REMARKS OF LYMAN B. KIRKPATRICK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-03090A000100010013-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 9, 2001
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: November 23, 1953
• Content Type: BULL

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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
OFFICE OF TRAINING
TRAINING BULLETIN
23 November 1953
SUBJECT: Remarks of Lyman B. Kirkpatrick
1. The Inspector General, Lyman B. Kirkpatrick, spoke to
Agency personnel at the Twelfth Agency Orientation Course on 6 November
1953.
2. It is believed that Mr. Kirkpatrick's 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.
MATTHEW BAIRD
Director of Training
Attachment: 1
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REMARKS OF
MR. LYMAN B. KIRKPATRICK
AT THE
TWELFTH AGENCY ORIENTATION COURSE
6 NOVEMBER 1953
CCNF'
I should like to talk only briefly about the Office of the Inspector
General, and then I will devote most of my time to talking about a subject
which is very close to my heart, a career in the Central Intelligence
Agency, a subject with which I am sure all of you are concerned.
As to the Office of the Inspector General. Let us be quite frank
about it and say that in a good organization or in a small, compact organi-
zation the necessity for an Inspector General does not exist, and I hope
that some day, perhaps through some of my efforts, we can achieve that
result in this Agency. This Agency has gone through a period of rapid
growth--a growth which, by the way, was not so much of our doing as of other
governmental agencies which wanted us to do many things in many parts of
the world, some far beyond our capabilities--and it became very large in a
very short time. As many of you may realize, we are now going through a
period of stability, in which we are regrouping, reorganizing, stabilizing,
getting our organization set down and developing ourselves professionally
to the degree where we will probably rank, in short order, with the best
intelligence services in the world. However, we did grow too fast'and some
of the problems that come to the Office of the Inspector General are the
result of too rapid growth.
What the IG's office does in CIA is very briefly two things: First, it
is my objective, with a very small staff, to perform at least once a year
an inspection of every single component of the Agency. Inasmuch as this is
the first year in which inspection has, been performed, we will be much more
thorough than in later years. In.these inspections it will be our objective
to see that the component which we are inspecting is operating within the
jurisdiction of appropriate directives, is doing the job competently, is
well organized, has its personnel well in hand, has good personnel management,
handles its money properly and, in other words, is a sound part of the
organization.
I report directly to the Director of Central Intelligence and, therefore,
the Inspector General's reports go to the Director. However, it is my policy
in reporting on a component to give the head of that component, generally
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the Deputy concerned, a chance to read the report before it goes to the
Director, so that if he has any strong dissenting opinion as to the facts
produced or the recommendations made, the Director will have the opportunity
to review his comments simultaneously with my comments.
The second part of the IG's office is perhaps of more importance to you
individually. We are open always to any individual in the organization who
has any problems on which he cannot gain redress through the appropriate
channels. I would like to stress that there are appropriate channels open to
you, whether you have a personal problem or whether you have an official
problem. But if you cannot solve your problem, if you become overly frus-
trated in trying to get it done through official channels, if you seem to
run into a stone wall and feel that there is a problem there which should
be taken up, the doors of the Inspector General's office are open at all
times; and it is understood by all.of the supervisors in this Agency that
there will be no unfavorable reflection on anyone coming to the IG. I am
there to listen, and in case I cannot see you personally, I have two able
assistants who will be glad to see you, and we will be glad to do what we can
to assist you. In certain instances we may be able to, but remember that
bureaucracy in government is a great and complex organization, and we are not
always able to cut the red tape or the organizational roadblocks which may be
in your way.
Now, let us talk about career service. The very first question which
I would like to answer is: "Why should the Agency have a career service
which in any way differs from the rest of the Federal Government; why should
it differ from Civil Service; are we a privileged group over and above any
others?" The answer as far as "privileged group" is concerned is, of course,
"no"; but the answer as far as the Agency is concerned is a very strong "yes."
