SUGGESTED PRESENTATION BY THE DIRECTOR AT NSA DURING NSA S TENTH ANNUAL SECURITY WEEK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84-00780R004300020010-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 16
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 25, 2002
• Sequence Number: 10
• Content Type: SPEECH

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SUGGESTED PRESENTATION BY THE DIRECTOR AT NSA
DURING NSA'S TENTH ANNUAL SECURITY WEEK
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Good Afternoon.
I welcome the opportunity to participate in your Tenth Annual Security
Week Program. In the climate of permissiveness and dissension that exists
now not only in this country but around the world, security must be a serious
concern to us all.
The intelligence organs of the Soviet Union and the Ghnese Communists
and their satellites, or the "opposition" as we have come to refer to them,
have become increasingly pervasive and sophisticated. There is no country in
the free world today where at least one of them is not actively pursuing a
program of espionage. This is particularly true of the Soviet Union's KGB
which has increased steadily its official representation in the free countries
of the world. It is widely known that the United States is the top priority
objective of the KGB and that key elements of the American intelligence
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services, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence
Agency, and the National Security Agency head its list of targets.
The number of Soviet officials assigned to the United States; in the
Embassy in Washington; in the Soviet Mission to the United Nations; and to
various ancillary establishments, such as AMTORG and Tass, has more
than doubled over the past ten years. In September of 196.1, more than 300
such officials were present in this country. There are now more than 700.
This increase in representation is of real concern, particularly when we know
that a variety of reliable sources have, over the years, estimated that more
than 70 percent of the Soviets in this country have some intelligence mission.
We in the United States are not alone in oar resistance to the
omnipresent Soviet threat o d ddxf $he most dramatic aftereffects of the
defection of Oleg Adolf ovich Lyanin, a 34 year old KGB officer to the British
Government in early September 1971, was the announcement by the British
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Foreign Office that it had demanded the removal of 90 Soviet representatives
from Great Britain and was denying re-entry of some 15 others who were
temporarily away from their posts in Britain. In announcing the move, the
Foreign Office released the text of letters it had written to the Soviets in
December 1970 and August 1971, in which it had protested "large scale
espionage" being conducted by the Soviets in Great Britain. While we're
at it, let's not overlook the efforts of our friends. Particularly in our
liaison activities must we not relax and fall into sloppy habits. What we're
doing, how we're doing it, and, obviously, what we know are of deep and
abiding interest to the French, the Argentines, the Israelis. Courteous
reticence should be the style of our intercourse.
In the face of these threats, I think it is important that all of us who
are so vitally concerned with the security of this country and particularly
protection of classified intelligence information and sources, periodically
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re-examine and re-evaluate our security practices and attentiveness to ensure
that everything that can be done is being done to maintain the national security,
including the integrity of our intelligence mission.
There are many elements to security. If I were asked which is the
most important, I would have to say that it is the security of our personnel.
It may be trite but it is most certainly axiomatic that the security chain is
only as strong as its weakest link. Despite all of the advancements we have
made in recent years in physical and technical security and despite all of the
precautions we take in other related fields, one "bad apple in the barrel" can
cause near irreparable damage. You have all seen, over the years, tangible
evidence that the United States intelligence community can be penetrated.
The "can happen heres" include such well-known espionage cases as Jack
Dunlap, Robert Thompson, Robert Lee Johnson, James Allen Mintkenbaugh,
Colonel Whelan, and most recently, the allegation of espionage against Air
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Force Sgt. Walter Perkins. Indeed I think that the job of being a case officer
for the KGB in the free world must be a relatively easy one. I have often
told my operational people that if it were as easy for us to conduct our
activities against the opposition we would be in an enviable position.
In the Central Intelligence Agency, we operate our personnel security
program on the assumption that the Agency can be penetrated and we spend
considerable time, in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
in conducting investigations of allegations of possible penetrations. Fortunately,
the cases we have investigated thus far have been resolved in favor of the
employee. The fact that we have not yet unearthed a paid agent of a foreign
intelligence service at work in the Agency is not at all reassuring but acts
rather as a spur to keep us attuned and alert to the ever present possibility
that we may, in fact, have a spy in our midst.
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All of us must keep constantly in mind the fact that because of current
dissemination practices and the extensive coordination of both raw and
finished intelligence, a penetration of any one agency usually involves the
compromise of classified material of others. The Sgt. Johnson case is an
excellent example of this. Although he was assigned to the Armed Forces
Courier Service when he turned over classified information to the KGB,
included in this material was an undetermined number of sensitive pouches
containing reports which were based on the intelligence product of several
agencies.
All of us in the intelligence business operate from the same basic
framework in clearing our employees, with a possible exception that some
of us use the polygraph and some do not. Our field investigations are
generally thorough and comprehensive, and our security clearances are
issued in accordance with the provisions of Executive Order 10450.
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However, personnel security does not stop when an employee is safely on
board. We cannot sit back complacently and assume that because our
employees have been through our security screening programs they will be
good security risks during the rest of their careers. People change as they
mature; personal and job-related problems occur just as they do with each
of you and with me. Most people handle their problems intelligently,
discreetly, and they never assume any security significance but others do
not. It is those few who, because of human frailty and weakness, are most
susceptible to the ever present aggressive attempts at exploitation or
penetration by the opposition.
Of all the Americans who have been discovered to have been
successfully recruited by the KGB as espionage agents, none was
'r
ideologically motivated. Rather, the approach was through a weakness of
character, discretion or integrity. A close examination of the motivations
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reveals that they were money, sex, revenge, alcohol, evidences of basic
psychological weakness. Human weaknesses have always existed and will
continue to exist. They are the soft spots in security and will be tested and
threatened--increasingly tested by the opposition and by the pressures and
demands of our own society.
