THE CIA: HOW BADLY HURT?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000300030025-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 28, 2007
• Sequence Number: 25
• Publication Date: February 6, 1978
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

 :;1r Li Approved For. Release 20071D3/01 .;.CIA-RDP99.]
The Spy named Hook slumped into an overstuffed chair in the old
Mamounia Hotel in Marrakech to wait for his contact-and think things
through. His best Arab sources seemed to be ducking him these days.
Even the British weren't talking to him more than they had to--not that the
bloody Brits had much to say anyway. Back home, the President and
Congres werewatching the CIA more closely than ever before. Young
guys were getting out of The Company and heading'for fafadvances Omni
publishers in Nevr York. Old guys, his friends, were getting pink slips right
and left. And theysaid the new directorseemed to trustelectronic gadgets
in the sky more than men who knew how to keep an earto the ground. "How
the hell are we gonna stay ahead of the KGB?" Hook thought. He waited,
but his man didn't show up. Strike three. Finally he got-up, walked slowly
back to the station, filed yet another no-news-is-good-news re-
port to Langley--and started thinking about his wretched pension.
Hook is a fiction but his prob-
lems are very' real facts of) ife
around The Company these
days. "For the first-time in my
experience the CIA is demor-
alized," says formerDeputy
Director E. Henry Knoche, a career man
who resigned last summer. Some nor-
mally tight-lipped spies now charge in?-
grily that the CIA's director, Adm. Stans-
field Turner, is an abrasive martinet who
doesn't understand the first thing about
spycraft. Others around the agency's
Langley, Va., headquarters maintain that
squeaky-clean new rules set by Carter
and Congress to control the old and often
dirty business of espionage are seriously
hobbling the CIA's covert operatives,
weakening its network of foreign spies
and straining its relations with friendly
intelligence services. Said one worried
spook: "It's a total disaster."
That damage assessment was
probably exaggerated, but the
deeper issues it raised troubled
burner meets with top aides at Langley: T`
Carter, Turner and their. critics alike.
How much harm has three years of unre-
lenting public exposure of CIA misdeeds
and mistakes doneto the agency? Has the
intelligence community got its sensitive
machines and sophisticated staff pulling
together or against one another? What ca n
be done to cut deadwood from the CIA?
And, most important, how.should Car-
ter-or any President----square legitimate
needs for espionage and-covert capabili-
ties with the country's fundamental
democratic values and processes? "We
want an accountable structure," Vice
President Walter F. `Mondale promised
recently. And Turner told NEWSWEEK
that tighter controls and more coordina-
tion around the CIA-and the rest of the
nation's supersecret intelligence com-
munity----were making things better, notf
worse. "This place is producing," he said
(page 29). . -
Outwardly, at least, there seemed to be .
ample evidence of that. As usual last -
week, sophisticated U.S. spy satellites-
scanned the remote corners of the earth,
giant electronic "ears" drew signals and
secrets out of the airwaves, computers at
CIA headquarters purred and the agen- I
cy's daily intelligence briefing landed on
Jimmy Carter's desk each morning
around 8 o'clock-right on time. To give
the President a cloak-and-dagger capa-
bility, NEWSWEEK learned, the CIA
keeps in reserve a skeleton crew of 30
covert operatives and 50 paramilitary ex-
perts. And there were signs -that the agency maybe working to build a new,
 gestion was whether the agency needed a clean sweep with a stiff broom
even more secret service despite-in-
deed, because of-all the recent scrutiny
and criticism. "We are dealing with our
cover impediments by creating a truly
clandestine corps of operations officers,"
notes one section of an ambitious five-
year plan drafted at Langley last year.
"[This will be] an extremely delicate
undertaking with many complex oper-
ations and support ramifications that will
require adroit handling by our most ex-
perienced people."
Both Congress and Carter- are casting
about for adroit ways oftheir own to exert
more quality control over the CIA's
"product"=a blend of military, econom-
ic, political and scientific intelligence
that aims to be this nation's best window
lousy," says New York Rep. Otis Pike, a
critic who believes it costs more than it's
worth. And a top White House strategist
concedes that CIA reports are often too
tame. "Technologically, we're awfully
good," says another Presidential confi-
dant. "But when it comes to foreign poli-
cy-what other governments think of
you, what they think of themselves, what
their strategy is and what they think your
strategy is-our intelligence is not very
good."
