ADMIRABLE STANSFIELD TURNER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000100080025-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 17, 2007
• Sequence Number: 25
• Publication Date: March 12, 1977
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

~~~Cgllpp~ved For Ras~~0~~~C~~~1~ CIA-RDP99-00498
~. ON Pltc~' /d 12 March 1977
..
~ Navy man takes on "the Company. _
~~~~~~i~~~ T~~~~r~
Gorge a Pentagon computer with Naval personnel files. .
Ask it to disgorge a highly intelligent,:modern and
..politic flag officer, with a proper taste ,of staff
Y
:
and
ou
s
-
experience . as .well as combat sea comm
Now Eeed the whirring tapes. and pockmarked cards
-
.
-~=that house the. 30-year history of the .Central In-: _
~'-= telligence Agency (slightly expurgated, of course, even
~' in the top-secret internal government versiori~-from=
~:`:?the old-boy OSS alumni who :toppled Mossa;degh. to the"_~
payoffs :`for =King Hussein and :'assocted-~'other
Tu
h
'
~
rner
e
Add t
'of our Foreign policy.
~= sharecroppers
ontrol."iBut at this point,
Ask Eor "command and c
:~' file
_
.
'~~intrepid programmer, you should standback. The
`: computer, still not knowing all the necessary data; may--.
h
ines
~: be. confused at tke question: And confused mac
...ton vc. v...,.h... .. ~_- ... .. ....
~. At 53, Turner has those avuncular good looks of
(~ ~ Navy recruitment brochures-the full, mature face on
`~ :the bridge than is the destiny of ..conscientious
midshipmen and a reassurance to taxpayers.; He is an.
~: advertisement for his profession, or at least for how the
Navy prefers to see itself. After a comfortable start at
:..Amherst he joined Jimmy Carter's wartime Bass at
_ Annapolis and finished first in it.`~.His ~ aeademic
distinction brought a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford
and the special caste advantages the American military
`~ has long conferred on the valedictory men from .the
T:academies; Though he served his~early duty" primarily
r on destroyers,.ever the stepchildren _of .:the fleet,
,Turner_;;rose ;steadily in._the post-war:_;years:.;.As
~` important .as tiffs ..advance _in rank was his' technical
the =most valuable credential of a future
c
i
ex
e-
en
per
;
:admiral=interspersed : .withposts _ commanding ~a
guided=missile .frigate off ,Vietnam and a_stxth fleet
carrier.,- group; ~: a? .director of the; systems analysis
~."..division under .the Chief of Naval Operations;~and as
-~ president of the Naval War College at Newport: When
Turner took the NATO Mediterranean command in
'=_1975, his 29-year climb to Admiral had about it a gleam
of inevitability, with a seat among the Joint Chiefs;
-~ perhaps even the chairmanship, the natural climax. But
.: now with the? summons to be Carter's .Director of
Central Intelligence, Stansfield Turner's progress has
taken a very different turn. The troubling question-
rvhollyunanswered in his flabby, shambling confirma-
tion hearings-is whether even this impressive making
of an admiral will enable him to run "the Company"
rather than vice-versa.
The answer lies in part in the man behind the brilliant
Men who have served with Turner speak of him with
the predictable mixture of respect and resentment, bul 1
characterizations are almost unfailingly general
h
e
t
and amorphous. His has been the usual phantom trail of
the gifted and successful bureaucrat. Fie ~n~as thereat.
the side of the Secretary of the Navy in 19e9 and 1970
when the Pentagon pressed Nixon to resume the air ~
"war as a quick fix in Vietnam. The Navy in particular
-
argued for the blockades ~ of .. Sihanoukville and
Haiphong, a prologue to brutal and wasteful episodes to
follow in Cambodia and to the_bombing of North
Vietnam. Turner. was"there too as head of systems
analysis in 1971 and 1972 when the Navy was fighting
some of its least glorious engagements over a bloated
budget .for nuclear.-carriers and -taking part in a
-monumental bureaucratic squabble in which the SALT
negotiations. were held hostage to'_:new .submarine
development.:
et there is little of Stansfield Turner in this history
.
except .his physical presence, ..and. of course his
unbroken promotion. Through a series of sensitive and
relatively. conspicuous jobs, he has .taken no notable
. position on the great issues that occupied his Navy: the
future of the surface fleet; the utility of the carrier; the
reliance ;on the strategic nuclear submarine; the
intelligence disputes over Soviet shipbuilding; -the ~
eager, bloody race with the Air Force to display tactical
air virtuosity in the Vietnam rvar: Still, it is possible to
- Eind some kind thoughts for a man like Turner writing
the safe memoranda, mouthing the orthodox speeches,
and sailing with the tides. In its provincialism and
comparative poverty of talent at flag grade, the Navy
has been, and remains, the most benighted of the armed !
