ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000300010012-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 19
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 28, 2007
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: October 15, 1978
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIQ TV REPORTS, INC.
STATION WETA-FM Radio
NPR Network
DATE October 25, 1978 1:00 PM CITY Washington, D.C.
Admiral Stansfield Turner
BILL BUSENBERG: From Washington, D.C., National
Public Radio presents another program in our continuing series
of broadcasts from the National Press Club. I'm Bill Busen-
berg, and today's guest speaker is Admiral Stansfield Turner,
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
And now here is the President of the National Press
Club to introduce guests at the head table and today's speaker.
FRANK AUKOFER: Good afternoon. Good afternoon,
ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the National Press Club.
I'm Frank Aukofer of the Milwaukee Journal, the President of
the Press Club.
I'd also like to welcome, in additon to the people
in the ballroom here today, our radio audience. The National
Press Club's luncheon speeches go out to more than 200 stations
of the,National Public Radio network.
I'd like to remind people here in the audience today
that you have an opportunity to ask questions of our speaker
today....
[Head table introduced]
AUKOFER: When our guest speaker took over as Director
of Central Intelligence in March of 1977, after a distinguished
career in the Navy, not many people at the CIA Headquarters in
Langley knew him. As most of you probably know, they don't wear
uniforms or insignia out there at the CIA. They tend to operate
incognito. So to solve the problem of recognition of the new
chief, they got him a tee-shirt. Printed on it are the words
OFFICES IN: NEW YORK ? LOS ANGELES ? CHICAGO ? DETROIT ? . AND OTHER PRINCIPAL CITIES
Material supplied by Radio TV Reports, Inc. may be used for file and reference purposes only. It may not be reproduced, sold or publicly demonstrated or exhibited.
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"Super Spook." To make certain nobody ever made a mistake, they
also got one for Mrs. Turner. It says "Mrs. Super Spook." And
to be absolutely certain that the chief himself never forgot
who he was or where he was, there is a "Super Spook" sign on
his bathroom door.
Like many of his predecessors at the CIA, Admiral
Turner is a military man. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval
Academy, has a master's degree from Oxford University, which
he attended as a Rhodes Scholar, and has held various commands
in the Navy, including Commander of the Second Fleet and the
NATO Striking Fleet.,
But when President Carter picked him as the nation's
top spy, he had not been an intelligence man. In a sense, he
followed in the footsteps of his son Jeff, who is an intelli-
gence officer in the Navy.
In the Navy, they refer to intelligence personnel as
"bean counters." So you might say that Admiral Turner now has
become the chief "bean counter."
In his career, both in the Navy and as head of Central
Intelligence, Admiral Turner's taken actions of particular in-
terest to journalists. As President of the Naval War College,
he started conferences to bring journalists together with young
military officers. Having attended one conference myself, I
can testify that they do much to erase stereotypes in both
groups.
As head of Central Intelligence, Admiral Turner has
opened up a public affairs office which routinely issues CIA.
studies, often at the rate of three a week.
The CIA, of course, sometimes has problems similar
to those of journalists: they don't divulge their sources.
After he took over at the CIA, Admiral Turner took
a speed-reading course, which has enabled him to read every
intelligence report every day.
[Laughter]
AUKOFER: I imagine there are a few juicy ones in
there, but...
Co-workers say he has almost total recall, and once
spotted the fact that a report misspelled the name of a U.S.
diplomat in Somalia.
When he's not running the nation's intelligence appara-
tus, Admiral Turner is an avid tennis player, who often plays
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with FBI Director William Webster, who's sitting right here.
Now, can you imagine that? The CIA Director against the FBI
Director. They must have all sorts of James Bond ways of
beating each other.
As many of you probably know, President Carter and
Admiral Turner were classmates at the Naval Academy, and Admiral
Turner, as the top military man in the class, the Commander of
the Brigade, was the future President's commanding officer.
Since taking over as head of the CIA, we have learned --
we won't divulge our sources -- that there has been a major change
in the relationship between the President and Admiral Turner.
Admiral Turner no longer requires Mr. Carter to salute him.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Director of Central Intelli-
gence, Admiral Stansfield Turner.
[Applause]
ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER: Thank you very much, Frank.
Ladies and gentlemen, I always regret when somebody
like Frank, being generous in introducing me, discloses the fact
that I got my present assignment strictly on the merits of my
abilities, not because I was a classmate of the President of
the United States.
