REMARKS BY MR. DULLES AT CEREMONY INAUGURATING THE CAREER STAFF

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01826R000900010007-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 18, 2001
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: April 27, 1955
• Content Type: REPORT

REMARKS BY MR. DULLES AT CEREMONY INAUGURATING THE CAREER STAFF
27 April 1955
MR. DULLEST Mr. Kirkpatrick, ladies and gentlemen - and, shortly, fellow
members of the Career Service Staff. This day represents for me, and for all of us,
a real landmark in the history of intelligence in the United States. I am glad to
carry out the pledge that I made last August. It was not made in jest, it was made
very seriously. When I took this job I told those in Government that I was taking
this job for as long as they wanted me to serve in it. I was not looking for any-
thing else. I can't conceive of a job more important to the Government, nor can I
think of any job that would give a man or woman a better opportunity to exercise all
his talents, his abilities, his ingenuity, than this particular job. Therefore,
when I accept this certificate - which I think probably I should read because I want
to know exactly what I am getting into (laughter] - I accept this certificate with
a dedication and with enthusiasm. I am delighted to be a member of this small group
here, and of a much larger group and a growing group in the Agency as the membership
in the Career Service builds up. The fact that we have applications is
an extraordinary testimony to the interest and devotion of the great majority, prac-
tically the unanimity of those whom we have here and abroad serving CIA.
I probably started in intelligence before almost any of you here, and
maybe before a good many of you were born, because I really started my intelligence
career in 1917 when I was in Foreign Service; as a matter of fact, before anyone had
ever dreamed, really, of an American intelligence agency such as we have today. And
in those days, the days of World War I when I was serving in Bern) but really doing
intelligence work, I developed an interest and enthusiasm for the work that has never
left me. From time to time, as you know, over the years, up until the end of 1950
when I came down here, I had felt that this was the career that Iwanted, and I am
delighted to see that there are so many in our Organization who feel the same way.
I don't know any line of work where a Career Service is more needed
than it is in intelligence. It is only through training, it is only through experience,
it is only through trial and error - and we all make mistakes - that one can build up
qualities and capabilities to do good intelligence work, and it is needed all the
way down the line. The person that is working in filing is just as important, in
ib t?;p f
many ways, as the person that is reaching the tap decisions, because if you don't
have your papers before you to make those decisions, you don't make the right
decision, and if they don't get there quickly you miss opportunities. So I want to
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tell each one of you, no matter what your particular job may be, that it is vital
to the entire teamwork of the Agency. That is why we have this Career Service Staff
right across the board, and we are not sectionalizing it in different departments or
sections of the Agency. It is one career, with various facets, whether one is in the
estimating side of the work or whether one is in the intelligence gathering side of
the work, analyzing side, administrative side - it is all one work, one career, and
one great opportunity to do service for the Government.
I had placed before me a little paper that might guide me in my remarks.
I rarely accept those guides but I like to have them. I prefer to speak from the
heart rather than from paper. But there was one quotation here from a remark that
Bernard Baruch made that I thought was so pertinent that I would read it to you. He
"We need a new campaign in America, a campaign to get the
facts, not as we would like them to be but as they are.
Our arsenal for war is mighty. Our instruments for peace
are many. But they are all useless unless reason and
intelligence direct them."
It seems to me that is a kind of a charter for us. That is our job. We don't deal
with policy, we deal with the facts behind the policy. We have one of the most
important and vital jobs in the Government. This Agency is daily gaining in stature
and importance. It is not a policy-making department of the Government but there is
not a department that does not now look to us for help and guidance. We have great
responsibilities, and I am sure that now that we are starting out with a Career Staff
we can far better fill those responsibilities than in the past.
I want to congratulate all of you here who have been working so hard
25X1A9a on this - Mr. Kirkpatrick, and others. I want to congratulate those
who have so much to do here with the training of all of us. We are on the road to
real accomplishment, and I am glad to be a member of this first group of the Career
Service Staff.
Thank you, very much-
. . . Applause . . .
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