services=-the last- to recognize the 20th century in ?I
matters ranging from "racial integration in the ranks to
grand strategy at sea That Turner chose by intellect,
taste;=or=-more-likely=-self-interest=.to stand apart
' from ;the Navy's retrograde policies may well be _a
~
disdain,,if that is what it was, was
`virtue..The cost of the
as always that the abuses of the system survived all the
. longer.. :.- -= -~,. _~ _'_ :~ ~.~ =.:: ,. ~ -?. ,-:
~. There also inauthentic pathos in what has happened
to the Navy in. the last three decades, affecting the
careers of the Stansfield Turners. The Annapolis class
of 1946 hurried into a universe in which the nuclear
stand-off,' third-LVorld nationalism and American
domestic politics'~would conspire to reward the
victorious Navy with an inescapable obsolescence. Bred.
to the wardrooms of an imperial fleet, officers of the ;
Turner generation found the frontiers of empire
murky and shrunken. Their wars were the vainglories
of Korea and Vietnam, until the tradition they had !
taken for granted was reduced to an aging co!}ection of
men and vessels in search of a mission. Turner and his
peers might stilt strut on the decks of the slightly
continued
 Approved For Release 2007/04117 :CIA-RDP99-004988000100080025-9
antique. task Forces anchored in Naples or Norfolk; but
the. reminder always was there in the halls of the
Pentagon, v~~here the florid paintings of great naval
actions stopped with Okinawa. - ~_, _~: - -- .
= It has been a -chastening, sometimesshattering
'transformation Fot such officers.. In many, like Turner,
it seems to have left a lasting sense of the restraints of
modern foreign policy. In f}iat~:`sense, in fact;. Turner
-may be- more- educated by reality- than -the -civilians
~~vvhose shuttle:;between_ government"'and -corporate
,.power is so insulated. At any rate the result in Turner is
a, refreshing-air `o.f.,proportion and .an_ absence of
.:pretense. At the Naval War Collegehe.is remembered
-':for-dispensing:vvith_uniforms and installing the_mosf
--.rigorous academic standards-in-,recent history:: both
..symbolic of a conviction, that the Navy, hiscommand in
any case, could no longer, afford its stylish mediocrity:
--By several. accounts he has grown into the- sort-of
commander the Navy needs-a fine mind schooled in
the anachronism of pushing the rest of the world
around. This gift will serve him somewhat at the CIA
but only somewhat. - ~ - - -- ;
and perhaps not his chain of command either. -The
issues that dominate the station cable traffic in the ,
1970s are precisely those Stansfield Turner knows least ~
:.about as an accomplished naval officer. They are .~
questions of resource politics, financial manipulations,
- infiltration of -sophisticated legal and corporate
networks, elaborate laundering of money and arms for
clients my the Middle East or Africa where past
operations ~have~been tooeasily-exposed. Think fos a I
= :moment of the likely pressure points- over the next .
-?. 'several years;~places and people to which Turner will
". have to bring some independent judgment if he is to _:
-avoid becoming captive in the director's sunny office up. ~
': the Potomac. There is southern Africa with its singular
_.- racial history and politics; there is increasing supporE -:;
inside the Carter administration for arming the black;
`guerrillas, white the CIA clings to its liaison with the I
. white states: Or .take the Middle East;. where the ~
destruction of the PLO in Lehanon has altered the
balance of power drastically, while the bureaucratic .,
balance inside the CIA has tipped for the first time in 30
years toward the large pro-Arab faction. Or take Latin
America, the agency's largest single collection of
Foreign bodies,. "where yet-unreported local violence ~
could bring to power a host of Allendes in the next few
years, throwing out of work both the Last ClA i
representatives and their proteges. Or take Japan and
Korea. Sordid GIA liaisons with both governments may i
determine the pace of troop withdrawals from Korea, ~~
nasty world it is out there. "
'T'heir great battles have been both
recent and victorious-most notably
the outlasting and outfoxing of the
US Congress in ].975 and 1976. "The
Company" has weathered the most
serious challenge to its position,
engineering a denouement that
provided a renewed example of
legislative impotence and public
fickleness. to the Admiral's idiom, it is
almost as if the Navy had .beaten
;'-North Korea and North Vietnam
:..:_single-handedly, and in the process
back into black . +
:scared the Russia ns
:
:
:
A
-_
..:.
_-- - II
Sea coves. _ --