In the 19 months since the President appointed me as
Director of Central Intelligence, I have fallen into a daily
habit of starting my day by reading your press clips. I do so
almost holding my breath, however, waiting to see what new dis-
closure is going to uncover one or another of our intelligence
sources. Sometimes it's a simple leak, sometimes it's one of
our officers who had to testify in a court, sometimes it's a
subpoena for one of our documents or some of our notes.
As a result, unfortunately, with this kind of a start
to my day, I've almost come to look on you people as our adver-
saries. That is, at least until recently, when I began to per-
ceive that, in reading the press, it was almost as likely to be
you who were being hauled into court to defend your right for
secrecy, or it was you who were being served these subpoenas for
your notes or your documents.
Why, this morning, look at the Washington Post. In
this column there's the story of the problem I have today with
disclosing documents for the prosecution of ITT. In this column
there's the story of the problem you had yesterday with disclo-
sing the notes of Mr. Farber in the prosecution he was involved
in.
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I can say to you: Welcome to the club. I'm glad to...
[Applause]
ADMIRAL TURNER: I'm glad to share this problem with
At least if I understand the essence of the problem
that the court cases of Farber and the Stanford Daily and others
have raised, it's whether preserving the confidentiality of a
newsman's sources is essential for him to fulfill his obligations
and to continue the success of his profession.
Now, if this is a problem for you, let me assure you
that the problem of keeping secrets, of being able to preserve
the anonymity of our sources is the number one problem.of your
United States intelligence community today.
The focus of the media with respect to intelligence,
for almost four years now, has been almost exclusively on the
abuses of the past. I can assure you that in my opinion the
probability of the excesses of intelligence today is less than
it has ever been in our history. If there is a threat or a danger
today, it is our inability to carry out necessary intelligence
operations because of the threat of disclosure.
Let me give you a few examples of why I say this.
First, Allied intelligence services are very nervous
about whether we can keep secrets. I suspect that some of them
are withholding information from us. I know that just recently
a foreign intelligence service declined a joint covert action
with us that would have been of great benefit to both countries.
It did so when reminded that I must notify eight committees of
the Congress of any covert action. They simply did not believe
we could keep that secret.
Beyond that, agents who work for us, for the good of
our country, even though they are not citizens of it, are begin-
ning to ask, "When will my name appear in your press?"
This is not a transient, short-term problem; it is
one that could have an impact on our intelligence capabilities
for a decade or more. In this kind of a climate, you simply
don't get people to volunteer to be agents for the United States.
Finally, with respect to this question of the dangers
of leaks on .our operations, let me point out that there is a
danger that too many leaks will lead to intelligence-by-timidity.
The timid reporter never gets the big story. The timid intelli-
gence operative does not take those risks which must be taken
if he's to do his job, especially if he, in his conscience,
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5
fears that the sources he is working with are ultimately going
to be disclosed.
Now, all three of these examples are part of the same
fundamental problem of preserving sources and their confiden-
tiality, a problem which you face as well as we. I don't know
what your profession is doing today to confront this problem
and to change the ways in which you do business, but I would
like to describe to you some of the things that we are doing.
First of all, we recognize that much of the problem
lies on our doorstep. It is sometimes our own people who leak,
or are former employees; and it is our responsibility to defend
ourself against deliberate espionage. And so today we are
tightening our security procedures. This is always difficult.
You can tighten security procedures at any time, but you can
tighten them so much that you can't get your job done. On the
other hand, you can be so interested in efficiency that you
don't protect what needs to be protected.
Today, I believe the tables have tilted just a bit
too much on the side of efficiency rather than on the side of
secrecy. I am tilting them back, and in the process I sincerely
hope I'm going to make it much more difficult for you to get
our secrets.
We're also doing things externally. We have a policy,
that Frank referred to, of greater openness. My being here with
you today is an indication of my commitment to keep the American
public as well informed about intelligence activities as we
possibly can.
How does openness help us preserve secrets? Well, one
of the greatest problems of maintaining secrecy today is that
there is too much information that is classified. There is a
lack of respect for the classified label, simply because there
is too much of it. And so by reducing that corpus of classified
information, through releasing to the public what we can, I hope
to engender greater respect for that which must remain secret.
