INFORMAL DISCUSSION AFTER ADJOURNMENT OF THE RETIREMENT BOARD MEETING ON 23 JULY 1970

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-03092A000800040004-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 23, 2001
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: July 23, 1970
• Content Type: NOTES

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25X1A9a
Informal discussion after adjournment of the
Retirement Board Meeting on 23 July 1970.
I'm still troubled- - I' m working on
this letter to the Director answering his questions, and maybe when this
is finally written and then we get Borne sort of response, then I think it's
time far another policy statement to get iota the books on this.
It's interesting, though -- I did go back over
some of our ancient history, although I didn't bring it with me today, but
a lot has been written - like, you know, brought up som~5X1A9a
25X1A9a point and gave it to and then John gave us some quotes from
the Committee interaction, and it was pretty clear that Congress recognized
this was pretty loose language - that is, the language defining our qualifying
service - ...
with staff assistance, and together, you came up with the ~tatutorylLLEG1B
language - -
Statutory language, yes.
25X1A9a
And then I never fully under stood this, but
as a result of that they said - Okay, we can understand why you can't put
in more specifics, therefore we want you to put this in your Regulation and
then we will approve your Regulation -- and it was sort of that that got us intcy
this - that we would expand a bit in the Regulation and then the Committee
would approve the Regulation -- and that of course they have done.
25X1A9a
No, it is not.
It's funny, but actually you have used
language which said because of the way all this happened it might almost be
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y approving the Regulation, is the Regulation
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included as part of the Act itself -- I think you said "might almost be" --
25X1A9a Any gross liberalization I think just
policy-wise, political-wise, we would have to clear with the Committee,
no question about that.
25X1A9a You were speaking I think of the qualifying
service part, that the way that evolved it almost has to be considered part
of the Act. But from the very beginning we have tortured with this problem,
and Iknow -but I'm just repeating it again because it's fresh in my mind -
how we very clearly said let's go for a broad interpretation for the overseas
service but be very restrictive and very narrow domestically - because
otherwise, you know, thousands could get into this Systerr_based on .~~LEGIB_
wording of (11)(a), (b), (c), and so on. And Ben just got me the figures `p
to put in the memo, and I think in the first four years there are 10 disapprovals
and two appeals of 10 disapprovals in the whole first four years of this
exercise --
25X1A9a In the first four years there were no
appeals. Those two appeals came in the 4th year, but then there were a
lot of appeals because of the 1969 rule.
25X1A9a
Talking about amending that Regulation,
would that have to go back up to the Congress ?
25X1A9a I think it's a matter of judgment, Charlie.
Far concepts involved in liberalizing, yes -- but for tightening it, I don't
think we need to go back.
25X1A9a As I read it again, they recognized it was
terribly broad, and was giving legislative authority to t-h~e* executive since the
Director could identify who he thought was qualified -- stzey were concerned
about the language. But we had some good spokesmen there on our behalf
who waved the security cloak and said, "Well, gee, you know, national security,
~\
and if we got into all the different types-- " And this I know because I
r1
heard this in private sessions. So they did say - Well, at least try to be
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a little more specific in the Regulation. Well, they were a little more
specific in the Regulation. It's still terribly broad. So if we change
that, I think it's a big problem in terms of deciding have we liberalized
or strengthened it, and then do we have to go back to them --
think leave it alone.
25X1A9a
On turning down appeals, I looked at
all of the old Minutes, and looking at the Minutes for April and May of 1965,
the initial Minutes, the Board pretty much were agreeing at that time that
-b. (11)(c) would only be used in involuntary retirement cases.
25X1A9a
Yes, that comes through very clearly, too.
Emmett Echols made quite a point of this, that (11)(c) in partcular we have
r if we want to get rid of somebody and then we look back in retrospect
and say his career was such we can wave the wand and put him in the System
and get him out of the Agency. Well, peculiarly enough, these all
happened to be discontinued service. So in a sense it would be applicable
b ut nobody contemplated anything of quite this magnitude. What they were
really thinking of was if they had somebody who didn't perform and they were
really trying to get xid of him --
25X1A9a In the policy statement which is recorded
in the Employee Bulletin the big point is that we wouldn't look at (11)(c) until
retirement was imminent, not necessarily involuntary.
25X1A9a
ut there's another statement quoting Emmett --
I'm quoting the Bulletin - it does not
say involuntary - -
25X1A9a
;11, it was before this that Emmett had said
Well, but that was Emmett. The Board
didn't buy it.
W e11, at that meeting they kind of did buy it.
a matter of fact, I also was surprised to
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find modifying language to (11)(c) which we all bought but nothing was ever
done about it -- actually to change (11)(c) to get to language such as
"it is contemplated that this will be relatively rare " - or that type of
thing -- and we all bought it, that yes, this is good language to get in --
25X1 Aga but then that was the end of it. But may be right and maybe
Col. White is right that if we can just change the whole atmosphere around
the Agency by the Director telling the Deputies how he feels about this,
maybe we can accomplish the same thing, and Col. White seems to think
the Director is ready to do just this.
. The meeting then adjourned at 3:15 p. m.
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