REAGAN TO FIRE CHIEF OF CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505420089-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 16, 2010
• Sequence Number: 89
• Publication Date: November 14, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/16: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505420089-0
ON FACi:_, I .
.snake'
THE WASHINGTON STAR (GREEN LINE)
14 November 1980
At Agenc/
n.r
'Quick Action. Slated
By President-Elect
By Jeremiah O'Leary
-Reagan is scheduled to receive-a
.CIA briefing next week, when he
will be in Washington. Aides to the
president-elect say he will tell Turn-
er at: that time that he intends to
make his own nomination for a new
CIA director from the list of names
now being assembled by an ap-
pointments committee headed by
Los: Angeles attorney William
French Smith.
Within the next few days, the Rea-
gan transition office will send a
small team headed by Lawrence Sil-
berman, former ambassador to Yu-
goslavia, to CIA headquarters to
begin planning a new structure for
the agency.
One of the most important voices
in recommending changes at the
CIA will be that of David.Abshire,
chairman of the Georgetown Uni-
versity Center for Strategic and In-
ternational Studies. Abshire, a
former assistant secretary of state
for, congressional 'relations, heads
one of the Reagan "issue cluster"
teams for national security of fairs.
Silberman, a former Justice De-
partment official, is team leader for
the CIA transition reporting to Ab-
shire and John Lehman, former dep-
uty director. of the Arms .Control
and Disarmament Agency. A.
Critics of Turner contend that his
mass firings and retirements de-
prived the agency of its most exper-
ienced senior officers-dam aged the
morale of others, and would inhibit
the recruitment of young officers.
Turner has contended that the CIA
has suffered no lack of bright young
men and women anxious to become
intelligence officers.
be protected," Meese said_ 'If "If you
have constant turmoil in agent han-
dlers and people up and down the.
line, and if you don't know if agents
are going to be exposed by.Philip
Agee and people like that, it is hard
to recruit informants and agents in I
other_countries." . _ :-
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/16: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505420089-0
Washington Star Staff Writer
GOLETA, Calif. - President-elect
Ronald Reagan, dismayed by what
he considers to be serious deficien.
cies in the nation's intelligence-
gathering capabilities, will remove
Stansfield Turner as director of the
CIA. according to sources close to
Reagan.
They said that both Turner and
his deputy, Frank Carlucci, would
be replaced despite efforts by Turn-
er to convince the incoming Repub-
lican administration that he should
be allowed to. remain. ,.
"One task that has to be addressed
immediately is to build up the CIA
and our intelligence capacity," said',
Edwin Meese,-.chief of staff in the
Reagan transition organization.
The Iranian situation showed us
what's wrong with our intelligence.
Our briefing at the State Department I
made it clear that-they-are getting
their information; from- other em-
basr~es, other intelligence: services,
friends and businessmen who call
them up. It is a. tragedy.
Our sources of intelligence are
nniv as good as they feel they will