LETTER TO THE HONORABLE CHARLES ROSE FROM STANSFIELD TURNER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81M00980R002300070105-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Sequence Number: 105
• Content Type: LETTER

Approved For Release 2006/687 I - ' M00980R002300070105-4
The Director of Central Intelligence
Washington. U..C 20505
The Honorable Charles Rose, Chairman
Subcommittee on Evaluation
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
25 September 1978
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Thanks for your letter of 7 September on'the question of compartmented
security clearances at the Department of Energy. I am sorry that I have
not been., back to you before this.
In large measure as a result of your suggestion, I have commenced a
program of zero-based reviews of all compartmented security clearances.
What this means is going into a given organization and requiring justifica-
tion from scratch of each clearance presently in existence. Because of
your suggestion, we started with one of the components of the Department of
Energy, the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. This was our pilot and test
project. I'm happy to let you know that we have completed that zero-based
review and reduced our compartmented clearances by 26% (from 184 to 135).
I look on this as a good first cut at the slightly more than 400
compartmented clearances within the Department of Energy. We are now
proceeding on to other elements both within the Department of Energy and
throughout the rest of the Intelligence Community. The first review within
the Central Intelligence Agency, for instance, also resulted in about a
26% reduction.
This is an exciting program, and I am grateful for your stimulus that
led to it. With the total number of clearances extant today and the large
number of organizations through which they are scattered, we have a big
task ahead of us. It will take some time, but I'm confident that we are
going to make real progress. On top of this, I can also let you know that
I have a group working to review the number of compartmented codewords
which we have and how they relate to each other. I believe that we can do
much in restructuring the codeword system to give us tighter security,
including better control over how many people need these clearances.
Overall, I think we are moving in the right direction and I am grateful
for your continuing support.
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Approved For Release 2006/b :'PISA ~gpie1 M00980R00230067O1U~'- ?" -