REMARKS (Sanitized)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-03090A000100030001-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 19, 2000
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: August 15, 1955
• Content Type: BULL

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TRA IN ING BULLETIN
NUMBER 14
15 August 1955
25X1 A SUBJECT s Remarks
25X1A 1.
25X1A
the
who s now the
spoka to Agency personnel at the Second National Intelligence Ori-
entation on 3 May 1955.
2. It is believed that the remarks of- will be of
general interest throughout the Agency and are attached hereto
for the information of all concerned.
3. It is requested that this document be given as wide circu-
lation among Agency personnel as is consistent with its classifi-
cation.
P MATT HEW BAWD
Director of Training
~_1_- I poG~t~t~f 9
// Q/
r,
25X1A
25X1A
25X1A
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REMARKS OF
25X1A
AT THE
SECOND NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ORIENTATION
3MAY1955
The schedule set up for this morning makes it clear that what is expected
of me is what Justice Holmes used to call "less an analysis of the obscure than
an elucidation of the obvious." That is all I am going to attempt, justifying
myself on the hope at least, if not the ground, that the obvious does not really
become usable until it has repeatedly been made explicit. It is truly amazing
to find out how often all of us ignore the opening instruction of the famous
olf recipe for rabbit stew. First, catch the rabbit. The comparable recipe for
those engaged in security information about an enemy might very well begin:
first, identify the enemy. That sounds easy. But have you ever got stuck try-
ing to spell a'word that you were sure you knew, until someone asked you to do
it? Part of the trouble is, I think, that so many people have made their own
special identifications of the enemy. We hear that the enemy is Communist
ideology, aggressive Communism, Soviet power, godless Communism, traditional
Russian or traditional Chinese expansionism or imperialism, sabotage, infiltra-
tion, espionage, conspiracy, an ancient evil in a new guise. We are told that
the enemy is a nation, an empire, a group of nations, a bloc. There is no need
to quarrel with any of those labels. Each contains some part of the truth and
perhaps they add up to the correct total. Adding them up is an unwieldy ap-
proach, and it may obscure certain points which would otherwise be obvious.
The first of these obvious points is that the enemy is human. He has tangible
power, physical weapons. He has a working conspiracy. He has an effective
ideology. He has efficient institutions and instruments of control. But power
is neutral until it is employed by men. Conspiracies, ideologies, institutions,
instruments of control have meaning only when they are given life and direction
by men. Clearly very many men are involved but we can concentrate on a small
group, the bosses, because concentration of power is of the essence of the
Communist system so we can modify and expand the first obvious point and say
that our enemies and the enemies of all men who are free or wish to be free are
the Communist masters of the Soviet empire and those who do their bidding.
What are these people like? It is painfully apparent that I must genera-
lize and it is equally apparent that my generalizations cannot possibly fit
accurately all of these people. These people are not superhuman. They are
not perfect. They don't always conform to their own ideals or to their own
standards. After all, the essence of Krushchev's statement about agriculture
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was that a third of the collective farm leaders, who, you will remember, were
all carefully picked men, had proved to be incompetent or stupid rascals. Some
of our enemies are corruptible and fallible and subject to weakness. Others
are incorruptible, able, and tough. But although the pattern has its exceptions,
there is a pattern which helps us to describe the enemy.
The background of that pattern is what Communists for more than a century
have called their guide to action, that is to say, their doctrine. Any mention
of Communist doctrine ordinarily and quite properly evokes both challenges and
skepticism. Do the bosses really believe the doctrines? Don't they just use
the doctrine to support or to excuse actions which they have determined upon for
other reasons? Aren't they completely cynical about these matters? When the
Presidium meets, isn't it more concerned with tangible problems and real power
than with the intangibles of doctrine? I think the answers to all those ques-
tions are "Yes." The Presidium probably does deal with immediacies and with
tangibles of power. The Communist bosses are completely cynical about inter-
preting parts of the doctrine to fit particular situations. They use appropriate
quotations from Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin to support positions which they
have adopted for nondoctrinal reasons. But all the evidence we have over the
past thirty odd years suggests most strongly that the bosses do believe their
basic doctrine. There is no obvious paradox. Let me try to resolve it.
