ADMIRAL TURNER'S TALK TO THE CONFERENCE BOARD, NEW YORK CITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01554R002700410001-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 30
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 27, 2001
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 18, 1978
• Content Type: SPEECH

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New York City.
Thank you very much Frank Cary. Ladies & Gentlemen.
I'm here tonight because clearly it is a signal honor to be STATOTHR
here and a tremendous opportunity. But I am really here more
because, thanks to thanks to
over the past 5 years I've had three opportunities to participate
in YAMA conferences of this organization. These were in my
previous incarnation as a Naval officer and on each occasion,
as I sat around with those forty-some businessmen, I found
myself a little like a fish out of water. Certainly one
who had very little to bring but a great deal to learn and
from which to benefit. I felt then that it was important to
those of us in positions of authority in the government understand
your world and the important connections between the business
world and the government. As I am now in a different position,
I feel even more keenly that it is critical to me and I
hope that we can be helpful to you.
Frank mentioned your reading habits with respect to
what you know about me or think about my position. I must
admit to you that as the Director of one of our most
secretive government agencies, I'm a little abashed at the
amount of publicity that I get these days, at least since
I opted to dismiss a number of employees 2 1/2 months ago.
Now the furor that this has caused in the media, is I think,
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symptomatic of the fact that the Intelligence organization.
of our country is at an important turning point. When
you come to changing directions in a bureaucracy, be it an
intelligence bureaucracy or any other--I suspect even in
some of your businesses--it is not always easy and painless.
If I could have the temerity tonight, in this the center of
the American business community, to try to draw an analogy
between the change that is taking place in the American
Intelligence Community and a hypothetical family business which
has just decided to incorporate, I'd like to try.
I'd like to suggest that the CIA in particular, within our
Intelligence Community, is today in a position of a family
business that 30 years ago started out with a good product
and has successfully produced and marketed it. But today it is
finding that that product has changed or the times have changed
just enough that it needs a little modification, a little
diversification. As a result, the company is going to incorporate
it. This is similar to where we are in the CIA, which 30 years
ago started out with a very clear product line. That product
was intelligence about the Soviet Union. It may be intelligence
about it's principle satellites in Eastern Europe and
intelligence about those areas where the Soviets were from
time to time making forays and explorations into the free
world. But the product line was determined by where and
what the Soviets were up to. Think, think now back at that
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by increasing. demands to complement that with good human
intelligence efforts.
But what I have described briefly here is quite a
different production line. The human spy element is no
longer the primary star in the galaxy it's one of many,
perhaps first among equals. We must today bring together
in a complementary fashion the capabilities of the new
technical systems and the old traditional human systems.
Here again, we make changes, we make organizational re-
arrangements. We have to have new considerations as we
undertake collection activities to see how they fit together
in a proper mesh. We have to make sure-that our production
line is a well-oiled machine. ?end that's new--it's unsettling,
it's disturbing, to people who have been working as they have
for the CIA for thirty years on a slightly different basis.
Now when a family business changes both its product
and its production lines substantially, it often finds the
old uncle or the old cousin doesn't happen to be just the
right man to manage the new computer complex. Yet, it's not
always easy in a family business to let Uncle Bill go. At
least not until you have incorporated and become just a bit
less personal. Here again, there is an analogy with the
state of affairs in the CIA today. Thirty years ago, 25
years ago, at the height of the Cold War we were able to
bring in to this Agency some of the most remarkable, capable,
dedicated human talent that you can imagine--wonderful,
successful, capable people. But much like many family
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businesses we had not made adequate provisions for replacement.
Let me give you an example. In CIA we have four levels of
Vice Presidents. Four pay structures. The other day I asked
the average age of the people in those levels. There is a
three-year difference between grade one and grade four--an
average age. And between grade 2 and grade 4 there is a
one-year difference. We have allowed this marvelous talent
to bunch at the top. Now that suggests to you that I'm
going to have a problem one of these days and not very far off,
because they are all going to leave at about the same time.
Now that may not terrify you, but it does me for this reason.
