Stansfield Turner

Stansfield Turner
Turner in 1983
12th Director of Central Intelligence
In office March 9, 1977 – January 20, 1981
President	Jimmy Carter
Deputy	E. Henry Knoche John F. Blake Frank Carlucci
Preceded by	George H. W. Bush
Succeeded by	William J. Casey
37th President of the Naval War College
In office June 30, 1972 – August 9, 1974
Preceded by	Benedict J. Semmes Jr.
Succeeded by	Julien LeBourgeois
Personal details
Born	(1923-12-01)December 1, 1923 Highland Park, Illinois, U.S.
Died	January 18, 2018(2018-01-18) (aged 94) Redmond, Washington, U.S.
Resting place	United States Naval Academy Cemetery
Spouses	Patricia Busby Whitney ​ ​ (m. 1953; div. 1984)​ Eli Karin Tjelta ​ ​ (m. 1985; died 2000)​ Marion Levitt Weiss ​ (m. 2002)​
Children	2
Education	Amherst College U.S. Naval Academy (BS) Exeter College, Oxford (BA)
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch/service	United States Navy
Years of service	1946–1978
Rank	Admiral
Commands	USS Conquest USS Rowan USS Horne U.S. Second Fleet Allied Forces Southern Europe
Battles/wars	World War II Korean War Vietnam War

Stansfield Turner (December 1, 1923 – January 18, 2018) was an

Turner was appointed to lead the CIA by Jimmy Carter in 1977 and undertook a series of controversial reforms, including downsizing the Agency's clandestine arm and emphasizing technical intelligence collection over human intelligence. He also oversaw the CIA's responses to the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet–Afghan War. After leaving the CIA in 1981, Turner entered the private sector, authored several books, and criticized subsequent administrations, including the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq War. He was a senior research scholar at the University of Maryland, College Park's School of Public Policy.

Early life and education

Turner was born in the Chicago suburb of

In February 1977, Turner's nomination to become Director of Central Intelligence was announced by President Jimmy Carter, after his background as a conscientious objector and allegations of mishandling classified documents led to the withdrawal of the earlier nomination of Ted Sorensen.^[12] After two days of hearings, Turner was unanimously confirmed to lead the Agency.

President Carter wanted reforms on the intelligence agencies, whose reputations were discredited due to the

During Turner's term as head of the CIA, he became outraged when former employee Frank Snepp published a book called Decent Interval which exposed incompetence among senior U.S. government personnel during the fall of Saigon.^[2] Turner accused Snepp of breaking the secrecy agreement required of all CIA employees, and then later was forced to admit under cross-examination that he had never read the agreement signed by Snepp.^[19] Regardless, the CIA ultimately won its case against Snepp at the Supreme Court of the United States.^[2] The Court forced Snepp to turn over all his profits from Decent Interval and to seek preclearance of any future writings about intelligence work for the rest of his life.^[2] Ironically, the CIA would later rely on the Snepp legal precedent to force Turner to seek preclearance of his own memoirs, which were highly critical of President Ronald Reagan's policies.^[20]

On March 12, 1980, President Jimmy Carter and Turner presented Tony Mendez with the CIA's Intelligence Star for his role in the exfiltration of six U.S. State Department personnel from Iran on January 28, 1980.^[10]

Post-CIA activities

Upon leaving the agency, Turner became a lecturer,^[21] author,^[15] and TV commentator, and served on the boards of several American corporations, including Monsanto (1981–1991) and the National Life Group (1985–1992).^[4][5] Turner served as a member of the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography's Marine Advisory Council and the United States Naval Academy's Board of Visitors.^[3][5] He also wrote several books, including Secrecy and Democracy – The CIA in Transition (1985), Terrorism and Democracy (1991), Caging the Nuclear Genie – An American Challenge for Global Security (1997; revised edition, 1999), and 2005's Burn Before Reading: Presidents, CIA Directors, and Secret Intelligence, in which he advocated fragmenting the CIA.^[3]

Turner was sharply critical of the Bush administration's handling of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.^[4] In September 2003 he wrote that "most of the assumptions behind our invasion have been proven wrong: The intelligence did not support the imminence of a threat, the Iraqis have not broadly welcomed us as liberators, the idea that we could manage this action almost unilaterally is giving way to pleas for troops and money from other nations, the aversion to giving the U.N. a meaningful role is eroding daily, and the reluctance to get involved in nation building is being supplanted by just that."^[22] In 2004, Turner was among 27 retired diplomats and military commanders who publicly said the administration of President Bush did not understand the world and was unable to handle "in either style or substance" the responsibilities of global leadership.^[23]

In November 2005, after Vice President

Turner served on the Military Advisors Committee for the Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, whose mission was to reduce the amount of the discretionary budget going to the military by 15 percent and reallocate that money to education, healthcare, renewable energies, job training, and humanitarian aid programs.^[3]

Personal life and death

Turner married Patricia Busby Whitney (September 25, 1923 – June 12, 2013)^[25] on December 23, 1953.^[26] The couple had two children, Laurel and Geoffrey.^[4] The marriage ended in divorce in 1984.^[2][27] Turner then married Norwegian-born Eli Karin Gilbert (née Tjelta) in 1985.^[2] On January 15, 2000, Turner survived a plane crash, although seriously injured,^[28] in Costa Rica that killed his wife and three other people on board. Turner and his wife were on the L-410 Turbolet operated by Taxi Aereo Centroamericano,^[29] on a flight from the small airport of Tobías Bolaños International Airport in San José, destined toward Tortuguero. Three minutes after take-off the airplane crashed into a house. The cause of the crash was unknown.^[28] Turner later married Marion Levitt Weiss in 2002.^[2]

Turner died at his home in Redmond, Washington on January 18, 2018, at age 94.^[2][3]

Awards and honors

Turner was an

Turner received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1978.^[32][33]

Medals and ribbons

^{[34][3][10][35]}

In popular culture

• Turner is mentioned in the film Charlie Wilson's War by the character Gust Avrakotos as played by Philip Seymour Hoffman.^[36]
• Turner is played by Philip Baker Hall in the movie Argo.^[2]

Selected publications

• Secrecy and Democracy: The CIA in Transition. Boston:
  ISBN 978-0395355732
  .
• Terrorism and Democracy. Boston:
  ISBN 978-0395430866
  .
• Caging the Nuclear Genie: An American Challenge for Global Security. Boulder, Colo.:
  ISBN 978-0813333281
  .
  • Updated edition: Caging the Genies: A Workable Solution for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Weapons. Boulder, Colo.:
    ISBN 978-0813366777
    .
• Burn Before Reading. New York:
  ISBN 978-0786867820
  .

Further reading

• Turner, Stansfield, Secrecy and Democracy – The CIA in Transition, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1985,
  ISBN 0-395-35573-7
  .

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Stansfield Turner.

• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Prepared Statement before Congress on MKULTRA
• Testimony before Congress on MKULTRA, Part 1
• Testimony before Congress on MKULTRA, Part 2
• Interview on the Iranian Arms Scandal from the Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives
• Stansfield Turner at Find a Grave

Academic offices
Preceded by Benedict Semmes	President of the Naval War College 1972–1974	Succeeded by Julien LeBourgeois
Government offices
Preceded by George H. W. Bush	Director of Central Intelligence 1977–1981	Succeeded by William Casey