Human weaknesses such as these assume far greater security
significance among our personnel assigned abroad. The National Security
Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency together staff installations in
almost every country of the world and our people are more exposed to the
painstaking surveillance of hostile intelligence services. We have all heard
of recruitment attempts, kidnappings and even assassination. It behooves
us, therefore, to make sure that the personnel we assign overseas are
carefully screened from the outset and that they are continually indoctrinated
in sound principles of personal security so that they cannot only resist
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attempts at exploitation in this country, but more specifically when they are
assigned to a hostile environment somewhere on the other side of the globe.
Before I leave the subject of personnel security, I would like to stress
a few factors which I am convinced must provide the basis for our continuing
review of our personnel security programs. First, is the importance of the
role of the supervisor. A good supervisor who regards the people who work
for him as human beings, subject to pressures, tension and stress instead of
just mechanical tools, represents one of our strongest security assets. I
am not advocating a "buddy-buddy" or forced social relationship with those
with whom you work or who work for you. I am advocating that every
supervisor know his people well enough that changes in their behavior
patterns, which may have potential security significance, can be recognized.
By and large, I think we have all learned the importance of supervision in
this regard and many of our supervisors have been able to recognize and
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assist their employees with problems, which, if disregarded, might have
deteriorated to the point where they could have become a definite security
risk.
Secondly, and this is in accord with the theme of your program this
year, is that any good personnel security program must be a flexible one.
We must recognize that the people we are hiring today, while just as highly
motivated and just as patriotic as those we hired twenty years ago, have been
raised and educated in a different world. We cannot force them into rigid
patterns by regulation alone. We must, without any compromise of basic
security standards, modify our regulations realistically and intelligently
to reflect changing attitudes in changing times. I am convinced that the
young people we are hiring today in the intelligence profession are just as
sound as those we hired twenty years ago and further that they are badly
needed to inject new ideas and imaginativeness to keep the intelligence
profession a viable and effective one.
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Finally, a good personnel security program must be administered in
a positive sense, with liberal application of sympathy and human understanding.
The most effective security service is one that is recognized as a "friendly
security service" whose first concern is the interest.of the employees and the
preservation of their human dignity. When administered in this fashion,
employees will turn to security personnel with their problems with confidence
and trust. A security service which employs a "Gestapo" approach has lost
the race before it starts.
Another area of security which must be considered of vital interest
to all of us in the intelligence profession; the extensive compromise of
intelligence information that has occurred with increasing frequency recently
through unauthorized disclosures of classified information in the public media,
primarily the press. Since 1957, more than 100 articles have appeared in the
public press containing classified intelligence information warranting surveys
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or investigations by the Security Committee of the United States Intelligence
Board. Between 18 January and 27 May 1971, twenty-two specific unauthorized
disclosures appeared in the public press. This represents the highest rate
in the history of the intelligence community for any equivalent period.
What is the effect of these disclosures and what are their significance
to us as professional intelligence officers? Obviously, this free flow of
classified information gives the Soviet Union and other foreign powers
gratuitous insight into the capabilities and limitations of our intelligence
system. More importantly, I believe, it serves to undermine at all levels
of government the importance of maintaining our security integrity.
It is extremely difficult and usually impossible to conduct a
successful investigation of disclosures because of the wide dissemination
given intelligence products within the intelligence community and the
United States Government. Any thorough security investigation would,
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in many cases, involve interviewing literally thousands of consumers.
Almost without exception investigations of such disclosures by investigative
elements of the departments and agencies represented on the United States
Intelligence Board have been unsuccessful.
In a practical sense we have had to turn to other means of tightening
our security and maintaining the integrity of our intelligence information.
Over the years, I have given considerable thought to the motivation behind
such disclosures. Some of them are discernible during prolonged and
intense debate over a particular budget item or other major policy issue
and I am sure that many disclosures have been made in a misguided effort
to evoke favorable action by the Congress or elements of the Executive
Branch of our Government. I am sure that you will agree with me that the
cumulative effect is insidious and has tended to undermine public confidence
in the manner in which the United States Government conducts its affairs.
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I am sure that all of you have your own views on this subject but I will say that
it is a very poor state of affairs indeed when one individual assumes the responsi-
bility for deciding that he alone knows best what is in the national interest.
In recent months, the President has expressed grave concern about the
proliferation of unauthorized disclosures in the press. He has charged all
United States departments and agencies with the responsibility for taking
drastic action. To correct the situation specifically, he has directed that
immediate review be made of all personnel having special or compartmented
clearances with a view toward reducing the number of these clearances to an
absolute minimum consistent with "need-to-know". He has also created a
special committee under the chairmanship of Mr. William Rehnquist of the
Department of justice to review and recommend changes in Executive
Order 10501 which contains procedures governing the classification and
declassification of documents in the United States Government.
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As the Chairman of the United States Intelligence Board and as Director
of Central Intelligence, I have taken a number of actions to close this gap in
the security of the intelligence community. I have made repeated requests to
members of the Board that requirements for the dissemination of intelligence
information continually be reviewed and limited; that special clearances be
held to the minimum; and that personnel be reindoctrinated periodically on
the need for security. I hope that these actions have had some effect but in
the final analysis each individual employee who has access to classified
intelligence information must take upon himself the personal responsibility
to ensure that he maintains the integrity of the privileged information to
which he has access. I urge each of you to assume this responsibility fully
and hope that you will continue to work individually and collectively to stop-
this ill -reasoned and illegitimate distortion of security standards.
Thank You.
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