REMARKS BY ALLEN W. DULLES DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AT THE CORNERSTONE CEREMONY CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY HEADQUARTERS BUILDING 11:30 A.M., NOVEMBER 3, 1959

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-04506A000100010029-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 23, 1999
• Sequence Number: 29
• Publication Date: November 3, 1959
• Content Type: SPEECH

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W. DULLES
DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
AT THE
CORNERSTONE CEREMONY
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY HEADQUARTERS BUILDING
11:30 A.M., November 3, 1959
The laying of this cornerstone marks an important stage in the growth
of the Central Intelligence Agency, We will soon have a home of our own,
in these inspiring surroundings high above the Potomac.
The Agency was established 12 years ago by the same Act of Congress
which created the National Security Council and the Department of Defense.
Thus the Central Intelligence Agency was recognized as one of the important
elements in our national security structure.
World War II and its aftermath and the international communist threat
had already brought home to us that our vital interests were at stake in
places as distant as Korea, and Laos, in Africa and the Islands of the
Pacific, as well as in this Hemisphere and in Europe.
Since then, our country's ever expanding responsibilities have increased
the need for better information from the four corners of the earth and for
sound analysis of that information.
The law creating the Agency was voted by a Congress in which there was
a Republican majority. It was sponsored and signed by a Democratic President.
For the past crucial years it has had the unfailing support of a Republican
President and a Democratic Congress.
Facts have no politics.
Our charter, in the carefully drafted provisions of the National
Security Act, has undergone no change. It provides that, under the direction
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correlate and evaluate intelligence relating to the national security, and
perform such additional services of common concern in this field as the
National Security Council may direct.
Wisely this legislation provides that we should have no domestic
internal security functions. Yet the scope of the jurisdiction granted
is ample. Our work is broad and comprehensive enough to enlist the
interest and to inspire the devotion of those who choose, and are chosen,
to enter upon it.
Laws can create agencies of government; they cannot make them function.
Only the high purpose and dedication of all serving them can weld them into
effective instruments for our national security.
In this work of intelligence we must not forget that human beings are
largely the creatures of their beliefs. As individuals we tend instinctively,
and sometimes wistfully, to become attached to causes, to theories, to
solutions.
If they be sound and enduring, based on the deep moral strivings of
man and the highest conception of our national interests, let us cling to
them. But in the field of our relations with our fellowmen abroad, let us
assure ourselves, through accurate intelligence, that our attachments to
policies are soundly based.
It is the particular duty of this Agency to help perform this function
in a world where change is the fule rather than the exception. This task
must be carried out fearlessly, without warping to meet our prejudices or
our predilections or even the tenets of existing policy.
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we uiQc a new a ce in which to house, to concentrate and
coordinate our work, we must rededicate ourselves to this high purpose.
The guiding motto to be inscribed on the face of this building will
be the words taken from the Gospel according to St. John: "Ye shall know
the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
The President of the United States has graciously consented to lay
the cornerstone.
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