REMARKS BY THE DCI ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER AT THE MEN`S FORUM HOUSTON, TEXAS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000200070005-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 36
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 22, 2007
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: February 1, 1978
• Content Type: REPORT

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REMARKS BY THE DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER
AT THE
MEN'S FORUM
HOUSTON, TEXAS
WEDNESDAY, 1 FEBRUARY 1978
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Last Tuesday was a big day for the Intelligence Community of this
country. The President signed the Executive Order on the organization
and control of the Intelligence Community. I believe the importance
of this document comes from the fact that there is a general recognition
in the government today that we are at an important turning point in
the history of intelligence in our country. After several years of
turmoil and criticism we are now beginning to move surely again in
a very positive, but at the same time, modern and uniquely American
direction. Let me try this afternoon to describe what is happening
in terms of an anology with a great American institution, the family
business.
The stage where we are in American intelligence today is like
that of a family business that has progressed very successfully for
20 or 30 years and has reached a point where it realizes that the
time has come for it to incorporate.
Frequently, a business incorporates when, after a number of
years, its very successful original product needs modification, or
the product line needs diversification and going public seems to
be the only way to accomplish these. goals.
Our product line started out in the wake of World War II. It
focused almost exclusively on the Soviet Union, the satellite
countries in Eastern Europe, and on those particular instances when
the Soviets made forays out into the rest of the world trying to
establish footholds. Basically, our product was determined by what
the Soviets were doing and where they were doing it. The focus was
primarily on military intelligence. There was also ane other
characteristic that we should not overlook: that in those days
and particularly with respect to the CIA, the country not only
wanted to be informed on what was. going on but wanted the CIA to
step in and influence those events. We were there in Iran in 1953,
in Guatemala in 1954, in Cuba, in Vietnam and, as recently as 1975,
in Angola until the Congress decided otherwise.
I suggest today, as we look out on the world scene, that it is
quite different. We are not interested primarily in the Soviet Union
and half a dozen of her neighbors. We have an intense, a genuine,
and a legitimate interest in almost all of the 150 add countries in
the world. Those interests stretch from the military to the political
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to the broad economic questions of the day. Now there is no
question that the Soviet military threat remains the number one
priority consideration of American intelligence; however, we must
also fill these vast other needs.
It is only four or five years ago that we began predicting
the Soviet grain harvest. But look at the change that this and
other non-military efforts bring to the intelligence process; the
different kinds of people we must have; the different kinds of
analyses, tools of collection and so on. Look at how different
the attitude throughout the country is on the question of political
action today. Certainly we must retain that capability for those
places where it is applicable. But, I do say that we must be
more judicious in its use and ensure that the execution of
political influence is under tighter controls. Indeed, we are
in a period of change.
To me, this is a change of product. We have a different
product today to the extent it has a wider sphere of interest
economically, politically and militarily; a greater geographical
scope; and more focus on the collection of information than on
political action.
A second reason a family business may become a public corporation
is when its production line is out-moded and it no longer fulfills
the company's needs. The owners must find capital to install modern
machinery. w'e have some astounding modern machinery in the intelli-
gence world today. Technical collection systems that are just
burgeoning. In some ways it is like the difference between watering
your flowers with a garden hose yesterday, and then finding that
today you have a fire hose. That is the difference over the last
decade in the quantity of information that has become available
through advanced technical collection systems. And that must change
our production line, the way we do our business.
Now, interestingly, one effect that has is to increase the
importance of the human intelligence officer. There have been
human spies at least since Jericho. They have been around ever
since and I believe always will be. Today they are growing in
importance because the more technical data we collect and offer up
to the policymakers, the more they say, "Your technical systems tell
me what happened yesterday and what the status is today, but what
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is going to happen tomorrow?" Qr, "Why did they do that?"
Or, "What are their intentions?" As I know you appreciate,
this is the forte of the human intelligence officer. So the
real change in our production line today is that we must meld
this growing capability to collect raw data with the increased
need to answer questions which only the human intelligence
collector can do. It is really a change in production style.
The human agent is no longer the primary intelligence tool.
He is certainly the first among equals, but today is one in a
galaxy of stars. And that too, like changing the product, is
something of an unsettling process. It adds ferment to the
organization, must be adjusted to, and that takes time.