You see, if your bank, or your law firm, or your corporation
finds that 50% of its Vice Presidents are going to retire in
the next two or three years, you've got a problem. But there
are other banks, other law firms, other corporations like
yours. You'll find the talent in the market that you'll need.
Where do you suggest I turn? And to which of you should I
turn for a trained spy! I can't go out into the street and
recruit them. And yet, the reputation of our government and
in some degree its success may depend. on my having people in
these very sensitive, risk taking positions who are skilled,
who know the trade, who have had that background, that training
as they came along. I'm referring here primarily to what we
call our clandestine service. :[ don't want to overstate the
case because there is a lot of the CIA that we do bring people
in from the outside, the analytic side who interprets all this
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information that has been collected. We can use lots of
people from other organizations there. But in the clandestine
side, it's a very special thing, and it is not easy to bring
in an outsider. So we cannot manage our personnel as a
family business. We must program so we select and groom the
best we have, and ensure that there is a progression to which
they can follow. So that when it comes to my responsibility
to select some individual to take a very sensitive and risk
taking position, be it in our Headquarters in Langley, or be
it in one of our overseas posts, I want to have three or four
candidates for that job. So that I am sure that I have just
the right one. It is too dangerous not to have that choice.
But that means we must become internally competitive in our
personnel system. We must earn the right to be what we
believe we are in the clandestine service, an elite organization.
I assure you it was not easy last November 1st to tell 21.2 good,
faithful employees we no longer needed their services because
we needed to make room for this progression. It is difficult,
it's unpleasant, but it has to be done.
Most family business are also able to stay out of the
public limelight. That is, until they become a public
corporation and have stockholder's meeting and annual reports
and so on. And with the CIA moving into the public lime-
light it is particularly difficult today, because so much
of what we must do simply must be kept secret. Some of the
things that just can't be done if they're made public.
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We have no choice today other than to operate more openly
with the American public. There are certainly disadvantages
in this, particularly when you look at how the KGB operates
against us. But there are substantial advantages too. We
do want the American people to know more about what we are
doing, because the CIA does work for the American people.
The CIA could have benefitted in recent years when under
attack, sometimes correctly but frequently incorrectly, if
it had had more support from the American public, but it had
never made an effort to generate that support. Yet, it had
in countless ways earned it. Now I don't mean to say today
that in an effort to gain that support we're going to go
public and tell everything. We can't stay in business if we
do, particularly we can't talk too much about how we get our
information. But what we can talk about more and are talking
about more is the product of our efforts. The information we
have gleaned, digested, winnowed down and tried to put into
some understandable form with some reasonable set of
conclusions. Much of this can be made available as a public
service. I particularly feel it can be a service to you in
the business community.
Let me give a few examples. Last July we published a
major study, unclassified, on the prospects for the Soviet
economy. What we said was we think the prospects are more
bleak for that economy today than anytime since the death
of Stalin. Why? First, for demographic reasons. Birthrates
in the 1960's were very low in the Soviet Union and there is
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no way for them to avoid a drop in the rate of growth of
the working force in the Soviet Union from 1 1/2% today to
what will be 1/2% in the 1980's. Why is that significant:?
Because the Soviet formula for continuing increases in
productivity, in our opinion, has been greater and greater
infusions of labor and of capitol. Capitol is becoming more
scarce for them and for us and for everybody else. They are
reaching further into Siberia for natural resources. It's
more costly and more difficult. So that in their formula
is beginning to run out, and they are going to have problems.
And what does that mean to you in the American business
community? We predict by the early 1980s, the Soviets will
have increasing difficulty in finding the foreign exchange
that they will need in order to buy from us, from the other
Western countries, the technology which they need and want
for their economy.