And it is "yes" because we have perhaps the gravest responsibility of any
group of individuals in the Federal Government. It is not the Army or the
Navy or the Air Force with all due respect to the men in those services who
are the first line of defense; it is the intelligence service. And the Army,
the Navy, and the Air Force will come into combat only if the intelligence
service fails. If our information is not sufficiently good, if our coverage
of the world is not sufficiently accurate, if we fail to get advance indications
of hostilities or of actions inimical to this country, then the military
services will have to come in and pick up where we dropped the ball. Conse-
quently, the first reason why there should be a career service is that we
have a grave and important responsibility to our nation; the second, that we
have authority and responsibilities given to us by the Congress, by mandate
to the Director of Central Intelligence, over and beyond any other government
agency in the United States, and over and beyond any authority or responsibility
ever given to any other government agency in the history of this country.
Obviously, the Director, himself, cannot fulfill these obligations and responsi-
bilities personally and must delegate them to practically each and every
individual in the Agency. With these responsibilities and obligations it is
vital that we have the highest-calibre people in this Agency that it is
possible to have.
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The third reason we should have a career service is that intelligence is
a profession, a profession which is not easily acquired. We as a nation have
always been, perhaps, as far behind as any power has been in the intelligence
profession; only in recent years with the creation of the first Central
Intelligence Group, and then with the creation of this Agency by Federal
statute, have we started to catch up to the other great powers. We have a
great distance to go to catch up. We have made amazing strides in the years
since World War II but we have a large and sinister enemy in the Soviet Union
and, perhaps, the most capable enemy that this country has ever faced in the
field of intelligence and intelligence operations--sinister, ruthless, amoral,
and with nearly all of the assets and abilities that we can put into the same
field. Consequently, the intelligence officer who is brought into this Agency
needs training, needs experience, and needs a broadening which only time and
strenuous effort can give.
And, finally, the fourth and last reason for a career service is that it
is extremely important that we encourage everybody entering this Agency to
plan to make it a lifetime career and profession for security reasons and for
reasons of cost.
As IG, switching rapidly to the other hat, I would like to say to you
to remember always that the dollar you are spending as an employee of CIA
is your own as a taxpayer and that it should be used with discretion whether
you are writing a cable, typing up a memorandum, or engaging in an operation.
And it is very important from a security point of view that we have as
small a turnover in personnel as we possibly can. Regardless of what the job
of the individual is in an intelligence organization, he obviously acquires a
certain amount of information as to its work, its assets, its capabilities,
its competence, its knowledge; and the more people that enter this Agency and
leave it after a short time, the more information about the work of this Agency
there is outside of the Agency. I say that without impuning the motives of
the individuals who are forced to leave the organization for personal reasons
or for professional reasons, because we recognize that they are loyal and able
American citizens or they would not have been here in the first place. Yet,
regardless of how discreet an individual is, or how careful he or she may be
after leaving the Agency, the security barrier is gone--we no longer have the
daily knowledge of security by seeing guards on the doors, by having to lock
papers at night. And, consequently, little by little the information about
the work of the Agency starts to get out.
I am sure that all of you have heard about career service, and I am also
sure that many of you are skeptical about what this Agency is doing about
career service. So let me give you a very quick historical outline and tell
you what is going on today.
The Career Service Program, as such, started under General Smith in 1951.
He organized a CIA Career Service Board to study the problem and come up
with recommendations as to what should be done. That Board was composed of
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Deputy Directors and Assistant Directors. They set up eight task forces on
which individuals, through the level of Division Chief, were represented to
study all of the problems that were necessary in order to establish a career
service. Some of those problems were rotation of jobs, transfer between
different components of the Agency, liberalized retirement benefits, medical
benefits for dependents, tenure of office, job security, and so on down the
line; all of the important factors that you are interested in as a career
employee.
These task forces met on a weekly basis over a period of about a year,
and they came up with voluminous studies covering each and every factor which
affects your career. When the final report was submitted to General Smith,
he established a CIA Career Service Board which was composed of the Deputy
Directors, the Director of Training, the Assistant Director for Communications,
and two representatives from each of the Deputies' areas on the Assistant
Director level. That Board exists basically as constituted to this day.
