to rear admiral in May '70, and shortly
thereafter assumed command of a carrier task group of the Sixth
Fleet while serving aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Independence.
After that, he directed the Systems Analysis Division of
the Office of Chief of Naval Operations.
On June 30th, '72, he became the 36th President of the
Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island, with the rank of vice
admiral. During his two-year tenure there he instituted major
revisions in the curriculum to strengthen its academic content.
In August '74 he became Commander of the United States
Second Fleet and NATO Striking Fleet, Atlantic. He served there
until August '75, when he was named to become Commander-in-Chief,
Allied Forces, Southern Europe, headquartered in Naples. Upon
assuming that position on September 1st, '75, he was promoted to
the rank of full admiral. He held this command until his depar-
ture in March '77 to assume his present duties.
Admiral Stansfield, we are honored -- pardon me. Admiral
Turner, we are honored [laughter] -- we are honored to have you
with us.
[Applause]
ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER: Thank you, Ken. A true spy
never goes by his true name, anyway.
[Laughter]
ADMIRAL TURNER: Yesterday President Carter announced a
major reorganization of the intelligence apparatus of our country.
This was the culmination of six months of intensive study. This,
and a number of other recent actions the President has taken with
respect to intelligence, have done much to strengthen our intelli-
gence community.
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First, they have improved the effectiveness of intelli-
gence by insuring strong control over it.
And secondly, they have insured stringent oversight of all
of our intelligence activities and operations.
The strengthening of control has come about by giving to
my office -- that is, the Director of Central Intelligence -- full
responsibility for the budgets of all the various intelligence
agencies of our government and full responsibility for setting the
tasks which those agencies are to go about in attempting to collect
intelligence data.
Intelligence, you see, in our government is dispersed over
a number of agencies and departments, not just in the CIA. There is
intelligence in the State Department, in the Defense Department, in
the Treasury, in the FBI, and even in the new Energy Department. I
happen to be director of one of those intelligence entities, the CIA.
But I have another job, the Director of Central Intelligence. And
the position there, the function there is to bring together in a
cooperative manner all of these intelligence agencies and activities.
The new organizational arrangements which the President has
set forth emphasize the importance of this second assignment which I
have, the pulling together of all of these activities, especially
when collecting intelligence.
Now, the process of collecting -- and that's really a
euphemism for spying -- is one where we want to be particularly
efficient and particularly to have full control, because collec-
ting intelligence is the most expensive part of the business and
it also is the part of the business where there is the greatest
legal and ethical risk.
But collecting is only one half of the business. The other
half is interpreting the data that you have gathered. This is really
research or analysis, just the same as is done in most of our major
corporations and on all of our academic campuses.
And let me make it clear that the President, in his new
plan for the intelligence world of the United States, has by no means
established a czar over intelligence interpretation, as some of the
media have misinterpreted. In point of fact, the new plan s%cifi-
cally provides for the continued independence of interpretive or
analytic agencies within the Department of Defense and the Department
of State, and we seek and we welcome this competitive analysis with
that of the Central Intelligence Agency. We want to have divergent
and different views brought forward. We recognize very clearly that
intelligence does not come by revelation; it always is enshrouded in
some uncertainty, and there are always alternative interpretations.
In fact, I get very suspicious when any intelligence analyst comes
to me with a very precise answer to a particular problem.
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In fact, I had just the other day an interesting experience
in that regard. I was wandering around the halls of the CIA, poking
my head into offices to see what was going on. And I walked into
one, and here were six analysts sitting around a computer terminal.
And I looked as they pressed the buttons and data came out, and I
said, "What are you working on?"
And they looked a little chagrined as they turned to me
and said, "Well, we have a very difficult problem. We've been
tasked to find out whether there are good golf courses in heaven."
Well, I breathed a little and I said, "Now, how do you go
about a difficult assignment like that?"
And they said, "Well, we first turned to the satellite
people and we asked if they could see anything. And then we turned
to the spying people and we said, 'Can you make contact with any-
body in authority?' And then we turned to the signals people and
we said, 'Can you intercept any communications between earth and
the golf facilities?'"
And I said, "Where did you come out?"
And they said, "Well, like good analysts, we tried to be
objective, so we appointed an A team and a B team." And they said,
"The A team comes up with the answer that there's a 73% probability
that there are at least three good golf courses in heaven."
