INTERVIEW WITH ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER MEN'S FORUM HOUSTON, TEXAS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01554R002700440001-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 15
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 25, 2001
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: February 1, 1978
• Content Type: TRANS

Approved For Fase 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP80B01554IN2700440001-8
INTERVIEW WITH ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER
Men's Forum
Houston, Texas
February 1, 1978
Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP80BO1554R002700440001-8
 Approved For RJase 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP80B01554FW2700440001-8
ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER: George has told you the
official story of how you come into a job like this. Let me tell
you how it really happens.
A year ago today, I was sitting on my sunny terrazzo in
Naples, Italy, a fairly busy but not overly worked NATO military
commander. A year ago tomorrow, I was on an airplane coming back
to see the President of the United States, who told me I was going
to change positions, change professions, change locales.
And I said to myself, You know, that's what you get for
30 years of being a good, honest, clean-living, simple military
officer; you're suddenly named the chief spook of the whole country-
Seriously, I appreciate. the support that you're showing
for this vital role of intelligence in our country by being here
today, and I appreciate the responsibility the President did bestow
on me a year ago. It's been a different year for me. It's been a
very exciting one. It's been a very demanding one, a very stimula-
ting one. Not only because the job is, I think, of importance to
our country, there is a contribution that can be made in it, but
because I happen to have been fortunate in arriving at it in a
moment when it's a time for important adaptation. In fact, it's
time for a new era in American intelligence. And I believe that
after three years of intense criticism in this country of past
abuses in intelligence, some of them real, some of them imagined,
we've turned the corner and we're going to see a much more con-
structive, positive approach to the question of how can we main-
tain the effective intelligence which is essential to our being
the power in the world that we are today, and do so within the
limits of our democratic standards and ideals.
I believe sincerely that that can be accomplished. But
I would also say to you that it can't be done without some adapta-
tion of the way we are going about our business and have been going
about it. And you don't make adaptations, you don't make changes
in major organizations and bureaucracies without controversy with-
out some pain.
I would liken it to a small, very successful family
business that suddenly decides it has to go public. It's been
in business 30 years, it's had a good product, it's made a profit;
but that product now is just a little out of date, and it needs to
widen its sphere and diversify. So it incorporates.
Well, the business, the family business of intelligence
in this country started out like a family 30 years ago. Out of OSS,
out of World War II, in 1947 we established the Central Intelligence
Agency and the post of Director of Central Intelligence to coordinate
all of our intelligence activities, and we did so for the first time
in establishing a peacetime organization for intelligence.
Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP80B01554R002700440001-8
 Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP80BO1554R002700440001-8
NW 1%W
But our product back then was a very narrow one. It
was really "what's going on in the Soviet Union." Perhaps we
were interested in what was going on in the satellite countries
of Eastern Europe, and from time to time we were very interested
in what was going on in those countries around the Third World
where the Soviets were making a foray, a pressure, an attempt to
establish a hold. But our product was determined by what the
Soviets were up to, and where.
And our product also had another characteristic. The
country, in those days, did not want from us in the intelligence
world only intelligence information, they wanted help in what was
going on, what we call political action. And the Central Intelli-
gence Agency was in the forefront of political action in Iran in
1953, in Guatemala in 1955, in Cuba, as we all know, for many
years in the 1960s, very effectively in Vietnam throughout that
time, and as recently as 1975 in Angola, until the Congress of
the country said, "No. Stop."
Well now, look back on what's changed in that product
over these 30 years. This country today is interested in a diver-
sity of intelligence, far greater than 8 or 10 or 12 countries
around the Soviet Union and their areas of interest. We're inter-
ested in far more than just military intelligence, which was
largely the focus at the beginning. We cannot in any way deni-
grate or ignore or slight the importance of being on top of the
intelligence about the Soviet Union today. But how, in the hub
of the world's oil business, can I not say that we have to be on
top of economic intelligence, how much that is affecting the
security and the future of our country; and political intelligence?