Then each of the components of the Agency, each of the offices,
established its own Career Service Board, and I might just say that some of
them have worked exceedingly well. I would like to pay high tribute to the
Career Service Board of the Office of Communications. It is one of the best
organized and best operating in the Agency. Others have worked less well.
The motivation on the part of some for establishing a career service and
working toward this end has not been as great as others.
I would like to add parenthetically that I think the system as we have
it today is a little cumbersome. It involves the work of too many high-level
officials over too great a time. I think that in the very near future we
will come up with a plan for streamlining and simplifying it, and for getting
to what I think is the real basis for career service. This is the planning for
each of your careers over a period from ten to fifteen years and talking over
with you the plan for your career, insuring that it is in accordance with
your desires and your aptitudes, and then launching you forward on that career
so that you will know that today you are going to hold such and such a job;
then, perhaps, you will transfer to another office to broaden your basis of
knowledge and experience, and then you will return to your own offices; then,
perhaps, you will have a period of six months of training with the Office of
Training, and so on down the line over a period of years, in order that you
can project your career ahead. I also envisage a board which will screen
not only applicants coming into the Agency but also individuals when they
pass through their probationary period in career service and perhaps later
at a date when specialists and executive-type individuals will be put in the
proper patterns for their future. I feel eery strongly that each and every-
one of us has different characteristics, different capabilities and different
types of aptitude that should be developed for the best interests of the Agency.
I would like to tell you of some of the things that are going on currently.
In addition to the regular meetings of all of the Career Service Boards, we
have under the very able leadership of of the Office of Training,
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a Women's Panel which has been meeting for some three months and is studying
the problems affecting women's careers in this Agency and seeing what should
be done to ensure that women can make just as much of a career and go just as
far forward as men can in CIA.
We have a Junior Officers' Panel which is studying the problems peculiar
to junior officers--grade levels of say five up to nine--to see what should
be done to ensure that they can make a better career in the Agency than exists
today.
We have a Legislative Task Force studying all of the problems of career
service to see what we should go to the Congress to ask for in order that our
career service can be the equal of any in the Federal Government, offer the
same benefits and, incidentally, the same obligations. I think all of you
should recognize that you cannot be on a one-way street as far as a career is
concerned. If you are to have retirement benefits, if the Agency is to look
after you in sickness and health, you must also recognize that the Agency
expects from you an obligation to serve, to stay with the Agency over a career,
and to give it the best possible out of your professional abilities.
Then we have a Writing Task Force which is important from your point of
view, because I have so many comments like this: "I don't really know what
career service is," We have a group preparing a booklet which I hope will
be issued to you by the end of this year telling you exactly what career service
means to you, what your benefits are, and all of the details as to training,
retirement, and so forth.
That is, in essence, a very quick thumbnail sketch of a very large
amount of work that is being done. We are trying to make sure that it reflects,
not the official views of the Division Chiefs or the Assistant Directors, but
the official views of every individual working for the Agency.
If you have problems on career service which are not adequately covered
today, I urge you to submit them, preferably in writing, to your Career Service
Board, and it will surely forward them up to the CIA Board if there are
questions which it cannot answer.
In conclusion, there is just one word which I would like to say. The
objective of the CIA Career Service Program is extremely simple. It is to
make the Central Intelligence Agency not only the best place to work in the
Federal Government but also to make it the Agency that attracts the most
qualified and the best individuals for this type of work throughout our entire
country.
uestion: Is there any conflict between the function of your office and that
of Organization and Management which is under DD/A? Do not the responsi-
bilities of 0 & M also include inspection of offices and activities?
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Answer: Yes, that is quite true. But the delineation between the Office of
the Inspector General and that of Organization and Management is that 0 & M
is here basically to be of assistance to the offices with respect to organi-
zation and in the solving of their management problems, and the IG is here
more as an arbitrator--to take the burden off the Director and the Deputy
Director in working out jurisdictional disputes which cannot otherwise be
worked out.
uesti : How does the career service affect typists, secretaries, and semi-
professional people?
Answer: It affects them in the same way as it affects anybody else in the
Career Service Program. If they are here to make a career in the Agency
and indicate this, it will give them the benefit of a job security which
it will not give to individuals who are here on a short period of time.
