ADMIRAL TURNER SPEECH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000200120007-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 28, 2007
• Sequence Number: 7
• Content Type: REPORT

Approved For Release 2007/03/29: CIA-RDP99-{48F00200120007-3
A-(>14 Q * AS
This is not an easy transition. We are not there yet.
But we are moving rapidly and surely in the right direction. And
when we reach our goal , we wi I I have constructed a new model of
intelligence, a uniquely American model of intelligence suited
to the goals and the ideals of this country.
As we proceed down this path, we wi I I need your under-
standing and your support, particularly in the delicate area of
prosecution-versus-disclosure. And it is for that reason that
I am grateful that you've asked me to be here today and given
me this opportunity to share these thoughts with you.
And I now look forward to responding to your questions.
Thank you.
[Applause]
MODERATOR: Thank you, Stan. It sounds as if spying
wasn't as much fun as I thought it was.
[Laughter]
MODERATOR: Admiral Turner has agreed to respond to
your questions for a few minutes, and I've reserved the right
to terminate the process in order that we may be able to meet
the appointments of the afternoon....
"IAN: You mentioned the consolidation of the intelli-
gence services. Does that include the ONI and the military,
FBI, and all of the...
ADMIRAL TURNER: I mentioned consolidation of the
intelligence services. Does that include ONI and FBI, [unintel-
ligible] of Naval Intelligence, and so on?
Yes, in this regard: As the Director of Central
Intelligence, I have authority over their budgets and over how
they go out and collect information. But very carefully, what
I do not have authority over is how they analyze what we have
learned. Because the interpretation of intelligence information
is always subject to a great deal of uncertainty, and we must
be sure that differing views are permitted to come forward.
So, there is control over the expensive items for
collecting intelligence; there is not control over the less
expensive, less risky material which is evolved in interpreting
it.
MAN: Admiral Turner, it's increasingly suggested that
a great deal more material is classified than need be. Can you
explain to us what process is used to determine how material
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should be classified and when it should be declassified?
ADMIRAL TURNER: ...a lot more classified information
than there should be, and what's the process for determining
what to classify? A very apt and correct point. We do have
far too much classification in the government. It is an almost
intractable problem to grapple with, but we are working on it
in a number of different ways, one of which is the deliberate
publication by the Central Intelligence Agency of much more of
its product.
Now, we can't publish how we collect information. But
at the back of the room, when you leave today, there will be
some examples of our unclassified product for the country. And
my thought in doing this, in large measure, is by declassifying
this, it's easier to protect what remains. And we get people
to understand that when you can remove those classified labels,
it benefits everybody, us and the public.
We are also in possession, just recently, of a new
presidential directive with some very firm guidelines about over-
classification and set procedures and time intervals to automa-
tically bring things down.
But it's not an easy task.
MAN: [Largely unintelligible]
ADMIRAL TURNER: What effect has evolved from the
criticism of the Central Intelligence Agency having on recruitment?
I'm very pleased to say to you that through the greatest
periods of criticism of the agency, the recruitment of young
people, particularly from our colleges and universities, has
stayed high. They have seen through this and have seen the mar-
velous opportunities to serve their country in our intelligence
organizations. We are not wanting for lack of good recruit can-
didates today.
You may have seen some publicity we've had in the last
few weeks on our new, or relatively new recruiting advertising.
We're doing this, in large measure, because we want to be very
selective, we want to have a large base from which to draw, and
we want to do more than we've done in the past to insure that we
are drawing from all sectors of our country, geographically,
ethnically, culturally. We want to draw from both sexes, from
all races, and from all parts of our country. Only then can we
really do the best job of getting the best and the brightest
young people into our organization.
MAN: How strong is your Office of General Counsel?
How much do you rely on him [unintelligible]?
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ADMIRAL TURNER: How strong is our office of General
Counsel, and how much do we rely on him?
Reece (?) mentioned that before the war I went into
a liberal arts college, Amherst in Massachusetts. I had the
intent of going from there to law school. I didn't realize it
was going to take me 30-some years to get to be a lawyer; but
I have so much contact with my general counsel, that I prac-
tically am going to law class every day.
Seriously, it's a most importa ion in the
Central Intelligence Agency. A staff of lawyers is 25X1
assigned to him. And we have need of his advice on almost a
daily basis -- that is, I do, almost, let alone the entire
organization.
And coming down here on the plane this morning, I had
a document that thick from him to read about these charters and
the detailed provisions in them.