And I said, "That's fine, and I'm very encouraged by that.
But now tell me about Team B."
Well, they hesitated a little bit and they finally said,
"Mr. Director, we have to tell you that Team B finds that next
Tuesday at 10 o'clock is your first tee-off time."
Well, if I'm still here next Tuesday, I believe that the
new organizational arrangement that the President has set forth
will in fact insure better performance in both collecting and inter-
preting our intelligence data. I am confident, also, that the
President and many other of our top executives spent the great
amount of time that they did in developing this new plan because
they recognize the need for good intelligence today, and, in fact,
recognize that it is probably more important to have good intelli-
gence today than 30 years ago, when we first organized a central
intelligence arrangement in our country.
Let's look back 30 years. We were at that time the dominant
military power in the world. We had strategic superiority in every
sense. Since then, the Soviet Union found that they simply cannot
use their system to grow and compete with us in any other area than
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the military, and they have become a world power based on their
military might.
Today, large portions of that military strength is deployed
against the NATO frontiers and ranges across the oceans of the world.
In this condition of rough military parity, it is more essential than
ever that we have good intelligence, because you can obtain real
advantages from being able to understand and estimate a potential
adversaries strength and intentions.
Now, he seldom tells you about this, but he does give away
important clues from time to time. And if you watch these over a
long period and piece them all together, you can gain read advan-
tages, you can gain what can be the difference between victory and
defeat on the battlefield.
But if we look past the military, we also find that there
are great changes in our economic position in these past 30 years.
Thirty years ago we were totally independent economically, and it's
almost too obvious to point to the necessity for importing oil today
to remind ourselves how interdependent our economic status is in
this age. And if we, as a country, do not have good intelligence
data on the economic potential, capabilities and intentions of many
countries around the world, we're simply going to lose out in the
marketplace.
And look, also, at the difference politically in these
past 30 years. Thirty years ago we could almost tell anybody around
the world what we wanted them to do. Today, even some of the smal-
lest evolving nations are determined to go their own way, to do
their own thing, and not to be dictated to by either the United
States or the Soviet Union.
Here again, if we are going to play the role of leadership
in the world that is cast upon us today, we must, through good
intelligence, be able to understand the cultures, the politics, the
personalities, and the economics of many of these countries. If we
don't, we may well be outmaneuvered.
Now, at the same time that we need good intelligence,
perhaps more today than in the past, we are also understandably and
justifiably concerned that intelligence be collected, analyzed, and
employed in ways that are in consonance with our concepts of society.
We simply cannot afford to utilize methods of collecting secret in-
telligence data that our society feels would jeopardize the very
values that we are determined to defend.
Here, then, is where the other half of the President's new
program comes into play: stringent oversight. We have taken a
number of approaches to this.
First, we have reemphasized the importance of the Presi-
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dent's Intelligence Oversight Board. This board, which is consti-
tuted of three very distinguished citizens, is available to you,
to any of my employees, to anyone who wants to write a letter, to
make an appeal and say, "That fellow Turner's doing some dastardly
things." And those appeals, those suggestions go to that board
directly without going through any chain of command, and it then
investigates them and reports only to the President of the United
States.
Beyond this, we have supported legislation, which is now
before the Congress, to insure that any wiretapping done in the
United States in the name of foreign intelligence does not violate
the rights of our citizens.
Next, we have been looking to the past and trying to insure
the public that any abuses that did exist are truly behind us. For
instance, I am pleased to announce to you today, for the first time,
that the recommendations of the recent Rockefeller Commission on
Intelligence, insofar as they were directed at the CIA, have all
been implemented, have all been completed. We took that report ver"
seriously.
We are also looking the past squarely in the eye, even when
it is unpleasant to do so. On Wednesday of this week I presented to
the Congress every detail of information which is available to me on
the drug-related activities of the CIA from 1953 to 1965. Now, that
was 12 to 24 years ago, and we all hate to have to dig up the past
and rehash it when it's unpleasant as this is, especially when we
must recognize that national attitudes and mores change. Often what
was condoned yesterday will be condemned today.
But what happened in this case is that documentation was
found in our retired records archives which had not been found when
there was congressional investigation on this subject about two
years ago. Immediately upon being informed of this find, I felt
obliged to notify the President and the Congress.
