REMARKS OF ALLEN W. DULLES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-03090A000100010009-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 9, 2001
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: October 8, 1953
• Content Type: BULL

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RECORD COPY
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
OFFICE OF TRAINING
TRAINING BULLETIN
8 October 1953
SUBJECT: Remarks of Allen W. Dulles
RECORD COPY,
Guy-~?~ _
1. The Director of Central Intelligence, Allen W. Dulles,
spoke to Agency personnel at the Eleventh Agency Orientation
Course on 7 August 1953.
2. It is believed that Mr. Dullest remarks and his answers to
questions will be of general interest throughout the Agency and are
attached hereto for the information and guidance of all concerned.
3. It is requested that this document be given as wide circu-
lation among Agency personnel as is consistent with its classification.
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WORD Copy
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MATTHEW BAIRD
Director of Training
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REMARKS OF
MR. ALLEN W. DULLES
AT THE
ELEVENTH ORIENTATION COURSE
7 AUGUST 1953
There's one advantage of being Director over being Deputy Director.
When I was Deputy Director I was supposed to come here and make a long
speech. I still have to make a speech but it can be shorter and I can
come to get your questions and your ideas and be as helpful as I can in
answering them. I have gained a good deal from your questions in the
past, and I'll do my best to answer any that you have today. As you know,
we have in the Agency the Office of Inspector General with one of our
ablest career men in that job. Before I came here today I asked him if
he had any objection to my advertising his office a bit, and he said,
"No. My door is open at any time to anyone in the Agency." He and I
work together very closely and any especially difficult -problems that
you nut to him will always come to my attention.
We have been a bit in the spotlight recently--for my money, far too
much. In our form of government, given the character of the American
people, it-is probably essential, probably inevitable that we should have
more spotlight than a secret intelligence agency ought to have. It is
right, in a way, and certainly understandable, that there should be
inquiries, that people should want to know something about what we are
doing. I've always felt it was very wise that the authors of the law
setting up this Agency provided us with an umbrella of overt activities
under which we could cover the more secret operations. I hope the fact
that I've had a little bit too much spotlight, will not lead others to
seek it. I think we can do our work better without it.
We do have certain problems these days. There is, as you all know,
and rightly, a strong trend toward economy. Economy in Government means
economy in money; it means economy in personnel. It means, in effect,
that we will have to do a better job, probably with less money and with
fewer people--and this means that all of us from the ton down will have
to be more highly trained. From now on we will have to put added emphasis
on training, because it may be that in many parts of our Agency one man
or one woman will have to do the work of two. I don't really regret this.
Over these difficult weeks when our budget has been under consideration,
we have had full and fair consideration by the members of Congress concerned.
They have a pretty hard time of it because there is no Agency of Govern-
ment for which it is more difficult to make appropriations, and where it is
more difficult for those who are attempting to prune the budget to know
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where they can rightfully prune. The members of the committee-expressed
that difficulty but they left it very largely to us, within the limits
they prescribed, to do our own pruning--to select the wheat from the chaff--
to try to do the things which are most essential and do them most efficiently.
We have for this coming year a budget within which we can operate and,
I believe, operate effectively. We have, in effect, certain personnel
ceilings which are not going to be easy to keep, but I am confident that
within those ceilings we can do our work.
I remember an experience I had with personnel ceilings when I was
assigned to Switzerland in the days of the OSS in November of 1942. I
arrived in Switzerland as the last American to enter legally before the
curtain came down at the time of the landing in North Africa and the
occupation of the southern part of France. Events imposed a ceiling on my
staff and nothing could be done about it, since no one could legally get
into Switzerland from that time on and work with me officially.
Well, I was able to search around in other government departments,
and by finding Americans in Switzerland, it was possible to put together
a small, a very small establishment. But for about a year and a half I
had to work without any reinforcements. That imposed upon me a great
measure of selectivity, and very fortunately in a way, for I could not
write long dispatches since everything had to be enciphered and sent
through the air. I had to restrain any tendencies toward verbosity. The
selectivity forced upon me resulted in my doing far better work during
those eighteen mofths than I did after the frontier opened up. Thereafter,
because of the notoriety which Switzerland had as a center from which so-
called glamorous operations could be carried out, a flood of people descended
upon'.me, whereupon I became an administrator rather than an intelligence
officer. And I hope that throughout the Agency, while we need administrators
and must have them, we'll be able to cut down the number of administrators
and really build up the number of top intelligence officers--men and women-
on our staff. We can only do it through training, through building up a
3areer Service.
The longer I'm in.this work the more convinced I am that it is a
highly personalized affair. It's not the amount of money we have; it's not
the number of projects we have; it is the skill and the devotion of the
individual. I consider it my duty to protect and defend the assets that
have been already put together: the magnificent work General "Beedle"
Smith did in getting this Agency along the way, the work of his predecessors,
the work done by predecessor organizations, and the work Matt Baird is doing
in training the new arrivals. All this has meant that we have gathered
together in this Agency men and women of whom I am sincerely proud, and I
want you to know that in the performance of your duty you can always look to
me to stand up for you and back you when you're in the right.
Question: How do you evaluate our present intelligence output? Are you
satisfied with it?
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Answer: I don't think in intelligence one should ever be satisfied. If
we are, we are lying down on the job. I am highly satisfied with the
manner in which the subjects are presented to me and the briefings that
are given to me within the limits of the intelligence that we have.
