ADMIRAL TURNER ANALYZES SITUATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000600400042-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 17
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 12, 2005
• Sequence Number: 42
• Publication Date: December 13, 1986
• Content Type: TRANS

Approved F
December 13, 1986 9:30 a.m.
Admiral Turner Analyzes Situation
ANNOUNCER: This week on American Interests, a
conversation with former Director of the Central
Intelligence Agency, Stansfield Turner on the Iranian
arms scandal. What went wrong and what will be the
repercussions for President Reagan's foreign policy?
ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER: Here we've lied to our
friends and allies. Here we've had one policy on
countering terrorism and then carried out a different
one behind the scenes. We have lost credibility for
the presidency and for the entire foreign policy of the
United States.
My listening to what's being said overseas today is
that people there are more concerned about this than
they were about; Watergate.
ANNOUNCER: President Reagan's Iranian initiative and
the Nicaraguan Contra connection.
Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
 Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
From Washington, this is American Interests.
MR. HEDRICK SMITH: Welcome to American Interests. I'm
Hedrick Smith.
In recent weeks the Reagan Administration has been
shaken by disclosures that members of the White House
staff under orders from President Reagan have been
selling arms covertly to Iran. In addition, some of
the profits from those sales were funneled through
secret Swiss bank accounts to the guerrilla Contras in
Nicaragua.
With us to discuss those revelations and their
repercussions is retired Admiral. Stansfield Turner,
former Director of Central Intelligence under President
Carter.
Admiral Turner, do you think it was a good idea? Are
there moderates in Iran and would this kind of thing
work?
ADMIRAL TURNER: No, this particular ploy would not
work. We were taken in.
We found just what happened during the Carter
Administration; there were people willing to negotiate
with us, willing to make reasonable proposals to get
our hostages out, but when it came to the bottom line
they could not deliver. They couldn't produce the
hostages.
Here too, we had people who were willing to talk with
us, sounded reasonable, but they couldn't really
deliver.
MR. SMITH: Did you actually get involved with
moderates? I mean could they -- did they have enough
influence and were you really convinced they were
moderates?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Yes, I think they were moderates at
that time, but you'll remember that's before Khomeini
Page 2 TransMedia
Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
 Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
really consolidated his control over that government in
September of 1980.
And it was then, when he had consolidated it, made it
into what really is a theocracy, that he was willing to
negotiate the release of the hostages. The
negotiations actually began in September, 1980 that
were successfully culminated the day President Reagan
was inaugurated in January, 1981.
IVIR. SMITH: But was there ever any idea that there
would be a ransom; that you would give arms, you would
supply arms or that would be part of the package?
ADMIRAL TURNER: I believe at one point there was some
discussion of delivery of some of the arms that the
Iranians had already purchased in the United States
that were sitting in warehouses here waiting to be
shipped. That never became a serious topic of
discussion, but I do believe it was raised at one
point. Whether President Carter would have agreed, we
just don't know.
MR. SMITH: But in terms of your relations with
President Carter, did he make it clear that he wasn't
paying ransoms or was that kind of a thing that could
have been considered?
ADMIRAL TURNER: He was very conscious of not wanting
to pay ransoms. He was very conscious of protecting the
national prestige. The principal demands, though,
that we had were ones of humiliating nature, confessing
that we had done things wrong with the Shah of Iran,
for instance.
MR. SMITH: And returning the Shah to Iran, right?
ADMIRAL_ TURNER: And, of course, for a long time there
was that demand also, though they did drop that after a
while.
MR. SMITH: What about this business of third
countries? I mean the Israelis were deeply involved in
this, approached the Reagan Administration, offered to
Page 3 TransMedia
Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
 Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
act as go betweens. You must have had experiences like
that?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Yes. In trying to get those hostages
out we worked through lots of third countries.
We went and approached third countries who we thought
had influence with Iran, particularly Moslem countries
where they had a common language, in a sense. Many of
them were helpful, tried to help, but none could
succeed under the very end and then Algeria was
absolutely vital to the release of the hostages and
played a marvelous role for us.
