HOSTAGES, HINDSIGHT, & LIFE IN THE CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01208R000100060020-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 2, 2011
• Sequence Number: 20
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

1.1_.1 II..! 1_
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/03/02 CIA-RDP90-01208R000100060020-5
STAT-""
STAT
ti Conversation with Mansfield Turner
by Garry Boulard
As snow fell in Washington that
brisk Sunday morning in January
1981, Stansfield Turner, then head of the
Central Intelligence Agency, sensed the
mounting pressure and excitement as he
and his wife neared the White House.
"I knew there really wasn't any reason
for me to be there," the fifty-eight-year-
old Carter appointee recalled. "There
wasn't anything for me to do, but I just
felt like I should be with the people I had
worked with all those months in one of
their most important hours."
An official White House photo released
later in the day captured the drama of the
moment: Turner, still in his overcoat, sits
in a corner of the Oval Office, while such
one-time heavyweights as Walter Mon-
dale, Zbignievr Brzezinski, Ed Muskie,
and G. William Miller await the latest
word on the release of Iran's U.S.
hostages-an ordeal that had plagued so
many political careers.
In the middle of the photo stands the
man who in two days would no longer be
this country's commander-in-chief. Some-
what beleaguered, almost certainly tired,
President Jimmy Carter appeared to be
lost in thought.
Despite the high drama of the situation,
Turner remembered a few funny and even
emotional incidents that occurred before
the hostages were released and Ronald
Reagan was sworn in as the next
president. "We were, for the most part,
just sitting around, hoping for some. new
breakthrough, trying to remain calm.
We'd all go into another room for coffee
and to chat, then the phone would ring,
and we'd all run back into the Oval Office.
It got to be a little ridiculous after a
while."
Even as Carter's final hours as
president dwindled,. he continued to
perform some of the ceremonial functions
required of that high office. Turner was
slated to receive the National Security
Medal for his almost four years as chief of
the ever-controversial CIA.
"1 left a message with the White House
that they didn't have to go through with
the ceremony. I knew the president was
tired and I thought they could just mail
the medal to me,' said Turner. But Carter
was adamant. He wanted to personally
thank the CIA director for his service to
the country. For Turner, a man not given
to sentimental display, the gesture was
heartfelt.
In New Orleans this summer to address
the Tulane Founder's Society, Turner, a
devotee of twelve-hour workdays who
seems to gain energy as the day wears on,
held an hour-long press conference,
appeared on a local television show,
hobnobbed with local officials,., and in
between it all raced back to his hotel
room. to make several business calls to
New York.
A graduate of Annapolis, where he
ranked ahead of classmate Carter in 1946.
Turner also graduated from Oxford
University before assuming a variety of
naval duties ranging from commanding a
minesweeper to running a guided missile
frigate.
After twenty years of naval service, he
was promoted to rear admiral in 1970 and
later became commander of the Second
Fleet in the Atlantic. He became known'
as something of an innovator in that
position and made a practice of checking
up on the readiness of his ships by making
surprise helicopter visits.
When Carter tapped Turner to head the
CIA in 1977, that agency had just gone
through one of the most ,difficult periods
of its thirty-five-year history. A congres-
sional investigating committee headed by
former senior Democratic senator Frank
Church of Idaho had recommended
sharp controls over what it viewed as the
CIA's rampant abuse of the privacy of
American citizens and the covert action
taken against governments such as those
of Cuba and Chile, where certain political
movements thought to be anti-American
were ruthlessly squelched or attacked.
One result of that congressional
recommendation was the 1974 Hughes-
Ryan Amendment, which stipulated that
before the CIA undertook any operation
which would involve it in the business of a
foreign country, the president of the
United States would have to justify that
activity as essential to the security of this
nation and then officially. inform various
congressional committees.
Such balance-of-power juggling acts
would later prompt Carter to complain
that every time he wanted to conduct any
sort of covert action, he was obligated to
inform seven or
committees.
eight
. Presently lecturing across the country
and appearing on NBC as a military
-correspondent, the graying, physically fit
Turner refutes George Bernard Shaw's
description of top-level government offi-
cials as "people who have no souls, and.
are born stale."
On the contrary, in a wide-ranging
conversation with Tulanian, Turner proved
that he's not afraid to express his
opinion, whether the subject is the press
("Most reporters are looking for that big
Watergate-like story and if they don't find
it they'll practically make one up") or the
present foreign policy of the Reagan
Administration ("It has been primarily
one of poor planning and mixed signals.")
Tulanian: The battle for the Falkland
Islands seems to be, for the time being
anyway, settled. Were there any lessons
for us to learn from this struggle?
Turner: There were a lot of them. First
and foremost: don't get involved in a war
when you don't have a vital interest
involved.
II Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/03/02 : CIA-RDP90-01208R000100060020-5