Secrecy and Democracy: The CIA in Transition

by Stansfield Turner

The director of the CIA during the Carter administration explores past abuses of the U.S. intelligence apparatus, describes the radically redesigned system structured to avoid such abuses, and analyzes the problems besetting the intelligence community when he became CIA director in 1977

Genres: History

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Admiral Stansfield Turner served as director of central intelligence from 1977 to 1981, heading both the Intelligence Community and the CIA. Previously, as an admiral in the U.S. Navy, he served as the commander of the U.S. Second Fleet and president of the Naval War College, and as the commander in chief of NATO's Southern Flank. Admiral Turner is on the faculty of the University of Maryland's Graduate School of Public Policy. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Reviews

[Bahman Bahman · Rating 2 out of 5]

khaterate rayise CIA dar zamane karter

[Bud · Rating 3 out of 5]

U.S. Navy Admiral Stansfield Turner was Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) during the Carter Administration. He was appointed by President Carter. The Carter administration was heavily influenced by his National Security Advisor Zbig Brzezinski, an acolyte of David Rockefeller and his Council of Foreign Relations. At that time, the DCI was Director of the CIA and also theoretically controlled the budgets of the other U.S. intelligence agencies, e.g. NSA, DIA, Naval Intelligence, etc. The Admiral explains that this did not work well. He also explains that entrenched career intel employees successfully resisted changes he ordered, he wanted to make and was empowered by the President to make. The "Deep State". Except, Carter was not willing to let the DCI monitor or control the NSA, which reported to the DOD.

Turner downsized the CIA and did some reallocation of resources between the 3 main branches of the CIA, and he describes in detail the roles and interactions of those three main branches: espionage, analysis and technical.

Turner illustrates the book with examples of U.S. covert actions to alter elections, wars and other significant events in many other countries, actions which he supported.

[Bradley Davies · Rating 5 out of 5]

By President Carter's CIA Director Stansfield Turner (I think written in 1985), it goes over his efforts to reform the CIA after the 1975-76 Church Committees that revealed conduct society was no longer okay with. I felt its basic message was about poor management in the first thirty years which lead to too much autonomy in the mid-levels of the organization and not enough pushback from the top. It felt informing and I will try to corroborate it as to see what slants may exist, but if the topic scratches your itch I thought it was a good read.