TESTIMONY OF JOHN D. MARKS BEFORE THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE - - HEARINGS ON THE NOMINATION OF ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER AS DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE, FEBRUARY 22, 1977

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000600380005-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 28, 2005
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: February 22, 1977
• Content Type: STATEMENT

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TESTIMONY OF BEFORE THE SENATE SELECT
COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE -- HEARINGS ON THE
NOMINATION OF ADMIRAL STANFIELD TURNER AS DIRECTOR
OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE, FEBRUARY 22, 1977.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to appear
before you'as a citizen with strong feelings. about intelligence
and covert operations. I come with some background knowledge
on these matters, as the co-author with Victor Marchetti of
the book, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, as a frequent
writer in the field and as Director of the CIA Project at the
Center for National;Security Studies in Washington.
Although I'am not taking a position on whether or not
Admiral Turner should be approved, I urge you to take advantage
of the confirmation process to insure, in advance, that the
.abuses of the past will not be repeated. If the CIA continues
to be marked by scandal and wrongdoing under the new DCI, this
committee will not be able to "plausibly deny" its share of
the blame.
In my view, the committee 'should make clear to the DCI
that his first .priority must be to supply the country with
the best possible intelligence on what is happening in. the
world. While the concept of "national, security" has been
misused in recent years to cover-up official misconduct, the
CIA's critics -- of which I ant one accept that it is
vital to the country's security that we know about such matters
as Soviet missile strength, Chinese nuclear testing, and world
food shortages.
US intelligence agencies have suffered huge breakdowns in
the past -- failing to predict the Tet offensive in Vietnam,
the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Yom Kippur war, etc.
While nobody's perfect, this committee should insist that the
intelligence community under Admiral Turner make better use of
the $6 to $10 billion of the taxpayer's money it spends each
year.
. The recent controversy over the CIA's estimate of Soviet
military strength is a case in point. This assessment will de-
termine to,some extent our national priorities in coming years,
since if we sharply increase defense spending to meet a perceived
Soviet threat, the money spent will not be abailable to meet
other needs. Yet, so far at least, the information available to
the Congress and the public -- who must ultimately make the key
decisions -- is based on an intelligence process in which it
is difficult to have full confidence. Whatever the merits of
the particular arguments, there is no question that political,
personal, and institutional biases all became factors in making
the estimate.
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I believe this committee has a responsibility to require
the new DCI to commit himself to a more honest intelligence
process. The basic information available to the policy-makers
should be provided, within common sense limits, to the Congress
and the public. Senator John. Sherman Cooper introduced a bill
several years ago which would have required the CIA to furnish
Congress with its intelligence estimates. While legislation of
this sort may be ultimately desireable, this committee should
make sure that the CIA produces and widely disseminates accurate
and unbiased intelligence.
At present, our policy-makers receive most of their in-
telligence from non-provocative means, of collection such as
satellite photography, electronic eavesdropping, and the analy-
sis of open sources. Neither the United States nor the Soviet
Union questions the right of the other to use these methods, as
long as the one does not intrude on the other's territory
(although US intelligence has been slow to renounce the old U-2
syndrome and, at least through recent years, has often sent
submarines jammed with espionage equipment inside Soviet waters.)
Without question, plain old-fashioned spying by human
beings still brings in a small amount of information of value to
the policy-makers. Reasonable people can differ on whether the
marginal advantage gained by the knowledge received justifies
the risks,. social costs, and lawlessness (in breaking other
countries' laws.and sometimes our own) involved in this Mata
Hari kind of collection. my own view is that human espionage
is not cost-effective, in any sense, especially considering
that against the two countries with the military might to
threaten our security, as former Assistant CIA Director Herbert
Scoville states, "It is difficult to see how such agents can
.ever be counted on as a major factor in our intelligence on
Soviet or Chinese military matters."