It takes more than openness, however, to preserve
secrecy. Basically, there must, in my view, be a renewed acknow-
ledgement, both with you in the media and the public in general,
of the legitimacy of having secrets. Now, this is a very fine
I i ne , as we a l l know, a fine line between so much secrecy that
you impede justice and you stanch the free flow of information
in our open society; or, on the other hand, releasing so much
that you endanger vital national interests. There must be some
balance between a government that serves its people poorly
because it does not keep them well informed and a government
that serves its people poorly because it discloses things that
must not be disclosed.
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No government, no business, no newspaper, no individual
can afford to live in total openness. Newsmen feel that the
release of their notes, even in a charge of murder, would set
a precedent and would endanger obligations that they had under-
taken. So, too, do we in the field of intelligence face this
kind of difficult decision on a daily basis.
There is one difference, however, on how we confront
these obligations. Your case for maintaining the privacy of
your sources rests on your interpretation of the Constitution,
an interpretation which is being challenged today. My case
rests on a law, the National Security Act of 1947, which ex-
pressly charges the person of the Director of Central Intel-
ligence with being responsible for protecting our sources and
methods of collecting intelligence from unauthorized disclo-
sure. I simply must comply with this law, to the best.of my
ability and conscience.
There is still one other difference between my prob-
lems of secrecy and yours, and this is that protecting sources
is only one part of my problem.
Now, it has become quite out of vogue to talk about
withholding information in the name of national security. But
because that principle has been abused in the past, it is not
less valid today. Quite simply, there is information which it
is not in the national interest to disclose.
We cannot negotiate a SALT treaty if our positions
are known in advance. We cannot afford, as a country, to
develop expensive weapon systems or devices for collecting
intelligence, and then reveal their precise details to others.
Because, however, we in the world of intelligence
are in the risk-taking business and because there is a genuine
potential for abuse in the procedures we must apply, it is
important that there be special checks on us and our procedures.
I believe today that we have those checks and that
they give the American public a greater assurance than ever
before against any reoccurrence of abuse.
Out of the crucible of the last almost-four years of
intense public criticism we have forged a series of controls and
oversight procedures that give us that assurance.
To begin with, there is the policy of greater open-
ness, which I have cited to you. Beyond this, we have a series
of mechanisms to check on our day-to-day procedures. First,
there are general guidelines which provide the framework in
which all intelligence officers now operate. The first general
guideline is that espionage must be regarded as an extraordinary
.1
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activity. We must not, by spying try to obtain information that
can be found and made available through open sources.
The second guideline is that we must be able, in prin-
ciple, to defend in public that which we do in secret. Clearly,
we cannot disclose all the details of particular espionage
activities. But we can explain that the types of activities
we undertake are in fact in the national interest and in confor-
mancy with the attitudes and policies of our country.
Now, beyond these guidelines, we also have established
a number of prohibitions. There are some activities, such as
assassination, which are so repugnant to our national standards
that we can flatly prohibit them.
In many cases, however, a total prohibition is being
too rigid. And in these cases we have what we call injunctions,
a general prohibition against undertaking such activity, but
with specific exceptions. This is a commonly accepted procedure
with law enforcement in our country. No one would expect Judge
Webster of the FBI to search his home unless there was a judicial
warrant issued making a special exception. Similarly, we now
have established such procedures and checks, some of them invol-
ving warrants, some of them not.
For instance, there is a prohibition on using members
of the American media as intelligence operatives, unless I per-
sonally make the exception.
Now, the most significant change, and one that is
truly revolutionary, in our intelligence procedures today is
the effective establishment of external oversight from both
the Executive and the Legislative Branches. This oversight is
intended to check on how well the guidelines, the prohibitions,
the injunctions are being followed. It also is intended to
insure that the overall tone of our intelligence activities
is in line with the attitudes and the mores of our country.
First, there is an Intelligence Oversight Board, which
has been in existence for a little over three years. This board
consists of three men from outside the government, former Senator
Gore, former Governor Scranton, and Mr. Thomas Farmer of this
city. Their only responsibility is to look into the legality
and the propriety of our intelligence activities. Anyone may
report what they think are abuses to them. The committee inves-
tigates and reports only to the President.
