Former CIA director Turner dies; reorganized the agency in 1970s

WASHINGTON — Retired Navy Adm. Stansfield Turner, the iconoclastic director of the Central Intelligence Agency in the late 1970s who significantly reorganized its clandestine ranks and helped usher in a new technological age at the agency, died Jan. 18 at his home in Seattle. He was 94.

His secretary, Pat Moynihan, confirmed the death but did not disclose the cause.

An Oxford-educated Rhodes scholar, Turner was long considered to be one of the Navy’s sharpest analytical minds and brashly confident leaders. He was a four-star admiral and commander of NATO forces in Southern Europe when he was tapped in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter, a Naval Academy classmate, to lead the U.S. intelligence community.

As director of central intelligence during the entire Carter administration, Turner had an office in the Old Executive Office Building — next to the White House — and he met the president frequently for one-on-one briefings.

He became the most powerful director of central intelligence in history when Carter signed an executive order in 1978 that gave Turner authority over the budget of most of the U.S. spy agencies.

With his new mandate, Turner emphasized the advantages of using satellite imagery, electronic intercepts and sophisticated eavesdropping devices — technology still widely used by the CIA today.

While leading the CIA, Turner dissolved several long-term clandestine operations that he deemed too risky and declined to approve many new ones.

Turner also aimed to make the agency more accountable. When he became director, the CIA was reeling from criticism in the wake of congressional hearings into unsavory clandestine operations. In testimony, investigators said the CIA had tested experimental drugs on human subjects, plotted to assassinate foreign dignitaries and illegally spied on American citizens.