That's a very critical position, because if we don't
write these regulations and these laws in a way that our people
can interpret them, anon-lawyer can interpret them, we're
really going to hamstring ourselves. And yet we do have to
have some form of control.
So he is a key person in our organization, and I work
very closely with him, personally.
MAN: Admiral Turner, you commented on the cooperation
between your agency and the Attorney General in litigation mat-
ters affecting the CIA. Are you able to comment upon how that
process was applied in the Snepp case?
ADMIRAL TURNER: How did this coordination between
myself and the Attorney General work in the Snepp case?
Snepp was a former CIA employee who wrote a book
without giving us the opportunity to review it for classified
information, which was part of the contract that every employee
signs with us when they come on to duty.
Our relations with the Attorney General were super
in that case. I suggested prosecution, and he was willing to
stick his neck out and try a new form of prosecution. We
talked it out back and forth with our general counsels as to
what would be the way to do it, and we tried a non-criminal
prosecution there, a violation of contract. And in that cir-
cumstance, I did not have to produce the documents. I did
not have to produce the classified information that might have
come out if we'd brought a criminal charge under the espionage
laws, as you can see.
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So, the teamwork was just great. And we're so pleased
that it worked, and have our fingers crossed that the appeals
court, having ruled in our favor, that the Supreme Court will
[unintelligible].
MAN: Admiral Turner, there was some feeling that we
didn't [unintelligible] anticipate what was happening on Iran.
So I wonder i f you' d I i ke to comment on that. And could you
tell us how things have...
[Laughter]
ADMIRAL TURNER: I've had that question before.
[Laughter]
ADMIRAL TURNER: How did things go wrong in Iran?
One of the things that I started to say at the begin-
ning of my remarks was that we have to be better able to Iook
at the long-term trends, we have to be more subtle in exercising
U.S. influence abroad.
And, yes, we would like to have predicted the short-
term trends of events in Iran better than we did. But the real
measure of our success is: Are we keeping the policymakers
advised of the undercurrents, the long-term things on which they
can really take effective action?
In this case, we were predicting that there were lots
of problems in Iran. We saw problems with political dissidents,
economic unrest, religious problems, and so on. What we did not
We'd like to do better. But I keep saying,-when asked
this question, that I cannot guaranty that we can always predict
coups, revolutions, unusual electoral trends, and so on. But we
do hope that we're keeping policymakers advised of the underlying
trends behind them. And'I believe we're doing a very fine job
in that direction.
MAN: Admiral Turner, if your relationship, sir, with
the Attorney General is so good, do you have any prognosis at
all when and if he is going to either prosecute or dismiss the
pending indictments on intelligence officials, so as to remove
the interminable [unintelligible] the American public has today
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on our entire intelligence system, both domestic and foreign?
ADMIRAL TURNER: I cannot answer that. You must be
speaking of FBI intelligence officials, are you?
MAN: Yes, sir, that's what I'm speaking of. It
affects the entire intelligence system.
ADMIRAL TURNER: Well, I wouldn't disagree with what
you've said, but, unfortunately, I cannot honestly answer your
question, since I've not dealt with him on this question of the
FBI officials.
And I'm very sad to say that we only have five more
days of G r i f f i n Be l l . He just has been a tower of strength to
all of us in the 2 1/2 years he's been the Attorney General.
I look forward to Ben Civiletti, who certainly has
all those same qualities, but we'll all miss Attorney General
Bell.
MAN: [Inaudible]
ADMIRAL TURNER: Do I have any reservations about the
SALT treaty?
[Laughter]
ADMIRAL TURNER: My job in the SALT treaty is not to
take sides, because the Senate of the United States -- and, of
course, the Administration -- want and need to know how well we
can check on what the Soviets are doing under the terms of that
treaty. And if I take sides on it and express an opinion about
it.. then the objectivity of my evaluations of how we l l we can
check on it could be questioned.
So we have an ethic in the intelligence community that
we abjure being for or against a po I icy matter I i ke a treaty such
as this.
As far as our ability to verify it is concerned, this
is a intensely complex technical issue, but it's one on which we
have the privilege to give to three committees of the Congress
every detail that they have wanted in closed executive session,
and I believe they are vary well satisfied with what we have been
able to adduce for them. What conclusion they are drawing is up
to them. They, as your representatives, must take this highly
classified information that we provide them on our verification
capabilities and translate it into decisions for all of us.
I thank you very much for your attention and for the
privilege of being with you today.