MR. SMITH: But did they ever involve the quid pro quo
of arms?
ADMIRAL TURNER: No.
MR. SMITH: Never did?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Not that I recall.
MR. SMITH: To deal with the issue of secrecy the
Reagan Administration has essentially said Congress
couldn't be trusted. From your experience can Congress
be trusted with this kind of secret?
We had no leaks from the Congress of covert actions of
this type during the Carter Administration. We had
quite a few covert actions going on. We briefed the
Congress on all but three of them and we did not have
leaks.
It's always a risk. Obviously, any time you tell one
more person a secret, you're risking that it's going to
be leak out. I don't think that Congress is less
responsible than the White House or the Pentagon or the
CIA or other organizations of our government.
MR. SMITH: But, in fact, you did not have damaging
Page 4 TransMedia
Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
 Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
leaks during that whole period of time, those four
years, from Congress to this kind of covert operation?
ADMIRAL TURNER: On these kinds of covert operations,
no. We, unfortunately, had leaks from the Congress, I
believe, about collecting intelligence, things that
hurt our ability to continue collecting information.
Though, again, I would emphasize those leaks were no
worse than leaks coming out of the Executive Branch.
The issue is the Congress leaks in certain areas and
the Executive Branch leaks in other areas, each for a
purpose.
MR. SMITH: But you said just a moment ago that there
were three times that you didn't brief Congress. So,
in effect, you're kind of agreeing with the Reagan
Administration that there are times that you don't do
it. What are those times and what were those three
instances?
ADMIRAL TURNER: I do agree with the Reagan
Administration that the law provides for the President
being able to delay notification, not to avoid it, but
to delay it in certain instances.
Our instances all concerned efforts to release the
hostages, all concerned risk to human lives, American
lives, if we had had any kind of a leak whatsoever.
The first instance is when we sent a CIA man into
Teheran to lead the six Americans who were being held
secretly in the Canadian Embassy out of Iran. And that
was a very fine and successful operation engineered by
the CIA. Those six people's lives, plus the man we
sent in, all were at great risk if that had been any
leak that those six even existed, because the Iranians
did not know that.
Secondly, we, the CIA, thought up the idea of using the
desert as a landing strip and flew a small airplane
into that desert well in advance of the actual rescue
operation.
Page 5 TransMedia
Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
 Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
MR. SMITH: This is long before desert one ever became
public?
ADMIRAL TURNER: That's correct.
MR. SMITH: All right.
ADMIRAL TURNER: Tested the soil, made sure the place
was suitable for a landing operation, a refueling
operation, and came back out again. Again, had there
been any hint that this was going on, that people's
lives in that plane were to be very much imperiled.
And finally, we had agents going in repeatedly to
Teheran to prepare the ground for the rescue force when
it got there. They had to have trucks and they had to
have knowledge of where the roadblocks were. They had
to have knowledge of who was on the walls and guarding
the Embassy, and all of this. And the people who did
that were going in right through the airport, very
subject to scrutiny, and any hint that this was going
on repeatedly would have jeopardized their lives.
So in those cases we said, "Let's not let anybody know
who doesn't have to be part of the operation."
MR. SMITH: So is Reagan right then in not informing
Congress? Are you saying that?
ADMIRAL TURNER: No, because the same circumstances
were not there in this case. The same risks were not
there. I don't believe this was one were there was a
high risk to life, had it :leaked accidentally.
MR. SMITH: Well, they say that the lives -- the
hostages would have been at risk. They say that --
ADMIRAL TURNER: Well, that's proven false because when
it leaked through Beirut, the hostages' lives were not
in danger.
MR. SMITH: What's the dividing line? I mean, in
effect you're saying there are certain operations where
Congress shouldn't be informed at the time, but soon
Page 6 Transmedia
Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
 Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
after the event. But there were other times when they
should be informed before the event.
What's the dividing line? How do we tell as citizens,
as journalists, as members of Congress how we can trust
the Administration on something like this?
