TURNER, STANSFIELD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP05T00644R000200780019-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 17, 2009
• Sequence Number: 19
• Publication Date: May 1, 1978
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ARi I CS,s~ APP" 1 _
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Turner, Stansfield
Dec. 1, 1923- Director of Central Intelligence.
Address: b. Central Intelligence Agency,
Wnshington, D.C. 20505
Nine directors have preceded Admiral Stans-
field Turner iri the Central Intelligence Agency
since its establishment in 1947. But Turner
is the first Director of Central Intelligence
to have budget control over the several
agencies that form the United States intel-
ligence community anti the explicit authority
to assign and coordinate intelligence collec-
lion tasks. Increased power ~v:rs accorded
him in an executive order sigrrecl by Presi-
dent Jimmy Carter in January 197D as part
of a reorganization plan that hnd as one of
its purposes the rehabilitation of the CIA,
'which in recent years tras been beleagured
'by revelations of abuses of its mandate and
by security leaks. Turner, who became the
CIA director In February 1977, is an urbane
Nav}s man of strong inteilrctual bent, a former
Rhodes scholar, destroyer commander, sys-
tems analyst, writer on rra}(al strategy, presi-
dent of the Naval War College, and fleet
and area commander of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization.
Stansfield Turner vas born on December
1. 1923 in Chicago, Illinois, one of two chil-
dren of Oliver Stansfield Turner and Wil-
helmina Josephine (Wagner) Turner. The other
child was named Twain. His father runs born
at Ramsbottom, Lancashire, England. came
to the United States in 1909 at the. age of
ten. entered the real estate business six years
later, and by 1929 had risen? to the vice-
presidency of a Chicago real estate firm.
The family's home vas in the well-to-do
suburb of Highland Park, tivhere Stansfield
attended high school.
At Amherst College, in tivhich he e^rolled
in 1941, Turner took part in student polfEics,
served as president of his class, pla}'ed foot-
ball, and became a member of the. Naval Re-
serve. One of his friends and classmates,
William H. Webster, is notiv director of the
FBI. After two years at Amherst, Turner
transferred to the United States Naval Acad-
emy, where he made his mark as an out-
standing student, brigade commander, and
left guard on the football squad. He and
Jimmy Carter ?~vere in the same class at An-
napolis, but, according to the President, they
did not know each other. "He vas so far
ahead of us;' Carter told his Cabinet in
a comment on his nomination of Turner.
"that ws never considered him competitfon,
or even a peer." Although they were anem-
bers of the class of 1947, they grad9rated
is 1946 under an accelerated program adoptsd
during World War II, with Turner finishing
25th in the class of 820, while Carter ranked
59th.
After a year aboard a cruiser, Turner went
to Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar,
studying philosophy, politics, and economics.
and obtained his M:A. degree in 1950. Re-
turning to sea. he served on destroyers in
both the Atlantic and Pacific and earned
a Bronze Star- and other service d~ora-
tions in the Korean var. His assignments
at sea, including his commands of the USS
Conquest from 1956 to 1958 and the USS
Rowan in 1962, alternated with tours of duty
in the politico-military division of the gfEice
of the Chief of Naval Operations and i.~e the
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense
for Systems Analysis. The Navy also asss~ed
him to a period of study in the advanced
management program at Harvard Busiala ess
School
As Turner gradually advanced throw the
naval grades, acquiring a reputation as an
effective and open-minded officer and ad-
ministrator. his assignments grew more ssn-
sitive and important. In 1967, with the rank
of commander, he directed the USS Horna,
a guided missile frigate, off the coast of Viet-
nam. Moving up to captain, he served for
the. next two years as executive assistant
and military aide to Secretary of the Navp
Paul Ignatius, advising on budget, marrpo~ver,
and other matters. He vas awarded his' two
stars as rear admiral, assisted Admiral Elmo
R. Zumtivalt Jr., Chief of Naval Operations,
on a Navy modernization project. and as-
sumed command of a carrier task groap of
the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean is 1970.
During the early 1970's Turner's assio t-
ments continued to increase in resporsioility,
and he was mentioned from time to time
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as a possible future chief. of naval opera-
tions. In 1971 he vas named to head the
systems analysis division in the office of
the chief of naval operations and the fol-
Iowing year, shortly after receiving the third
star of a vice-admiral, vas appointed presi-
dent of the Naval War College in? Newport,
Rhode Island. With typical independent-
mindedness, Turner dispensed with uniforms
at the college, ordered extensive revisions
in the curriculum to increase, for example,
the reading requirements, beginning with
Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian
Wor, and called for examinations in strategy
and tactics, analysis. .and management. The
students' year at the college was decidedly
not to be a year on the beach. He cautioned
in a co]lege address that if the military
did not shape up, "the think tanks will be
doing our thinking for . us:' lie invited a.
variety of provocative speakers to seminars
and lectures that he organized. One guest
was his .friend. Herman- Wouk, author of
The Caine Mutiny; another was Jimmy Carter,
then Governor of. Georgia, dvho spoke on
government reorganization and with whom
he. thereafter remained in correspondence.,
Soon after Turner began his t~vo-year tenure
at the War College, his paper "The United
States at a Strategic Crossroads" appeared
in the Novel Institute Proceedings (October
1972). In that paper he noted three significant
changes in America's strategic. environment
-a movement away from a bipolar tivorld,
waning domestic support for traditional poli-
cies, and changing . Soviet capabilities and
strategy. I?Ie urged a greater emphasis on
the "maritime option," naval strategy, argu-
ing that "under the ne~v strategic considera-
tions which we must take into account .
sea-based forces have increased applicability
across the spectrum of our requirements."
In December 1974 he contributed "Missions
of the U.S. Navy" to Nwn1 Institute Proceed-
ings, apaper in which he pointed out that
a quartet of missions had evolved-strategic
deterrence, sea control, projection of power
ashore, and naval prrsence?--and concluded
that naval officers "must understand the
Navy's missions. continually question their
rationale, and provide the intellectual basis
for keeping them relevant and pertinent to
the nation's needs:'
By that time 'T'urner was serving as com-
mander of the United. States Second. Fleet
and NATO Striking Fleet Atlantic, a post
to which hFe had been appointed in August
1974. As Second Fleet commander, on May
12, 1975 in Boston harbor he participated
in ceremonies welcoming the first Soviet
warships--t~vo guided missile destroyers, the
Boiki and the Zhguchi--to visit an Amer-
ican port since the end of World War II.
Four months later he became commander
in chief, Allied Forces Southern Europe
(AF50UTH), with headquarte;s in Naples;
Italy, and was promoted to four-star. oe fulIa
admiral.
Turner's new responsibilities were reflected
in a larger concern with strategic questions.
When interviewed by John K. Cooley of the
Christian Science Monitor (June 24, 1976).
he asserted that NATO tuns more important
to the Nest no~v than in the past because
of the growth of Warsaw Pact power, par-
ticularl}? Soviet strength. For Foreign Affairs,
(January 1977) he -wrote an article, "The Naval
Balance: Not Just a Numbers Game;' which
appeared as Congress was taking up the
fiscal 1977 Pentagon bucEget and the nation
was debating 4he lineup of United States- ?;
Soviet forces. Turner maintained that op- ;
posing navies could not be usefuII~? com-
pared in quantitativ$ or absolute terms and
that ah analysis of trends was a mote sen- `
sible approach to the issue of naval caps-
bilities. The question to ask was not.