Last March, we put out a study on the world energy
prospects. I suspect you've heard of it some, it was
controversial but it was an effort to give our best estimate
as we could. I can think and hope that it stimulated a
useful national debate. We simply looked at those curves of
growing demand. We looked at the curves of growing production
as we can forecast them and we happened to particularly feel
from what evidence we had that the Soviet Union was going to
peak out in about 1980, when the great Samotlar field begins to
diminish and it's going to go down. We weren't saying the
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that the Soviet Union is running out of oil or that the world
is running out of oil, we were saying that somewhere in the
early 1980s the world's ability to pump out of the ground
as much oil as it would like to consume on the surface--it's
not going to be there. What does that mean to you? Inevitable
pressure from the prices. Now we may be proved wrong, we
hope we're proved wrong in many ways. But we are doing a couple
of things. We've gone to industry, we've gone to academia,
we've gone to think-tanks, and I personally wrote letters to
anyone who appeared in the media, for instance, subsequent to
our publication of this study and criticized the study, sensibly
anyways, and I said send me amplification of your problems and
those who responded we called down to Langley. We had a. day
long conference and we got a lot of good ideas. Good ideas to
help us focus our intelligence collection effort to find out
whether we are right or wrong as the evidence comes in over
the months and the years. So here we hope we have stimulated
a debatethat would help people focus on what can be a most
significant national issue.
Let me give one more example. Last May we published
a study on international terrorism. Very briefly it simply
said we see no likelihood of a decline in this malaise that
besets the world. We also see no prospect of a decline in
the unfortunate statistic that whereas, three years ago two
out of five international terrorist incidents affected U.S.
investments or interests abroad., whereas last year it was
three out of five--ominous and unfortunate.
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Now this greater openness, this greater visibility for
some of the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency,
have not come easily to the establishment. But I think
this kind of visibility is being accepted more from within
and from without and I do not believe that it is impinging
upon our effectiveness.
Finally, when a family business goes public it must
subject itself to greater oversight, greater direction from
its board of directors and perhaps from the public itself.
We in the CIA, we in the entire Intelligence Community today
are subject to much greater direction from our board of
directors. Our board is the President, the Vice President,
the National Security Council and two special committees
of the Congress dedicated to intelligence oversight. And
also something called the Intelligence Oversight Board, a
body of three distinguished individuals - Governor Scranton,
Senator Gore, Mr. Farmer of Washington - were appointed by
the President to look into our legalities, our proprieties.
I call all of these surrogates for public oversight, since
full public disclosure and oversight simply isn't feasible.
But we are today doing much more in the way of talking to;
answering questions from; and being as fully responsive
as we possibly can to these various surrogate oversight
bodies. This gives us strengths as well as risks. It
gives us the strength, a feeling, that we are not going too
far off track from the attitudes of the American public
and what it wants from its intelligence organization.
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It gives us strengths in getting an outside opinion and
view on the risks which we must necessarily take from time
to time. It gives us strength in somehow sharing the
responsibilities of those risks. I would say in passing
here that I am very pleased that one of the people who
is sharing those risks with us, who is conducting this
oversight on us, is your New York Senator, Pat Moynihan.
He is a member of this Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
I would say also that these committees are proving to be
very constructive and very helpful to us and yet are
maintaining that necessary distance and aloofness that is
required for them to be sure that they are also performing
an adequate oversight function.
Very soon the President will sign a new order
reorganizing the Intelligence Community after a long
study process. After that, the Congress will codify
some of these new organizations, regulations and inhibitions
on us. That will take place over the next year or so and
there will be very important debates in which these two
committees who have come, through their oversight process,
to understand us. Understand what some of our limitations
are in being able to inhibitions and controls and where else
we can, without detriment to our assigned task, accept
regulations. That will be invaluable in negotiating between
the Executive Branch and the Congress as to what kind of
regulatory legislation should be passed for the Intelligence
Community of our country. But again, this greater sharing;
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this greater supervision does not come easily from a
tradition of maximum secrecy. It's an unsettling process.
All of these five major steps that I've outlined, changing
from a family-type to a corporation-type business, are
unsettling and they have led to a fair amount of noise in
the background; they have led to a fair amount of expression
of disgruntlement in the media.