Now, some of these revelations concern activities here in
your wonderful city. I'm apologetic for that and regret it. But
I can also assure you that nothing of that sort is or will be
tolerated in the CIA today.
The most inexplicable part of these activities in San
Francisco, and elsewhere in this country, was the testing of drugs
on various individuals without their knowledge or consent. We do
not have the names of the individuals tested, but now that we do
have this additional information, we are making every effort we
can to use the clues that this incomplete information gives us to
identify and locate these people, and notify them.
Now, again I would urge that we recognize that this is
past history, two decades ago. The CIA's frank and open handling
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of this disclosure is part of an effort to open the American intelli-
gence activity to greater public scrutiny than ever in the past. This
is part of a voluntary effort to level with and inform thee American
people without damaging that ongoing intelligence activity which must
be kept secret.
For instance, we have tried to become more accessible to the
media than ever before. We invited the cameras of Time magazine and
of the 60 Minutes program into the CIA building for the first time.
I'm not sure that was really a good idea, because we've lost a lot
of that mystique when the public has found that the James Bonds of
our country go to work in a very ordinary-looking office building and
with very ordinary-looking fellow workers. I just couldn't get Dan
Rather, in any way, to film any of us with a cloak and dagger.
We are also attempting to make more of our product available
to you, the public. The publication of unclassified intelligence
studies is one of the most important substantive initiatives that we
have taken. It stems from a conviction that the intelligence com-
munity works for the American public, and the public is therefore
entitled to benefit by its product to the extent feasible. We intend
to publish in unclassified form the maximum amount of intelligence
analysis that we possibly can.
To date, we've published several major studies which I
believe are making an important contribution to the public debate
in this country.
In March, we published a report on the world energy situ-
ation, and shortly thereafter, two subsidiary studies on the Chinese
and Soviet energy situations. These studies, together, said that
world energy production capability will not meet world demand for
energy sometime in the early to mid-1980s. As a result, there will
be pressure on prices.
Why won't the capability for production meet demand? Well,
one reason is that we estimate that Soviet production of oil is going
to drop off markedly in about 1980.
Now, the Soviets haven't told us this. They haven't told
anyone, even though this will have a major impact on the entire
world's economy. After all, the Soviet Union is today the largest
producer of oil in the world.
But we have, through our intelligence, deduced this, pieced
together enough information to have good confidence that this will
be the case, and we've done this largely through open sources of
unclassified information.
Now, I want to make it clear that we're not talking about
the world running out of oil, running dry, or when that may happen.
What we're simply talking about is the next seven to eight years,
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and whether we can physically get enough oil out of the ground to
meet increasing demand, even taking into account the prospects for
shifting from oil to coal and nuclear power and other alternative
sources of energy. We simply think that's not likely to happen and
that there is going to be a supply and price crunch sometime in the
early to mid-1980s.
After that, after 1985 or so, there are more opportunities
for substitution, more opportunities for conservation, and so on,
and it's a different question.
Now, one of the side benefits that we feel from publishing
this type of study to the public is that it leads to exchanges with
our critics. I personally wrote to ever critic of this study of
energy and asked for their detailed comments and criticisms. And
those who replied were invited to come and spend a day with us and
talk to the authors of this study and exchange ideas. And this has
been very beneficial to us, and I hope to encourage this kind of
interchange between intelligence analysts and academic and industrial
communities.
We have also recently delivered a study to the Joint Economic
Committee of Congress which they will release to the public next
Tuesday. This is a study of the prospects for the entire Soviet
economy over the next decade. We believe there are indicators that
the Soviets have some very difficult problems ahead. In part, this
is because of the oil situation that I have just described; in part,
it's because of demographic factors which are going to slow the rate
of growth of their labor force.
Now, in neither case, of the oil studies or the Soviet
economy study, are we predicting that the Soviets' economic problems
are insurmountable. What we're simply saying is that some of the
characteristics of the Soviet economy -- its rigidity, its adherence
to a false economic philosophy -- and some of the indicators of its
performance in the recent past lead us to believe that the Soviet
leadership is going to be facing some very difficult choices.
For instance, can they continue to export a million-and-a-
half barrels of oil a day to their Eastern European satellites, or
will they need to divert some of that to areas where they can earn
hard currency?
