SEGMENT III: INSIDE THE CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000200150003-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 22, 2007
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: January 17, 1978
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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.R TV REPORTS, INC.
4435 WISCONSIN AVENUE, N.W. WASHINGTON, D.C. 244.3540
NBC Nightly News STATION WRC TV
January 17, 1978 6:30 PM
Segment III: Inside the CIA
Washington, D. C.
DAVID BRINKLEY: The Central Intelligence Agency feels
it nas been ground down like a nutmeg: its Director fired, its
secrets exposed, its wrongdoing splashed across the press, and
now hundreds of its staff members fired. The CIA is, therefore,
said to be demoralized and uncertain of its future.
Ford Rowan, looking inside the CIA, reports on what he
has found.
FORD ROWAN: This is the nerve center of the Central
Intelligence Agency, an agency nervous about its future. This
is where the CIA keeps track of what's going on in the world.
Reports from America's spies, translations of foreign radio
broadcasts, and cables from military and diplomatic posts flown
here, to the CIA's Operations Center.
NBC News was permitted to look behind the locked doors
at a crucial time of change in the CIA. We found turmoil.
I n the wake of disclosures about what it has done --
domestic spying, drug experiments, assassination plots -- there's
new uncertainty about where the agency is headed.
Much of the unhappiness stems from the "Halloween
Massacre." That's what CIA officers are calling the mass firings
of October 31st. Some 212 clandestine operatives were fired.
In all, 820 positions are being cut by Director Stansfield Turner.
ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER: We've got more fat, we've
got more overhead than we can afford. And I want to be sure that
every employee out there is fully challenged and has a really
demanding ,job. And that's what we're getting down to: lean and
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ROWAN: The firings are eliminating the old leadership
of the clandestine service and raising questions about how the
agency will operate in the future. It's causing unprecedented
dissension in the ranks.
After hours,
one
CIA
employee showed us his dismissal
i
notice and said, "It's
a
purge
cer
of the old hands." A CIA off
ith
t
who quit said the loss
of
key
s w
people could destroy contac
foreign sources. Another
said
the cutbacks could convince for-
eigners not to trust the
CIA.
JOHN MAURI (?): I'm sure they're being jeopardized.
ROWAN: John Mauri, a former CIA officer who once served
as an assistant secretary of Defense, is concerned about the changes.
MAUR I : The institution is bound to grind down to a pretty
slow pace, because people are worried about their jobs, they don't
want to take initiative, they don't want to show imagination, they
don't want to take chances. Everybody's running scared. And in
an intelligence business, why, you can't afford to have a lot of
timid fellows there, because it's not a game for timid fellows..
ROWAN: While the clandestine operatives are being cut,
these jobs are not in danger. These are CIA analysts. They are
at work on America's most exclusive newspaper, the NID, the National
Intelligence Daily, a top secret news summary published by the CIA.
Each morning, the paper is put into envelopes, sealed,
placed in a locked briefcase, and delivered to top officials at
the White House and throughout the government. The circulation
is very limited. Only about 125 officials receive the secret news.
Some people think this is the part of the CIA that needs
beefing up, because in the past it hasn't measured up.
Congressman Otis Pike chaired the 1975 House Intelligence
Committee investigation of the CIA.
REP. OTIS PIKE: I was personally appalled, and I think
the members of our committee were very unhappy.
ROWAN: Pike and his committee concluded that the CIA's
analysts failed to anticipate the timing and the intensity of the
Tet offensive in the Vietnam War, that the CIA failed to warn of
the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, that the CIA failed to
predict Egypt's Invasion of Israel in 1973, that the CIA was caught
napping by the 1974 revolution in Portugal, that the CIA failed to
forecast the coup in Cyprus.
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events.
3
REP. PIKE: Tney had just blown it on these very important
ROWAN: An official of the CIA, who did not want to be
identified, said, "It's not all that bad."
MAN: I think we've been right more often than we've been
wrong. We've been wrong on some lulus. There's no question about
that. But on the whole, I think we have been much more right than
we have been wrong.
ROWAN: Perhaps so. But there is a new emphasis on analy-
sis, a shift away from clandestine operations, such as military
activities, covert actions and espionage. Human spies are gradually
being replaced by technology.
Deep inside the CIA, they are keeping watch on what the
Russians are doing in space. Spy planes and sate l l i tes monitor
the earth. In the past, they mainly watched military targets, but
now they also monitor economic, agricultural, energy, and industrial
activities.
Work goes on inside the CIA, but the cutbacks, changes, and
tensions have taken t h e i r to l l .
Ray Cline, a former Deputy Director, thinks the problems
have hurt the CIA's performance.
RAY CLINE: The percentage of falloff from a good perfor-
mance, a perfect performance is very hard to estimate, but I would
say at least 50%.
ROWAN: This is not a covert action; it's just a hobby
after hours at the CIA. The real combat is behind the scenes,
where the future of the CIA and its clandestine service is being
decided.