Press Release, Remarks of President Harry S. Truman

579 REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT TO THE FINAL SESSION OF THE C.I.A.'S EIGHTH TRAINING ORIENTATION COURSE FOR REPRESENTATIVES OF VARIOUS GOVERNMENT AGENCIES. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AUDITORIUM WASHINGTON, D. C. NOVEMBER 21, 1952 12.27 p.m., e.s.t. Thank you very much. I am appreciative of the privilege that General Smith has offered me, to come over here and make a few remarks to this organization. I em, naturally, very much interested in it. When I became President ..- if you don't mind me reminiscing a little bit -- there was no concentration of information for the benefit of the President. Each department and each organization had its own information service, and that information service was walled off from every other service in such a manner that whenever it was necessary for the President to have information, he had to send to two or three departments to get it, and then he would have to have somebody do a little digging to get it. The affairs of the Presidential Office, so far as infor- mation was concerned, were in such shape that it was necessary for me, when I took over the Office, to read a stack of documents that high, and it took me three months to get caught up. Only two people around the White House really knew what was going on in the military affairs department, and they were Admiral Leahy and Admiral Brown. I would tolk to them every morning and try to get all the information I could. And finally one morning I had a conversation with Admiral Leahy, and suggested to him that there should be a Central Intelligence Agency, for the NARA benefit of the whole government as well as for the benefit of the Prosident, so he could be informed. And the Admiral and I proceeded to try to work out a program. It has worked very successfully. W. have an Intelligence information service now that I think is not inferior to any in the world. We have the Contral Intelligence Agency, and all the intel- ligence information agencies in all the rest of the departments of the government, coordinated by that Central telligence Agency. This agency puts the information of vital importance to the Presi- dent in his hands. He has to know what is going on everywhere at home and abroad, so that he can intelligently make the decisions that are necessary to keep the government running. I don't think anyone realizes the immensity of the prob- lems that face a President of the United States. It was my privilege a few days ago to brief the Genoral who is going to take over the Office on the 20th day of January, and he was rather appalled at all that the President needs to know in order to reach decisions -- even domestic decisions. He must know exactly what is implied by what he does. The President makes a decision every day that can affect anywhere from 100 million to a billion and a half people. It is a tremen- dous responsibility. And I don't think many of you realize the position in which this great country is, in this day and age. We are at the top, and the leader of the free world -- something that we did not anticipate, something that we did not want, but something that has been forced on us. It is a responsibility which we should have assumed in 1920. We did not assume it then. We have to assume it now, because it has again been thrust on us. (OVER)