For instance, will they let their economy slow down, or
will they come to the United States and the rest of the Western
World and ask for increased credits from us?
For instance, can they meet their increasing demands for
labor in their industry and still maintain their huge military
establishment?
Now, these are just some of the kinds of implications of
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our findings on the Soviet economy. It's my hope that these studies,
when released to the public, will contribute another perspective to
an informed public debate on these issues and that they will also
help to engage the American public with the intelligence community.
Let me assure you, however, that we cannot and we will not
open up everything. An essential ingredient of an effective intelli-
gence operation is the ability to preserve some secrets. Some of
the information behind the Soviet oil and economy studies was derived
from secret sources, sources which would dry up if we were to reveal
them. Thus, we cannot forget that while we are moving to demystify
intelligence and to build public understanding and support for what
we do in the defense of our country, we must ask and obtain the
public's cooperation in preserving that level of secrecy which is
essential to these activities.
In short, today we are working in two separate directions
simultaneously: declassifying information that needs not be classi-
fied, and by so doing attempting to promote a greater respect for
that information that must remain secret; and secondly, on the
other side of the coin, drawing a tighter protective circle around
that information and those activities which are truly secret. We're
downgrading more information to unclassify it and publishing it for
public use on the one hand, and enforcing tighter, greater controls
on secrecy, where justified, on the other.
Let me wrap up with three points.
The first is your intelligence community is a unique
national resource, it's one without which this country could not
operate as well as it does in the complicated world we live in
today. It must be preserved.
Secondly, because of the intense interest in the Congress
in intelligence oversight and the personal interest of the President
and the Vice President, as well as the increased sensitivity within
the intelligence community itself to matters of legality, morality
and ethics, I can assure you that the intelligence community is
doing the job that it was created to do, is doing it very compe-
tently, and is doing nothing else.
And finally, you will be hearing from your intelligence
community. I intend to make the public one of the direct benefi-
ciaries of our efforts to a degree that has never been attempted
before. I ask your interest and your support.
Thank you.
4A7, r"se-l
MODERATOR: Thank you, Admiral Turner -- I got it right
that time. I think, from the prolonged applause, that I can speak
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for the entire audience to say we're grateful that you're in the
spot that you are; we think we're in competent hands.
MODERATOR: If you'll now return to the podium, our presi-
dent, David McDaniel, will present to you for your answers questions
selected from those submitted to him in writing from the audience.
DAVID MCDANIEL: Thank you, Ken.
MCDANIEL: And now, Admiral Turner, after those pleasant
duties have been achieved, if you'll return. I am assured by our
member today that this question reflects some items that were
locally in the newspapers, and is not intended to be a reflection
on the excellent management of the Palace Hotel.
Can you assure us that your agents have not done anything
to the food today?
E } ugh t_er
ADMIRAL TURNER: They better not -- they better not have,
since I ate here, too.
[ .L.augt to r ]
MCDANIEL: Admiral Turner, in your judgment, would the
concentration of intelligence power just granted you represent a
threat to the American people in the hands of a less-honorable
successor?
ADMIRAL TURNER: I believe that the checks and the balances,
some of which I described to you in my remarks, are ample insurance
against that. An more than that, when you have a lot of divided
authorities over delicate operations like these, it's possible that
one branch will go off in one direction and one in the other without
someone being sure to be in control of the whole thing.
I believe sincerely that this centralization of control
over this collection side of the intelligence business is much to
the public's benefit and gives a much greater sense that there will
be control and responsiblity. The President, the Congress can now
look at me and say, "You've got the sack and you'd better do the
job," whereas before it was more difficult to do that.
MCDANIEL: Admiral Turner, will your new duties as head of
all intelligence agencies also include some supervision of the FBI
in its counterintelligence work in the internal security field?
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ADMIRAL TURNER: We have no connection with the FBI when
it comes to the execution of justice -- or, the pursuit of justice
in the United States. But -- the CIA has no mandate in the United
States, the FBI has no mandate overseas.
So, when it comes to counter-intelligence, protecting our-
selves against the intelligence operations of foreign powers inside
the United States, that is the FBI's responsibility. Overseas, the
CIA does that. And like a football game, we have a handoff of the
ball here when the activity moves from overseas to the United States;
if a foreign agent comes into this country from overseas, for in-
stance.
