HOW CIA JOB WENT TO TURNER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000100060049-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 13, 2007
• Sequence Number: 49
• Publication Date: February 9, 1977
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/06/14: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100060049-5
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
9 February 1977
raw
Jobimen
des Turner
The quality of his mind is illustrated by 'a
passage from his article in the January issue
of Foreign Affairs-magazine on the naval bal-
ance. Commenting on the tendency to interpret
Navy problems in terms of numbers of ships,
I he wrote:
By Joseph C. Harsch
Staff writer of
The Christian Science Monitor
Boston
Adm. Stansfield Turner is expected to get
Senate confirmation as the new Director of the
Central Intelligence Agency with a minimum
of delay and questioning. His qualifications for
the job seem so impressive that some observ-
ers are wondering why he was President Car-
ter's second, rather than first, choice for that
position.
The explanation is reported to be-that Mr.
Carter had originally earmarked Admiral
Turner for the top Navy command, Chief of .
"That the United States built 122 ships over
3,000 tons in the last 15 years and the U.S.S.R.
only 57 as recently reported, has no meaning
by itself, other than to refute another set of il-
logical statistics, such as was recently re-
ported in a respected news magazine, that the
Soviet Navy total 3,300 ships and the U.S. Navy
478. This latter comparison requires counting
every 75-foot tugboat and barge. and comparing
it to who knows what." . .
Admiral Turner is not interested "in such sta-
tistics, but rather in how well certain ships can
perform the role for -which they are built. One
issue, he says, is not "a submarine versus a
submarine, but a submarine versus aircraft,
destroyers, and mines as well."
And in effect he has warned his own col-
leagues in the Navy to avoid "doomsday" as-
sertions when trying to pry extra funds out of
Congress. He points out that the damage done
by such talk can outweigh the gain from a few
extra ships. ..
In other words, he is a fighting man - but
also a thinking fighting man who is no more
swayed by parochial service thinking than was
Dwight D. Eisenhower. President Carter ad-
mires him immensely, even to the point of
saying that Admiral Turner "could be the next
George Marshall_-President Truman regarded
General Marshall as the greatest American of
his times.
Naval Operations, which is the dream goal of
every U.S. naval officer. The idea of moving
him over to the CIA obviously arose out of the
crash landing of the original nomination of
Theodore Sorensen, a former Kennedy adviser.
The switch in assignments for Admiral
Turner will save Mr. Carter a deal of trouble. -- I
The act of Congress which set up the CIA
specifically authorized the selection of a direc-
tor from the military services, active or re-
tired.
Ana ys s
Conservatives in Congress have been upset
by what they have seen as too much "soft- .
ness" on defense matters in the Carter ap-
pointments to date. The Sorensen nomination
made them edgy and suspicious-In the wake of
that admitted political mistake the "hawks"
have been taking a second look at Cyrus
Vance, the new Secretary of State, Dr. Harold
Brown, the new Secretary of Defense, and,
Paul C. Warnke, the nominee for the Arms,
Control and Disarmament Agency. None of the
'three are "doves," but taken together they
make the real hawks uneasy. The Warnke
nomination would have been in serious trouble
without the Turner nominaton to balance it off.
But the liberals in the Senate will find it dif-
ficult to object to an admiral who won a
Rhodes scholarship, is as comfortable among
intellectual civilians as among military people,
has an insatiable curiosity, and who will listen
to any idea with open mind.
Approved For Release 2007/06/14: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100060049-5