And not just about these few countries, but about most of the 150-
some countries around the world.
And also our product has changed because there's a dif-
ferent attitude in the country today about political action, about
taking action to interfere in the internal events of other coun-
tries. We are not eschewing it, but we're being more judicious.
We're doing it under tighter controls.
And so, our product today is a broad sweep of economic,
political, and military intelligence about a wide range of geo-
graphical areas, and less on political action than before.
And that adaptation is difficult. It requires new out-
looks, new attitudes, new tools, new methods of analyses, and new
people. And we're in that throes of change, and it causes prob-
lems, but it's an adjustment we will make and we will make easily.
Now, another reason a family business sometimes goes
public is simply that the old production line is wearing out and
the machinery isn't up to the new standards, the new speeds. And
you have-to get more capital, and so you incorporate.
Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP80BO1554R002700440001-8
 Approved For F p&ase 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP80BO1554RM2700440001-8
3
The machinery, the production line of intelligence,
gentlemen, has changed markedly in the last decade. We have new
technical means of collecting data, collecting information that
are astonishing and that are burgeoning in capability. Its like
going out today with a garden hose and tomorrow with a fire hose
and the next day with a water main, the amount of data that can
be collected. And the future is immense.
But at the same time, the traditional method of col-
lecting intelligence, the human agent, the spy, which has been
with us since the days of Jericho, has an even growing importance
in this new environment. Because when you get technical data,
very generally, broadly speaking, it tells you what happened yes-
terday or today. And when you present that to a policymaker, he
says, "But, Stan, why?" Or, "What are they going to do tomorrow?
What are their intentions?" And that, of course, is the forte of
the human intelligence agent.
So, today, we need more emphasis on human intelligence
collection to complement the great quantitative increase in tech-
nically collected information. But the difference in our produc-
tion line, as we've gone from a single piece of machinery to a
series of integrate, well-oiled, well-meshed machines that must
be played together -- you learn something by some technical infor-
mation, and you have to go supplement it with a human agent. You
get something from a human report, and you turn the technical
sensors on to tell you more about it. And so on.
But that's a sense of teamwork, that's a sense where
nobody's the star on the team, we're all complementary.
Gentlemen, it takes adjustment, too. It takes changes
in style, it takes changes in organization; and they can be unset_
tling to a traditional and well-established organization such as
we have.
Now, a family business also frequently finds that as
it goes public, its personnel policies have to change. Uncle
Charley and Cousin Bill are not necessarily ideally suited to
some of the new tasks that come along. And so, too, a very close-
knit family atmosphere in the intelligence community, particularly
in the Central Intelligence Agency, over these 30 years is changing.
We have been blessed by some of the most dedicated,
capable, patriotic people who've been in this intelligence business
for the last 30 years, or thereabouts; people who came in after
the war, who came in at the height of the Cold War. But today we
are facing a situation when that group of people occupies a dis-
proportionate share of the top hierarchy of our Central Intelli-
gence Agency.
And that causes me a problem. Because when they retire
Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP80BO1554R002700440001-8
 Approved For Rase 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP80BO1554RW2700440001-8
4
in normal course, in three or four or five years, where do I look
for some new vice presidents?
In any one of your corporations, almost, I suspect, if
you're faced with this kind of a mass exodus of people at the top,
you go out laterally and you find some others from your competi-
tors, from the market. But where do I turn to go get some experi-
enced, professional intelligence officers, some professional spies?
No way I can get them anywhere but from inside. And so I have to
create a personnel management system that will move things along
enough that we're training the younger ones and giving them the
experience they will need, so that when they have to be moved up
to the top, they're ready.
Gentlemen, when I send a man to a new assignment that's
very sensitive and risk-taking for this country, on which our
country's reputation and perhaps success depends, I want to be
confident he's the right man, I want to have three or four choices.
And that's not going to be the case with this bunching that we
have today as a result of these fine people who have stayed with
the system this long.