SUPERSPOOK
In the hopes of improving things, the
CIA is importing Ambassador to Portu-
gal Frank Carlucci,. 47, a tough-minded
administrator who ran the Office of Eco-
on the world. "Their -intelligence is., nomic Opportunity for Richard Nixor1,
as Turner's top deputy who will take
charge of day-to-day operations. And
last week, the President signed an Exec-
utive order giving CIA boss Turner
broader responsibility for the U.S. intel-
ligence "community"-including the
Defense Intelligence Agency, National
Reconnaissance Office and the electron-
is wizards of the National SecurityAgency-a development that may ulti-
mately make Turner the most powerful
and controversial sauperspook since Al- ?
len Dulles in the Eisenhower era of
cold-war brinkmanship.
Turner steamed into Langley last
March under full power and a somewhat
vague mission from Carter.to 'take bold
action. His credentials looked impres-
sive to liberals and conservatives. An-
napolis. and Oxford, chief of the Naval
War College and a combat commarrd on a
frigate off Vietnam. The CIA itself wel-
comed the admiral, if only as a contrast to
Theodore Sorensen, Carter's first choice
for the top intelligence job. The liberal
Sorensen dropped out after it developed
that he had exploited classified docu-
ments in writing his memoirs of the Ken-
nedy years. "When Sorensen lost, every-
body was so relieved that they never
asked, `Who's Turner? " said one former {
agency man-a bit ruefully.
It turned out that the admiral was a
salty outsider who made no effort to
adapt to the traditional pinstripes and i.
gelignite image of directors like Dulles,
Richard Helms and William Colby. Nor
did he follow the pattern set by onetime
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D P99-00498 R000300030025-2
Outsider at the helm: Turner with -national
security adviser Brzezinski (left) and in his office,
CIA equipment analyzing Soviet radar signals
 Approved For Release 2007/03/01 'IA-RDP99-naaRRnnn3nnn,:nn0-
--
Republican Party chairman
George Bush-another outsider
who came to Langley with a man-
date to shake things up but man-
aged to replace much of the CIA's
top management in 1976 without
drawing too much blood or ink in the
process. "My attitude was I'm going
to hunker down," Bush said last
week. "This idea of openness-I just.
don't buy that." Turner seemed more
suspicious. "I said to myself: 'I've
read about the accusations against the
clandestine service'," he recalled. "I
don't believe them all-but I don't
know which are fact" arid which are
fiction."
He decided to find out. "The para-
mount question in his mind-and.quite
rightly-was `How do I control the
place?"' said former deputy director
Knoche. "The trouble was, he allowed
this question to exist. in his mind for too ..
long." To get the clandestine Directorate
of Operations (DDO) in. hand, Turner
heed Robert-D. (Rnsty) Williams from
Stanford Research Institute to be his free-
lance investigato4. Williams. rattled a few
skeletons and set quite a few teeth on
edge around Langley. To some, he
seemed more concerned about investi-
gating booze and sex play than foul play
during a tour of CIA stations in Asia. Old
hands at headquarters and in the field
disliked Williams's aloof moralizing and-
resented his prying questions. "Having
endured'the process of external criticism
and suspicions sPhce 1975," Knoche said
last week, "the CIA and particularly the
Deputy Director for Operations found it- _
self going through it all again-from their
own leader. The place buckled."
PINK-SLIP MUTINY
The most crippling blow to the morale
of Turner's 15,000 employees has been
his method of cutting back the clandes-
tine staff. The operations division had
already been whittled down to 4,730
employees from a peak of 8,000 during
the Vietnam war, and Turner inherited
from the Ford Administration a recorg-
mendation to slice another 1,200 to 1,400
officers, virtually all of them atheadquar-
ters. He chose to cut only 820, but speed-
ed up the original, six-year timetable.
That made it impossible to achieve all
the reduction by attrition-and a flurry of
pink slips was inevitable.
. The .firings and the ensuing uproar
were the first, outward signs that some-
thing was amiss in the CIA. "It was the
CIA's first mutiny," recalled one ex-offi-
cer last month. Many victims of the firings
broke the agency's tradition of silence.
