THE LONG TERM HEALTH OF THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000300050001-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 28, 2007
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: October 1, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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':The Long Term Health of the
Intelligence Community
Stansfield Turner
Admiral, USN (Ret.)
Director
Central Intelligence Agency
THREE YEARS AGO, President Carter signed Execu-
tive Order 12036 establishing a new system to
manage and oversee American intelligence. Since that
new beginning, the Intelligence Community has been
tested by world events and influenced, not only by
those same events, but by changing national priorities,
demand for greater public accountability and the need
to continue to produce a high quality intelligence prod-
uct. _
Since then, our best substantive performance has
been in areas where we have traditionally excelled.
Support for SALT II, for example, demonstrated the
Community's broad and diverse collection capabilities
as well as perceptive and unbiased analysis. Timely
and accurate assessments of events in Vietnam and
Afghanistan drew creatively on a variety of ambiguous
indicators to provide clear warning.
There have been important procedural and organiza-
tional accomplishments during this same period which
will affect the long term health of the Intelligence Com-
munity. For the first time in our 33-year history, a
closely reasoned, truly integrated National Foreign In-
telligence Program budget now provides the means for
judging competing intelligence programs against na-
tional needs. Vastly improved relations between the
CIA and the FBI have engendered this country's
strongest counterintelligence program in over a dec-
ade. A renewed and expanded dialogue with the aca-
demic and business communities is invigorating our
analytic effort.
j-Iowever, challenges remain. Just functioning ef-
fectively in a world which during the 1970s learned
more about intelligence operations than was ever
known is a serious challenge.
Recognizing and assessing small but potentially sig-
nificant degrees of political and social change has be-
come increasingly important and can severely test the
most discriminating observer. Analysts must try to
draw conclusions from a gallimaufry of factors ranging
from religious and ethnic to socio-economic, genera-
tional and institutional. The problem of collecting this
kind of raw intelligence demands not only a heightened
sensitivity to subtle clues, but often new techniques,
both human and technological.
The Community is further challenged today by the
greatly expanded range of issues with which in-
teIligence. must. deal. Not only must we continue to
study Soviet military capabilities,. but more and more
attention must focus on other areas which have the,po
tential to disrupt international stability. The growing
commerce in narcotics, the spread of terrorism, popu-
lation growth, famine, disease and the accessability of
goods and raw materials are but a few.
While the Intelligence Community's plate is full and
the task may seem overwhelming, I have every con-
fidence that we will be able to continue providing the
best quality of intelligence to the policy maker. But to
do that, every intelligence organization, along with the
business community, which has for so many years bril-
liantly provided us with the technological means to do
our work, must play an important part.
The functions of individual intelligence services
were reasonably distinguishable at one time. Today
they are much less so. Despite E.O. 12036, the stnic-
ture of the Intelligence Community and its sometimes
divergent interests understandably still tend to encour-
age competition for functions and resources. Com-
petition in the analysis we do is healthy and to be
sought. Competition in system development or collec-
tion wastes resources and risks limiting our capabili-
ties unnecessarily. Within the Community, we must
work to prevent the destructive fractionalizing of the
intelligence budget, or the building of new structures
to circumvent it, which will only result in increased
costs without commensurate return.
American business can help by recognizing that
while we all would hope to remain on the frontiers of
technological innovation, that is not always financially
possible. The Intelligence Community, the United
States and the interests of business are better served
when marginal gains at great cost are identified for
what they are and funds as well as creative effort are
directed toward areas where there is greater con-
fidence in and need for the gains to be achieved.
None of these problems can be solved overnight,
nor goals reached by a single effort. But as T. S. Eliot
said, "History is now." What we do today to capital-
ize on the formidable capabilities we have and to solve
the problems we can identify will' strengthen our con-
tribution to a history we can all be proud of. It will
require open minds, an uncommon Willingness to sub-
ordinate parochial interests to measures which are _
more in the long-term good of the country and frequent
checking to ensure we are all looking through the right
end of the telescope. None of that is easy, but we will
not succeed without it.