ADDRESS TO THE CITADEL BY ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000200140012-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 27, 2007
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: May 17, 1980
• Content Type: REPORT

Approved For Release 2007/03/27: CIA-RDP99-00498R000200140012-5
Tape Transcript/19 May
Address to The Citadel by
Admiral Stansfield Turner
Charleston, South Carolina
17 May 1980
Members of the graduating class of 1980, your college president,
Admiral Stock.dale and I were born within a few days of each other;
we were raised within a few miles of each other; we were raised in
the Middle West of the United States in the 1930's, a period when
isolationism was particularly strong in that area. As we prepared
to go to college, neither one of us ever thought that a large part
of our lives would be spent in support of the foreign affairs
policy of this country. I suspect neither one of us ever thought
that we would travel as far away as Europe. Yet, by the time in
1946 that we reached the position of graduation -- just as you have
today -- isolationism was virtually extinct. It went out in
the great crucible of World War II. By the end of that War a
profound change had taken place in this country; a country that
just two and one-half decades before had rejected membership in the
predecessor to the United Nations -- the League of Nations.
In contrast, in the immediate post-World War II years, under the
great leadership of President Truman, this country evolved the
Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and the UN Resolution on Korea.
In those years we firmly committed this country to help our friends
and allies defend themselves against aggression. Suddenly our
nation's interests were worldwide--and the mantle of free world
leadership was Americas. That changed the lives of Admiral Stockdale
and myself markedly.
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As you graduate today, the United States faces changes in its
relationship to the rest of the world that are just as profound and
I would suggest that they may affect your futures' markedly, also.
I suggest to you that the world environment in which the United
States must operate in the 1980's, will be as different from the
world of the 1960's and 70's as was the world of the 1940's that
Admiral Stockdale and I knew to the world in which we were raised
in the 1930's.
A big difference for you, however, as it is very likely
that this country will have to adapt to that change without some
cataclysmic event like a world war to alert us. You will have
to define the new role of U.S. leadership in the world in conditions
which are evolutionary and subtle--circumstance which you may not
detect if you are not alert.
Take, for instance, the traditional role of the United States
as leader of the Western Alliance. For 35 years we have clearly
been the dominant force within the Alliance. Can we, however, expect
to be that dominant in the 1980's. Will we still be the largest and
by far the most powerful member of that team? But you would do
well to expect surprises from our allies. The Europeans and the
Japanese are prosperous economically; they are stable politically;
they feel independent and deserve to. They still acknowledge,
of course that their security is ineorably tied to their relationship
to us. But the scramble today for oil and other natural resources
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has become so vital to them that they must have their own say
in how the Western world copes with these problems. The great
Alliance is not doomed to weaken; but it is bound to function with
far more regard to the independent voices of its members. That
will be a different Alliance in the decades ahead.
If our ties with our allies are going to alter, so too will
our relations with our principal adversary, the Soviet Union.
You, I beleive, will have to adjust to a different Soviet Union in
the 1980's. From Stalin, through Khrushchev, to Brezhnev, Soviet
leadership has been cautious and conservative in avoiding possible
military confrontations with the United States.
In the 1.980's, however, we will confront the first Soviet
leadership that does not feel inferior to the United States militarily.
Last December in Afghanistan the Soviet leaders committed their
military forces to combat outside the Soviet Block for the first
time since World War II. Does this indicate a new aggressiveness,
a new willingness to take risks? It seems to me that it does
indicate at least that they are likely to continue to take advantageous
of opportunities when they occur. But what about the deteriorating
economic fortunes of the Soviet Union? Will the Soviet leaders of
the 1980's feel under pressure to undertake military adventures in
order to cover up their economic deficiencies at home? For instance,
to augment their diminishing oil production? Or will their economic
weakness keep them at home tending the store? Much depends, of
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course, on who the Soviet leaders of the 1980's will be. Surely
the aged men who govern the Soviet Union today will be gone.
We can only predict that whoever succeeds them is unlikely to
be as cautious or as predictable in dealing with the United States.
You had better be prepared for more surprises from Moscow in
the future than in the past.
One additional element of change that you are bound to
encounter in the 1980's will be the scramble for natural resources.
The most obvious example is oil. But how about the other imports
which we take for granted? We import all of our rubber; all of
our coffee; chromium, cobalt, tin, most of our manganese and nickel.
In all of these and other cases, nations that used to be pliant to
our needs for such resources are independently determining what
it is best for them to produce, not what is best for us. They will
produce only that which generates the amount of revenue which they
need, or that which lets them conserve their resources in accordance
with their own dictates.
When you couple more restrictive production policies with
an increasing world population and the rising expectations of
that population for a better standard of living, you can see
that a great tranference of power to nations that have never
exercised it before is taking place.
In the decades of the 80's and the 90's, you will have
to understand those nations, their national aspirations, the
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character of their people; and you will have to negotiate
with them far differently than we have even in the recent past.
It is my deepest hope that you will not have a World War
to startle us into appreciating how different the place
of the United States will be in the world of the 1980's than
it was in the 1970's. Admiral Stockdale and I did not have
to be as perceptive as you will have to be. We had that
World War which jolted this country into a new awareness
of its role in the world. If you are to decide upon our
for the 80's and the 90's, you must care about the world
around us you must pay attention to it. That applies
whether you enter the military, or other government service,
or civilian life. You must understand how our national
interests, as well as those of our allies and enemies relate--
where they harmonize and where they conflict, and, understanding
that, you must help to define our nation's role in the world.
This is not an easy challenge, especially since the pressures
on you for conformity of outlook will be greater than perhaps any time
in this century. Do not forget that George Orwell's decade is here.
The class that replaces you in The Citadel next fall will be the
Class of 1984.
George Orwell's Doublespeak is already with us in some
measure. Today you, as individuals, must stand up to the
omnipresent, supremely superficial, instant analyses of our
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television networks and written media. Only you can determine
if "Big Brother" will direct your thinking, or whether your
understanding our nation's role in the world is to be dictated
by the tube, or molded by your own independent thinking.
That is really why you have been here at The Citadel --
to develop your creative abilities and to learn to think
independently--not to learn the skills of any particular
profession, military or civilian.
I challenge you to reason soundly and deeply about the world
of the 1980's, about our nation's role in it because that world
will continue to be critical to all free men. We can retain the
mantle of world leadership or we can lose it--and the reins of
United States leadership will be in your hands much sooner
than you think.
I congratulate you on the achievement of this great step
in your careers. I also challenge you, as your careers move
onward, to ensure that whether as a public servant or a private
citizen you each seek to repay the privilege of this fine
education. You can replay it by contributing to our nation's
understanding of its changing role and responsibilities in the
complex world which we will face in the decades of your
leadership. Good luck and God Bless you.