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Turner's difficulties at the agency come, at least in part, from his carrying out the duties assigned to him. It has been common wisdom in recent years that the CIA had become too large. Staff reductions began under James Schlesinger, who was director in 1973, and continued under his successor, William Colby. When Turner took over, he found various options on his desk for eliminating some 1,500 positions over five or six years. Rather than leave people in suspense for so long a period, he decided to make a quick cut of 820 jobs over two years.
He did it none too diplomatically.
With scant regard for the feelings of people who had served their country unsung for decades, he permitted a photocopied memo informing 212 employees of their dismissal to be distributed last Oct. 31. Some of the people fired thought he bore them a personal grudge. Says one of his former aides: "Stan is deeply suspicious of the clandestine services. He is very uncomfortable with their basic uncontrol-lability. He doesn't like their fine clothes and accents, their Cosmos and Yale and Georgetown clubs. They're simply not good sailors. He finds them sneeringly elliptical. It drives him crazy. He just can't get hold of this maddening quicksilver."
Turner could not have been pleased with his victims' undisciplined response. They dubbed the occasion the "Halloween massacre" and passed around a takeoff of the admiral's song in Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore:
"Of intelligence I had so little grip
That they offered me the directorship.
With my brassbound head of oak so stout
I don't have to know what it's all about."
Only 45 people, in fact, have been fired outright. Others have been retired, and the CIA personnel office is looking for Government jobs for the rest. Sums up Turner on the agency's cutbacks: "What do you want—happy spies or effective and well-controlled spies? The gripes are mainly from those who were asked to leave. It is ironic that the media are so enthusiastic about all those good old experienced spies—who brought all those things that the media railed against for all those years."
The CIA boss has support where it counts the most. At the signing of the executive order last week, Carter went out of his way to stress "my complete appreciation and confidence in Admiral Stan Turner." Carter sees Turner more often than previous Presidents saw their CIA chiefs. The admiral has briefed the President once or twice a week in hour-long sessions, usually alone. Turner prepares the agenda and spends ten to twelve hours reading background material for each session. According to a presidential aide: "Carter likes Turner's crispness, his grasp, his 'yes sir, no sir,' no-nonsense naval officer's style."