LETTER TO DAVID A. STOCKMAN FROM WILLIAM J. CASEY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP87M01152R000200160007-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 22, 2009
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: March 11, 1985
• Content Type: LETTER

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The Honorable David A. Stockman
Director
Office of Management and Budget
Washington, D.C. 20503
11 MS
I have now had an opportunity to review the specific proposals to reform
the federal retirement system by amending Title 5 of the U.S. Code. There are
many aspects of the proposal that I fully endorse as necessary steps to reduce
the costs involved in federal retirement systems. My responsibility as the
Director of Central Intelligence, however, requires me to ask that employees
of the Central Intelligence Agency be exempt from any reduction in annuities
for retirement at ages prior to age 65. Moreover, I ask you to reconsider the
recommendation that survivor benefits would not be payable if the beneficiary
had not obtained age 60 or age 50 or if he or she has a surviving child of the
employee.
I am sure you will agree that in these tense times our Nation's first line
in defense is in intelligence. Recognizing this, in the past four years this
Administration has improved Immeasurably the intelligence capabilities of this
government. It would be extremely unwise to threaten this achievement by
severely reducing my ability to recruit and retain the caliber of individuals
we have historically attracted.
I have read George Shultz' letter to you on this same subject and fully
endorse everything he says as equally applicable to our employees. George has
articulated clearly the management problems that will arise if we do not have
the ability to move the right people into the right places at the right time.
This requires a core of personnel who are prepared to go anywhere in the world
as the national interest requires. Ultimately, it also means that we must
move people into retirement so that we can prepare the next generation of
intelligence officials. He notes that between the ages of 50 and 54 more than
half the people in the Foreign Service are not available for worldwide duty
because either the employee or a member of the family is unable to qualify for
full medical clearance. Because of the unique demands placed on intelligence
personnel, our figures are even more grim. We find that after age 50 nearly
50 percent of our employees are not eligible for full service medical
clearances. Were we to include those who cannot travel due to family medical
constraints, the figure would be even more stark.
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In addition to the purely clinical health hazards involved in worldwide
service, Agency personnel are confronted with psychological stresses which
over the long haul extract a health toll just as great. In addition to the
subtle factors of cultural tranalocation and family disruption, there are not
infrequently highly traumatic events. Scores of employees have been in
prison, sometimes for years, or otherwise harassed when their Agency
affiliation became known. Employees and their families confront the more
diffuse crises associated with civil disorder, terrorism, and exceptionally
high local crime rates. No person of comparable social background is
subjected to even remotely comparable factors in the American suburban setting
in which our employees otherwise would have remained.
You must also appreciate what the current worldwide epidemic of terrorism
means in trying to manage an organization whose employees must daily confront
this reality and who, because of their Agency affiliation, are particularly
vulnerable. Since 1968, there have been over 8,500 terrorist incidents
worldwide, over 3,500 of which were targetted against Americans. Regrettably,
the end to this scourge is not yet in sight. Indeed, it is one of my most
pressing responsibilities to help negate this menace. To do it I need a young
and vigorous work force medically and psychologically able to handle the
stress and sufficiently courageous to accept the obvious dangers involved. In
this regard, I am particularly dismayed to note that while the annuity
reduction would not apply to law enforcement officers, firefighters, or other
special groups, it would apply to the Central Intelligence Agency. Surely,
reality and reason would require that the Central Intelligence Agency, which
has lost 50 of its colleagues in the line of duty, a figure which far exceeds
our domestic counterparts, deserves at least equal treatment.
Several security considerations unique to our profession buttress further
our need for a flow-through personnel system allowing for early retirement.
Prolonged service in operational environments increases the risk of
identification of our operatives to hostile intelligence, internal security,
or terrorist organizations. Anonymity is a critical ingredient for a
successful intelligence officer. Personal security inevitably erodes with
time and new operatives must constantly be put into the system. To maintain
balance in the personnel structure, older, more exposed individuals must be
allowed to retire.
Proposed modifications in the retirement system also threaten the security
of our sources and methods which I am obligated by law to protect.
Ironically, the revised retirement proposals would cause our older employees
who should leave, to stay, and our younger employees, who should stay, to
leave. Our officer corps is recruited generally from the recent college
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CONFIDENTIAL
The Honorable David A. Stockman
graduate pool, roughly the 20 to 25 year-old age group. While it is to the
Government's disadvantage to keep these people for 40 years for the reasons
previously stated, it is equally disadvantageous from a security standpoint to
permit them to leave our service in less than 20 to 30 years without an
adequate retirement. Agency employees have access to highly classified
information from the beginning of their employment. We have long recognized
the inherent security risks to national security of a short-term, transient
work force. Given the extraordinary sensitivity of our mission, we must have
a career track which retains staff for a full career but promises them the
early opportunity to retire.
It will be helpful to you in understanding my position if I make a few
observations about a typical CIA employee. Entering on duty, the CIA employee
becomes part of a world which is generally isolated, nomadic, idealistic,
secretive and increasingly dangerous. In addition to those personal
constraints common to the few in government who hold clearances at the CIA
level, our employees must endure even more severe conditions. During every
five-year period they are subject to full security reinvestigation. They have
no job tenure. They may not travel abroad, publish articles, marry a non-U.S.
citizen, or attend international conferences without advance Agency approval.
They cannot receive public recognition for their professional achievements
but, on the contrary, must suffer in silence innumerable calumnies.
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CONFIDENTIAL
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CONFIDENTIAL
The Honorable David A. Stockman
CIA is an excepted U.S. Government agency. As such, all employees are
hired under the statutory authority of the Director and do not have Civil
Service status through Agency employment. Consequently, CIA employees are
statutorily excluded from tenure and from the protection and benefits derived
by status under regular Civil Service laws and rules and regulations
promulgated by the Office of Personnel Management. This is as it must be
since the Director must have full and final authority to say when and where an
employee will serve, at what duties and for how long. Congress and all
administrations have historically recognized this authority. Indeed, Don
Devine in his statement on February 23, 1984, before the House Committee on
Post Office and Civil Service acknowledged:
"We do have certain special groups of employees under
Civil Service retirement, such as, law enforcement
officers, firefighters, and air traffic controllers, as
well as the persons covered by the Foreign Service and CIA
retirement systems, for whom special arrangements may be
necessary under the new plan similar to those under the
current retirement system."
We have been successful over the years recruiting and retaining
career-oriented employees dedicated to the mission of this Agency. Attrition
rates among the lowest in the government, if not the Nation, attest to the
existence of a healthy career organization.-,Fundamental to this, health has
been the successful policy which recognizes burnout as a reality and allows
our employees to retire early and with dignity.
I am confident you will agree that the critical mission of the Central
Intelligence Agency fully justifies the need for its employees to retain their
present retirement benefits. I therefore ask that Section 6 (a) of the
proposed legislation be deleted and that Agency employees be added to the
special groups exempted in parargraph (5) of Section 2.
Yours,
ORIG:D/OP:RMagee:be:ll Mar 85 ". y %`dbe
Director of Ce t al Inte 1 gence
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