CHANGES IN AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE
Address to The Economic Club of New York by
William E. Colby Director of Central Intelligence on
Wednesday, 4
Intelligence has been with us at least since Mosesan from each tribe to "spy out the land ofhroughout this long history, however, tha concept of intelligence was very much that of the spy, from Nathan Hale in the earliest days of the American Republic to the more recant images of Mata Hari or Jamas Bond. As with many other disciplines in our times, however. Intelligence has been the subject of accelerated change. Indeed, this change is so comprehensive as to make the older image ofsoortion of tho total function that it Is in truth erroneous. Change has affected the techniques, the subjects, and the control of We Americans must revise our older images if we are not to make erroneous decisions about intelligence and deprive us of the contribution modern Intelligence can make to our national security and welfare.
The techniques of intelligence have particularly been revolutionized. Intelligence today is primarily an intellectual process, assembling factsultiplicity of sources, subjecting them to rigorous and disciplined analysis
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and deriving aaaeaamenta and projection* of likely future event! abroad of importance to our country. The United States has lad in the development of this new concept and process of intelligence, and the corps of intelligence analysts in our country today rivals the faculty of any large university in its depth of knowledge, adherence to intellectual discipline, and breadth of coverage of diverse political, economic, scientific and military specialties. If our policy leaders are to meet the many problems facing our country in today's world, they must be informedast number of subjects, from the military and industrial uses of atomic energy to the political and economic factors involved in European trade and monetary policies. Our intelligence community serves them in all these fields with objective assessments, independent of departmental or political bias. Indeed, our recruiters findarticular attractionareer in intelligence to many of our young people is that nowhere else can one do research and derive judgments from such exceptional raw information, in as undirected an atmosphere and on subjects of such great importance to our society.
Change has affected the volume of information our intelligence must handle. Tbe data explosion available from the air waves, the press, and the normally published results of today's extensive commercial and cultural interchange among nations must be absorbed and analyzed. Inay particular tribute to the contribution made by many American
business leader* who privately chare with their Government their knowledge of foreign situations through CIA's Domestic Collection Service, for no reward beyond their protectionource and the satisfactionatriotic act.
The increase in the volume of information has been most marked from the dramatic applications of American technology lo the profession of This haa literally revolutionized our knowledge of many parts of the world through photography fromnd its successors, through electronic collection, and through the enormous increase in tha pace and precision of our analysis through data processing. esult, many matters which formerly were shrouded in secrecy and unobtainable through normal means can now be made available to our analysts for study.and thairtherefrom have comeertainty which years ago would have been thought unobtainable.
But clandestine collection must still be carried on, and is by most nations. The research plans still on the drawing board, the political dynamics of closed societies, and the Intentions of potentially dangerous foreign leaders are not subject to technical or open collection but could put our nation In peril. Thus, the clandestine agent still has his role, even if he too depends more on technology andess flamboyant life style than Mata Hari or James Bond.
Change has also affected the subjects of intelligence. Traditionally, intelligence for national security was conceived almost exclusively in military terms* It is clear today, however, that national security must include political security against subversion of ourselves or our allies or terrorism against our citizens; it also must include economic security against threats to our financial, industrial, commercial, and agricultural well-being. Thus, today data must be collected and analysed and assessments madeide variety of subjects beyond those of direct military significance.
Our intelligence today also must extend beyond the immediate, because the interdependence of our world is such that political, economic or military concerns need to be faced long before they become critical. If this can be done, they can become the object of intense negotiation which lessens or removes them. Thus, the intelligence contribution to negotiationsajor responsibility today, be those negotiations ones over critical military situations or long-term anticipation of possible economic problems in the future. The Strategic Arms Limitation Agreements are perhaps the most vivid exampleegotiation which rests fundamentally on the fact that intelligence has identified the subjects needing to be negotiated and has provided the means of monitoring the adherence of the two parties to the agreements reached. But our intelligence assessments have also contributed to such international negotiations as the Law of the Sea,
food and population and energy. Indeed, in some cases our intelligence has been able to establish the factual base and" identify the issues involved, thus helping the negotiations focus on the real problems and sometimes pointing out areas of possible concession and agreement.
In the military field, of course, intelligence stillajorto American decisions as to necessary weapons systems and defenses. Accurate intelligence can not only warn us of our need for new weapons; it can also suggest possible savings of enormous expenditures otherwise seen as needed to meet threats which are not there. But in this field, too, change has occurred in our intelligence activity, in the increased stress on the peace-keeping role of intelligence. umber of situations, conflicts have been avoided or forestalled by accurate intelligence which has provided the basis for active negotiations or reassured one sideotential conflict that the other did not have hostile intentions or dispositions.