You may have noted that I emphasized the word "basic." What is basic in
their doctrine? First is their faith that the doctrine is a formula which
enables those who comprehend it to understand the past, the present, and the
future. Along with that faith is the conviction that the Communist bosses
alone have the power of sure comprehension. That is their only f igleaf, their
only justification and rationale for the monopolizing of power. From that
first faith, the master Communists can and do argue that they are justified
in telling others what to do because the others lack the requisite knowledge
and understanding. When the bosses guess wrong, as they do, this same faith
makes it possible for them to assign the blame to others. Their failures are
charged not to the faith nor to the system but to the accidental or deliberate
misapplication of the faith or the system.
What else is basic? Prayd , on 17 April 1955, quoted with relish and
great approval Lenin's statement that, "Communists must know that the future
belongs to them in any case." There is the second basic point -- faith in the
ultimate triumph of Communism. It was because he violated that faith that
Malenkov was set down so hard for saying that another war "means the ruin of
world civilization." After that one slip Communist spokesmen, including Malenkov,
have held to their standard theme, namely, that civilization would not be des-
troyed but that capitalism would.
Thus, faith in victory -- their victory -- is the second basic belief.
Linked to this faith is a belief in the inexorable, omnipresent hostility
between capitalism and communism. In their view this hostility takes many
forms and it exists in many degrees of sharpness and violence. But it is always
there. Strains, tensions, as they see it, are normal not abnormal, to be
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expected, anticipated, provided for, used, not to be wondered at, nor wished
away, nor ignored. Specific crises, specific tensions they hold can be settled
by agreement, but the major, all-pervading crisis, they say, cannot. "The fate
of the world," as Pravda once put it, "will ultimately be decided by the outcome
of the inevitable struggle between the two centers."
The next basic point is that the Communists, knowing full well their own
will to triumph over us, logically, assume that we want the same kind of triumph
over them. Ladies and gentlemen, if you go about harboring hatred for your
neighbor and filling your mind always with plottings to bring about his destruc-
tion, you will not long be able to escape a haunting fear that he has the same
plans for you.
There are other basic parts to the doctrine, obviously. This listing is
far from exhaustive. But we have touched on the major points relative to our
special interest, except for one key item. How do these things that I have been
talking about fit into a picture of the nature of the enemy? Does he consult
the doctrine as an engineer might look at a table-of stresses and strains? Does
he look at it as a lawyer might search for precedent? In some cases he undoubtedly
does, but the more important aspect is what may be called the unplanned use of
the doctrine as a guide to action.
What are guides to action? That is not a very familiar phrase. It is,
however, a familiar practice. In normal, everyday life we are guided by personal
habits, by the customs of our group, by special circumstances and especially by
assumptions which we continuously and usually unconsciously make. Assumptions
are largely governed by what social psychologists are coming to speak of as per-
ceptions. A perception, but in everyday language, is how you explain or inter-
pret what you see or hear or otherwise sense. Let's say that the mercury in
the thermometer stands at 70 degrees. We perceive that as being a comfortable
temperature. We assume that the thermometer is accurate and we.also assume on
the basis of a lifetime of experience that we will be more comfortable under those
conditions without a topcoat, so we leave our coats at home. That is a very
simple example of perception, and assumption, and action flowing therefrom. Let
me give you another and equally humdrum, ordinary example. We all of us assume
again on the basis of experience that size and weight vary directly with each
other. The bigger the package the more it weighs. Usually it does but who has
not had the experience of lifting too hard on a package that proved lighter than
it looked, or not hard enough on a package that proved to be heavier than it
looked? The judgment we made of the weight was a perception -- a perception
which rested on an assumption about the size-weight relationship. And that per-
ception governed our action, which in that particular case was the effort origi-
nally applied to lifting the package.
Now let us see how Communist perceptions, governed largely by assumptions
which rest on their basic guide to action, differ from ours. You and I. I
think, could probably agree that the phrase, "a non-Communist government," was
meant to describe a government not dominated by Communists. Could it ever. be
described any other way? Yes, indeed it could. The Communist perceives it
differently. To him a non-Communist government is one "which under the guise of
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of a struggle against the Communists is ready to establish a terrorist regime
in the country, is ready to persecute any progressive leader who advocates his
country's freedom and independence."