So, as you've read in the press -- and I see we have some
questions on it here, so I'll respond to it in more detail later --
I've been forced, for what I think is the long-term good of the
organization, to ask 820 of our people to leave and to make room
and to reduce the amount of overhead. And it hasn't been pleasant
and it hasn't been easy and I haven't enjoyed it, but I did it
because I felt it was absolutely necessary for the long-term health.
Now, a family business, also, is not accustomed to being
in the limelight. It can stay out of the public eye. But when it
goes public, it accepts that responsibility. And an adjustment is
being made here, in the same way, in the intelligence world of"our
country today, and it's a very difficult adjustment, because we
must operate much of our activity in total secrecy. And so, any
effort to become more public and more open is a wrenching, diffi-
cult experience.
But I believe that we must. I believe the intelligence
community of our country must share more with the American public,
not the inner secrets, not the ways in which we get our intelli-
gence -- because if you disclose that, you won't get it anymore --
but more of what we're doing and what the product of intelligence
is when it can be brought to an unclassified level.
In these last years of criticism, I think we suffered
in the intelligence world unduly because the American public had
not enough understanding to support us adequately. No effort,
or not adequate effort had been made to explain the process of
intelligence to the public. And so today, for instance, when
we do, say, a good estimate on what's happening in some part of
Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP80BO1554R002700440001-8
 Approved For Rase 2001108107: CIA-RDP80B01554R902700440001-8
the world, we will look at it carefully and say, "Could this be
declassified and still have enough meaning left to be of value
to the American public, and particularly the American business
community?" And if it does, we will publish it.
I am sure that many of you here heard of or read a
report we published last March about the prospects for the world
energy situation. Now, that was a very useful report, in my
opinion, in helping to improve the quality of debate in the. United
States on this critical subject. And we certainly don't profess
that our answers were absolutely correct or that we are not sub-
ject to error. We have been very scrupulous in trying to invite
criticism. We have written -- I have written personally -- to
the principal people who have criticized that report. And those
that responded with a good rationale, something we could get our
teeth into, we invited down to the agency, we had a day of dis-
cussion with them. And over the period of time since then, we
have not found adequate argumentation against our study to make
it appear invalid, but we're checking carefully, as the indica-
tors continue in, as to whether we are on the right track or not,
because we're happy to correct it if we are not.
But we hope that we have stimulated a debate here that
will help the country focus on the right issues in this energy
question.
And we supplemented that in April with another study
about the Soviet energy prospects, and we said those look sort
of bleak. They're not going to be able to open up new fields as
rapidly as the old fields are going to decrease in production
capacity.
Again, we hope we've helped, because we don't find there
is a lot of effort inside the United States on studying the Soviet
oil situation, not as much, of course, as on the Mideast and other
areas of the world. So we hope we have contributed something here.
But again, we may be wrong. And, in fact, we almost
certainly will be wrong, to this extent: that what we are saying
is that the world supply of oil in the next 8 or 10 years is not
going to be able, no matter what we do, to keep up with the demand;
not that the reserves aren't going to be there, but that the-ability
to get it out of the ground won't be there.
Now, maybe we'll be wrong because somebody will find new
efforts to get it out of the ground that we haven't anticipated.
Maybe we'll be wrong because people will conserve more and the
demand curve will drop, and various other solutions. And the Sovi-
ets may solve their problem by not exporting as much to the Eastern
Europeans, or other devices of conservation or whatever else they
can do.
Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP80BO1554R002700440001-8
 Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP80BO1554R002700440001-8
But we're trying to focus on the fact that hard decisions
are going to have to be made, by the Soviets, by ourselves, and by
many others.
And we intend to continue publishing reports like these,
and hope that they will be helpful. But again, this is another
change in the American intelligence process that makes it more dif-
ficult for those inside to understand and to adjust to.
And finally I would say that a family business also is
not accustomed to a lot of external oversight. But when it goes
public, there it has a board of directors, it has stockholders.