The great changes which are occurring to intelligence include those with respect to the control of intelligence. As in other aspects, we in America have taken the lead in this field. Not only some of the great intelligence figure* of the past would be astonished at the exposure of American intelligence to public control, indeed some of my fellow intelligence chiefs around the world are somewhat unsteadily adjusting to an increase in their own governments' demand for some similar accountability of their actions. Our country is
leading the process of changing intelligence traditions to meetonstitutional and open society. Our intelligence functions depend upon Acta of Congress, and our intelligence budgets are annually appropriated by the Congress. It is true that Congress has arranged that our operations and our budgets be reviewed in detail only by subcommittees of the Armod Services and Appropriations Committees of each House. This Is to ensure that Ihe matters which must remain secret do remain secret from the kind of exposure which would accompany their revelation to the full Congress. But from these Committees we have no secrets, and it is my further obligation to raise with them matters thoy would not know to ask. Thus, to the normal administrative and policy controls over intelligence by the executive branch, we in America have added an independent review and control by the legislative branch. Various suggestions have been made from time to time to change the manner of this legislative review. Thisatter for the Congress to determine, and we in the executive branch have long taken the position that we are confident that whatever system is developed will protect those secrets which must be protected.
Dut beyond the legislature, our American intelligence is also subject to public scrutiny and accountability. It is for thatm here andumber of my fellow intelligence officers have appeared publicly or met the press privately to explain the workings of American intelligence and to provide
assessments of world situations drawn from our extensive collection and analytical efforts. In thia way, we hope to demonstrate the contribution that American intelligence makes to informed decision-making by our Government, by our Congress, and by our people.
But we do need to keep some secrets. If our potential adversaries learn of our access to carefully hidden information, they could identify the individual who gave it to us or they could correct the technical leak that allowed us to pick it up. If our officers abroad are identified, they can be carefully followed by local authorities or targeted by local terrorists. Our country's lawsthat the unauthorized disclosure of an income taxensus return, or cotton statisticsriminal offense. But the revelation of an intelligence source isrime if it is givenoreigner or done with intent to injure the United States. elieve it essential that we Americans tighten up the secrecy of our intelligence sources and methods If American intelligence is still going to lead the world in ita development of new techniques and io providing our national leaders and our people the kind of intelligence support we Americans expectecond to none.
American Intelligence is unique in another way it is restricted to foreign intelligence. The basic charter of CIA provides that it will have no police, subpoena or law enforcement powers or internal security functions.
These are the job of the local police and of the FBI. Thereill in the Congress to add the word "foreign" to the word "intelligence" wherever it appears in CIA'slarification that we in CIA fully support and in fact suggested. We did exceed our bounds during the Watergate affair, but only in giving Howardig and some paraphernalia andsychological profile of Daniel Ellsberg. While neither of these was of earth-shaking importance, and while CIA had nothing to do with the actual Watergate affair and refused to go along with the cover-up, our employees and our management in CIA are firmly resolved to avoidinimal misstep in this direction in the future.
In these remarks you willave not yet mentioned covert action, the subject of most of the press criticism of CIA today. m not ducking this subject, norrying to indicate that it is not one of ourm trying to bring out the point that itelatively small portion of our efforts at this time and that the pure intelligence functions of collecting, analyzing and producing assessments for our national leadership should be clarified to you and the American people as the overriding mission and justification for our intelligence activities. Nonetheless, we have conducted covert political and paramilitary action programs in the past, some of which have come to light andertain amount of excitement. These have been conducted through our intelligence mechanism because they use the same
techniques of secrecy, and many times the same people, as our intelligence activities. Because of the change in the world and our national policies from the confrontation period ofs and the insurgency of's, we are doing very little of this today. We do feel it important, however, that our Government have the flexibility to respond to some actual or potential danger abroad through some discreet help to people who want to be our friends as against those hostile to us. We do not want to wash our hands of them, and we do not want to send in the Marines, and so long as our helponscious reflection of our Government's policies and is known to and approved by our elected officials andhink it in the best interests of our country that we continue to do such operations. m glad to say that both the Senate and the House seem to have agreed with thisajorities when the question of barring us from these activities was posed to them.
Thus, American intelligence is changing. Nathan Hale would have been given better training, better technical equipment, and especially better direction than he received on his intelligence mission which ended sohort distance from this spot. He would not recognize American intelligence today, but neither would he recognize the world today. The changes in American Intelligence have comeesult of the acceleration of change in
the world, In the role of America in the world today, and in the enormous change! which have occurred in the intellectual and scientific techniques which characterise what Allen Dulles once called "the craft of intelligence. They have made our intelligenceajor contribution to our foreig policy-making, from which all of our citizens benefit.
Original document.
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