[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18145-18146]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO KATHLEEN TURNER

 Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, this month marks the retirement 
of Ms. Kathleen Turner after nearly 32 years in government service, 
specifically working in various capacities in the intelligence 
community. I commend her for her service to the Nation and wish her the 
very best in her retirement.
  Ms. Turner has had a varied and distinguished career, having worked 
in different positions and capacities within the intelligence 
community. For most of that time, Kathleen worked

[[Page 18146]]

where efforts and successes are not always rewarded publicly. I am glad 
we can do so here today.
  I have known Kathleen mostly in her capacity as the director of the 
Office of Legislative Affairs for the Office of the Director of 
National Intelligence, a position she assumed in the summer of 2006. 
For the last 6 years, Ms. Turner has had the sometimes unenviable job 
of representing the intelligence community on Capitol Hill and 
representing Capitol Hill to the intelligence community.
  Ms. Turner is the daughter of Robert and Beverly Turner, a television 
repair shop owner and homemaker respectively, and was born and raised 
in the small suburban town of Pacific Palisades, in my State of 
California.
  Kathleen is the fifth of seven children and she went to UCLA and 
majored in political science and then came to the East Coast. I am 
willing to forgive her for this lapse in judgment. Kathleen received a 
master's degree in international relations from the Johns Hopkins 
School of Advanced International Studies. When she completed her 
master's, she went right into the Defense Intelligence Agency.
  Ms. Turner started her professional career with DIA as an analyst of 
Soviet strategic forces. She served as the Intelligence Liaison Officer 
to the Strategic Defense Initiative Office, and later served as the 
Senior Analyst for Russia and Eurasia, managing all military 
intelligence analysis on these regions. During the 1990s, Ms. Turner 
progressively served as DIA's Director of Human Resources, the Director 
of Administration, and the manager of the DIA and General Defense 
Intelligence Program and budget office. Starting in 2002, Ms. Turner 
served as DIA's Director of Congressional and Public Affairs.
  In short, in her 24 years at DIA, Kathleen did and saw every aspect 
of intelligence work in one of the few intelligence agencies to perform 
every kind of intelligence operation.
  That, combined with her outgoing personality and ability to juggle 
many tasks at once, made her a natural choice to join the Legislative 
Affairs Office for the first Director of National Intelligence, John 
Negroponte, in October 2005 as that office was standing up. She quickly 
became the DNI's Director of Legislative Affairs in July 2006. As 
Director, she was responsible for the Office of the DNI's interactions 
with the Congress, and informing the Office of the DNI seniors of 
Congressional interests and perspectives on intelligence matters. In 
addition, Ms. Turner provided policy guidance to all 16 intelligence 
community legislative affairs offices.
  I got to know Kathleen in the job when I became chairman of the 
Intelligence Committee in January 2009, through numerous meetings with 
DNI Dennis Blair and then DNI Jim Clapper. She always had suggestions 
for ways to work through problems, and could translate issues and 
perspectives between intelligence-speak and congressional-speak. 
Kathleen could also work a room--she knew every Member on the committee 
and all of our staff, and knew what questions needed answers or what 
policies were being proposed.
  I must say, it is a good thing for Kathleen that she has retired from 
legislative affairs, as the delay in reauthorizing FISA legislation 
now, only 10 days from its expiration at the end of the year, would 
have been keeping her up around the clock and adding one more time when 
Congress' special way of doing things caused stress and aggravation to 
all involved.
  On a more personal note, Kathleen's most direct contribution to me 
was her idea, which she then brought to fruition, to bring together a 
group of senior women in the intelligence community and me for a dinner 
on November 7, 2011 at the Hay Adams Hotel. It was a hit. Since then, 
the group has gotten together three more times, twice at my house and 
once more at a restaurant, and we have really gotten to know each other 
and build a relationship beyond our meetings across the meeting or 
witness table.
  Throughout her career and travels around the world, I know Kathleen 
has had the loving support of her husband, Bob Sparks, who is the son 
of a naval officer. Bob was educated at the Virginia Military Institute 
and then at the University of Virginia for law school. He currently 
practices law in Northern Virginia. With her retirement, Kathleen and 
Bob look forward to spending more time together and on the water.
  I am pleased to be able to thank Kathleen Turner for her service and 
wish her all the very best in all her future endeavors.

                          ____________________