ADMIRAL TURNER: The first criteria is real urgency.
Sometimes the President may have to move so rapidly
that he finds it difficult to notify the Congress.
The second is where there is very imminent risk to
human life, particularly to American lives.
There may be other instances also that we can't
predict. So I don't think we ought to write a law
that very clearly stipulates what those exceptions are.
We've got to leave it to the judgment of presidents.
They've got to have that loophole, in effect. They've
got to have some way of avoiding notification, in my
opinion.
MR. SMITH: In time urgent situations?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Largely in time urgent situations or
in high risk to human life situations.
MR. SMITH: In effect, the same thing as not disclosing
when troops are going into battle in advance of that?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Very similar.
MR. SMITH: If you're talking about a longer term
political operation that's going to last six months, 12
months, 18 months, then I think you're saying to me
it's a different question?
ADMIRAL TURNER: I think in most of those instances
it's not justified and it's a situation in which the
Congress is much more likely to be able to make a
meaningful contribution.
MR. SMITH: Like what? What could they do?
Page 7 Transmedia
Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
 Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
ADMIRAL TURNER: They can advise the President that,
"It really doesn't make sense to trade arms for
hostages, Mr. President. It's going to get us into a
lot of trouble and your advisors are pretty narrow in
their focus and we now are looking at it from a broader
perspective." That's what the Congressional oversight
is all about.
MR. SMITH: In other words, you're saying that to a
certain degree Congress is there to give the President
bad news in advance rather than bad news after the
landing?
ADMIRAL TURNER: That's correct.
MR. SMITH: Or the crash landing?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Yes.
MR. SMITH: What about the argument of Bud McFarlane,
the former National Security Advisor, who wrote in The
Washington Post not too long ago that this operation
was very much like the opening to China which was
orchestrated by Henry Kissinger back for President
Nixon in 1972, that all that had to be conducted in
secrecy in order not to embarrass the Chinese leaders
in order to make that opening so that when it was
disclosed, everything was set, everything was in place
and it would all work? I mean do you see that as a
parallel here?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Yes, I think that is a parallel and
presidents will always use their national security
advisors in this way, and they don't come under this
law that requires congressional notification.
A President's entitled to have his own advisors. He's
entitled to have his own people talk to other people in
other countries.
The dividing line comes when it is a very operational
matter. Giving arms in addition to just talking with
people is a lot different than pure diplomacy.
Page B Transmedia
Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
 Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
MR. SMITH: So when you go from diplomacy to covert
operations, the ball game changes. When you don't have
lives quite at stake, the ball game changes. And
that's where Turner's lines are, is that right?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Yes, and they're pretty fuzzy lines, I
would acknowledge. But I hope the Congress does not
now try to draw some very specific lines.
This is a fuzzy area. We do want presidents to be
able, from time-to-time, to take bold initiatives.
Its difficult to take a bold initiative and get it
cleared through the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy
doesn't like to change. They don't like something new.
So I admire President Nixon's opening to China through
this back door. He took a chance, he won. Mr. Reagan
took another chance, he lost. The fact that he lost
and is suffering badly politically now is going to
caution him, and future presidents, about taking
chances through avoiding the bureaucracy by using the
National Security Council,
I think it's a self correcting situation and we don't
need a new law, a new wiring diagram, new regulations,
or whatever to control it because the lines are fuzzy.
MR. SMITH: Isn't there a big difference, though,
between Nixon and Reagan? Nixon succeeded in China
because Kissinger was dealing with Mao tse Tung and
Chou en Lai, the number one and number two people in
China. We don't yet know for sure who McFarlane and
others were dealing with, Colonel Ollie North, in Iran,
but they sure as heck weren't Khomeini the number one,
two and three guys. So that it was a riskier operation
to begin with. It's a question of judgment on when you
go, isn't it?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Absolutely. It was just a bad
judgment call. If we've :learned one thing since 1978,
it's that Khomeini never compromises. And we ought to
also understand that Khomeini is in charge of that
government there.