And I too, today, as the chief of intelligence, have my board of
directors, my oversight procedures. My board is the President,
the Vice President, the National Security Council, something the
President has established called the Intelligence Oversight Board,
and two committees of the Congress dedicated to the intelligence
process. And I report to them all, regularly and in detail. And
there are some who think this is dangerous; there are others who
think it is salutary and will help insure that there is not an
abuse of this intelligence process.
I find there are strengths in this oversight, the strength
of helping to keep the intelligence world better in touch with the
American public, through the Congress and through the President;
strengths in having some outside view of some of the risks that we
must take, helping to put them into better perspecive as to the
national interest; and also there are strengths in having someone
to share with us these difficult decisions and risks that we must
take.
But I would candid with you. Too much oversight can lead
to intelligence by timidity, unwillingness to take risks. Too much
oversight can lead to leaks and the dispersal of our very sensitive
information. And I think it will be another year or so before we
really settle down on these procedures and know that we're going to
do it in a way that will not lead to timidity or security risks.
I'm confident we can get there and will, but we're not there as yet.
But these five steps I've talked about, these five evolu-
tionary trends that are going on in American intelligence today:
a different product, a different production line, a new personnel
management approach, more openness and more oversight, they're
almost proceeding inevitably. But now we have, in the last week --
a week ago yesterday -- a new presidential directive, an executive
order, which sets the framework for this new American model of in-
telligence. And very briefly, what it does is it establishes pro-
cedures in three areas to insure that the intelligence organization
of the country is run both effectively and in accordance with the
standards that the President establishes.
First, it makes me chairman of a committee, with the
Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP80BO1554R002700440001-8
 Approved For Relevoe 2001/08/07: CIA-RDP80B01554R00P,p0440001-8
7
D`epartrent -- the Secretary of State, Defense, Treasury, and the
National Security adviser to the President, to set the overall
policies, the overall priorities for the intelligence effort. It's
not my job to do that. I'm the producer, not the consumer. .I
need to have these consumers sit around the table with me and tell
me what they want, what they need, what the country needs, because
otherwise we're not providing the service that we should.
Secondly, the order provides to me, as the Director of
Central Intelligence, the coordinator of the entire intelligence
activity of the country, more authority, more authority particularly
over the elements of collecting intelligence, to do it more effi-
ciently, to do it more effectively.
And thirdly, the order establishes procedures under which
the Attorney General will make guidelines as to how I may conduct
certain activities that may infringe on the rights of the American
citizen. And within those guidelines, I am free to work. And I
worked with the Attorney General in establishing those guidelines.
And here we have, I think, an excellent system for checks and bal-
ances to insure that the standards, the ethics of our society are
represented in the process of intelligence, but yet without crip-
pling it.
I believe this new framework, this new executive order
is going to strengthen and give us better intelligence in the long
run, better intelligence and pointed in these directions that I've
been indicating.
And I stand here with you today, thankful for your atten-
tion, and only to reassure you that I believe we're-the best in
intelligence in the world today, an-d I'm-going to do everything I
can in the years ahead to keep us that way.
Thank you.
[Applause]
ADMIRAL TURNER: I've got a few questions here. And let
me try to move through them quickly, and see if there are any
others from the floor.
"Do you foresee the time when we can completely do away
with the Central Intelligence Agency?"
That's a good starter.
The answer is no. And the reason is that the Central
Intelligence Agency is the only intelligence organization of our
country that's not associated with making policy. That is, we
have no ax to grind. We're not trying in any way to say, "This
is the intelligence, and it suits what you want to do, Boss."
Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP80BO1554R002700440001-8
 Approved For Releie 2001/08/07 : CWRDP80B01554R0(00440001-8
I"y job is to be the SOB who cones in and ), s , The rd
facts, as I interpret them, are this." And as recently as yest=r-
day morning, I did that with the President. I went in and saic.
ere's ny analysis of a particular situation." In fact, what -
said to him is, "Boss, I sat back last night and I said, 'If I -
were Brezhnev, this is how I would be look at this situation that
we're involved in with the Soviet Union, and what I think their
motives are and how they're going to respond.'"
