Ex-Chief Sees Iran Inquiries Hurting CIA

The Iran- contras controversy may cause serious long-term damage to the CIA by demoralizing the organization’s professional operatives and making them overly cautious, former CIA Director Stansfield Turner said Tuesday.

Turner told reporters in a breakfast interview that it took the agency years to recover from the effect of investigations a decade ago by congressional committees, including one headed by the late Sen. Frank Church (D-Ida.). He said agency professionals are afraid the Iran-contras affair will spawn similar inquiries.

“I think there is great, lasting damage potentially out of this for the CIA,” Turner said. “I think the professionals in the CIA are very concerned today and morale is down because the prospect of facing another Church committee trauma is pretty terrifying.”

Major Role Denied

In the current congressional investigations, CIA officials have denied playing a major role in the Administration’s sale of arms to Iran or any part at all in the diversion of some profits to the Nicaraguan rebels. The agency has acknowledged providing only some technical assistance to the National Security Council in the sales.

In the 1970s, the agency was investigated for an assortment of abuses in covert operations abroad.

The agency’s intelligence activities were “not in good shape in ‘77, not because we didn’t have agents, not because we did not have skilled case officers but because the management of the CIA on the professional side did not want to risk getting into another meat grinder. It took a long time to get them back into an understanding that we could take those risks.”

Turner headed the agency during the Jimmy Carter Administration from 1977 through 1980. He was not popular with agency professionals at the time because they thought he did not do enough to protect the organization from criticism.