REORGANIZING U.S. INTELLIGENCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01601R001200020001-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 11, 2001
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 20, 1971
• Content Type: NSPR

ALBA 1'prhed For Release 2001/03/04: CIA-RDP80-01?VA Q11g00020001-9
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Reorganizing U.S. Intelligence
President Nixon has reorganized
the Federal Government's intelligence
operations which, in essence, gives
Director
Richard Helms a broader mandate to
coordinate all of the various activities
in this field. In the meantime Mr.
Nixon also created a National Security
Council Intelligence Committee to be
chaired by his national security af-
fairs adviser, Dr. Henry A. Kissinger.
These steps have drawn immediate
objections from Senators J. William
Fulbright, chairman of the Foreign
Affairs Committee, and Stuart Sy-
mington on the grounds that Congress
was not consulted in advance about
them, and that what Mr. Nixon evi-
dently is trying to accomplish is a
removal of Congressional overseeing
of any intellligence activities by vest-
ing the area almost wholly with
Executive immunity. But the fact of
the matter is that the President has
dealt solely with the Executive Branch
in taking this action, as lie is unques-
tionably authorized to do. What irks
the Senators is that they cannot, un-
der the new setup, bring Doctor
Kissinger before their committee to
be interrogated in this area of Gov-
ernment.
What may have prompted Mr. Nix-
on's action was recent history. That
details how President Kennedy got
some bad intelligence from the mili-
tary on the Bay of Pigs, and Lyndon
Johnson some even worse intelligence
from his White House people and
some of the military on Vietnam.
The story is that the. CIA was not
responsible for these bum steers.
Consequently, President -Nixon now
wants the bulk of his intelligence to
come through the hands of a polished
professional, CIA Director Helms -
STATI NIL
a trusted adviser, Doctor Kissinger.
Certainly that is his privilege, how-
ever the Senators may fret.
As Director Helms told the ,edi-
tors: "We (the CIA) not only have
no stake in policy debate, but we can
not and must not take sides. The
role of intelligence in policy formu-
lation is limited to providing facts -
the agreed facts - and the whole
known range of facts - relevant to
the problem under consideration. Our
iole extends to the estimative func-
tion - the projection of likely de-
velopments from the facts - but not
to advocacy, or recommendations for
one course of action or another.
"As the President's principal in-
telligence officer, I am an adviser to
the National Security Council, not a
member, and when there is debate
over alternative policy options, I do
not and must not line up with either
side.
"If I should take sides and recom?
mend one solution, the other side. is
going to suspect - if not believe -
that the intelligence presentation has
been stacked to support my position,
and the credibility of the CIA goes
out the window."
To the journalistic profession,
whose watchword is objectivity, which
equates with a presentation of bal-
anced facts as free from personal emo-
tionalism, bias or bent as it is human-
ly possible to recom t}h"co Nrnr.7e of
Richard Helms are r, artpn,n,r
is, in of strong sense, one or' us. In-
deed, as he himself put it, "objectiv-
ity puts me on familiar ground as an
old wire service hand, but it is even
more important to an intelligence or-
ganization serving the policymaker."
It is reassuring; to realize that a
man of this singular dedication and
rational approach has been empow-
who w s most in ~ssivg~r an ut a they, e
Yo~ierrf~sY tn eir#ffll 001200020001-9
piece so p~i a4a~efb eS~h 00t 0 goo
American Society of Newspaper Edi- ficer. Ile has our best wishes in an
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In his first public address since
appointment as director of the Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency, Richard
Helms had several points he wished
to make to the American people via
the forum provided by the American
Society of Newspaper Editors:
Item: "We do not target on
American citizens."
Item: "We not only have no stake
in policy debates but we cannot and
must not tale sides."
Item: "The elected officials of
the U. S. Government watch over
(the Central Intelligence Agency) ex-
tensively, intensively and continu-
ously."
Item: "We understand as well
as anyone the difficulties and the
contradictions of conducting foreign
intelligence operations on behalf of
a free society."
Item: Finally, "The nation must
to a degree take it on faith that we
too are honorable men devoted to her
service."
Mr. Helms, one of our more im-
pressive civil servants, one reminis-
cent in several respects of a young
J. Edgar Hoover striving diligently to
invest his sector of the Federal
bureaucracy with a degree* of exceI-
lence second to none, essayed to
counter, what he characterized as a
"persistent and growing body of criti-
cism which questions the need and
the propriety for a democratic so-
ciety to have a Central Intelligence
Agency.
He recognized at the outset that
there is extant an "inherent Ameri-
can distaste for peacetime gathering
of intelligence." Be that as it may,
we have come a long way from the
age of our innocence between World
Wars I and IT. The stars in our eves
CI.A is somehow involved in-the world
drug traffic. ll' e are not." Ali, well,
it was a great tale while it lasted, and
if we had never heard of the dirty
business of spying, much less engaged
in it. We undertake it because it is
a very necessary business to our
survival.
Or, as Mr. Helms put it pithily,
this. is a "fearsome" world, and to
live in it we must know not only who
the tigers are, but where they lurk,
what lengths their fangs and claws
are, and if they are likely to ambush
us, to attack frontally, or merely to
growl.
That is why we have a CIA. We
have it because Pearl Harbor finally
proved to us that if we 'Kept bungling
the intelligence bit, we might soon formation - factually, objectively,
not have a country. The fact that painstakingly - on which current
Army Intelligence didn't let Navy In- and future policy must be based.
telligeuce in on what it knew in those As Director Helms counsels, %'-e
days, and vice versa, and the State must `.`take it on faith" that his agen-
Department didn't communicate with cy is reliable, steadfast, devoted and
either and perhaps the White House honorable. That is difficult in a free
didn't hear from anyone at all, society, accustomed to the exercises
brought the CIA into being by act of of checks and balances upon all gw-
Congress at the urgent behest of an ernmental authority. But, whatever
alarmed and aroused President the railings against reality, we have
Truman. no alternative other than to trust the
It has been in business since. CIA, the President, the Congress and
We seldom, almost never, hear of the Government. Our lives are liter-
its successes. That is .in the nature ally in their hands.
of the cloak-and-dagger business. To
publish information is to "blow the
cover" on individuals and organisms,
rendering them useless for the future.
We do hear of its many duds -
abortive coups and invasions and in-
cidents (some of which, doubtless,
the CIA may never have heard of at
all, but of course cannot say one way
or the other).
We' do, in the necessary aura of
mystery that envelopes the agency,
suspect any and every thing of hav-
ing CIA sponsorship. Some of the
no longer twinkle P6~ P~rumors are o
M/9A,VWW
the -ramifications were endless. As
with drugs, we daresay, so with a
great many other issues and areas.
But the CIA's. raison d'etre steins
from stern reality, not fun and games.
In Mr. Helms' words, "the United
States, as a world power, either is
involved or may with little wanting
find itself involved in a wide range
and variety of problems which re-
quire a broad and detailed base of
foreign intelligence for the policy.
makers." The director emnhasizea
that neither he-lior the CIA makes
policy. The elected and appointed
representatives of the people of the
United States perform that task. But
the CIA does gather and correlate in-
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