With all deference to Kay Graham I say that I urge you
to recognize that it's the media's job frequently to concentrate
on the problems and less on the accomplishments. I would say
that in my view today these discordant noises that you hear
about the Intelligence world of our country are really
grandpa--grandpa the founding father sitting in the back
room asking why, when one bookkeeper took care of it all in
his day, we need a bank of computers today. I assure you
that a vociferons as these voices as at times, they do not
represent a respectable or a substantial segment of opinion
within the CIA or within the Intelligence Community. There
is in fact, consensus that we must move. We must change our
product away from political action to the collection of
intelligence across a broad spectrum geographically and
topicaly. We must change our production line to integrate
human technical intelligence collection abilities. We must
modernize our personnel management systems. We must be
sufficiently open to assure the American public and we must
be fully responsive to the duly constituted external controls
of oversight over us.
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In closing, I want to tell you my convictions that
our new family corporation in intelligence is today
producing the finest intelligence in the world and I assure
you that I intend to keep it just that way.
Thank you.
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QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: Conference Board - New York City
Q: Admiral, would it be in order for you to evaluate
the political crisis in Italy?
A: Well I've lived in Italy for a year and a half as
Commander of NATO's Southern Flank before I came
here so I have a hard time dodging that question.
There has been an inextricable slide it would appear
over the last several years in Italy towards greater
communist participation in their government. I
must say that I am surprised at the speed at which
this step has come upon us and I certainly feel
strongly the position that was enunciated by the
State Department the other day, with regard to
our concern about increasing communist participation
in friendly European governments. As a NATO
commander, I sat there very concerned about what
we could do to maintain the privacy of our secret
NATO information in the mist of a government
that has communists in the Cabinet and the Defense
Department, and so on. At the same time, we
certainly are not in a position today, I don't
believe, to feel that we know best what's best
for the Italians. I would not want to think of
or encourage what has been reported as having been
done in the past of covert political action to
finance one or another political actions from the
.inside, who interferred in their electoral process.
So we've got to let the Italians work it out and
I think the firm statement by the Department of
Defense at least puts us clearly on record here as
to what we think are the equities involved.
Q:
The analogy to a corporation is a very useful one.
But I'd like to have you carry it one step further.
We in the corporate world have somethings that we
do, we have a bottom line and we defend against
competition. How would you respond to a question
which asked you ......
A: Well that really puts the man who's never met a
payroll in his life on the spot. It's, of course,
very difficult to give a quantitative measure of
either effectiveness or comparison in capability
with the opposing intelligence service in this case
and, of course, we take it on the head when we miss
one here and there. Then it becomes a matter of
public concern. I'm not sure that I can give you
a really concrete answer to that. I can say that
I know in this current Administration, the President
is very pleased with the Intelligence support he is
getting and has said so a number of times publicly..
I know that we didn't call some shots that we could
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have called. I had lunch with William Safine today
and chided him on his story about me in which he
said "If Turner can't predict the Soviet grain
harvest within 10% how can he tell how many missiles
they have." I told him it was a lot easier to see
a missile than an ear of corn! But seriously, we
want to improve on those that we make like that.
We want to be as cost-effective as we can be. It's
one of the reasons I am in this process of dismissing
820 employees--reducing our overhead, and this all
came out of Headquarter's overhead. It's critical
that we be cost-effective and conscious, simply
because the cost of these new technical systems
are astronomical. We'll just not be able to afford
them all if we haven't been tough on ourselves in
saying what do you really need and what is nice
to have.
Q: I've been constantly bemused by what appears to
be a decision on the part of the American people
that political action, and I mention that where
our choices are either political action - leave it
alone - or armed conflict. This political action
must be astute and, somehow, I can't rationalize
that. How can you?
A: I think I rationalize it to begin with by reemphasizing
that I don't say we're eschewing political action, we're
using it less frequently and more judiciously. I think
that's inevitable, I think there are fewer ways in which
we can use it today, due to the public attitudes around
the world. If we were to finance a political campaign
in some free democratic country, I think it would be
out in the newspapers in nothing flat and it would
probably hurt the people we were helping more than it
would help them. We are in a different world of public
visibility today and we have to judge what we do against
the danger that it will be exposed and then what will be
the consequences of that. That's one reason I think that
it is not as applicable today. I think, beyond that,
there is one recourse that you did not mention, sir.
