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Among their responsibilities, the CIA and the other U.S. intelligence agencies have provided psychological profiles of such key leaders as Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Premier Menachem Begin. Intelligence has supplied background information to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance on every step of his diplomacy in the Middle East. The CIA is probing the likely consequences of the French and West German elections later this year, the course of Sino-Soviet relations, the ethnic conflicts that could rend Yugoslavia after Tito dies, and the possibility of intervention there. Attempts by the U.S. to prepare for world political developments would be inconceivable without intelligence.
All this work is jeopardized if the intelligence community is unreasonably weakened by public attacks. Policymakers and intelligence officials abroad are especially worried that outside pressures could all but incapacitate the CIA. They fear that Americans are too susceptible to periodic bouts of moral outrage, that they fail to understand their cherished democratic freedoms must be protected from a world that in large part does not cherish them. Appearing on the David Susskind Show in January, Jack Fishman, a British expert on intelligence, said he was "appalled by the way the American public is falling into the trap of slandering and smearing its own security organization. The CIA may have made many mistakes, but that does not mean you should smash your own security in the name of freedom of speech. You can't destroy yourself."
Last week former CIA Director Richard Helms made much the same point: "If we treat people who do this kind of work as second-class citizens, we are not going to be able to get anybody to do our dirty work for us."
Most foreign intelligence officials do not think the damage has gone so far that it is not containable. Says a top West German intelligence officer: "The CIA'S work is still very good, but it's not up to past lev els. What the CIA urgently needs now is to settle down, get a clear sense of direction and confidence again. This is vital for all of us, not just those in intelligence work."
Carter's Executive order on intelligence is intended to restore this balance and confidence. The President said that his reorganization directive was the product of the most extensive and highest-level review ever conducted. Just under a year in the making, the order expresses a rough consensus among the intelligence and defense communities, the White House and Congress.
Carter, characteristically, had been hard to please. He returned four drafts to his staff for revision. Says a top Administration official: "Only practice will tell if the reorganization works, but there was plenty of anguished howling as well as celebration in drawing up the order." The controversy suggests that, like any other bureaucratic reshuffle, this one will work only as well as those involved want it to work.
The document aims to achieve greater efficiency by streamlining the intelligence community under Turner, and to curb misdirected actions by imposing new restraints on covert activities. Says David Aaron, deputy director of the National Security Council: "It was important to end once and for all the notion that effective intelligence can't be carried out within constitutional limitations."