There is still a third reason that private businesses
go public. When you change both your product and your production
line you sometimes need different kinds of human talent. New
capabilities, new methods, often demand special training or
education and sometimes a radically different outlook. Maybe
you have a big enough staff to do the job but not quite the
right fit of talent for your new production line.
Such is the case in the Central Intelligence Agency today.
As we retool away from a family business concept to a public
corporation concept, our personnel policies must be retooled
also. We have been blessed in this country for thirty years.
Some of the finest, most dedicated intelligence professionals
came into this organization in its early years, at the height
of the Cold War, and have made it into the finest intelligence
organization in the world. But, let me give you just one statistic.
The four top grades on the government payroll are GS-15, 16, 17 and
18. They represent the four top levels of vice presidents in our
corporation. Today the average age of officers in the GS-15, 16,
17 and 18 brackets in the Central Intelligence Agency's clandestine
service section differs by only three years and, between GS-15, 16
and 17 by only one year. They are all around 50 years old. The
average retirement age in these grades in the clandestine service
is 55. One day very soon we will have a block of extremely capable
senior managers all retiring at the same time. In business, if
half your vice presidents retire within two or three years of one
another, what do you do? You go out to the market place and find
other people in similar corporations and you bring them in. But
where do T turn to get an experienced chief of station, a professional
intelligence officer? I have to raise them from within. To do that
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we must have a promotion and progression policy so that when I
must assign someone to a sensitive, risk-taking post for this
country, I will have three or four choices to he sure that we
can find exactly the right one. To do this you must have internal
competition and you must provide for the good people to be identified,
selected, and moved along so that when you bring them into those top
positions they have had the grooming and experience to do an out-
standing job. It is one of the reasons I had the unpleasant task
on the first of November of asking 212 of our employees to leave,
two-thirds of them to retire. I didn't like that, but I felt it
had to be done for the health and the future of the clandestine
service of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Let us take the anology one step further. Family businesses
are private. Public corporations are exposed to the light of public
scrutiny. And so too in American intelligence today, after the years
of investigation and inquiry there is no way we can avoid being more
in the limelight. It has disadvantages--the KGB does not have to
operate under those kinds of constraints--but there are also advan-
tages. Look back to when all the criticism of intelligence activities
started. Had the Central Intelligence Agency, in particular, garnered
more public understanding and support, it might not have taken quite
the battering it did. Much of it was quite unjust and uncalled for,
even malicious, in my opinion. But it found itself alone, with few
defenders. Today I hope we can help the American public understand
better what we do and why, thereby building greater support. I am
not suggesting in any way that in the intelligence business one can
"go public." Some information can be shared, but much cannot be.
Some things cannot be done without the assurance of secrecy.
In recent months I have been working in two directions in this
area of secrecy and openness. I am taking what some may regard as
almost draconian measures to tighten security around how we get our
intelligence, what these new technical systems are, how human agents
work and the most sensitive information that they obtain. On the
other hand, I am opening up the intelligence process where we can
afford to open up. Whenever we complete a major study or estimate,
it is carefully examined to determine whether enough would be left
of benefit to the American public if we took out that which must
remain classified. If there is, it is made available. We have done
that, I believe, with good service to the country in recent months.
For example, I believe the Soviet economic forecast that has been
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released to the public has stimulated some interesting and
worthwhile debate in this country on the world energy situation.
I hope that our contribution has helped to improve the quality
of that national debate. I do not believe we have released
anything that would be of great succor to the enemy.
Finally, let me suggest that when that family business goes
public it is also suddenly subject to much greater oversight and
control from its board of directors and, to some extent, from the
public itself. So too with American intelligence today. Out
of the crucible of criticism is coming a process of oversight.
My board of directors is of course the President, the Vice President
and National Security Council, the Intelligence Oversight Board
and two committees of the Congress. Because we all appreciate
that there is no way in which you could have total public over-
sight of an intelligence process, these individuals and committees
constitute surrogates for public oversight.
Today we are reporting more frequently and more completely
than ever before to these surrogates. The process is working well
and is benefiting us in several ways. First, this contact with
the Congress enables us to stay closer in touch with American
sentiment. Second, we benefit from outside judgment and a somewhat
detached view of the risks which must often be taken in the things
we do. Frani