Beyond this, we now have committees of the Congress,
one in the Senate for over two years, one in the House for a
little over a year, dedicated exclusively to intelligence over-
sight. The relationship between these select committees and
the intelligence community is one of cooperation and helpfulness.
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But at the same time, there is no question that it is a relation-
ship of check and balance, of supervision and investigation.
There is no question that we are accountable to these committees.
And in this short time that the committees have been in existence,
many in the intelligence community have come to recognize the
positive values of congressional oversight for us.
Ultimate accountability is essential to responsible
actions. When the stakes are high, when the risks are great,
and when there's a spirit of patriotism involved, you need to
have accountability to make your judicious selection of what
you need to do. And that's what I think is happening through
this intelligence oversight process. We are looking not only
at the benefits, we are looking carefully at the risks or our
intelligence programs.
The intelligence committees of the Congress are today
engaged in developing new legislation, legislation which will
codify the guidelines, the prohibitions, the injunctions, and
these general oversight procedures. I strongly support this
activity and these proposed charters, as they will be called,
for our intelligence community. I support them, first, because
they will provide the legal foundation behind what we do.
Secondly, it will provide to the intelligence operator in the
field, and to us in headquarters, an idea of what the scope of
our activities can and should be, what we are permitted and not
permitted to do, and what types of activities will be closely
overseen by our various committees.
Now, on top of all of these governmental controls and
checks, we also count on you, the media, as a oversight mechanism,
a mechanism for helping to reassure the public and to prevent
abuses. My plea to you today, however, is to recognize the simi-
larity of our plights. We in intelligence are professionals
dedicated to secrecy and constantly having to fend off demands
for excessive openness. You are professionals dedicated to open-
ness, and now constantly having to fend off demands to release
your few secrets.
I hope that you will recognize that when we balk, for
instance, at turning over documents necessary for prosecution
in the courts, we do not do so in an arbitrary manner. We think
these issues out very carefully. And we are most aware that we
must not only justify our position to the Attorney General, but
perhaps ultimately to our oversight committees.
Nonetheless, it is right for you to question the judg-
ments that we make in these instances. But I would hope that
you would recognize, in passing such judgment, that you are at
the severe disadvantage of having only part of the story. You
do not have the advantages of the Oversight Board and the Select
Committees of access to our secrets, or at least I hope not.
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This places you, indeed, in a difficult position. You have to
be concerned at whether you may, with incomplete information, be
misleading the public or releasing material that is injurious to
our country. On the other hand, you surely have the obligation
to keep our country informed and to check on malfeasance in the
government.
You also have a delicate responsibility in judging the
validity of the so-called whistle-blowers who frequently come to
you with charges of impropriety or inefficiency. Many of these
people appear to have altruistic motives, and I'm sure reassure
you that what they are releasing is not truly sensitive or secret.
Parenthetically, I might add that it is a very delicate
matter to determine what really is sensitive or secret, and not
likely to be one that somebody was, at best, only third- or
fourth-echelon and didn't have a view from which he could assess
the entire equities is likely to be a good judge.
But the potential in these situations for abuse, for
abuse of you and of your role in our society is very great. What
better way to promote your new book than to persuade the media
to start titillating the public by publishing excerpts of unau-
thorized revelations from it?
I would suggest that it is the rare whistle-blower who
resorts to the oversight mechanisms I have described to report
undue secrecy or improper activities and report them in a channel
where secrets can be kept. Instead, I find none who have done
that fully, but, rather, they have turned to the court of last
resort, you, the public press. This, I'm afraid, makes me sus-
picious of their, motivations. I suggest it should you, also.
Further, let me just suggest that when ever elected .
or appointed public official today is automatically suspect, and
every renegade whistle-blower is automatically a hero, and when
we_have more emphasis on criticizing and tearing down our society
than on building it up, I think, as a nation, we are headed for
trouble.
Still, I do not envy you the difficult job of conducting
oversight and assessing the validity of whistle-blowers and other
sources without full access to all of the information which you
really need. You face very difficult choices in steering a course
between the Scylla of undue criticism and the Charybdis of taking
too much on face value, and in making that difficult of choice of
whether, in the national interest, it is better to print a secret
or to withhold it.
What I do not accept, however, is the thesis that is
sometimes proffered that your responsibilities are such that
you must print everything you learn; or the thesis that because
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someone else is going to print it anyway, the question is moot;
or the thesis that if you have the information, surely the KGB
or other intelligence services have it also.