We don't have enough intelligence, however, on the major targets. I
might just describe a little of our work with the NSC, which is the
highest policy-making body in government within the field of national
security and foreign problems. It meets, you know, on Thursday morning,
under the chairmanship of the President, with the Vice President, the
Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the
Treasury, the Director of the Foreign Operations Administration, and the
Director of the Office of Defense Mobilization as regular members. Then
on specific topics of interest to any other department of government,
the head of that particular agency meets with the Council. The Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of Central Intelligence
serve as advisers on matters of military policy and intelligence,
respectively. The usual procedure is for the Director of Central
Intelligence, or my Deputy in my absence, to brief the Council on the
intelligence background of matters that are coming before the Council
or are on the agenda for the Council that day; and, in addition, to
raise any urgent matters where an intelligence briefing is deemed
necessary. If there is nothing that has transpired during that particular
week which seems to me urgent enough to bring to the attention of the
Council, I generally restrict the intelligence briefing to the particu-
lar subjects before the Council, occupying ten to fifteen minutes
generally--sometimes, with a very intricate topic, up to half an hour.
Subject to my own failings and shortcomings, I think the procedure is
working satisfactorily.
Question: Does CIA suggest policy?
Answer: I've tried to keep the Agency out of policy. If we espoused a
policy, the tendency would be to shape our intelligence to fit the
policy. In my briefings I always keep out of policy. I've had this
situation arise, though, at the National Security Council: if I
present some situation that is critical, where something should be
done, there is quite a tendency around the table to say, "Well, what
should you do about it; what would you do about it?" Well, then I
refer to the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, whoever it
may be, pass the buck to him--very possibly because I haven't got the
answer myself.
Question: We have read much about the possibility of the establishment of
a joint committee on Central Intelligence something akin to the Joint
Committee on Atomic Energy. Do you believe Congress will set up such
a committee and what do you think of the idea?
Answer: I rarely speculate as to what the Congress will do, and I think
it is probably unwise to do so. This is a matter, however, which I
have discussed with certain of the leaders in Congress, and I propose
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to discuss it further when Congress reassembles, presumably next
January. At the present time the practical situation is that we
report, on matters which are of concern to Congress, to the Armed
Services Committee of the Senate and the House, and on matters relating
to the budget, to the Appropriations Committees. Those arrangements
are working satisfactorily and I would assume that they will continue.
she problem of a new committee has.. I think, been raised and will be
studied in order possibly to protect the Agency from having to report
to a multiplicity of committees. Such protection, of course, would
be helpful. I am not clear in my mind, however, that a committee of
the size now proposed would be the most effective way of doing it, but
this question will be approached with an open mind by us here and, I
believe, also by the members of the Congress.
Question: What, in your estimation, would happen to our Agency in time
of total war?
Answer: It would probably grow, we'd have new problems, and in areas of
military operations there would. come into effect a new relationship
between the Agency and the American Commander-in-Chief in the field.
That has all been worked out in a satisfactory way which would protect
the integrity of the organization but at the same time adapt it to war
conditions in the field.
Question : Are you satisfied with the present structure throughout the
Agency or do you contemplate reorganization?
Answer: I do not contemplate any more reorganization at the moment. I
think it is wise to work with the organization we have--to give it a
chance and only reorganize as we see particular needs. I do find that
in certain areas some of the key men are overworked, particularly with
the added assignments that we've had to take over because of the
activities of the NSC Planning Board, the Psychological Strategy Board
and its proposed successor. That may require certain added personnel on
the top echelon. Apart from this I have no plans for reorganization.
Question: Is the possible transfer of the Paramilitary Function, to the
Department of Defense still under consideration?
Answer: No. There is some consideration being given to the transfer of
one very limited activist segment of that, where we really get out of
the PM field into what is more nearly the functions of Defense, but
that will not involve, in any way, a turnover of that whole function.
That is rightfully, and under NSC directives, a part of the function of
this Agency. But what is being transferred is at the urgent request of
CIA; it is not being wrenched from us. I would like to turn this over;
in fact I have tried for about a'year to turn over this one particular
small segment of work in the field.
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Question: As a part of the Career Service Program, do you think it's a
good idea to have rotation between overseas intelligence officers and
those from the Washington offices--ORR, OCI, etc.?
Answer: Yes, I do, and I think it is a very useful thing for those in
ORR, OCI, CSI, and so forth, to have periods of duty on the covert
side and then have duty in the field, and that is being done. Apart
from this, there are certain stations, particularly London, Frankfurt,
and others, where there are representatives of the overt offices
already--and quite a large number--so that to go into the overt offices
does not necessarily preclude or exclude the possibility of working
in the foreign field.
Question: In answer to a question posed at the last Orientation Program
regarding discrimination against women, has anything been done? And
has the Inspector General made a report on alleged discrimination
against women?
Answer: The Inspector General has, through the CIA Career Service Board,
made an official pronouncement that there shall be no discrimination
against women in the Agency. Also, we had a meeting a little while ago
with a selected group representing the distaff side, and Kirkpatrick
and I sat down and went into the problem. I was glad to find that a
dozen or fifteen of the ladies sitting around the table did not seem
to feel that there was discrimination. If there is any evidence of
discrimination, I want it brought to Mr. Kirkpatrick's attention and to
mine. We are looking into that problem because I am not clear in my
own mind that we have taken full advantage of the capabilities of women.
I'm going to work on that some more.
S-E-C-R-E-T
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