In any case, the controversy surrounding the CIA has little
to'do with intelligence. it is covert action -- or the use of
money, violence, and propaganda to secretly manipulate events --
which is at issue. Unfortunately, Admiral Turner's predecessors
have allowed the intelligence process to be overshadowed and
distorted by the CIA's covert operations. Former CIA Deputy
Director for Intelligence recently wrote that Allen Dulles
spent only 5% of his time on intelligence estimates. DCIs have
tended to be preoccupied with the "tradecraft" of overthrowing
governments here or propping them up there. Our most recent
DCIs have by no means neglected the clandestine arts -- even
while the CIA was under serious outside investigation -- but
they have also been forced to devote much of their time trying
to protect the Agency and to explain away everything from the
CIA's alliance with the Mafia to illegal domestic spying. These
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more recent DCIs, starting with James Schlesinger in 1973,
have instituted a limited degree of internal reform, agreed to
be bound by presidential and. -- to a lesser extent -- congression-
al control, -tried to keep information from surfacing about
potential scandals, and generally worked to maintain the CIA's
power to continue doing most of what it has been doing covertly
for the last 30 years.
. Now, after a decade of Vietnam, Watergate, and the
ongoing intelligence scandals, the popular perception of the CIA
has changed considerably. The Agency is no longer seen as a
sancrosanct institution, battling valiantly in the "back alleys"
of the world. The revelations about CIA abuses abroad and at
home have made the AGency, for many, a national liability and
created for the first time a climate which makes it possible for
the executive and Congress to bring about meaninfgul reform.
In the past, most congressmen and even presidents -- in
their public stance, at least -- could claim ignorance about
actual CIA operations. This confortable "cover" has now been
blown -- probably never to return. From now on, Congress and
the President will have to share responsibility for unleashing
the tactics of covert action, and these tactics -'- bribery,
subversion, paramilitary warfare, and even assassination -- are
criminal in nature, even when practiced by people sincerely
convinced they are protecting the "national security."
Covert operations have unquestionably been cut back since
their heyday a few years ago. Senator Gary Hart recently
stated that there were six such operations going on. around the
world -- a level which may or may not be acceptable under
Secretary of State Vance's guideline limiting CIA intervention
abroad to "the most extraordinary possible circumstances."
yet, the CIA's vast clandestine apparatus still remains largely
intact, particularly in the Third World where it has been used
mainly for either putting or keeping in power anti-communist
governments -- from whibh the US has seemed willing to accept
virtually any level of internal repression, as long as domestic
order was guaranteed and foreign investments protected. The
maintenance of this CIA controlled network serves to corrupt
the societies we are supposedly trying to "save," as covert
"assets" are built up and "agents of influence" are kept on
the payroll. If the United States has a legitimate national
interest in helping a particular foreign government .(or faction),
it should do so openly, in accordance with our own laws, and
not be dependent on this secret underground.
I believe.this committee -- and by extension, Admiral
Turner -- will soon have to make a basic choice: you can either
choose to clean out the CIA's Clandestine Services and put the
full force of Agency into the intelligence business or you can
try to protect past secrets and capabilities by aligning yourselves
with the professional operatives and their supporters against a
changing society. The committee will find it difficult to
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have things both ways because of the very nature of covert
operations and because of the way our society now reacts to
these "dirty tricks."
If the committee chooses to. allow continued covert action,
it will find itself inexorably drawn into the process of
covering up what the CIA is doing. Secret operations are, by
definition, based on deception and lies --? which this committee
will become involved in protecting. Moreover, there will be
no respite from press disclosures about CIA activities which,
it turns out, are only well hidden from reporters and other
investigators who are not paying attention. Outraged whistle-
blowers and infighting bureaucrats will not stop exposing such
recent activities as a secret CIA war in Angola, wiretapping in
Micronesia, or covert payoffs to the king of Jordan. As long as
the executive branch insists on using the CIA secretly to do
things it is unwilling to stand up for openly, the Agency will
remain a legitimate investigative target.