Page 9 Transmedia
Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
 Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
There may be people in the government who recognize
they ought to do something to repair their image in the
world and to make better overtures to the West so they
can buy things that they need, but there's nobody, in
my opinion, in that government today who wants to curry
up to the Great Satan, the United States of America.
We can make pragmatic deals with them, perhaps, but we
made a bad deal here. We gave a lot of arms and what
happened? We got three hostages back and we had one
hostage killed and three more hostages taken. We've
got a net loss on this deal so far.
MR. SMITH: Then you're suggesting that, to go back to
my original question, there may be moderates but could
it work, was it naive?
ADMIRAL TURNER: I think it was very naive. I think it
showed a lack of understanding of the culture in Iran
and the culture in the Middle East.
MR. SMITH: What about our own system, understanding
our own system? It came out, it came out of Beirut, it
was planted perhaps by Syrians or Iranians who wanted
to disrupt the contact and so forth.
But there is a question of whether or not a democracy
can run covert operations like this, whether or not the
whistle had been blown in Beirut it would have come
out at some time or another. Can we get away with
these things?
ADMIRAL TURNER: I'm amazed that it didn't come out
within our own system earlier, as a matter of fact. I
happen to believe that since 1974 when the Congress
passed the law that said "it must be informed of covert
operations," now these are operations to influence
what's happening in other countries, not collecting
secret intelligence, since that law I don't believe you
can get away with what I would term a controversial
covert action. If it is a covert action that would
stir great controversy in the body politic if it were
public, then within the clearance system somebody's
Page 10 Transmedia
Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
 Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
going to leak it, if you see what I mean, as opposed to
a covert action that we would all agree on?
MR. SMITH: In other words, if it's going to cause
sharp disagreements within the government and within
the Congress and within the body politic, somebody
inside the government who doesn't approve of the policy
is going to get the word out?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Absolutely. It's a price we paid for
that law.
I happen to think the price is worth it because you
need congressional oversight of these secret
activities. You cannot have unaccountable secret
foreign policy in our country. Somebody's got to look
over the President's shoulder. There is a question of
timing and all this, but in the long run the Congress
must be able to look into these secret activities.
So the law is necessary. It's a price we pay and I
think it's probably not a good idea to do covert
foreign policy if the body politic would not support
it.
MR. SMITH: Isn't there another problem here? Can you
expect to keep secret and keep out of trouble if you're
saying one thing in public and another thing in
private? I mean normally speaking I would imagine, but
tell me from your experience inside of government, that
covert operations are intended to extend the line of
policy that you're proclaiming in public, but doing
things you just; don't want to do publicly? But in this
case the line of policy was really contrary to what was
being said in public. I mean isn't that really where
the problem is?
ADMIRAL TURNER: I think that's a good big -- a good
bit of the problem, yes. And it's probably very
difficult to pull off a covert actions under those
circumstances.
Generally speaking, you've got to have an established
Page 11 Transmedia
Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
 Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
policy and the covert activity is to push that, to
further it in ways it can't be done openly.
For instance, you may want to persuade the Foreign
Minister of some country to take a certain position.
But he's anti-American basically and if you approach
him clearly from an American point of view, he's going
to be resistent. If you can get somebody else to
approach him not from an American point of view, even
if we pay that person, let's say, maybe he will listen
to reason and come along with the American point of
view. So that's the kind of thing you do in secret to
further your public pressure on that Foreign Minister.
But what is most distressing to me about this current
situation is that there's so much high officials
saying, "I didn't know anything." Well --
MR. SMITH: You know, I find that really hard to
believe. Going back over the years, and you spent
fours years at the CIA, you spent a whole career in the
Navy. You know about these procedures. I've been
reporting in and out of Washington for 25 years. There
are committees, there was the 40 committee, there was
the 5412 committee; Presidents have sat on committees,
they've had their National Security Advisors,
Secretaries of State, Directors of its Central
Intelligence, all these people meeting regularly
controlling the operations, approving them. Do you
presume all that procedure was set aside?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Oh, I think a lot of it was set aside,
but I don't think that is any excuse. We should be
asking not what did Mr. Shultz know, what did Mr.