One more example will, I think, be enough to illustrate how basic Communist
doctrine underlies perceptions, and, therefore, assumptions and actions. On
our side, there is our perception of the awesome power of fission and fusion
weapons, a perception which leads us 'to speak of the danger that a nuclear war
will end in the destruction of world civilization. On the other side is the
Communist perception as it was, for example, expressed two months ago in their
top theoretical journal. Here it is: "There is another reason. for the bourgeois
ideology and propaganda about the destruction of world civilization. The imperi-
alist bourgeoisie is a class coming to its end and, therefore, it has a peculiar
tendency to identify its doom with the destiny of mankind in general." Ladies
and gentlemen, these are not, as is sometimes alleged, merely different ways of
using certain words. These are fundamental contradictions which spring straight
from the basic guide to action. And 'that guide is the common denominator which
dd.stinguishes our enemy. Make no mistake about it. He is deadly serious about
the guide and about his belief in it, and about the assumptions and perceptions
which flow from it. He probably does not go around among his associates talking
about mad dogs of imperialism, or power-hungry aggressors, or the wolves of Wall
Street, but he is convinced that we and he are implacable foes between whom there
can be temporary rest periods but no permanent coexistence except on terms of
our surrender to him. If his guide to action were not enough, his own daily
experiences in the dog-eat-dog, devil-take-the-hindmost atmosphere of plot and
counterplot, violence and counterviolence, in which he lives, would convince him
of the correctness of his "Whom-Who" concept. Who-Whom (sounds like a hoot owl)
as you probably know, is an abbreviated way of asking the question, "Who will
destroy whom?' This is to the Communist bosses the key question of human behavior.
Do you suppose they apply it less to us than to each other? I don'tI
Let us see what the picture we are developing looks like so far. We have
identified the enemy as the masters of Communism) plus those who do the masters'
bidding. We recognized many variations among them but we have also found that
there is a pattern or common denominator, namely, the guide to action, and that
guide largely determines perceptions and assumptions and, to a cons1lerable
degree, governs actions. We have seen also that the masters of Communism have to
cling to their faith in the correctness of their guide and in the correctness of
their interpretation. The alternative would be the admission of brutal cynicism
and complete selfishness, characteristics which very few men will admit even to
themselves.
Communists not only insist that 'their system is good, but that all other
systems are evil. I ask you to think of that for a moment. Fen don't justify.
their actions by appeals to evil but by appeals to good. The murderer pleads
self defense. Hitler didn't talk about the rape of Czechoslovakia. He talked
of bringing the Sudeten Deutsch back to the Reich. The Communists we say -- and
say correctly - hold that the end justifies the means. They habitually lie,
cheat, steal, kill without compulsion or without compassion, on the ground that
their cause demands and justifies such action. Undoubtedly there are among them
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some completely amoral or immoral men who care for nothing but personal gain.
There are such persons in every society, and they are always viciously dangerous.
These criminal types are not to be taken lightly, but they menace us less than
the disciplined fanatics who are convinced that all their actions are righteous
because the cause they serve is good. It is dangerous to discount that conviction.
Some of you may have been very amused when Voroshilov in a speech last March
said, "In fact, our peaceful policy, our struggle for peace throughout the world,
is being supported by everything progressive, everything pure, everything honest
that exists on earth." You may have said, "That is sheer nonsense. That is the
sort of extravagant thing you expect from a demagogue." Well, you may be right,
but don't forget that our enemy acts as if he believed it. Our enemy not only
behaves like a fanatic; he is one. Cunning, calculating, disciplined, to be
sure, but a fanatic. And that leads to my final point.
Some of you have been attracted to intelligence work by the challenges which
such work offers to your ingenuity, your resourcefulness, your ability to match
wits with an opponent. This is as it should. be. There is an aspect of the work
which resembles a game, in which one seeks to outwit, to outguess, to outplan,
to outmaneuver an opponent. Take what pleasure you can from this, but keep it
in its proper place. ladies and gentlemen, this is not a game to be played under
the rules of sportsmanship. This is for keeps. The enemy we face is dedicated
to our destruction. He is neither omnipotent nor omniscient. He is not even
seven feet tall, but he is tough, a competent professional all day, every day.
Against such an enemy you can remain an amateur only at your own peril and that
of our country. Prolonged existence is a necessity, even for coexistence.
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