And you need that. You've got to have somebody who's
doing intelligence and is not tied up with what the country is
going to do, so there's no taint of slanting the intelligence.
"How accurate is the information provided by CIA? Bow
effective is this in determining national security policy?"
I think we're remarkably accurate in the technical and
scientific fields. It's very difficult to be a hundred percent
accurate in predicting economic trends, but I think we're quite
good at that. It's more difficult to predict what people are going
to do politically, but I think we do a reasonable job on that. I
don't think you'll ever get those three forms of intelligence pre-
diction to be of the same accuracy, but I think we do a very credi-
table job.
And as to its affecting national policy, I can refer you
again to some remarks the President made a week ago yesterday, wren
he signed this executive order, and expressly pointed out how
pleased he was and how surprised he had been since becoming Presi-
dent with the high quality of the intelligence product that he was
receiving.
"Why the decrease in covert personnel and why all the
publicity, letting everyone know? Why is the CIA being dismem-
bered? Are Russian agents in high positions responsible for this?
I've tried to approach that in my remarks . Let me
amplify very briefly to say that these 820 positions that I've
found necessary to eliminate were all in our headquarters. They
were fat, they were overhead. We have left the fighting arm of
people overseas intact. And, in fact, I believe wd've left them
in a stronger position because they have less people supervising
them, telling them what to do. They have enough, but they don't
have a superfluity of Monday morning quarterbacks back here telling
them how to run their game out there in the front lines .
"Isn't the Administration's clean-conscience attitude
seriously jeopardizing the CIA's effectiveness? How can the CIA
or any government intelligence agency operate effectively with
Congress leaking top secret information? Do you feel restrictions
placed on CIA by the Congress impede the effectiveness of the CIA?
I think those are all sort of related.
Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP80BO1554R002700440001-8
 Approved For Relee 2001/08/07: C1A-RDP801301554R00 00440001-8
Philosophically, I believe you have to start from the
point of view that intelligence is a dangerous operation. T:e're
taking risks, we're doing things that none of us, you or I, like
to do. We're compromising with the standards that we all would
like to see established around the world. But we don't live in
a nice, clean, harmonious world today. And without information,
we would be at a great disadvantage.
And, therefore, we have to strike a balance between
what extremes we will go to to obtain information, and not having
that information at all. And there are some cases where it's not
worth the candle. There are some cases where undermining the
fabric of our society, in effect, spying on the American people,
against the Constitution, for instance, would not be worth it.
Drawing a firm, clear line as to where you will pro-
ceed and where you will retreat is very, very difficult, and it
just can't be done in an express set of terms.
And what we do get, and I hope we will receive in the
next year afrom the Congress, are a set of rules, a set of guide-
lines as to how they want us to proceed and how to operate, the
guidelines which will place some trust in those of us in posi-
tions of responsibility in the intelligence world, to interpret
and to proceed with the spirit of those rules. And I believe
that can be worked out in a way that it will not disable us, and
yet it will pay attention to the fact that we as a country are
a very moral people.
"Do you feel the effectiveness of the CIA has been ham-
pered by the adverse publicity of the past two years? How has
this affected our security?"
Yes. Yes, its effectiveness has been hampered.
I talked with one our people the other night. It hap-
pened to be a fellow whose son was at Amherst College, where I
had attended. His boy was there in the height of the criticism
of the Central Intelligence Agency a couple of years ago. And
he just couldn't admit to his classmates that his father worked
in the. Central Intelligence Agency.
That eats at the heart of an organization, when you're
proud of what you've done for 30 years, and now your son. can't
admit that he is associated with you and the agency.
So, yes, it hurts. But these people are marvelous
people, they're dedicated people, they're patriotic people; and
they'll snap back. And I believe we are turning that corner and
we will have the public approbation that is so much deserved-
And we will, I pray and hope, continue to deserve it, because we
will perform in the way the country wants.
Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP80BO1554R002700440001-8
 Approved For Rel 2001/08/07 : C1A-RDP80B01554ROGU00440001-8
H.ve rc_cent d?eve?o~~~~ents we:ilkened our ability to obtain
anin gful intelligence information and obtain cooperation from
alliec nations?"
Yes. The leaks of information do hurt us in the inter-
national sphere. And when we talk to a person overseas who's
willing to provide us information, at risk to his reputation,
or maybe his life, he may get nervous if he thinks his name's
going to appear in the United States media one of these days.
And the same with foreign intel3igence agencies who work with us.
They don't want to be exposed, either.
So, we must, in one way or another, within the bounds
of our laws -- and I was so pleased this morning to see on the
front page of your paper the arrest of two spies, one of them an
American citizen, inside our government. We must prevent that
kind of thing. We must prevent these inadvertent and advertent
leaks of important information that will compromise our intelli-
gence process.
"What are your objectives while serving as CIA head?"
My objectives are to provide to our decision-makers in
this government the most complete, objective intelligence that we
possibly can to help them make those decisions they must make,
and to do so within the bounds of the laws of this country and
the established standards of propriety that the President has set.
"Please compare the effectiveness of the CIA to the KGB."
The KGB is more numerous around the world in the human
intelligence business. They flood the market with spies. We are
far ahead of them in the technical intelligence fields that I've
described to you briefly. And we have an everlasting lead, in
my opinion, in the interpretation of intelligence.
The data is only the first part. The second part is
understanding it and drawing conclusions from it. And I have an
abiding conviction that in a free, democratic society, where people
are encouraged to think independently, that we will do better
analyses of the data derived'than will people in a closed, totali-
tarian society, where you are a heretic at the risk of your limb
and life and reputation.
"For many years, my observations on facts and conditions
in certain parts of the world were regularly solicited by the CIA,
and I was proud to respond and assist my government. Sometime
ago, I became afraid to continue, in view of possible miscon-
strued disclosures. Your comments, please."
I'm very disappointed. And I can assure you that proper
cooperation with American business, American citizens is, in my
Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP80BO1554R002700440001-8
 Approved For Release 2001/08/07: CIA-RDP80B01554R00-p0440001-8
opi
n nion of increasing criticality to our intelligence process.
Iever want to out and use these delicate, costly intelligence
methods to obtain information that is available to us~in our
country through public means. That's not the way to do it. And
more and more -- and particularly you here in Houston recognize
this -- as you, the business community, deal overseas, you have
information that can be of inestimable value to our country.
Our prediction on the Soviet oil problems had part of
its foundation in collating information available in the business
community as to what the Soviets were procuring in this country
in terms of oil production equipment. It led us to diagnose what
their problem was. And if would be a shame if that were turned
off, as this gentleman has been turned off.
And I can only assure you that I think those are very
shallow thinkers who in any way misconstrue and criticize a proper
relationship with the intelligence community of our country. And
I can only assure you that we do everything we can to insure that
relationship is both proper and private.
"The Wall Street Journal has characterized our failure
to anticipate the continuing strategic buildup by the Soviet Union
as the most significant failing in intelligence in recent times.
How did this occur? Will you do better?"
I don't know, and yes.
For my first four or five months in office, it was nice
to say, "It's all George Bush's fault." Seriously, no. But I think,
with the time I've been there, I can no longer blame it on anybody
else.
But this is a very controversial subject, as to whether-
and how much the estimates of Soviet buildup in the military sphere
have ever been off. I think the reports of the discrepancies have
been exaggerated, but we're never right on. And I can only say to
you that I think we're putting all the effort and all the attention
we can on it, and I believe that we're quite accurate today.
"Can you comment on the recent Russian satellite case in
Canada and its implications? How many are up there? Can we knock
them down?"