Even if the press could somehow be turned off or diverted,
there would still be grand juries, congressional committees,
public interest groups, and the Justice Department carrying on
probes that will expose CIA operations. For example, investi-
gations already under way should soon tell us how the CIA
could have learned in 1970 about a plot personally organized by
the President ct South Korea to subvert the Congress of the
United States without doing anything meaningful to stop it
until 1975. Or what has been the CIA's relationship with --
and knowledge of -- corporate bribery, the Howard Highes empire,
organized crime, the drug trade, and other forms of corruption
around which covert operators seem'to thrive; or why did the
CIA withhold material evidence from the Warren Commission and
then, from 1967 on, embark on a worldwide "disinformation"
campaign against critics of the official version of events;
or what was. the role of high Agency officials in lying them-
selves and suborning perjury from ITT personnel in Senate
probes of covert operations in Chile; or how does the CIA
use the intelligence services of "friendly" countries to carry
out operations that not only may violate all accepted standards
of decency but which also can be used to skirt executive
branch and congressional controls.
And these scandals will probably have their follow-ons.
Look for the Iranian SAVAK and Chilean DINA.,to grabe the spot-
light from the Korean CIA. There may even be tales of the
China Lobby -- one of whose most prominent members, Anna
Chennault, recently admitted to authors Russell Howe and Sarah
Hays Trott that at the personal request of Richard Nixon, she
intervened to keep the South Vietnamese away from the Paris
peace talks just before the 1968 US presidential election and,
in the process, may well have changed the outcome.
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This committee's predecessor, chaired by Senator Church,
may have thought it best in the 1976 election year -- or at
any other time for that matter -- not to have, probed the CIA's
close working relationship with the AFL-CIO's international
programs or its many tie-ins with American business, but these
matters will not remain under wraps forever -- especially as.
a new generation of leaders starts to take over the US labor
movement and as American corporations become increasingly
vulnerable to pressures exerted by foreign governments.
Despite revelations about how the CIA has funded and manipulated
a wide variety of private institutions, the AGency still
refuses to give up the idea that non-governmental groups and
individuals can be mobilized for covert activities. Thus; there
will be continuing revelations about the several hundred.
American academics the Church committee reported were still
secretly working for the CIA, about the Agency's continued
sponsorship of propaganda operations, ad nauseam.
The CIA can try to fight the trend toward. ever more frequent
scandals by going deeper underground, by mounting covert opera-
tions against its critics, by pushing for an Official Secrets
Act, by generally toughing it out. But this kind of hard line
approach is probably doomed -- unless American society reverses
itself on basic notions of civil liberties and press freedom.
The revelations should keep coming, and I, for one, have no
doubt there are plenty more skeletons, literally and figuratively,
in CIA closets.
The only red! reform that has come out of the intelligence
scandals thus far has been the formation of this committee to
oversee the intelligence agencies. You should now work to-
gether with Admiral Turner to make sure that the abuses of the
past do not occur again. The committee's staff has already
drafted legislative charters for the various agencies, and
such legislation -- carefully worded as to what the CIA and
the others can and cannot do -- should be adopted as quickly
as possible. For better or worse, you and Admiral Turner are
in the covert stew together, and it would be best for both the
country and your own reputations if you work together to lift
yourselves out.
Nevertheless, there are a whole variety of measures which
Admiral Turner can take, as soon as he assumes office,. which
would go a long way toward reassuring the country that the CIA
is really changing. i urge you strongly, before you confirm
him, to seek his assurances that he will take the following steps:
.1. The new DCI should announce that the CIA will cooperate
fully in the Justice Department and congressional investigations
of "friendly" secret services in the United States; that the
CIA will turn over transcripts of conversations in the Korean
president's office and all other intelligence that bears on
illegality within the United States; that the Agency will no
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tolerate operational activity by the "friendlies" in the US;
and that it will break off liaison and stop all other forms of
aid to secret services which repress human rights.
2. The new DCI: should announce that while the Agency has
no legitimate law enforcement role in the US, it will make
available to appropriate police agencies all intelligence it
possesses on Cuban terrorism, which has been particularly
murderous lately. (The CIA last year turned down a request by
the Dade County z1liami% police for the names of Cubans who
had beer trained by the CIA in the use of explosives.); and
that the CIA will be committed to stamping. out terrorism and
dru g-traffick .ng among its. former employees.