To that extent, my new budget control authority will include
the FBI, to the extent that they are working in this collaborative
counterintelligence effort.
MCDANIEL: Thank you, Admiral Turner. You anticipated, in
a way, this question: Is the Director of the CIA replaceable at
any time at the whim of the President?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Absolutely.
MCDANIEL: Is it true, as Patrick Moynihan has suggested,
that we do not crack down on spying by Russia and other countries
within the United States because we fear retaliation by these coun-
tries on our intelligence-gathering abroad?
ADMIRAL TURNER: This is a very difficult, complex technical
issue. It is one of what we can do to crack down on spying in the
United States and it's one that actually transcends the intelligence
field, the foreign intelligence field itself, as such.
Today, with the increased dependence of all of us on com-
munications that go through the airwaves, great quantities of com-
munications driven today, of course, by computers, all of us are
vulnerable to the intercept of those communications on the airways,
not only by foreign powers, by competing commercial and industrial
activities, by illegal operatives in our own country. And we are
trying very sincerely and have been studying for many months how
to protect the citizen, the industry and commerce of our country,
and the government from intrusion from all of these sources. It
is not easy and it may be very expensive to provide a hundred per-
cent protection. We're trying to find the best mix to do that today.
-t-
MCDANIEL: To what extend( is there major duplication of
intelligence effort by government agencies, and how much money is
wasted by such duplication?
ADMIRAL TURNER: One of the objectives of this centrali-
zation of authority for collection is to eliminate wha duplication
there may be that is not desirable or necessary. I don't think it
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is large. And, in fact, I am almost more interested in my new role
of authority, to some degree, over all of these intelligence agencies
of insuring you that we're not dropping the ball between the cracks.
We want to be sure that, between us, we are collecting all the infor-
mation that we really need. But we are also going to look to elim-
inate any unnecessary duplication.
On the other hand, as I tried to emphasize, when it comes
to analyzing this information, we want duplication. It's not very
expensive, to begin with, but it's very critical.
The Defense Department analyzes largely military, but asso-
ciated political activity. The State Department analyzes largely
political and associated economic activity. The CIA analyzes econ-
omic, political and military activity. And that overlapping and
intermeshing is what assures you that the President, the Secretaries
of State and Defense, the military commanders, and others will not
just get one man's opinion.
MCDANIEL: Admiral Turner, it has been documented that the
Central Intelligence Agency covertly intervened in the political
affairs of Allende's government in Chile on behalf of American
business interests. Assuming a similar situation in the future,
would you advocate this type of intelligence operation?
ADMIRAL TURNER: I don't accept the premise, but I deny
that we would do it again.
.[.,La-ughter and applause]
ADMIRAL TURNER: Let me say that I have not touched today
on what is known as covert action. Covert action is not an intelli-
gence operation. Covert action is attempting to influence events
in a foreign country without anyone knowing who did the influencing.
If it's overthrowing a government, if it's issuing propaganda, if
it's changing the economic structure, or whatever it may be, that's
covert action.
The CIA is the covert-action activity of our country; it's
been given that responsibility in addition to its intelligence
responsibilities. But in recent years, we have established controls
on that. There is no way that I can initiate a covert action of
this type from the CIA. I must be asked for what we could do in a
given situation by the National Security Council. I must then make
that proposal. It must be approved by the National Security Council.
The President himself must sign in writing that he approves this
action. And then I must go notify seven committees of the Congress
that we are going to do it. And if it isn't public by then, we'll
do it.
f;augWt-e r-1
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MCDANIEL: The next question: How long do you think it
will take to regain the effectiveness overseas in carrying out
their legitimate intelligence functions that has been lost over
recent years of adverse publicity?
ADMIRAL TURNER: There's no way to answer that with a
number, but I will certainly agree that we have been grievously
injured in our intelligence capabilities by some of the unfortunate
revelations, not just revelations of misdoing, but revelations of
important information; traitors, like Mr. Agee and others, who have
published, from their knowledge of the Central Intelligence Agency,
the names of agents, the names of people and places, and so on.
And it takes a while to recoup and to regain confidence.
