ADDRESS BY ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE VADM WILLIAM ROAD RETIREMENT CEREMONY NORFOLK, VIRGINIA SATURDAY, 30 JUNE 1979

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01554R003200130001-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 6, 2005
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: June 29, 1979
• Content Type: SPEECH

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~~
Address by Admiral Stansfield Turner
Director of Central Intelligence
VADR1 William Read Retirement Ceremony
Norfolk, Virginia
Saturday, 30 June 1979
At the turn of the century., the American philosopher William James
said,
"The world is only beginning to see that the vrealth
of a nation consists more than anything else in the
number of superior men that it harbors."
It is to the credit of the U.S. Navy that it has harbored Bill Read, a.
most superior man, for these past 30 years.
I have known Bill Read for most of those years. (Personal anecd'ate}
I believe Bill exemplifies those rare qualities which we try to nurture
in all. of our officers. One of these qualities. of great importance today
is the intellectual capacity to think imaginatively.
I happen to believe that being a naval officer is as intellecttaally
demanding a profession as any I know of today. That is why young officers
should seek to emulate Bill Read--to follow in his footsteps of. not just
embracing the past--old ideas, outmoded concepts, comfortable fallacies.
In the field of tactics Bill Read has blazed new trails. His
reshaping of the destroyer squadron organization...has stimulated emphasis
on the tactical side of our responsibilities. It may sound odd to some
to say that. we need intellects like Bill to develop our tactics. Even
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many of us in the profession still conceive of tactics as primarily
matters of bravery and command decisions. 4!e da not think often of
the increasing intellectual content of tactical decisionmaking. And
yet, look at just one example.
The skipper of a major combatant ship like this today finds that
his fighting capability is largely resident in his computer program.
The program limits the captain`s options no matter haw brave or ingenious
he may be. If the captain does not understand the assumptions, the
limitations that some civilian put into those programs, he may find that
in the moment of battle what he wants to do simply cannot be done.
During the Vietnam war we sent guided missile cruisers to the
Gulf of Tonkin. Their computer programs were designed to control the
Terrier missile system in defense of a carrier task force in the open
reaches of the ocean. In fact, those cruisers hugged the North Vietnamese
coast and attempted to control the air space aver the land. Few, if any,
skippers realized that their missile control program was not built for
that and that when the lights lit up and said, "free to fire," it was not
so. The missile envelope over land is markedly different than over water.
Today ship captains must possess the intellectual capacity to understand
all the details of our sophisticated weapons systems and sensors to get:
the most out of them. That's what it takes to be a good tactician; that
is exactly what Bill has encouraged in the Surface Force Atlantic.
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'ter
Bill is also a super manager and the managerial decisions our
Navy faces also require more intellectual strength than we often
acknowledge. Bill and I once.... How, for example,. da you compare
the alternatives of whether a new ship should have one propeller or
two? Common sense tells any .ship driver that he would prefer
maneuverability, redundancy, and speed of two. But, haw much are
those characteristics worth in dollars? Why do you need to maneuver
much at sea today when you have long range weapons.? Are you likely
to have battle damage that would put out one screw and not damage
enough else of the ship to disable it? And while speed is always
nice, what if you could have 12 one-shaft ships instead of 8 two shaft
ships for the same price? Isn't there a reasonable probability you
might be in the right place in the first instance anyway?
These are difficult tradeoffs. But even mare difficult is the
intellectual process of displaying the alternatives on issues like this
in ways that wi17 be fair and clear, and will truly assist deeisionmakers
in considering their options. Does most of the staff work. we see today
encourage and facilitate this ability to judge alternatives? The general
answer is no. One of the greatest farces that has been perpetrated on
the U.S. military is the concept of completed staff work. Completed
staff work is really a way of eliminating the manager from the decision
process by giving him only one choice. Rather than laying out issues
and discussing all reasonable options, "completed staff work" often
attempts to drive a decisionmaker to a particular decision.
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Besides tactics and management, the third element of being a
naval professional is to be a strategist; and Bili Read has perhaps
excelled most here. Strategic decisionmaking also has much more
intellectual content today. Why do we need a Navy at all? We all
know why. Alfred Thayer Mahan told us that we needed to control the
seas and he gave us a prescription for doing it. This amounted to
having the best battle fleet around and being able to des~roy the
enemy's battle fleet in head-to-head engagements. In fact, not long
after Mahan wrote,. he was hopelessly outdated, first by the advent of
the submarine and then by the aircraft. But despite this, all navies
prepared for World War I in the image of Mahan by building large battle
fleets. And, in that war the only head-to-head engagement, the Battle
of Jutland, decided nothing. The sea war was decided out on the sea.
lanes of the North Atlantic between the U-boats and the convoys.
Despite these lessons of World War I, generations of naval officers
continued to point to Mahan as the ultimate strategist. In the disarmament
conferences of the 1920s, they focused on the battleships and overlooked
the submarine. In preparation for World War II they refought the Battle
of Jutland. The potential of the submarine was ignored and the aircraft
carrier was looked on simply as an adjunct for the battleship. And again,.
of course, World War II proved that Mahan was wrong.
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Because of the lack of successors to Mahan; because we have
failed to rise to the intellectual challenge before us; even today
we ]ack a coherent, relevant philosophy of naval strategy---of naval
warfare. This is not unrelated to the fact that in the last decade
the United States Navy has decreased from 1,000 to 460 ships and is
only buying enough today to sustain a navy of about 330.
Why am I saying this at a retirement ceremony? Because today
the Navy is losing a man who understands these issues. He had made
a significant contribution. Young officers and enlisted men and women
who are here must accept the challenges that Bill Read has faced so
squarely for 30 years and take up the baton to act on them as has this
superlative officer and exemplar.
Bi11, you have been an inspiration to all of us. From those who
truly care about the Navy, we thank you for your ideas, your direction,
your courage.
Marty - helpmate - navy wife - your sacrifices have made those
contributions possible.
I wish both all happiness. '
To Vice Admiral Dave Johnson - Yours is a challenging task. You
are now the controller of the values of the very heart of the Navy. I
envy you. With full confidence in your considerable abilities, I wish
you every success as you prepare to lead a force of vessels manned by
our Navy's greatest asset--her people. God speed!
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29 dune 1979
If we're to give the best advice to decisionmakers, we need to
review our current reporting procedures. There is a consistent,
informal canvassing of potential customers to ascertain their interest
in a particular report.. This, however, places a filter on our
perspective. Our capability to predict. is severely hampered by such
concentration on the question of whether or not information is useful
fora current problem. Analysis comes after the fact but. the ability
to recognize where one is at a point in time is conditioned by the
continuous flow of information, some of it necessarily not of great
moment.
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