[Presidential Directives and Executive Orders]

                               The White House 
                        Office of the Press Secretary 
     _____________________________________________________________________ 
     For Immediate Release                                  March 10, 1995 


                                Press Briefing 
                               By Mike Mccurry 

                              The Briefing Room 

     .... ..... ....

          
                  Q    Mike, is the President going to establish a  
     committee to review the CIA?  And if he is, why is that necessary? 
          
                  Mr. Mccurry:  Well, it's -- look, it's necessary -- 
     there's a limit to how much I can actually talk about the results of  
     that particular presidential directive because it is classified.  I   
     can talk about it probably in general terms that might be helpful.  
     But the President has approved, as I think it was reported in the  
     Post today, that he has signed a presidential directive on  
     intelligence priorities.  But the purpose of it is to give some  
     clearer signals to the intelligence community about what the chief  
     customers of intelligence analysis -- the President and senior  
     foreign policymakers of the government -- what they need to have as  
     we look out into this new world that we live in and assess all those  
     things necessary to protect the national security interests of  
     Americans.  It's important in a time of limited resources for the  
     President and his policymakers to give clear priorities to the  
     intelligence community so that they can gather the type of  
     information that will help them make the right decisions protecting  
     Americans interests around the world. 
          
                  And that's, broadly defined, exactly what this  
     presidential directive does.  It sets up a procedure by which, from  
     time to time, we can review the work of the intelligence community,  
     see that it's addressing exactly those concerns that we have in  
     providing to the President and other principal policymakers and  
     foreign policy the kind of information they need and want so that  
     they can make the right types of decisions. 
          
                  Q    Isn't that what the President's foreign  
     intelligence advisory board was supposed to do? 
          
                  Mr. Mccurry:  No, it doesn't do quite that, Wolf.  They  
     review a range of things related to the work of the intelligence  
     community and provide, as the name would indicate, advice on how  
     better to meet those goals.  In the case of the President and his  
     policymakers, they want to give priorities -- actually want to sort  
     of say, look, here are things we specifically want to have as we look  
     at the decision-making that we're going to have to conduct. 
          
                  Now, the advisory board helps in that effort, but they  
     kind of do a broader gauge review of the work of the intelligence  
     community across a range of issues, not necessarily directed to the  
     strict function of policy-making. 
          
                  Q    Mike, can we construe from the President's  
     directive that he's not happy with the quality or nature of the  
     intelligence he's getting? 
          
                  Mr. Mccurry:  No, you can construe from the directive  
     and from the review that proceeded it that a lot of new thinking has  
     to go in, in shaping America's priorities in the new world we live  
     in.  It reflects, in some ways, the very hopeful nature of the post- 
     Cold War era.  There are certain types of threats that are now  
     reduced, specifically the nuclear threat; we don't have Russian  
     strategic intercontinental missiles aimed at the United States  
     anymore.  So we have a range of security threats that are different  
     in this world.  
          
                  Quite frankly, proliferation remains a concern.  
     Terrorism remains a concern,  International crime remains a concern.  
     And how you structure the priorities of the intelligence community to  
     reflect the new threats that are more urgent in the post-Cold War  
     world is part of what this review and this directive are all about. 
          
.....





                            THE WHITE HOUSE


                    Office of the Press Secretary


________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                         September 16, 1997     



                      REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
     AT THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY



                     Central Intelligence Agency
                         Langley, Virginia 


11:25 A.M. EDT



... ... ...



           Our first task is to focus our intelligence resources in 
     the areas most critical to our national security -- the areas where, 
     as Director Tenet has said, we simply cannot afford to fail.  Two 
     years ago I set out our top intelligence priorities in the 
     Presidential Decision Directive.  First, supporting our troops and 
     operations, whether turning back aggression, helping secure peace or 
     providing humanitarian assistance.  Second, providing political, 
     economic, and military intelligence on countries hostile to the 
     United States so we can help to stop crises and conflicts before they 
     start.  And, third, protecting American citizens from new 
     trans-national threats such as drug traffickers, terrorists, 
     organized criminals, and weapons of mass destruction.