But let me add, I'm not suggesting that we in govern-
ment who are responsible for keeping secrets are the ones to
pass judgment on your choices in these matters. It is our public
that should and will pass that judgment.
I would suggest that the recent court decisions on
Farber and others may well indicate that neither the public nor
the courts agree with some of the premises under which you have
traditionally operated. Your unfettered right to print and to
disclose is being seriously questioned today, as was our unfet-
tered right to classify.
Accordingly, as I see the situation, we both are in
the midst of a reassessment of where our roles in this society
are and how we go about fulfilling them. I would suggest that
we in the intelligence community have been about this reassess-
ment for several years now. There is something to be learned,
I believe, from that. I would not suggest, however, how you
ought to resolve the issues of how you play your role in our
society.
From my point of view, though, as this country's
chief intelligence officer, what I expect from the nation's
media is a greater understanding of the commonality of our
problem of protecting sources; less suspicion and reliance
on inferences rather than facts, especially with respect to
alleged improprieties; fewer headlines about what happened 25
years ago, playing it as though it were yesterday; and more.
emphasis on our concerns for today and tomorrow; and more dis-
cretion at what is truly relevant to our society s needs, as
opposed to being just sensation.
Let me acknowledge again, though, that I recognize
it is by no means easy for you to draw these lines precisely
when you have only partial information.
In the final analysis, we both serve the same master
and will be judged by the same jury: the public of the United
States.
Within the framework of our uneasy relationship, I
believe that there is room for a mutual respect and for us to
work closer together rather than farther apart. A greater
degree of communication, and even trust, will benefit both of
us and will also permit us jointly to serve the American people
more effectively. I hope we can do that.
Thank you.
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[Applause]
AUKOFER: Almost makes some of us want to sign up.
[Laughter]
AUKOFER: ...The first questioner alludes to your
reference to keeping secrets in court cases, and notes that
two federal court cases were stopped yesterday because of
secret information, would like to know what the CIA's policy
is on criminal trials that involve national security interests
when keeping those secrets may mean that people like ITT execu-
tives can't be prosecuted.
ADMIRAL TURNER: My policy is that I bear a legal
responsibility to advise the Attorney General if the release
of documents or testimony necessary for prosecution will in
my opinion endanger the national interest. Clearly, this is
a subjective judgment in each opinion. And in each case I
try to provide my view on how serious the damage would be.
I do not claim the privilege of withholding anything from the
courts. I claim the privilege only of insuring that those
who make the release have had the opportunity to balance the
benefits of prosecution with the benefits -- or the detriments,
rather, of revelation. And I see nothing different in that
than in claiming privilege for Mr. Farber's notes in a case
of murder trials.
[Applause]
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AUKOFER: This question relates to classification,
in that you mentioned overclassification. The questioner would
like to know, is it safe for an individual to overclassify
rather than to underclassify, sort of to save his own neck?
And how important is this problem?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Yes, it's safer to overclassify than
underclassify.
To tell you a sea story. A few years ago I had what
I thought was a brilliant idea. I forwarded it through channels
for how the Navy could do something of great importance. When
I looked at it I said, "You know, that really, really isn't
classified." So I sent it forward in unclassified channels.
A couple of days later, it appeared in the Norfolk newspapers,
and the next day the Washington newspapers had 17 congressmen
complaining about this horrendous idea, which I believed was
great and could have been sold to them if it had come through
the proper channels. But because I couldn't hold anybody accoun-
table for this unclassified piece, I got burned by underclassi-
fying.
But it is a serious problem. The new presidential
directive on classification puts strictures against over classi-
fication. It's something that is endemic, it's something that
we have to each work at each day, and it just takes repeated
effort and emphasis.
As recently as two hours ago, I wrote a note to one
of my subordinates, who had written me and said, "We shouldn't
declassify this. There's not enough pressure on us."
I said, "That is not the policy. The question is, is
it reasonably declassified without hurting the national interest?
If it is, let's go."
AUKOFER: We have several questions about wiretapping.
And, somehow, I don't expect much of an answer, but...
[Laughter]
AUKOFER: How many -- there are two: Are you now or
have you wiretapped any law firms in this country? And how many
taps, if any, does the CIA have in operation in news bureaus,
outside and inside this country?
