Turner, Casey, and and Deutch as DCI

[Matthew M. Aid]

On Wednesday, Fevruary 7, 2001, Dr. Bruce Tefft wrote:
Subject: Re: Turner, Casey, and and Deutch as DCI

> When Stansfield Turner made a field trip to Lagos, Nigeria and met with
> the CIA Station, he had no idea what a CIA field station did or how it
> collected HUMINT.
> I had to walk him through the process several times and from his
> questioning it was
> clear that although he was interested, he had no idea.
>

The often-heard criticism of Admiral Turner's stint at the CIA (1977-1981)
has been that he was more interested in technological intelligence gathering
at the expense of HUMINT.  Based on your dealings with him, Dr. Tefft, do
you think that this is a legitimate statement? If I recall correctly, many
of the CIA operatives inside the Soviet Union that Aldrich Ames compromised
in the 1980s had been recruited during Turner's tenure, suggesting that
there were some legitimate HUMINT successes during Turner's time at the CIA.
Or have I got it all wrong?

Matthew M. Aid



Intelligence Forum (http://www.intelforum.org) is sponsored by Intelligence
and National Security, a Frank Cass journal (http://www.frankcass.com/jnls/ins.htm)