DISGUST, DESPAIR, CHIEFS DECIMATE CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000100170026-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 19, 2007
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: June 21, 1979
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/06/19: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100170026-8
THE HOUSTON POST (TX~)
21 June 1979
a
F s
ys1s
81 '
I despair, chiefs den e
r- mg on three years after Frank Church
butchered the intelligence community in his
- pursuit of 'a presidential nomination, the com-muniry is still- in deep trouble, is making
pro,gress under present leadership and may
not be able to shake that leadership for
another year and a half.
The lurid hearings Church presided over
with such relish were greeted with delight by
a large element of the populace. They cor-
rected no abuses the community itself had
not discovered and rectified years earlier,
but the results for the country were,
catastrophic.
For openers, Church had created a public.
climate which made it all but impossible for
any reconstruction to occur. (Magazines like-
tre Saturday Review run idiotic articles
The second form is Foreign Positive InteLi-
gence - FPI - which stems from human re-
sources; in a word, agents. The major func-
tion of the CIA is to identify agents with
access to the relevant information, recruit
them, manage the cases, collect the take and
send it home. There, it must be processed by
trained analysts free from political pressures,
who turn out objective reports. Intelligence
passing through such a professional cycle is
never "wrong" - but it is, at the same time,
never complete.
To operate this cycle takes a large organ.
ization of operational personnel, the people
who manage them, and - a separate special-
ty - analysts. It takes years to train these
cadres. The pipeline is a long one, and, no
more than in any profession, can a staff sim-
about "spooks" stumbling around in Wash ply be hired off the street. -
iagton restaurants, by writers described as
':speciauring in national security issues" - The CIA has had five directors in the last
?~ho apparently don't know the difference be- seven years. There have been four in the last
'en the FBI and the CIA, or the KGB and six years, of whom only one - William Colby
11
l d hi
t
f
t: GRU.)
An articulate, sizable segment of the pub-
Pc is firmly convinced the intelligence com-
munity is staffed with crackpots and looneys,
playing silly and dangerous games, and the
whole scene should be abolished.
America cannot survive without several
forms of intelligence, which consists of raw
information that has been collected, process-
ed and disseminated.. Two broad forms are?at-:
enure was
pa
s
- was a pro
esslo , an
most entirely devoted making sure the ship
sank on an even keel and did not simply cap-
size during the slaughter. Colby had been
preceded by James Schlesinger, who struck
panic through all ranks by his quixotic and
brutal attacks on the Old Guard. (This was
no simple change of leadership and clearing
of deadwood; scores of irreplaceable officers
were sent packing.l
issue. While Colby and George Bush managed
? The first stems from technical surveillance = `personnel problems with consideration, their
- photography from satellites and aircraft; tenures coincided with the period the com-
and electronic recordings. This is almost- en-- munity was being shredded, and the drain
tirely in military hands, and has been well . continued. President Carter (after a fortu-
handled. The problem here is a bottleneck; -. - nately abortive effort to name Ted. Sorensen)
collection programs run far,. far ahead of our put in Adm..Stansfield Turner, and the drain
capacity to process the take. = has accelerated.
Turner is a proven military administrator
but the CIA is not a military organization and
its product is not the same as the military'
technical surveillance product. Turner .im-
ported a naval staff and runs a taut ship
where firings, forced retirements and re
ments and resignations stemming from dls,~
gust, despair and frustration have decimated
the crew.
The operational leadership left long ago
followed by most of the second generation.:
Turner has also tampered with the product
shading both what is collected and what '
processed and disseminated to conform
White House political considerations. This' isi
an abuse that was unknown in the last qu ,
ter century - and the brain drain has now
eroded the analytical elements as well.
Turner resembles the leadership of a medi
cal center, with the books itr apple'pie order,
from- which all medical personnel have pe&
The wards are staffed with interns, and verb
little medicine is practiced in the wards,
The relationship between. the intelligen
community and the legislative branch is not
functioning; security is so bad no foreigner
will cooperate, the value of our FPI product
is at an all-time low and no relief is in sight. .
Carter has reportedly lost. confidence .
Turner, but naturally has a politician's dish
like of. admitting poor judgment (witness'
Bert. Lance.). This means Turner most likely
will remain. until the next Inauguration Da
- when Carter can conveniently (and anyone
else most certainly will) dump him. .
But that'sa-year and a half away.
Donald Merril serrod Wit% the 'CIA 17 Y" M We hea
beon a columnist for The Houston Post ring his tetitV,
ment from government 3wYic* in 117Z:. l
Approved For Release 2007/06/19: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100170026-8