That's overt action and I think it is the policy of this
Administration, I think it is the attitude of the
people of this country that whenever something can
be done overtly and we think it still will be effective,
we should do that. I certainly subscribe to that
with regard for instance to collecting intelligence
information. If it is available overtly, we shouldn't
do it. It's risky and expensive and we should get
it through the Ambassadors, we should get it through
open sources to the extent we can.
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Q:
Admiral, you are subjected to all kinds of ......
Q: I don't think that you can be held responsible
for all intelligence--economic, political,
military, human, psychological, etc.,against
the military intelligence community, State
Department intelligence community, the Treasury
Department intelligence community. There has
been, I think, some sense of putting it together
is that right?
A: Yes, On your first point there was a President's
Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. We have
discontinued that in part because we now have
other mechanisms for overseeing our activities.
Each committee of the Congress has a Subcommittee
specifically tasked to evaluate the performance of
the Intelligence Community, which was, in fact,
the role of this President's Foreign Intelligence
Advisory Board. In addition, very quickly I would
say the President's new order that will come out
next week will put much more responsibility on the
National Security Council--the Secretary of State,
Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Treasury, Dr.
Brzezinski, myself--to provide that evaluation.
That's very valuable because we also get the feedback
of what those policy makers want us to do because
they can't criticize us unless they've told us what
they want. Frequently that's been a missing cog in
the Intelligence game. If I define what we want,
I'm not a policy maker and it's not necessarily
going to match what Cy Vance needs.
On your second point, you are really asking do I
have the authority as Director of Central Intelligence
to carry out the function of coordinating and bringing
together all these diverse types of intelligence from
all these diverse sources. The answer is in part no,
but again the reorganization that will come out next
week will strengthen my role in two regards. I will
have full control over the budgets of even the
Defense Intelligence elements, and I will have full
control over tasking the collection activities--
tasking, telling them what to do, directing, making
sure that A is looking at this and B is looking at
that and we're not skipping something in between,
or that we're not duplicating more than is desirable.
It is a step toward greater central control but not
going all the way to a single control and I think it
is a good step. I think it's a good position and it
particularly perserves, and I say this against the
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argument that I am or wanted to be or will be a czar
of intelligence which is not the case. It particularly
perserves the freedom and independence of the analytic
estimating function in the Department of Defense and
the Department of State as well as in the CIA. You
and I want that. We want divergent opinions to come
forward. No data that you receive is so black and
white that you know exactly what it means. You want
different interpretations. This new organizational
structure very carefully perserves that independence.
I coordinate it, I bring it together but they work
independently contributing to my mission.
Admiral Turner, the people in this country were
quite excited and upset by the recent step by the
recent revelation of infringement of civil rights
by various units of the CIA and the FBI in times
past and yet it is now a matter of public information
that the Russians have an espionage system that
includes the interception of telephone messages
in and out of Washington and New York and many other
cities at least that I'm aware of at this time.
These it seems to me, constitute violations of
our civil rights even if done by a foreign country
but apparently nothing can be done about it, is that
the situation?
A: Well there are certainly limitations on what you
can do about it without violating the Constitution
and without violating the laws of this country. An
embassy of the Soviet Union or any other country
has legal privileges or whatever. You can't just
barge in to a foreign embassy. We could P&G all the
Soviet people working on those things. But they would
replace them tomorrow, or we wouldn't know exactly
who was working on that and working on genuine consular
work and embassy work and so on. I would say the
government is doing all it can in my opinion and in
moving very vigorously to prevent the American public
and the American corporations and the American Govern-
ment from being taking advantage of here. We have
been aware of this for a number of years. We have
been moving the principle government communications
in the cities of San Francisco, New York, and Washington
underground where they are less vulnerable. We've
been working with industry, military-industrial
activities, both to encourage a greater sense of security
on the part of the industry users, to get that equipment
under ground or into other modes which are not easily
intercepted or deciphered.. We are encouraging the
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the development of acutal encipherment equipment
that will make this fully safe. But we also do
not feel at this time that the Soviets are
targetting private telephone communications of
you and me. And that they are primarily working
against industry that's related to business. The
government sector is the first that has got off
the vulnerability circuit and we are now working
on this other direction and I think that the nation's
interests are being protected, or that is, they will
be quite well protected in a very short period of
time if we take steps that can be taken to shield
them.