3. The new DCI should announce that the CIA will no
longer make covert use of American universities or academic
activities; --h.at the CIA will stop secretly employing pro-
fessors to "spot" foreign students for recruitment as CIA
agents (and hence, become traitors to their own countries);
that all CIA sponsored research on campus will be identified as
such (even if the results must on occasion remain secret);
and that academic exchange programs will not be used for covert
purposes.
4. The new DCI should announce that the CIA will no
longer propagandize foreigners (and Americans); that no more
foreign or American reporters will be secretly hired; that the
CIA will end its covert use for_prppaaanda purposes of the 200
newspapers and magazines, 25 book publishers, 30 press services
and news agencies, and 20 radio and television stations around
the world that, according to absolutely reliable intelligence
sources, the CIA had acces to last year; and that the CIA will
try tp correct the historical record to show where "disinfor-
mation" by the Agency and other secret services has resulted in
false public perceptions.
5. The new DCI should announce that the CIA will close
down its paramilitary staff and transfer to the Pentagon re-
sponsibility for all overseas combat and military advisory roles
and that the CIA will consider itself bound, as the Defense
Department,is, by the war-making limitations imposed by Congress
in the War Powers Act of 1973.
6. The new.DCI whould announce that the CIA will sever it
operational ties to American labor unions, business associa-
tions, corporations, and other non-governmental groups; and
that it will no longer be permissible for the Agency to secretly
use non-public sectors of American society for espionage or
covert operations.
Even those who maintain that the United States must have
the right to secretly intervene abroad should be able to ac-
cept that the measures listed. above represent no more than a
recognition that all government agencies, including the CIA,
must follow our laws and not turn their backs on illegality;
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that constitutional limitations should be observed; and that
the CIA should not penetrate our own society,.for any purpose.
While the Carter administration is apparently not yet
prepared to completely forego secret interference abroad, I
would submit that covert action is no longer acceptable to a.
large and vocal group of Americans. As the country has changed
in the last decade, covert action has become a Cold War
anachronism. Its basic premise -- that any and all means are
permissible -- is antithetical to American ideals and values.
The, scandals of recent years have shown, among other things,
that it is impossible to use these methods overseas, without
having a severe domestic fallout. We have, in effect, adopted
the tactics of totalitarian states supposedly to protect our
own security and,, in the process, wound up subverting ourselves.
Moreover, the CIA's covert operations have done the country's
reputation incalculable harm abroad and changed our image from
that of a benevolent democracy to that of a scheming manipulator.
Not only does covert action employ methods of dubious
morality, but it is, on its face, illegal because the United
States is bound by international obligations, including the
United Nations and Organization of American States charters,
which as treaties are "the supreme law of the land" and which
bind the US not to interfere in other'countries' internal
affairs. Yet, these treaty requirements are brushed aside
by supporters of covert action., as President Ford did in 1974
when he said:
I'm not going to pass judgment on whether it's
permitted or authorized under international law..
It's a recognized fact that historically as well as
'presently, such actions are taken in the best
interest of the countries involved.
I would only hope that the Carter administration would not
take such a contemptuous attitude toward.our country's inter-
national obligations.
Unhappily, arguments that stress the immorality or amorality
of covert action, its anti-democratic nature,. or its corrosive
effect on our own system have not yet been taken seriously by
those in a position to do something about it. Covert action
partisans tend to ignore these factors, while stressing concepts
like "the Russians do it."' They base their defense on the ex-
-pediency needed. in "the real world." Because of the "toughness"
and apparent practicality of this approach, they try to pin a
label of weakness and "fuzzy-headedness" on anyone emphasizing
such values as decency, legality, democracy, or morality. My
view is that we as a nation should. follow. the toughest course of
all: Staying true to our ideals on. the foreign as well as
domestic level. We should defend ourselves against any foreign
subversion, but neither the Soviet Union nor any country should
be our model, whether in silencing internal dissidents or in
carrying out covert action. Our country is supposed to be
dcf ferent
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