Advice from the Old Boys

Judging from the initial reaction, Jimmy Carter should score with his second choice for director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Heavy opposition forced the President's first nominee, Theodore Sorensen, to withdraw. But Carter's second choice, Annapolis classmate ('46) Admiral Stansfield Turner, has aroused no opposition and seems certain of confirmation.

Turner would be inheriting an embattled agency, one that must learn to cope with greater congressional scrutiny and with increased demands from press and public for information about it. How should he deal with these problems? TIME asked five former CIA directors what advice they might have for the new man. Three responded--John McCone, 75, William Colby, 53, and George Bush, 52. Richard Helms, 63, thought it was inadvisable to speak for the record. James Schlesinger, 48, was too absorbed with energy problems as part of the new Carter Administration.

The three who did comment were cautionary but essentially upbeat. "There are enormous problems," says Bush. "Problems of judgment, problems of management. But I don't see any insurmountable ones that a prudent person can't handle."

RELATIONS WITH THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS. The director, says Bush, must have "direct access to the President. Turner apparently already has his ear and that's good. He should have a regular appointment with Carter. He'll have to get up to the Hill a lot. I made 51 formal appearances in less than a year. Congressional oversight has proliferated, and most individual Congressmen realize that oversight now is very different from the past. It's less adversary than it was and much more constructive. Members of Congress are totally informed on the budget, and that's the way it should be."

McCone feels that the director must "establish precisely how the President wants to be informed and how he wants to exercise sanctions over CIA operations. Once that is established, the director must not deviate from the rules that are laid down. He must do exactly the same with the appropriate groups in the Senate and House. He has to establish a rapport so that they will have confidence they are being told the whole story and told in advance. Then it would no longer be necessary for other committees to be informed, and they would respect the fact that matters of a confidential nature must be kept confidential." If CIA secrets are shared by too many people on the Hill, says McCone, "you might as well clear them with the New York Times, the Washington Post and TIME magazine."

INTELLIGENCE GATHERING. "The nub of intelligence is an intellectual process of coming to the best possible judgment," says Colby. "You can tell what's good quality by reading it and testing it. Get different people to evaluate it. Get some outside critics. You want to involve a lot of people, not just professionals. A director should get a whole mix of opinions, maybe from a whole bunch of different panels--experts of every political coloration."

McCone feels that CIA intelligence must be kept free of influence from the military and other policymakers.

"The military will confine their research to the needs of the particular mission, the special targeting requirements of the particular service. The top-priority job of monitoring Soviet capabilities and intentions must be done free of any prejudged position or parochial influence from contacts with the military on the one hand, or the disarmament advocates on the other."

COVERT OPERATIONS. Some critics have suggested that covert operations should be run independently of the CIA --or, in the view of the most radical critics, done away with altogether --leaving the agency to handle only normal intelligence gathering and assessment. McCone dislikes the idea. "I would be afraid that in order to make its mission more totally rewarding, an independent operations side would create undertakings quite beyond necessity. It wouldn't have a hell of a lot to do, so it would think up a whole lot of dirty tricks. The Bay of Pigs was very highly compartmentalized, so much so that CIA analysts had no access to it before it was undertaken. If the analysts had been brought in, they would have immediately seen the flaws in the undertaking and advised against it."

Bush thinks that the problem of covert operations is somewhat exaggerated. "They should be used sparingly, adopted procedurally and reported in timely fashion. That is the way it's working now. They are not going to be a major dilemma for Turner in any way."

GOING PUBLIC. "The idea of intelligence in the sunshine, that people should know everything about intelligence is nutty," says Bush. But he acknowledges that a certain price has to be paid for living in a free society. The Soviet KGB has a much easier time operating in the U.S. than the CIA does in Russia. "But I don't think you can do anything about it. To inhibit the dissemination of information would stir up a fire storm--and deservedly so."

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