A moment ago you were asked about the bottom line.
There were two aspects of it--cost effectiveness
that you answered; the other aspect of it was
competitive performance. Do you feel with the
constraints that you have described that you
can perform this deadly serious mission as
effectively as some of your competitors, either
the Soviet model or some European models?
A: Yes, I do. Clearly, no inhibitions at all, no
regulations, no supervision at all has certain
operational advantages. I think they are out-
weighed, however, by the projection of our own
rights and freedoms and by the additional direction
that we get from this. I would say with some
sincerity if I think the Agency made some mistakes
in the past it was very largely because they were
still working on this track and the country was
going on that one. This does help prevent that.
As far as comparison with the Soviet Intelligence
or European Intelligence, let me make a couple of
quick comments. I think we are ahead of the Soviets
in two regards--(l) we are ahead technically and (2)
I think that you cannot in a totalitarian country
where you must fear the consequences to yourself
of what you say. I don't think you can analyze
intelligence as objectively, as fairly as you can
in our society. I think that puts a great burden
on my corresponding numbering. As far as the
friendly intelligence services are concerned, I
didn't want to say we were better than they in all
regards. Some of them, of course, very, very
capable. But I will say this, the technical
systems have changed the complexion of intelligence
today such that if you don't have the size of
operations, the financial investment that we put
into it, you can't be on the first team. They do
very well either where we supplement what capabilities
they have to make up for the fact that they don't
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Q:
have the amount of investment that we do. Or they
do very well in specialized areas within it and
that's one reason we try to work very cooperatively
with the principle intelligence services of our
principle allies.
Admiral when you were selected to head the CIA,
obviously they selected a man with a great deal of
management and leadership experience. In view of
that, how do you explain the background of the
next Director of the FBI who is due to take office
next month....
A: You've got me in a conflict of interest, one of
them which was a classmate of mine at Amherst!
I think he is a very good man. I don't know
the other gentleman and am not picking between
them, but I certainly pick the one that I know
is a first class person. We all thought Judge
Johnson was very well qualified and a very, very
fine man. I think you can emphasize the managerial
experience--handling large numbers of peoples; you
can emphasis understanding all the fine nuances
of the law; you can emphasize integrity, character,
qualities--and surely the President has found a mix
of those that he feels comfortable with. It is of
course, extremely important that both he and Attorney
General Griffin Bell be very comfortable with him and
I have to leave it at that.
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IZ CONFERENCE BOARD TALK
As Director nation's most secretive agency -- I receiving
publicity desire or think useful.
At least since began announcing employee dismissals 2 1/2 mo. ago.
Ferment action ought to surface is symptomatic --
Symptomatic -- intell. apparatus country reached important
turning point direction it's going.
Assure you changing direction in intell. bureaucracy no easier
than in any other -- or perhaps than in business world.
Let have temerity =- here center business community
Suggest analogy
State intelligence community
and
Successful family
business just found
nec to incorporate
Family -- started out good, successful
After 30 years times changed just enough -- modify -- dirsify,
led incorporation.
CIA emerged from OSS 30 years ago --
Our intell. concerned USSR --
satellites --
10 nations --
Plus forays into 3rd world.
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Product line determined what Sovs up to and where.
In addition, when made forays one place another --
often called on CIA not only provide intell. but to.do
something about it.
We were there.
Iran 1953
Guatemala 1954
Cuba 1961
Vietnam 1963/75
1. Product line must embrace lot more 8, 10, 12 countries.
Your business experience
U.S. interests varying degrees most 150 + nations of world
~--~-- Angola 1975
Look. how world changed
Briefing Pres --/113_ Somal i s
Subject matter
Not only geographically more diverse
Sov military focus
Today -- Sov mil #1
-
--But elsewhere
--
econ/pol
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3
Pi-na-l-lyi:-w4erea!~-e rpl-oyed--i-ntel..l--appar_atus._for--,e
t etr n, different attitude -- o.,,r ^
interfering internal affairs --
While cannot renounce
More judiciously
Und
r c
o
ntral (lat
~~
e
~
Product today providing best econ, pol, mil intell
decision makers need wide range countries.--
Requires changing attitudes
outlooks dynasties
but noisy, painful,.