Weinberger know; we should be asking what should they
have known. If they were managing their departments
well, were they getting the information that was in
their departments? Somebody was helping North in those
departments. And were they diligent in asking the
right questions?
MR. SMITH: Should the President have known?
Page 12 Transmedia
Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
 Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
ADMIRAL TURNER: Oh yes, the President should have
known because this is a major shift in foreign policy
and he certainly should have been informed. It's a
gross error on both North and Poindexter's part not to
have pushed it forward. That just doesn't rest well
with me.
But take a man like Mr. Shultz, he said at first that
he didn't know much about this. He wasn't kept
informed. But now we're told that on the 7th of
January this year he was in an extensive briefing,
meeting about this, with the President.
The President didn't make any decision at that meeting,
but on the 17th of January he did. He signed a
directive to proceed with this arms deal with Iran.
Well, what did Mr. Shultz do between the 7th of January
and the 4th of November when it all came out in the
public? Didn't he ever ask, "What did the President
decide after I opposed this and Weinberger opposed
this?" He certainly should have kept himself informed.
MR. SMITH: What about the CIA? I mean you've
mentioned a couple of times in passing that North had
to have help. It has been disclosed that there were
Central Intelligence Agency people involved, certainly,
on the missions going to Iran with Bud McFarlane and
Colonel North and so forth. For a long time the CIA
was called the rogue elephant, the uncontrolled agency
and it spent years before you and your time kind of
recouping, trying to repair its imagine and get itself
back under control. Where is it in all this both in
terms of what happened and in terms of its imagine
today?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Well, I'm afraid its image is going to
be hurt. I've been afraid of that ever since the
Contra operation started because it was clear somebody
was going to be left holding the bag when that thing
fell apart, which it will one of these days. And who
will hold the bag, the CIA.
Page 13 TransMedia
Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
 Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
In this instance I'm very worried. It appears that the
CIA started supporting this operation, the actual flow
of arms, in November, 1985. That's before the January
17, 1986 directive of the President. It's illegal for
them to provide any kind of covert support to anything
of this nature without having a presidential directive
in writing.
But I do want to say, Rick, that we all have to be
cautious here now because were dealing with very
limited facts.
And the CIA people that I knew were very conscientious
about understanding these laws and rules and I
therefore, want to be hesitant to leave the impression
that I think they broke the law or broke the rules at
that time. It's too early to tell that. But there is
circumstantial evidence that points in that direction
today. So I'm worried about the future of the CIA. I
hope the record will show otherwise.
MR. SMITH: Talking about what people up top know and
what people further on down the line know within the
government, Don Regan at one point said the President
was like the president of the bank and he couldn't know
what a bank teller was doing if a bank teller was
swapping money out of the till.
ADMIRAL TURNER: I don't want to be in his bank. I
don't want to be a stockholder in a bank. I expect the
president of any bank I belong to to have a system so
that tellers can't do that. Now, he may not be down
there looking at the teller personally. But he's
responsible for that and if a teller steals my money,
I'm going to the president of the bank and blame him.
That's a terrible excuse on Mr. Regan's part. I think
it's one that justifies his dismissal immediately.
MR. SMITH: What about Bill Casey the head of the CIA,
should he be removed, too, in order to reestablish
trust with Congress and foreign countries?
ADMIRAL TURNER: It's premature for us to pass judgment
on that because we haven't enough facts as to what his
Page 14 TransMedia
Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
 Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
and the CIA's involvement in this Contra aid situation
is.
MR. SMITH: Admiral Turner, a lot of people have
compared this situation to Watergate and the Watergate
scandal which led to President Nixon's resignation.
There are other people who say, you know, this really
isn't a Watergate. That what was involved in Watergate
was a coverup of an operation which was directed for
the President's personal gain, namely is reelection and
in this case Reagan wasn't involved in that. How do
you size it up?