? and went out talking. One fired agent told
NEWSWEEK: "To receive the grateful
thanks of a grateful government for serv-
ices rendered-sometimes overseas at
great hazard-in the form of a two sen-
tence message, without any recognition
of past performance, was insulting and
humiliating." Turner argued that he was
only being cost-conscious and efficient;
he also hoped to spare victims the sus-,
pense of wondering whether the ax was
going to fall. But when he told NEWS
WEEK later: "You really heard them cry-
ing, haven't you?" he ap1jeared to some
rather like Gen. George Patton slapping
combat-fatigued GI's--and apologized in
writing to the entire agency. -
Even so, the unhappy mess gave the
impression that Turner had a short fuse
and -a hard heart. In -a gesture of lese
majesty that would have been unthink-
able under Dulles or Helms, one muti-
nous wag posted an "H.M.S. Pinafore
parody called "A Simple Tar's Story" on
the CIA's staff bulletin board. L? ampoon-
ing" Turner, it read: "Of intelligence I
had so little grip/ that they offered me
the Directorship/ with my brass bound
head of oak so stout/ I don't have to
know what it's all about./ I may run the
ship aground if ! keep.on so/ but I don't
care a fig: I'll be the CNO [Chief of
Naval Operations]."
When. pressed, most intelligence ex-
perts conceded that the cuts were need-
ed and that the agency could absorb
them. But one unsettling fact remained:
Turner had chosen to cut only the clan-
destine services, leaving. the rest of the
agency untouched. Some agents won-
dered whether Turner was something of
a stubborn naif who failed to realize
how tough the game against the Rus-
sians really was.
THE "CLASSIC JOB .
? To make matters worse, Turner left
the impression with many people that
he thought he was simply phasing out
anachronisms of the sophisticated new
technology of intelligence. "There's no
technology invented vet that can read
minds," snorted one first-rate fieldman
in Western Europe last week; he ex-
plained that. the classic job of the clan-
destine operative remains indispensa--
ble: to cultivate sources and collect
"human" intelligence ?'(HUMINT in ?
spookspeak) so'political leaders can an-
swer questions like "Who is going to
push- the button-and when?" -
"Intelligence used to be poker what
did the- other guys have," reflected one
top agency man in Washington. "Now
-~a
ry're;lltt~3"
 Approved For Release 2007/03/01 : CIA-RDP99-00498R000300030025-2
it's chess: we know his pieces and where
they are located-we need to know his
intentions." Finding them out takes a
peculiar breed of person. "They won't
say: 'Aye, aye, sir,' and salute Turner,"
said one retired agent. Even Campbell
James, a Company legend in his time,
failed to pass muster in Turner's no-
nonsense shop. A distant relative of Ted-
dy Roosevelt, James is American but
speaks with a British accent. He wears a.
chain across his vest with a-caviar spoon
fixed to one end, a large watch on the
other and a tiger tooth dangling in be-
tween. "When we got -into Laos, he
would go right up to a tribal. chieftain
sitting in a tree hut eating betel nuts and
present his card," recalled one old mis-
sion mate last week. "When we wentinto
Laos in 1960, he was the only guy Sou-
vanna Phouma would talk to."
By most rules of thumb, HUMINT
accounts for only about 10 per cent of
We U.S.- intelligence product. And with
the Directorate of Operations also being
man fed the CIA its first solid report that
China was about to set off an atom bomb,
thereby scooping the spy satellites and
U-2 reconnaissance planes that had been
overflying China's nuclear-testing range
at Lop Nor for years. The HUMINT man
got the story, from the foreign minister of
a small African nation, who got it from
the Russians during a trip to - ibloscow.
"When the information got back to head-
quarters," one analyst laughed last week,
"everyone said, 'What the hell does that
guy know about an A-bomb?' But it got to
Dean Rusk who used it in a speech-just
before the bomb blew.
COVERT ILLUSIONS -
In addition to gathering information
clandestinely, the CIA's Directorate of
Operations has traditionally been re-
sponsible for covert. operations, the.
sometimes dirty tricks- used to shape
events in foreign countries. But the agen-
cy's .covert-action team was reduced to a
bare minimum even before. Tamer arr -
Mind bending: Can the government-or the public--overlook past mistakes?
-the source of many escapades embar-
.rassing to the Company in recent years,
it was understandable that. Turner
looked to the operations division as a
safe place for cuts. But he has had to
assume the risk that real, if unusual,
assets might be lost, too. One of the last
men at the agency who spoke Albanian
reportedly fell to.a pink slip not long
ago-and even Jimmy Carter knows the'
difficulty in finding good interpreters
these days. In one East European coun-
try, in fact, there are reports that an
,intriguing number of dissident Commu-
nists would like to talk with CIA officers
but can't because all the station's lin-
guists have been recently fired.
