FULL TEXT: CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000300040012-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 29
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 9, 2007
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: September 19, 1977
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP99-00498R000300040012-5
RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
4435 WISCONSIN AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20016 244-3540
PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
Good Morning America
WJLA TV
ABC Network
September 19, 1977 7:00 AM
SUBJECT Full Text: Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D.C.
DAVID HARTMAN: This is a Good Morning America special
program, the first extensive television visit inside the Central
Intelligence Agency. -
Good morning. I'm David Hartman.
The forerunner of the CIA was the wartime, World War II
wartime, OSS, the Office of Strategic Services. And General William
Donovan, whose picture you're looking at now, ran it from this room
in this building; and we're in Washington, D.C.
General Donovan considered to be the father, in a sense,
of the CIA. In fact, the .d became the CIA exactly 30 years ago
yesterday. And as it grew, the CIA expanded its headquarters to
Langley, Virginia.
And Sandy Hill, during the past couple of weeks, and our
ABC film crews have spent many hours filming inside the headquarters
at Langley, Virginia. Some of what you are going-to see in the next
couple of hours of our Good Morning America program special this
morning have never been seen before on television. And our guide
through all of this is the new Director, for the ast six months, of
the Central Intelligence Agency, and he is Admir(ap Stansfield Turr.,-.
Admiral?
ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER: Good morning, Da,-id.
HARTMAN: Good morning. Nice to have you with us this
morning.
ADMIRAL TURNER: Thank you. Glad to be here.
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Material suppled by Radio-TV Reports, Inc. maybe used or file and reference purposes only. It may not be reproduced, sold or pub4cty dernansLrated or a hibited. -
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HARTMAN': 'First of all, do you -- I'm going to quote
you. Quote: "I think we've got to be salesmen. I think we've
got a product to sell, and we've got to get out on the street and_
selll it."
What's the product and why do you have to sell it?
ADMIRAL TURNER: The product is evaluated intelligence
about activities in foreign lands, and the need is to have our
policymakers in the government well informed so they make good
decisions.
But I also happen to believe that we have a lot of good
information that can be made available to the American public;
and the better informed our public is, the stronger our country
will be.
HARTMAN: Admiral, isn't part of it the fact that there
have been so many criticisms of abuses within the CIA, that in
order to improve your credibility and your strength as an intelli-
gence agency, you've got to go public to some degree?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Yes. I believe that we can'tell the
American public more about what we're doing. and how we're doing
it, within the limits of necessary secrecy; and that in so doing,
we should be able to build a greater understanding in the public
of support for those things which we do which are so essential
to our country's welfare.
HARTMAN: Thank you, Admiral.
We're going to be talking more, through both our hours
this morning, with Admiral Turner....
HARTMAN: I'm here with the Director of the-CIA, Admiral
Stansfield Turner. And right now Steve Bell has a report about
some of the excesses attributed to the CIA.
STEVE BELL: David, the Central Intelligence Agency was
child of the cold.war, created at a time when the Soviet Union
waa_ seen as a clear and present threat to the United States and'
other'Western nations. Under the National Security Act of 1.947,
the CIA'vas created to coordinate U.S. intelligence ac-tivities,
specifically to correlate and evaluate intelligence and to advise
the National Security Council.
But there was a loophole in the act through which the
CIA moved into secret operations, dirty tricks, and finally full-
fledged military activity, a loophole that authorized the agency
to perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence-
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affecting the national security as the National Security Council
may from time to time direct..
Armed with that loopholed and a desire by most members
of Congress not to know what was happening,_the CIA undertook
operations over the years that have only recently become public
knowledge and brought the agency under critical public scrutiny.
Although it wasn't the first such operation, the Bay of
Pigs invasion in 1961 was the CIA's largest paramilitary endeavor
and its largest failure.
In Laos, the CIA financed a secret war with funds never
itemized to Congress that went on for years befor being publicly
acknowledged. And in Vietnam, there was the Phoenix program that
fought Viet Cong terror tactics with terror tactics.
Then there were the authorized assassination attempts,
the most widely publicized involving Cuba's Fidel Castro. And
there were the cases where CIA-supported activities appeared to
get out of hand, ending in unintended assassinations.
In Chile, for instance,, Marxist President Salvado Allende
was killed in a coup that followed unrest and demonstrations fin-
anced, in part, at least, by the CIA.
A grand jury, incidentally, is considering indicting
former CIA Director Richard Helms for lying about CIA intervention
in Chile.
But the Central Intelligence Agency has taken some of
its worst lumps for activities right here in the United States,,
where the law very specifically says, "The agency shall have no
police, subpoena,/law-enforcement powers, or internal security
functions."
In direct contravention of that law, we now know of
Operation Chaos, begun under White House pressure in 1967 to spy
on and compile lists of American dissenters; Operation Merrimack,
to infiltrate CIA agents into peace groups and black activist
organizations; also, the illegal opening of first class mail,
both by the CIA and the FBI. And, of course, there were the
secrets projects in drug testing that began in 1950 and lasted
until '73. What began as an attempt to understand so-called braf;-
washing techniques used on American prisoners in Korea--soon
.