ADMIRAL TURNER: At the risk of destroying my friend-
ship with a friend who destroys me on the tennis courts regu-
larly, I have to say that any wiretaps in this country are out
of my province.
[Applause]
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ADl1IRAL TURNER: And if I knew, I wouldn't tell you the
answer to those questions either.
[Lau.ghter]
AUKOFER: That's kind of what I figured.
This questioner asks: Could you please comment on the
short-range benefits of the restoration of American bases and
communication centers in Turkey?
ADMIRAL TURNER: I'd like to expand on that question,
because my last military assignment was commander of the southern
flank of NATO, including Turkey; and I think the long-term bene-
fits of this restoration of better relations between our coun-
tries is very, very important to us, as well as to Turkey and to
NATO. Turkey is that eastern anchor of the NATO alliance, a most
stalwart country in defense of freedom and a country in a geo-
graphical location of tremendous importance.
In the short term, there is no question.that the return
to operation of our intelligence-collection bases in Turkey is
very valuable to us. In the years that we did not have those
facilities, we were able to route around and otherwise get some
of the information from other sources. You never can completely
replace something as valuable as those Turkish bases, and so we
had a very definite net loss. And the routing around is a
Peter-and-Paul situation, where, yes, you may pick up something
that used to be done in Turkey by some other means, but you
probably then lose something else that you were doing; the pri-
orities just have to shift down.
I can't quantify it for you, but I'm very, very happy
that this turn of events has taken place.
AUKOFER: We have a number of questions on Nicholas
George Shadrin (?), the Soviet defector who disappeared in
Vienna while on a CIA mission. One questioner asks: Can you
give us any assurance that he is not now in CIA custody? Another
questioner would like to know if he is alive and living in Aus-
tralia.
ADMIRAL TURNER: No, he is not in CIA custody. I do
not know if he is alive. I do not know if he is in Australia.
I have put a good amount of time onto the Shadrin case in my
brief tenure in this job, and I find no evidence of foul play
on the part of any American authorities, nor do I have any con-
clusive evidence or good clues as to just where Shadrin is. I
wish I did.
AUKOFER: Now that we've opened the Australia con-
nection, the questioner says: In 1977 the Senate Select Com-
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mittee on Intel l igence asked the CIA for a report on its activities
in Australia. Will this report ever be made public? Can you give
us an assurance that the CIA is not involved in activities designed
to influence Australian politics and organized labor activities?
ADMIRAL TURNER: I hope the report will not be made
public because I think there is classified information in it.
It is up to the Congress to decide whether their reports are re-
leased.
affairs in other countries?
Yes, I can give total assurance we are not in any way
trying to influence internal Australian labor or other activities.
AUKOFER: In that connection, what is the justification,
as a general matter, for interference in the internal political
ADMIRAL TURNER: Well, now we are getting into the murky
waters of covert political action, as opposed to intelligence.
Intelligence is the collecting of information and its evaluation.
Covert political action is the effort to influence events in for-
eign countries without the influencer being known. Political
action is not an intelligence activity, but, since 1947, whenever
this country has authorized political action, it has been assigned
to the Central Intelligence Agency to carry out.
I would say to you that, in my view, there is less need
and usefulness for covert political action today than there was
at times in the past, at times when it has been very successful
on behalf of our country.
There are times, like when you want to frustrate a
terrorist group, that it is useful to be able to infiltrate some-
body into it and get them to influence the course of events in
that group, where if they knew it was the United States doing
that, it would be use -- it would be meaningless, it wouldn't be
useful at all.
And so let's not kid ourselves. All of our diplomacy,
all of our economic power and pressure, all of our military
threat is here to influence other countries, to make sure they
don't do things inimical to us. Covert political action is
another tool in that quiver of arrows.
As I say, it is less useful and applicable today, and
particularly, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, because of
the danger of exposure of it. But it is something that I sin-
cerely believe we must retain the full panoply of potential for.
One does not know what 1985 or 1990 may bring.
[Applause]
 Approved For Release 2007/03/01: CIA-RDP99-00498R000300010012-8
AUKOFER: In that connection, do you anticipate a
continuing shift to greater reliance upon electronic intelli-
gence?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Yes and no. Over the past decade
and a half, the capabilities of electronic and photographic
reconnaissance techniques have expanded remarkably. This is
part of the great strength of our country, in its marvelous
technical expertise and its ability to translate that exper-
tise into practical application. So today we are almost sur-
feited with information derived from what we call these tech-
nical intelligence-collection sources, and they become more
capable at all times.