HUMINT experts have scored a share
of victories over their counterparts in
signal information (SIGINT) and com-
munications (COMINT). A HUMINT
rived, and there is no indication now that.
it will be significantly expanded. That
may be just as well. While the CIA did
score covert victories in Guatemala and
Iran in the 1950s, it is betterknown for its
covert failures in Cuba, Chile and else-
where. In Africa, for example, eager
operatives subtly prompted the govern-
ment of Burundi to send home a bum-
bling Russian ambassador. To the CIA's
dismay, however, the Russians then
posted a crack diplomat, and relations
between the Butundis and the Soviets
grew more cordial than ever. "I am for- -
ever overwhelmed by the number of -
very fine people who have been deluded
into wasting their lives in this business,"
said one very candid covert-action man
in Washington.
Even so, neither Turner northe Presi-
dent intends to give up covert action
 Approved For Release 2007/03/01 : CIA-RDP99-00498R000300030025-2
Bookmanship: Former Company men Agee (left),
Snepp and Marchetti with their controversial critiques
entirely. "It's got to remain an arrow in
our quiver," Turner said last week. The
CIA's small crew of paramilitary experts
can be used against terrorists, for exam-
ple. Any such action, Carter maintains, is
now subject to Presidential approval and
Congressional scrutiny. His goal is to do
away with the CIA's old doctrine of"plau-
sible deniability," a euphemism for the
cover stories that hide links between the
President and illegal operations.
The new policy has astonished a few
old-timers. One West European intelli-
gence chief who met Turner recently
said in surprise: "He told me that the
only difference now is that all covert
operations henceforth will be conducted
legally. He doesn't seem to realize that
the whole point of covert operations is to
be able to do things that aren't legal."
The warning was cynical but well
meant. Openness, legalities and moral
imperatives tend to put off intelligence
professionals whose ruling passions, of
.necessity, run to guile, deception and se-
Crecy. Sources in Europe told NEws-?
'.. wEEK's Arnaud de Borchgrave that
friendly intelligence agencies such as that may prove bothersome-if the agency
Egypt's well-wired Mukhabarat now- ever takes the case to court.-
worry about their best secrets falling into Rattled or not, the CIA seems to be
the wrong hands around Washington.
South Africa's Bureau of State. Security
(BOSS); the best intelligence outfit in
Africa, has reportedly become stand-
offish-in part, no doubt, because of
mounting political differences with the
U.S. Iran's SAVAK is irked by the CIA's
refusal to turn over tips on Iranian dissi-
.? dents in the U.S.; the Iranians charge that
similardetails about anti-Castro terrorists
have been supplied to Cuba. And the
French complain that their reports on Cu-
bans in Africa have been ignored. "The
Dutch, the Italians, the Greeks-even the
British don't trust us any more," said one
'
-
American operative in Washington. slowly, to meet the Freedom of Informa-
Trust has also become a pressing ques- tion Act and to declassify more of its
tion around Langley. Defectors to the less sensitive secrets. -
:publishing world like Philip Agee have _Tohead aleaner, meeker Directorateof
called names and named names, arguably
jeopardizing plans and even lives. More
.thoughtful critics like Victor Marchetti
(in "The CIA and the Cult of Intelli-
gence") have poked fun at the CIA's cult
figures-and holes in its mystique. And
former officer Frank Snepp's charge (in
"Decent Interval") that The Company
ran out on thousands of its Vietnamese
employees did little to improve the re-
cruitment of local spies elsewhere. With
hundreds of defrocked spooks on the
beach, some now worry that more
books-or even more serious defec-
tions-are on the way. "It's a red herring
to say someone might go over to the other
side," insisted one retired CIA executive.
Then he thought a bit and added philo-
sophically, "But with a slap in the face,
strange things can happen."
Turner believes firmly that such fears
are exaggerated. He may be right.
Ousted veterans and their supporters
tend to be furious at him, not their coun-
try. And few ex-CIA scriveners have tak-
en their true confessions as far as Agee
did. "Even Snepp was very circumspect
in writing his book, as far as I can see,"
pulling itself together. The Domestic
'Contact Division is expanding to inter-
view more Americans, particularly sci-
entists, technologists, economists and
energy experts, returning from "points of
interest" abroad. And the Foreign Re-
source Division, which recruits foreign
sources in the U.S., may grow. The Di-
rector of Operations is also redeploying
its officers abroad. It may expand oper-
ations in Africa to cultivate sources there
who travel. in and out of China and the
Soviet Union, two "hard targets that
American operatives seldom manage to
penetrate directly. It is moving, though
Operations, Turner picked John McMa-
hon, a veteran of the Science and Tech-
nology division. The choice alarmed
some critics who fear technological prog-
ress will alter the CIA's traditional mis-
sion-and replace Nathan Hale with
R2D2. Calmer hands pointed out that
McMahon was a superb manager whohad
learned much about clandestine affairs
from the years he had spent. developing.
exotic doodads for the CIA operations.