ADMIRAL TURNER: This is not a Watergate, but it is a
more serious problem for the United States of America
than Watergate.
MR. SMITH: Why?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Well, that was petty crimes and lying,
covering up --
MR. SMITH: Well, that :Led to the resignation of a
President.
ADMIRAL TURNER: Sure, but it led -- but it was a
domestic political consideration. It hurt our domestic
political process. There were some spill avers into
our international reputation, but much less than in
this one.
Here we've lied to our friends and allies. Here we've
had one policy on countering terrorism and then carried
out a different one behind the scenes. We have lost
credibility for the presidency and for the entire
foreign policy of the United States.
My listening to what's being said overseas today is
that people there are more concerned about this than
they were about Watergate.
MR. SMITH: Why? Because they regarded Watergate as a
domestic problem of ours?
Page 15 Transl'Iedia
Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
 Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
ADMIRAL TURNER: Yes. They couldn't understand
Watergate. In their countries and parliamentary
systems the Prime Minister would have simply resigned.
They would have formed a new government and they'd be
on about their business.
MR. SMITH: How do we recoup in terms of foreign
policy?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Well, the personnel changes are
important to show that the President recognizes his
people let him down, that there was a bad management,
bad teamwork effort here. So I think a lot more
housecleaning is important.
MR. SMITH: I mean is the terrorism policy effectively
in shambles for the rest of the Administration?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Yes. Yes, it is.
MR. SMITH: I mean it's pretty hard to see even in the
next two years how any government will know what it's
hearing from Secretary of Shultz or from the White
House or from any American ambassador what's really
going on behind the scenes, isn't. that true?
ADMIRAL TURNER: That's absolutely true and it's the
reason, one of the reasons, that this is more serious
than Watergate because where do we hurt worst? Is it
the Middle East, is it Europe, is it in Iran itself?
I think we're hurt worst in our overall ability to
counter terrorism because that takes international
cooperation. We've got to have lots of countries work
together against terrorism. Only the United States can
lead that coalition against terrorism. We've lost
respect today. We've lost respect for our leadership
in the anti-terrorism crusade. No one else can step up
and fill that shoe. We've got to do it, we've got to
restore our credibility. It's going to take time.
MR. SMITH: Is Shultz in a position, having distanced
himself from this operation, having said he disapproved
Page 16 TransMedia
Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
 Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5
of it, argued against it, didn't know about it, does he
have some creditability abroad that will help now?
ADMIRAL TURNER: I think he does. I think that with
the foreigners he has some of that credibility. I
question his credibility inside the United States as
Secretary of State who didn't inform himself about what
was going on when he certainly knew this policy of
selling arms to Iran was very much around.
MR. SMITH: Well, strange as it might sound, let's just
imagine for a moment that President Reagan had picked,
not Frank Carlucci to be his new National Security
Advisor, but Stansfield Turner, what advice would you
give him beyond what you just said, admit the mistake?
What would you say to him we should now do?
ADMIRAL TURNER: I think he should continue to clean
house inside the National Security Council staff, then
a certain number of other Cabinet officers and that
would be tough to decide right now until we had all the
facts as to who should go. Make as clean a breast of
it as he could and try to get on with an arms control
program.
MR. SMITH: Well, you mentioned the Soviets. Where do
we stand with the Soviets on this? There has already
been an indication after the Reykjavik summit that
Gorbachav was going to sit it out and watch Reagan for
a while, whether or not the whole two years or just six
months, to see how he did with Congress. Now is there
going to be a greater tendency of the Soviets to sit
back or are they going to try to charge in and take
advantage of us somewhere around the world?
ADMIRAL TURNER: My guess is that they'll try to take
advantage of us at the arms control negotiations and
they'll feel that Mr. Reagan, as I think he does, needs
a victory someplace, needs a success rather someplace.
And one place would be to come off with a good arms
control agreement.
MR. SMITH: Thank you very much, Admiral Turner.
Page 17 Transmedia
Approved For Release 2006/02/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600400042-5