Of course, we obviously cannot interfere with matrimony or motherhood,
which are two of the largest causes of the ladies leaving us, but it is
still quite important from a security point of view as well as from a
straight cost point of view to keep our turnover down as much as possible.
Consequently, the Career Service Program will encompass the clerical and
semi-professional people just as thoroughly as it does professional people.
Questio Is the lack of a college education a hindrance to advancement with-
in CIA? Is the career program, for which many of us were hired, going to
work to our advantage even if we do not have advanced degrees?
Answer: You will be judged in CIA strictly upon your abilities and your
qualifications regardless of whether you have a college degree or not. As
far as advanced degrees are concerned, if you are in CIA and doing a job,
your advancement will be based not upon the degrees that you hold but upon
the job that you are doing and upon your qualifications to advance to another
job. If there is any action to the contrary, as Inspector General, I would
be glad to examine the case.
uestio : What about rotation between Offices in the Agency in Washington and
rotation between overseas and Washington?
Answer: Rotation is one of our most serious problems today. It is a very
difficult job, indeed, to preserve cox,partmentation, which is absolutely
essential in every intelligence agency; and also, simultaneously to
encourage rotation because you get a certain amount of resistance to rotation.
It is, I think, simply a matter of more education because we have a system
of rotation from your office to a training site to another office and back
to your own office, which should broaden your career. I think it is mainly
a matter of maturing our career service. As far as overseas and Washington
is concerned, that is almost strictly within the one area of the DD/P, m d
I think that in itself can be worked out with time. Today, I am very dis-
tressed by the fact that some individuals core back and do what I think is
a very invidious thing which is forced upon them, and that is, shop for jobs.
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I think we can stop that in short order and when they come back, well
before they come back, they will know what their future assignment will be.
Question: Is there any tendency toward setting up a specific period of time
for work in an overt position within the Agency before applying for a
position on the clandestine side?
Answer: Basically speaking, that is the opposite of the normal way. It
is much preferable to move from the covert to the overt side, but there
is absolutely no reason for not moving in the other direction provided
you go into a staff job where the fact that you were overt and may be
identified with CIA is not detrimental to your work on the covert side.
uesti : Since CIA is putting emphasis on improving the calibre of its
employees, has any regulation been put into effect to enable CIA to
dismiss employees for incompetence or mediocrity?
Answer: This does not require a regulation, basically. There is an esta-
blished system in the personnel procedures, an established method for
eliminating incompetent or mediocre employees. That is through the
Personnel Evaluation Report. This is something in which I am extremely
interested because, to be very honest about it, it has never worked well
in the past. It has never worked well because we are all human beings
and we do not like to call a fellow in and say, "Well look, Joe, you
haven't been doing too well and we're giving you an unsatisfactory efficiency
report." You probably know him and you probably know he has a wife and
children and when he gets that news, it is going to raise certain mental
anguish, if not greater than that. But basically speaking, that is the
way it has to work. If we are going to have a highly qualified service
with only the best people in it, unhappily there will be those who get
evaluation reports indicating that they are not on a level with their fellow
employees. Those evaluation reports must be discussed with each individual
before they are accepted. The individual must be told what his weaknesses
are and only then can the procedures be implemented for his elimination or
resignation from the Agency.
Question: Do we have a retirement system tied in with present planning? Has
anything been done about a twenty-year retirement law for CIA people?
Answer: The answer to both of those questions is "yes." We have, of course,
an existing retirement system. We are all under the Civil Service Retire-
ment System which actually is quite a liberal one. As far as a twenty-year
retirement for service of a particular nature, that would have to be enacted
by legislation.
Question: Because of the economy wave, do you anticipate any RIF's--Reductions
in Force--in our Agency?
Answer: There will be none, as far as we know today. We obviously cannot
predict the future actions of Congress, and we will have to be very careful
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on expansion either in our expenditures or in the use of personnel, but
as far as RIF's are concerned, I certainly think that we will avoid them
if we possibly can.
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