We've had a number of people who were, in my view, heroes,
people who were not American citizens but who were working for us
overseas at the risk of their life because they believed in us,
come to us and say, "Can I risk working for you any longer? Will
my name appear in The Washington Post tomorrow?" And it's a diffi-
cult answer for me to give. And I've had to personally intervene
in some of these to try to hang on to the splendid cooperation
we're getting.
I can only say that there is a delicate balance in this
country between what we all believe in, in the freedom of infor-
mation, the freedom of inquiry, and the unnecessary exposure of
delicate, sensitive, critical national security information.
MCDANIEL: Admiral Turner, perhaps this question should
not be addressed to you, but here it is. What is the justification
for the public nature of the investigation of the CIA's past acti-
vities, which not only lowers morale of the agencies but which may
support anti-defense propaganda?
A])MIRAL TURNER: I think the justification is the Consti-
tution of the United States and the establishment of the balance
of powers between the Congress and the Executive Branch and the
Judiciary. I think it's a very necessary thing. But just as in
my last answer, there has to be a balance, and I think the creation
of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the very recent
creation of a corresponding committee in the House is helping us
to have the Congress put these investigations into the right per-
spective. And I think we're moving in a very healthy direction
here.
objects?
MCDANIEL: Does the CIA have a book on unidentified flying
ADMIRAL TURNER: We have so many requests for information
under what's known as the Freedom of Information Act on unidentified
flying objects that whereas we normally charge you if you write in
for this kind of material, the costs of reproducing it and so on,
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that we've decided that there's so many of this, we have to give it
away for free. But it's not that we're involved in unidentified
flying objects; we are simply giving out whatever intelligence infor-
mation we've received.
Agency?
MCDANIEL: What is the budget of the Central Intelligence
A])MIRAL TURNER: President Carter and I have taken the
position that we are not opposed to the Congress's publishing a
single intelligence budget figure. We are very opposed to breaking
that figure down into the CIA and the various other components.
Because if it's broken down, an adversary can find out where you're
putting your emphasis, and that's where he puts his counter-emphasis.
But in order to keep the public better informed and to put
into some perspective what the magnitude of our operations are, we
have told the Congress we would not oppose their publishing a single
figure.
It's very interesting. The Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence debated this issue and voted 9-to-8 -- not on partisan
or ideological grounds; they were shifting all voer the place -- to
release the information. And now they're going to debate it in the
full Senate. And we'll see, probably in September, whether the
Senate elects to make this figure public or to keep it secret.
MCDANIEL: Is there any shortage of highly-trained or
capable applicants and recruits for CIA intelligence work?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Fortunately, no. And I'm very proud of
the young people of our country, because despite the adverse pub-
licity, and particularly on the college campuses, they are per-
ceptive enough to see through this. And we continue to receive
applications at the rate of about 10 for every opening of fine
young men and women who are willing to accept what is really a
lot of privation when you decide to become a member of the CIA;
and you can't, sometimes, tell your family what you're doing or
where you work, let alone your friends and others, and you can't
get much public acclaim for it.
And they're coming to us, still, and we're very pleased;
but it's one of my major concerns, to maintain that esprit, that
attractiveness. Because if we don't, we won't have anything to
speak of in 10 or 15 years.
MCDANIEL: The next question is: How does one go about
getting a job with the CIA?
-~Iraug-ht`er
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Charles, would you stand up?
We have an office here in San Francisco; it's in the phone
book. And if you give us a call, we'll be very happy to give you
all that information. If that isn't convenient, get a postcard
and write "CIA, Washington, D.C." and put on the back, "I'd like
to join up"; and we'll send you all the information.
MCDANIEL: Thank you, Admiral Turner. We have time for
only one more question, and when that is answered, this meeting
will stand adjourned without further ceremony.
Before I ask that question, however, Admiral Stansfield
Turner, I should like to thank you on behalf of the Commonwealth
Club of California and its members and guests assembled here in
the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, and also on behalf of the
listeners on 110 radio stations over which your remarks will be
rebroadcast during the coming week.
I think that that's a complete sentence. I'll assume
that it is.
The last question, Admiral Turner, is: As an admiral,
how does it feel to report to a Commander-in-Chief who was merely
a lieutenant?
ADMIRAL TURNER: I say aye-aye every day.
[Laughter and applause]
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