II Another reason all this --
MT
Family businessesincorporate is that the trusted
production line has become outdated --
modern machinery is needed that requires access to new
capital.
Machinery changed in intell.
How collect --
J richo -- human spies before blew trumpets
Spies critical ever since
Last several decades new technical systems came along
revolutionize.
Garden vs fire hose
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not really difficult,
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When have vast increase data -- must operate prod line
quite differently --
Ironically, makes human intell. agent more important --
eveVbefore
Jericho
Tech -- tell of today
When tell policy maker --
What tomorrow?
Why?
As have more data from tech -- more demand human systems
But still is different production line
Human no longer primary collector -- one in galaxy --
All must be employed
Complementary --
Well oiled, meshed machinery
Again not easy adjustment - Upset long established routines
III When family business makes these product and production line
changes, it often finds that any old uncle or cousin is not
just what's needed to manage new computer terminal --
but often family can't turn down Uncle Bill well at least not unless they incorporated --
Similarly CIA
30 years blessed -- large no. most capable dedicated
intelligence officers
Moving along and into retirement
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and very much like family business we have not
made adequate provision for replacement
e.g., 4 groups VP grades
Age spread - years
Be wee 3 - 1.1 years
a dt --
Problem r me -- n you
If 50% VP leave 2-3 years -- law firm, oil corp.,
Large market draw on.
Not so CIA --
Can't recruit trained spy
Reputation and success country may depend
spying skills
4 At least
this section CIA
Cannot manage personnel as family
Program to select, groom bes,
Want -- when have sensitive,
post fill
1
ensure progression
risk taking.
HQ - Overseas --
3-4 candidates choose
Means must be internally competitive -- truly elite
But was not easy 1 Nov
ask 212 step aside
make room for that progression
Ha4 to be done
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6
IV The family business always stayed out of public limelight but now this public corporation has stockholder meetings and
reports -- it lives in new environment
For CIA new environment especially difficult --
Because secrecy is essential to so much of what do.
(Greater Openness)
The CIA has no choice but to operate more openly than it has
in the past. While there are inherent disadvantages to this --
I believe there are substantial advantages too.
Want public to better understand what we are doing because
CIA'wo kr for the American people. Could have benefitted
from their understanding and support in recent past, when often
falsely, maliciously accused, but the Agency never worked to
develop public support -- even though in countless ways it
had earned it.
Now never go public with how we spy --
But can declassify much what 'learn w/o harm to
ability learn it again.
Hence publishing more
Hope provide service public --
particu.lar business comm
e.g. July -- study Sov econ --
In trouble
Difficult time few years hence locate foreign
exchange want to procure our and other western
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7
e.g. March -- study oil prospects --
strong indication pressure on prices very likely
May -- terrorism -- no sign abating generally,
or for U.S....interests
Adj t A also not easy, but I think this kind
visibility will not impinge on our effectiveness.
V Finally -- when family. bus goes public, going be subject greater
oversight, direction
Board Directors So too CIA today
My Board -- NSC, V Pres, Pres and 2 special committees Congress
Call these surrogate for public oversight, since full
public scrutiny not feasible.
Today reporting more what doing, answering questions more
frequently, forthrightly.
Gives us strength as well as risks
Strengths in assurance not separate track from people country
Strength in outside judgment on risks taking
Strength sharing that responsibility
Moynr--- h
Again, though, this kind of sharing and supervision does not spring
up easily fromso.i.l--ofz,a--:tradi.tion ofmaximum secrecy.
Conclusion --
Noises hear background --
Disgruntled rumblings read about media always"eager to soak up
controversy and slow to ferret out accomplishments.