But when you look at this situation in its broad
aspects, you must appreciate that, as a generalization, what
you obtain from a photograph or a signals-intercept generally
tells you about something that happened some time in the past.
And as soon as I tell this to a policymaker, he looks me in the
eye and says, "Stan, why did it happen, and what's going to
happen next?" And there is where the human intelligence acti-
vity comes in. It is the forte of the spy to divine, to find,
to learn what other people's intentions, attitudes, plans, poli-
cies are.
And so, my view is, yes, electronic intelligence is
increasing, because the technical capabilities are continuing
to increase; but, no, it is not relatively more important,
because as you gain more technical information, you mutt have
more human information to complement it.
And, therefore, our emphasis is to have a balanced
approach in this. And within last year, I have requested and
the President has directed the establishment, under Lieutenant
General Frank Kamm (?), who was introduced to you here, something
called a National Intelligence Tasking Center. And by that I
mean tasking technical intelligence, human intelligence, and
making it work as a team.
That is what is different today. We have increased
emphasis on the importance of bringing together, in teamwork,
all of the collection elements, be they technical or human.
AUKOFER: Occasionally we get a question that's based
on something I haven't heard about, but that's not important.
The questioner would like to know whether there's any truth to
the report that Soviet leader Brezhnev died in January and a
lookalike is substituting for him.
[Laughter]
ADMIRAL TURNER: I f he has, he's fooled me.
 Approved For Release 2007/03/01: CIA-RDP99-00498R000300010012-8
AUKOFER: This questioner would like to know whether
the CIA is looking for violations of the arms embargo to South
Africa, and, if so, whether it's found any.
ADMIRAL TURNER: Surely it is our responsibility to
understand the military posture of countries around the world
that are of concern to us, and that would include trying to
understand what the South Africans' capability is to obtain
and manufacture and handle their weapon systems. But I am not
in the business of policing the laws of this country and deter-
mining if Firm X or Y is avoiding a legal sanction against
sending arms to South Africa. That's over in the law enforce-
ment department.
AUKOFER: This questioner would like to know how
the intelligence community will be able to demonstrate to the
American public and the Congress that it can reliably verify
the provisions of the pending SALT II treaty.
ADMIRAL TURNER: This is one of our great challenges
in the months ahead, if a treaty is signed soon. And I'll be
frank with you. I doubt that I will be able to make a persua-
sive explanation of the degree to which we can verify in the
public forum, for the reasons we've been discussing so much
today. But I am confident that I can give a succinct, clear
statement of what those capabilities are and what they are not
to the Congress.
And I would also like to give you this assurance:
that as the SALT negotiations have proceeded, each term, each
proposal made by the Soviets or made by ourselves has come to
us in the intelligence community for scrutiny. And for each
one, I have gone back and said, "This is the potential for
verification that we see, with our intelligence sources. This
is how we think that capability may increase or decrease over
the years ahead. And therefore, in a sense, this is the risk
you are taking if you accept this provision. And here are some
suggestions for how you might write that differently that would
help us better verify it."
So I can assure you I am convinced that those who make
the decisions on what we should offer and what we should accept
are well possessed of the information that I have, in its grea-
test detail, about how well we could verify those provisions.
AUKOFER: An equal opportunity question. The ques-
tioner would like to know, are there many female citizens in
the United States acting as spies? And would you recommend
spying as a good profession for women?
[Laughter]
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17
ADMIRAL TURNER: Definitely.
[Laughter]
ADMIRAL TURNER: In fact, I must admit to the ladies
that we have been remiss in the Central Intelligence Agency in
getting enough women into the clandestine side of our business.
And therefore there is greater opportunity for them, proportion-
ally, than for males, because we are anxious to redress that
shortcoming.
There are a few instances in which being in the clan-
destine business as a lady is not satisfactory. There are some
countries where you just can't walk out on the street, as a
lady, and not be noticed as being unusual, because of their
culture and their society.
But there are, in my opinion, as many other instances
in which a lady might be even preferable to a man in doing the
kind of clandestine work that we have to do.