"He'll have the Directorate ofOperations
eating out of his hands in 60 days," pre-
dicted one unruffled colleague. V -
FERRETS, BLEEPS, BIG EARS
Even traditionalists now concede that
the main burden of collecting intelli-w
gence has fallen to machines: "Ferret"
satellites 200 miles up in space record
electromagnetic signals from ships, air-
craft and ground stations. Fifty miles
closer to the earth, photo satellites circle
watchfully, dropping film packs and
bleeping messages back home. Their
photos are so good, Turner has told
White House aides, that the CIA dan
distinguish Guernseys from Herefords
on the range and read the markings on a
Russian submarine. Even closer in, U-2
and SR-71 photo reconnaissance planes
snoop at altitudes of 70,000 to 90,000
feet. Apd far below, mountaintop radio
receivers scan the airwaves while the
electronic devices of the National Secu-
rity Agency, the nation's "Big Ear," pick''
up everything from chats between for-
eign leaders to enemy orders of battle.
Without photo evidence of missile
- sites in Cuba, John F. Kennedy would
never have gone to the brink of World
War III with the Soviet Union. Lyndon
Johnson made a point of giving Third
World leaders satellite photos of their
capitals-to show he had his eye on
things. But technology can also produce
intelligence as mindless and worthless
as anything ever concocted by human
bumblers out in the cold. CIA scientists,
not cloak-and-dagger men, took on Op-
(Continued on page 30)
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 Approved For Release 2007/03/01 : CIA-RDP99-00498
(C*ntintied from page 24)
erasion Midnight Climax, an inquiry into
mind-bending drugs in which unsus-
pecting men were given the drugs in
CIA-run brothels and then observed at
play. In another effort that didn't pay off,
tht- CIA managed to plant seven bugs in
the Chinese Embassy in Burundi in the
early 1970s: five failed to function at all,
one burnt out in three months because
the "off" switch wouldn't work-and the
one in the ambassador's office produced
nothing new because the ambassador
assumed his room was bugged.
BRAINS OVER BOMFOGGERY
The real issue is not whether electronic
spies are better than those who wear gum-
shoes but how to master the glut of data
and improve the bomfogging reports that
make up the "product" of the U.S. intelli-
gence community. "Rather than finding
that increased technical capabilities di-
minish your human intelligence require-
ments, it's just the opposite," Turner ob-
serves. "The more information you have
from technical sources, the more inten-
tions you want to know ... and you go to
the human to find,the intentions. You
must make them dovetail.".
Top priority is : still military intelli-
Terry Arthur
Carlucci (above), Koehler
New faces, new game rules
Dirks, Camm, Blake:Shaking some dust off the untouchables
R000300030025-2 4,
zation gives him a more modest role:
Carter did not grant him Cabinet rank or
sole authority to speak publicly on intelli-
gence matters. But he did give Turner an
empire: a new National Foreign Assess-
ment Center, to prepare the CIA's most
important strategic assessments; a .Na-
tional Intelligence Tasking Center, to
distribute missions and cut waste, and a
Directorate for Resource Management, to
supervise a budget estimated at more
than $3.5 billion.
Turner has also assembled his own
team of new and old hands to run the new
units and the traditional CIA structure.
Among the most notable are Robert Bow-
ie, at the NFAC; John Koehler, at the
DRM; Lt. Gen. (ret) Frank Camm at the
NITC; Leslie Dirks as the CIA's deputy
for Science and Technology and John F.
-Blake as..deputy for Administration. Old
pros around Washington last week also
predicted that Carlucci, the CIA's new
Deputy Director and a man who under-
stands Washington manners, would do
much to smooth some of the feathers
Turner has ruffled among his own peo-
ple at Langley.
NEW CHARTERS AND RED TAPE
Turner's new-style intelligence com- I
munity may run into the same kind of
controversy as the old one. To civil
libertarians, Carter's new restrictions on
various clandestine- activities seemed
too tame; former intelligence officials,
on the other hand, called them crip-
pling. The Senate is considering new
charters for the entire intelligence
community that would require written
opinions from the Attorney General on
the legality of every operation, a re-
form that could tangle the agency in red
tape. And Rep. Edward Boland, chair-
man of the House Intelligence Commit-
tee, vowed to demand more Congres-
sional access to secret operations. "It all
comes down to the fact that since. we are {
going to be in on all the crash landings,'
we must insist we be in on the take-
offs," he said.