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8
are grandpa f-cr-back-A-a\ - grumbling that one bookkeeper
used to manage beautifully so why do you need a bank of com-
puters.
As vociferous some oices are -- assure you not represent any
respectable or substantial segment of CIA
Assure you we have today full consensus -- must
1) Shift from political action to collecting wide spectrum of
intell
These discordant no
Have well integrated production line of human and tech intell
3) Modern personnel management system
4) Policies of openness sufficient to assure Amerman public
and
onsiveness to established external control.
Our new non-family corporation is today producing the
finest intell world
Assur keep it doing just that.
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period thirty-some years ago and how much the interests
of the United States of America have diversified since that
time. I would suggest that in most of your businesses,
a number of countries in this world with which you were
concerned, 25 - 35 years ago, was infinitesimal compared
with today. So it is with us, in the government, the United
States has very legitimate proper needs for good intelligence
information about most of the 150-some countries in the
world today. That needs transcends what was an emphasis
thirty years ago not only primarily on the Soviet Union, but
primarily on military intelligence. Today, our country needs
to know what's going on economically or we'll get left at the
starting post when it comes to negotiations. It needs to
know what's going on politically or we won't be able to work
cooperatively, as well as competitively, with other countries
in the world. And, of course, I cannot slight the fact that
the Soviet military situation does remain the number one
priority in all of our intelligence activity. But it has
had to come to share more of our resources with these other
burgeoning demands in other areas. And there is one other
difference in our intelligence product today.
Over the past thirty years the country has not only
wanted us to know and tell the policy makers what was going
on when the Soviets made a probe somewhere around the Free
World. They wanted us to help do something about it. We were
there in Iran in 1953 when the communist Tuda Party, was
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thrown out. We were there in Guatemala in 1954 when the
communist Arbenz lost the presidency. We were perhaps
unfortunately there in 1961 in Cuba and thereafter. We
were fortunately and constructively there through the long
days of Vietnam. As recently as 1975 we were there in Angola
until the Congress decided that was not what they wanted to
do. But look at today and the difference of attitude--when
people of this country do not want that same type of covert
political action interfering in the affairs of other countries.
I'm not saying we should eschew that capability, or that
employment entirely. There may be needs for it. Less I think
today than there has ever been before. Today implied political
action will be used more judiciously and under greater
supervision and control and I'll come back to that in a moment.
Our product today is much less political action than it
is the gathering of good intelligence information - economic,
political and military in a wide spectrum of countries all around
the world. Now when you change your product, as I have
described it, you have to change attitudes in the organization,
you have to change outlooks, you have to cut one dynasty
down and build it up into another, as you all know better than
I. It's not really not difficult but it can be noisy and
it can be somewhat painful. Now another reason that a family
business may decide to incorporate is simply that it's
production line has become outdated. They need new machinery
and new financing to obtain those things. I would suggest to you
today that the machinery of intelligence in our country needs
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some overhauling. I speak primarily of the machinery to
go out and collect intelligence information.
Now way back biblical times in Jericho, they sent in
spies to the city before they took the trumpets and marched
around them. The human agent, the human spy, has been a
critical element of all intelligence operations ever since.
But I would suggest that our production line is changing.
In the last decade or dacade and a half, we have achieved
new technical systems for collecting intelligence which
are utterly amazing. The difference today than a few years
ago is like the difference between going out to water your
flowers with a garden hose or with a fire hose. It just
pours in so much more information through these technical
data collection systems today. And what does this mean? It
means our production line techniques must change. Now
interestingly, one of the things it means is that there must
be more emphasis on the human intelligence element. Why?
Well because very broadly speaking technical intelligence
collection tells you what happened yesterday or maybe today.
But every time I take to a policy maker a piece of information
that says, so-and-so did such-and-such yesterday, you know what
I'd expect. What are they going to do tomorrow? Or why did
they do that yesterday? Now that is the forte of the human
intelligence agent; to pry into and find out what people are
thinking, what they are planning, what they are writing, what
they are discussing, what they are hoping to do. So, as
more data comes in from the technical systems, we are beset
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