TURNER IS ALMOST AN ORIGINAL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP05T00644R000200780016-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 16, 2009
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: February 8, 1977
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2009/06/16 :CIA-RDP05T00644R000200780016-1
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President Carter and former classmate Adm. Stansfield Turner meet at the White House last week.
~4dorriral In/ho VIl?u/d Take C/A hie/m
Turner Is'Alm?st an ?ri final'
As president of the Naval War College from 1972
to 1974, Adm. Stansfield Turner kept a sign on his
door that read: "I need one good idea a day."
It was characteristic of a man whom his associ-
ates and friends describe as endlessly curious
about philosophy, theater, opera, international
politics and military affairs.
"He is quite a remarkable military officer, al-
most an original," said a war college associate,
and F.J. Bing, another professor at the college,
spoke of him as "highly imaginative and ex?
tremely energetic."
Turner, 53, whom President Carter .designated
yesterday as his choice to head the CIA and to
function as his director of central intelligence, was
an all-round student of the world around him as
early as his high school days in Highland Park, Ill.
HE WAS NEAR the top his class wherever he
studied.
There is one side to Turner which a naval associ-
ate described as "breezy and informal," and
another which he said made one "not mistake for
one minute that he is an admiral."
When he commanded the 2nd Fleet, in 1974 in
the Atlantic, he would make surprise visits to his
ships by helicopter. Before landing he would toss a
life preserver into the ocean and then demand that
the crew "show what they could do" about a puta-
tiveman overboard on instant notice.
The associate from his days at the Newport,
R.I., war college described this as a continuation
of "shakeup politics" he had instituted on his
arrival. His first day there he told the students to
"feel right at home" and show their families
around the campus. After this lulling start he said:
"Report back to the first class in one hour."
The shakeup proceeded with his demand that
the college serve not as "a year off" from naval
duty, but a program involving tough examinations
in strategy, tactics, analysis and management.
These practices and his own penchant for a
heavy intellectual diet did not endear Turner to all
of his peers.
But he won respect at Newport for innovations,
such as a series of humanities lectures by outsid-
ers, including his friend, Herman Wouk, author of
the Caine Mutiny. An evening at the Turner house-
hold, acolleague recalled, was likely to include a
politician or a historian.
ONE OF HIS GUESTS at a college seminar was
the Georgia governor, Jimmy Carter, who was his
classmate at the Naval Academy in the acceler-
atedclass of 1947, which finished a year early.
Carter and Turner were classmates at the U.S
ahead of us" in accomplishments as a midshipman 1
that "we never considered him a competitor or(
even a peer."
Carter, in an extraordinarily warm burst of
praise, said of the admiral, "I have never known a
better military person," adding that he was some-
one who "in the future could be the next George
Marshall," a reference to the Army chief of staff
in World War II who went on to serve as secretary
of state and of defense.
Turner had come to the Navy by way of the
Naval Reserve at Amherst College, which he at-
tended from 1941 to 1943. At Annapolis, he was bri- ~
Bade commander, the top cadet position. He ~~~
served on a carrier and a cruiser, and then won a
Rhodes Scholarship. At Oxford University he ~~
studied philosophy, politics and economics, receiv-
ing amasters degree in arts in 1950.
HE WAS ON destroyers during the Korean War,
during which he earned a Bronze Star and other
service medals. He commanded a guided missile
frigate in the Vietnam conflict.
His shore duty included two tours in defense sys-
tems analysis at the Pentagon. He was appointed
commander in chief of Allied Forces. in Southern
Europe in August 1975.
Turner spent part of his career in weapons
systems analysis and, thus, in study of strategic
deterrence.
He was born Dec. 1, 1923, in Highland Park, a
prosperous suburb of Chicago, the son of a real es-
tatebroker.
He was elected class president. in his sophomore
year of high school and was a football letterman.
At Annapolis he also made the football team de-
spite his relatively short stature, and played. left
guard. He continues to enjoy sports -playing ten-
nis and squash and swimming when he has a
chance.
HE MARRIED the former Patricia Busy Whit-
ney in 1953. Their son, Geoffrey, is a Navy
lieutennt stationed in Maryland, and their daugh-
ter, Laurel, is married. The Turners recently be-
camegrandparents. '
Turner does not smoke, drinks rarely and works
long days, his associates report.
In the debate on the balance of forces between
the Soviet union and the United States, Turner is
on the side opposite "the quantifiers" among U.S.
policymakers who have attempted to measure
strengths in numbers of ships, missiles and planes. ~
He prefers to judge long-range trends, as his' arti-
cle on "The Naval Balance" in the January edition ')
Naval Academy, Turner graduating 25th ~n the of Foreign Affairs illustrates.
class of 820 and the President, 59th. But the Presi- "Focus on trends rather than statistics will
dent told his cabinet yesterday that, "I never knew make the dialogue on the naval balance more sub-
him" at? Annapolis -that Turner "was so far stantial and constructive," he wrote.
Approved For Release 2009/06/16 :CIA-RDP05T00644R000200780016-1