Whether such. open exposure is really
practical remains to be tested. The CIA's'
plan to open its headquarters to carefully 4
guided tours on weekends died un
mourned around Langley when it turned
out that almost nothing of interest could
be seen without breaching security.
Turner himself believes it will take an-
other year to tell whetherthe reforms are
taking hold and the product improving.
The best judgment now is that the over-
all quality of. U.S. intelligence has not
dropped dramatically and that it may
indeed start to go up. "We ought to knock
off criticizing the changes at the CIA, let
it settle down and do a good job,". urged
one level-headed former officer last
week. In the meantime, Turner has
shown at the very least that he can shake
'some of the dust off a bureaucracy that
once considered itself untouchable.
-TOM MATHEWS with DAVID MARTIN, EVERT i
CLARK, ELAINE SHANNON and JOHN LINDSAY In
Washington, ARNAUD de BORCHGRAVE in Geneve-
.and bureau reports.
gence. But Carter is also making heavy
new demands on the CIA to improve its
predictions and its analysis of econo_nic
and political developments. "When you
finally get to the edge of where the facts
are-that's where the stuff gets weak,"
said one Carter strategist. Turner's ef-
forts to push beyond data grubbing has
'probably led to the most serious criticism
leveled against him: shaping intelli-
gence analysis to please the President.
"He orders the intelligence estimates to
be jazzed up," said one exasperated CIA
analyst last week. "The facts aren't al-
ways exciting enough for Stan."
To his defenders, Turner is providing
just the kind of excitement the. CIA
needs. "We are talking about a -tired,
middle-aged bureaucracy and we should
be rubbing their noses in the billions
they have spent to make bad calls on
major events," says Congressman Pike.
And in signing the Executive order that
broadened Turner's powers last week,
President Carter said evenly: "I want to
express my complete appreciation and
confidence in Admiral Turner, whose
responsibilities ... will be greatly
magnified."
At one time Turner had hoped to be=
come an intelligence czar. The reorgani-
 !'-
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GNPAGE,
:_J NEWSWEEK
How Turner
There seems' to be a penchant for
equating instant ' popularity with
:..leadership," muses Vice Adm. Robert
Monroe about the CIA uproar over his
friend and tennis. partner Stansfield
.'Turner. Monroe doesn't think things
necessarily work that way. A good lead-
er, he says, "sees what needs to be done
when.the issues are not all that clear,
and has the strength to carry them out
whatever obstacles exist."
Though the jury is still out on the
clarity of Turner's vision as he turns the
CIA inside out, hardly anyone doubts
his will to perform. A marked star as
long ago as his Naval Academy days in
` ' the ,'40s-"so far ahead 'of us that we
'never: considered him a competitor or
even a peer;"-accoiding to classmate
Jimmy Carter-:Turner, now 54, went
on to an ever-upward Navy career that
earned him four stars at 51. Unlike
many hotshots, Turner distinguished
himself in a variety of dissimilar jobs-
battle command, systems analysis, stra-
tegic planning, budget and manpower
management, , Pentagon infighting,
.,even academic administratiorr.
To his detractors-in the Navy as
well as the CIA-this elegant resume
merely cloaks a man fired with ambi-
tion, an arrogant egomaniac who takes
blustering charge before he knows
what he's taking charge of..His admir-
ers see something else working-an
abhorrence of conventional wisdom,
an overriding passion for fresh thoughtI
and new ideas. "His strongest point
was his unusual ability to get people to
produce new ideas," says a ranking
Navy' colleague. The traditional ways
of doing things can get trampled in the
rush, however. During Turner's time
as head of the. Naval War College, he
picked up on a student's idea of hold-
:.'ing meetings between Navy brass and
newsmen, who had become mutually
embittered over.'. the Vietnam war.