So the opportunities are there. We are stressing it
in our recruiting. We are getting wonderful applicants from
young ladies in our country, and we're just anxious for any more.
And if whoever wrote the question will send me an address, we'll
get you a recruiter out there right away.
[Laughter]
AUKOFER: This questioner refers to President Carter's
austerity program, announced yesterday, about reduction of federal
employees; wants to know whether this will affect your operating
capacity and will we get a subpar intelligence program because of
this, and do you propose to request relief from President Carter's
edict?
ADMIRAL TURNER: I don't believe, at this time, it will.
But I must confess to you that we have to wait and get the inter-
pretations, the exact rulings from the Office of Management and
Budget, in particular, as to how the President's directive is to
be carried out. But at this point, in the clandestine service
we have just been talking about, we are overstrength to where we
expect to be at the end of this fiscal year.
You will recall that, with some controversy, a year ago
next week I ordered a 820-position reduction in our clandestine
service. We're still in the process of executing that. So we
have some s l a c k here. I f the employment levels go down, it won't
hurt us.
Let me explain to you too, in response to the pre -- in
connection with the previous question about balance between elec-
 Approved For Release 2007/03/01: CIA-RDP99-00498R000300010012-8
tronic and human intelligence collection, that this 820 reduction
was by no means indicated -- or, intended to reflect a change of
emphasis. It was simply a recognition of a very long-standing
fact: that we were overstaffed; and that, to me, was very inimical
to the long-term interests of our country and of the Central Intel-
ligence Agency.
We have outstanding young people who have come in, even
during the intensity of criticism of the CIA. And if I am going
to challenge them and inspire them to stay in this organization
and be the backbone of it in 10, 15, 20 years, we must challenge
them today with a full and meaningful job. And if we're over-
staffed and they are underutilized and oversupervised, we'll never
make it.
AUKOFER: We have several questions on the Freedom of
Information Act: How does it affect the operations of the CIA?
Do you see any prospect of repealing the Freedom of Information
Act, and would you like to?
ADMIRAL TURNER: No, I would not like to. I think the
Freedom of Information Act has provided a very valuable service
to our country. It consumes, however, over 100 man-years of
Central Intelligence employee time, and much, much of that is
wasted. We have so few requests that we can fulfill, with
respect to the number that come in, because of the classification
point of view, that we spin our wheels having to be conscientious
and review document after document, and turning them down.
We hope there will be some relief in the Congress from
the procedures which are required here.
We have -- Jack Blake, our Assistant -- Deputy Director
for Administration is sitting down here.
Jack, how many man-years d I d we consume with just fu
filling Mr. Agee's requests alone?
JACK BLAKE: About nine man-years so far, sir.
ADMIRAL TURNER: We've consumed nine man-years just
responding to one American -- I hate to call him an American --
citizen's request, one person.
And every time we issue anything or we have anything
appear in the press, we get requests from certain organizations
in this town, one after the other; and we have to go through
these in infinite detail.
It just is an unreasonable situation and cost to the
taxpayer today. And I think it can be mitigated by some modi-
fication. But I think the basic principal of giving the public
 Approved For Release 2007/03/01 : CIA-RDP99-00498R000300010012-8
19
access to things that need not be classified is a very good one.
AUKOFER: Admiral Turner, we thank you very much for
appearing here today, and we have for your our National Press
Club certificate of appreciation and a National Press Club tie.
And I have one final question for you, asked of you
in your dual capacity of Director of Central Intelligence and
as a former football player for the U.S. Naval Academy. The
Washington Redskins won their first game, it was said, because
they had a game plan report from the other team. Now that
they've lost two in a row, what can the CIA do to help them
get game plans in the future?
[Laughter and applause]
ADMIRAL TURNER: Well, I'd like to help the Redskins
in the worst way, but the only thing I can do is to quote my
football mentor, the man who meant a great deal to me in my
life, who's sitting right in front of me here, E.E. "Rip" Miller
of the Naval Academy coaching staff. And I still remember the
day when after three tries from our six-inch line Notre Dame
failed to cross the goal line, the whistle blew and the game
ended. We all went running into the locker room, jumping and
shouting. And as we got in there Rip looked at us and said,
"Gentlemen, long after those deeds have been forgotten, the
score will be remembered. You tied."
[Laughter]
ADMIRAL TURNER: Thank you.
[Applause]