We've watched that type of nuclear-powered Soviet satel-
lite for quite a few years now, we've watched its pattern of
activity. All the other ones they've put up have been safely
boosted into outer space and left to decay up there. We detected -,-,
some months ago that this one was not following the normal pattern.
We alerted our.people, who, in turn, talked to the Soviet Union
about this one. We're all, of course, very pleased that if it had
to come down, it came down in a non-populated area.
Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP80BO1554R002700440001-8
 1 ~
Approved For Releae 2001/08/07 CIA-RDP80BO1554R00 0440001-8
It s 3 riks hen you put ::nyLhing l i?.e that up in space.
And the President has given his view in a press conference yester--a
that -- or the day before, I guess -- that he'd like to see if we
could reach agreement not to put that kind of thing up.
Are there any last questions from the floor? We've got a
few minutes, do we, Bob?
Q: [Inaudible]
ADMIRAL TURNER: The National Security Agency and the
CIA, the question was, what's their relationship?
The National Security Agency is managed. by the Department
of Defense. The Central Intelligence Agency is managed by myself.
As the Director of Central Intelligence, a second job
which I hold, I am responsible for the overall coordination of both
of those, and other intelligence organizations. And under the Presi-
dent's reorganization, he has now given me full authority to manage
the budget of both of them, and the others; to task their daily
operations -- that is, to tell what the national security agency
is going to be looking for and collecting; and to insure that all
the intelligence information gathered by these various sources is
properly disseminated, that nobody squirrels it away in his own
little place and doesn't tell everybody else who properly needs
to know.
So, it's a basically military organization under my bud-
getary operational control.
[Inaudible]
ADMIRAL TURNER: Well, let me only comment there, on
the question of will we tighten standards for selling computers
and other technologically advanced equipment to the Soviet Union,
that that's a policy matter that is not in my field. But I do
watch the receipt of technologically advanced equipment on the
other side. We're not here to spy on you or others who are in
the business of selling it, but we do watch what the state of
technology is in the Soviet Union, and try to tell our decision-
makers, our policymakers how much that's depended upon, both
proper and improper transfers of technology from us and from other
countries around the world. It is happening. It is unfortunate
in some areas.
Q: [Inaudible]
ADMIRAL TURNER: Are we still a step ahead of the
on strategic forces field?
Yes, in my opinion, we are. In both the strategic and
Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP80BO1554R002700440001-8
 Approved For Releawe 2001/08/07,: PIA-RDP80BOl554ROOQM0440001-8
convcntiana1 field, the Soviet union is r }:in
aware, prodigious efforts and Outlays. I g, as you're well
want to be a 'ajor world power, andthat-.e3ns)compe t in swat they
in every sphere that they can. fetng with us
Fortunately, they are really not competitors in the
economic sphere. You gentlemen and the others of the business
community of this country have kept us well ahead, and, as far
as I can see, will for the indefinite future.
They are really not full competitors in the political
sphere. They're not full participants, full respected members of
the world community in the same sense we are. We're ahead. Maybe
they'll close that in time, but they've got lots of handicaps.
In the military sphere, they have much greater oppor-
tunity to apply their wealt, to apply their effort; and that's
what they're doing. And we must, as I'm sure you implied by
your question, maintain an adequate military posture in the Free
World that they do not gain political leverage from their mili-
tary buildup effort.
That's what I believe they're after. They're after
political influence as a result of a perceived superior military
position, if they get to that point.
And the issue, then, is when do you, when do I, when
do the French and the Germans ever perceive that we are at a sub-
stantial military difference, such that it would influence the
political and economic decisions that we make. We cannot let that
happen. But that's a matter that all of you must judge, as well
as those of us in the development.
MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Admiral Turner, for a
very enlightening discussion.
Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP80BO1554R002700440001-8
 Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP80BO1554R002700440001-8
S31rlNIW 09/JW11 JNIDJOOS}J
NVdVf'NI i(JVW
qw 4*
x C3i{3ssd~od~v
OB-OW o 3INV-1
Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP80BO1554R002700440001-8