'There was a lot of blood on the floor
and some tempers exploded," recalls a
War College associate, "but both sides
:"learned something " -
THUCYDIDES FOR STARTERS
With his zeal for stirring the pot,
"Turner- has always had trouble with
those who abide*by the old ways and
-the old ideas. At the War College-the
Navy experience that most resembles
Turner's embattled stand at the CIA-
the admiral took over a snoozy, stagnant
lecture society that required little read-
ing or writing and no exams. At his first
assembly, at 11 a.m. on a warm August
day, Turner woke up his students, all
middle-rank officers with high career
expectations, by ordering them to read
Thucydides's history of the Pelopon-
nesian War. "The gripes and grumbling
got louder," recalls one who was there,
"as they found out that they would have
to read about three shelves of books,
take examinations and write papers and
a thesis."
The admiral hung two signs on his
office door-"Call me Stan" and "I
need one good idea a day"-and set;
about fermenting the intellectual
juices. "Turner liked the Socratic meth-
od," says a former student, "and he
would ask `Why do we need a Navy?'-
'Sturdy Stan': At Amherst (front row)
with Webster, as Annapolis guard,
'What made the nuclear deterrent de-
ter?"' As usual, says a civilian profes-
sor, "he had a lot of people upset"-but E
by the time Turner left in 1974, the War
College-was a country club no longer.
BUDDIES AT THE TOP
A teetotaling Christian Scientist from
a well-to-do suburban Chicago family,
Turner put in-two years at Amherst
College in Massachusetts before opting
for a naval career in 1943. He is still
remembered at Amherst as "Sturdy
Stan," a soberly prankish BMOC and,
as it happened, a classmate and close
friend of William H. Webster, Carter's
new choice to head the FBI. Turner
believes that the long-standing friend-
ship will facilitate cooperation be-
tween the FBI and CIA-a goal not I
{
necessarily shared by civil-libertarians.
s _.
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"I anticipate I'll have no prob-
lem whatever in calling up and
saying,'What the devil are you .
-doing, Bill?"" Turner has said. "And
he'll call me and say,'Why in the world
did you do that, Stan?` I'm looking
forward to it."
At Annapolis, Turner became bri-
gade commander and graduated 25th in
his class of 820. As a Rhodes scholar at
Transport Association of America.
Turner moved on to the War College in
1972, became commander of the Sec-
ond Fleet two years later, and then
corn man der of NATOforees insouthern? _
Europe. That was the job he hel&when,
Jimmy Carter, whom he had never
known at Annapolis, had his celebrated
"wakin'-up thought" one morning last
spring about putting the admiral in
charge of the nation's intelligence.
When.he flew from Rome to Wash-
ington, Turner did not know what job
the President was going to offer him.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
was his fondest dream, but Chief of
Naval Operations also seemed likely.
He worked out a telephone code with
his wife, Patricia. If it was the joint
Chiefs, he would tell - her, - "major
would be "minor league." In the event,
Turner called to say, "It's the' bush
Oxford, he studied philosophy, politics the name = of his CIA predecessor,..,,.
and economics. Turner served on a George Bush.
destroyer during the Korean War, then -. In Washington, Turner enjoys an oe=%
alternated between shore and ship as- casional night of opera. but he is too
signments before putting in three years busy, even on weekends, to take Patri-.
as a systems analyst at the Pentagon. He cia on a promised museum-hopping
commanded the missile frigate Horne expedition, "I think he's a little over-
during the. Vietnam war, winning a board myself," says his wife. "He -
Bronze Star and an enhanced reputa- needs to have contact with more peo-
tion as an innovator. ple." That's what they say about Jimmy.
Turner on equivalent notices after Carter, too, a man with whom Turner
he took over the wholly different job of ? shares a certain faith in management
aide to Democratic Navy Secretary systems, a broadband intellectual in-
Paul Ignatius in 1968. "He had to or- terest--and a terrible impatience with
ganize the work, advise on budget mat- those not similarly saturated in the job
ters and programs, manpower prob- at hand. = ` >
lems and a host of other tasks; says RICHARD BOEfH W;tli DAVID C. MARTIN and LLOYD N.`
Ignatius, now president of the Air NORMAN in Waslfttae
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NEWSI L' EK
AIZTICLL AA cAl, l~
O1V PAGE_~1__ _0
6 February 1978
T "s Place !5 Producing'
To get the view from the top at the
CIA, Washington bureau chief Mel Elf-
in and correspondent David Martin
talked with director Stansfield Turner.
Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: Every single person we have
talked to, without exception, says morale has
never, ever, been lower than it is right now.
TURNER: I categorically deny that
There is not a morale problem in the
CIA today .. This place is producing.
The President of the United States is
pleased with it. And the product is high.
People work twelve-, sixteen-hour days
out here. I have people, at the drop of a
hat, working all day Sunday, coming
over to my house Sunday night with the
results. They are dedicated, wonderful,
inspired people. Now, there are com-
plaints. There's griping. There is in
every organization of the government
And when you're in a period of transi-
tion to new objectives, new methods,
new management systems, new styles of
openness, of course there are people
who are complaining, because it isn't
being done the way it was yesterday.
0. Your dismissal of 212 persons obviously
hurt morale. Would you do it again, and in
exactly the same way?
A. What I will do differently the next
time is spread the notification out over a
longer period of time. -.. But I did what I
think was the only honest, proper thing
to do for the agency and for the country
.. There's just nobody around here that
doesn't know that we're in a time when
we have to improve, we have to change,
we have to adapt
0. Do you have confidence In the clandes-
line service, or are you afraid that there Is
something also hidden there? -
A. I took a skeptical attitude and I
hired [Robert D. Williams] to come in,
and I gave him a carte blanche [to inves-
tigate]. At the end of six months, I said to
the clandestine service, "I am well satis-
fied with the way you are doing things. I
have no concern that you are doing
things deliberately without orders, or
contrary to orders." I also told them there
were going to be 820 of them less, you
know. The good news and the bad news.
0. Can the United States still take action
covertly in a national emergency?
A. Yes. We're scaling that down in our
objectives ... but I will fight to the last to
retain an arrow in my quiver to do politi-
cal action. But not thousands of people to
do paramilitary things like we had in
Vietnam-a small paramilitary capabil-
ity. Modest, tuned, honed and ready to
go. It's very important that it be there,
particularly to combat terrorism.
0. Have such things as the Congressional
hearings, allegations by former agents who
have written books and the fact that many
people are leaving the CIA In a disgruntled
mood caused any sources to dry up because
they are afraid of leaks?
A. Oh, that's just balderdash. I have
such confidence in these people who
leave. They're patriotic Americans.
Now, some of them have shown a very
unprofessional stance in running to the
press, but, you know, even Frank Snepp
was very circumspect in writing his
book, as far as I can tell. There is appre-
hension around the world as to how the
Congressional thing will settle out. But
we haven't had, to the best of our knowl-
edge, leaks from the Congressional side
that can be pinpointed.
one of the benefits [in] oversight now is
that the Congress is really getting to
know what intelligence is about; they are
recognizing how much of a responsibil-
ity they're shouldering.
0. Have any of the friendly services around
the world shown reluctance to share informa-
tion with the CIA because of leaks?
A. I have heard that foreign services
are questioning how our procedures are
working out under these circumstances.
I have zero evidence that it has, at this
stage, resulted in a degradation in the
quality or quantity of information we get
from them ... What's changed in the last
decade is [that] technical-intelligence
collection has become so sophisticated,
so expensive, that in all areas of the
world we can do better in many of these
technical areas than anybody else.
0. Is it true the CIA had to contract out to
the Rand Corp. for the first draft of this year's
Turner with Carter, Brzezinski and Mondale: 'The President is pleased'
0. A retired CIA official told us recently that
if he had been a Russian working in the Soviet
Embassy in Washington, he could probably
have all the documents and information pres-
ently given to the Congress of the United
States within a year.
A. I don't believe it. I really don't: The
documents we give to the Senate Select
- Committee on Intelligence are held in
one series of closely guarded rooms, 24-
hour guards on them, alarm systems,
locks, the whole works. They're not
running around in congressmen's offices.
I went to see a senator the other day,
just to pay a courtesy call on him. We got
discussing something, and he suddenly
told me, "Write it down." He was so
security-conscious. His room hadn't
been debugged for a while and [when] I
slipped into saying something classified,
we started exchanging notes, just the two
of us sitting in the room there ... I mean,
National Intelligence Estimate on the Soviet
Union? If so, does this reflect in any way on
the most Important job you do around here,
which Is the estimate?
A. We contract in a number of areas. I
don't want to discuss that NIE in particu-
lar, but I see nothing wrong with getting,
in specialized areas, the very best talent
the country can bring to bear on a nation-
al intelligence estimate ... This. is only
one little piece of the Soviet estimate.
We went out and hired a fellow who
worked for us a few months ago. He was
working on this before he left.
We [also] go outside when it is, in our
opinion, to the government's best interr
ests ... to make sure all the divergent
views are represented. And if you don't
happen to have hawks and doves on
some particular situation or you don't
have specialists on this and that, you
complement your in-house talent.
IL
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