AN OPPORTUNITY UNFULFILLED

• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Collection: Declassified Articles from Studies in Intelligence: The IC’s Journal for the Intelligence Professional
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0000617580
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Release Date: July 30, 2014
• Case Number: F-2013-02322
• Publication Date: December 1, 1980

Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580TITLE: An Opportunity UnfulfilledAUTHOR: Robert M. GatesVOLUME: 24 ISSUE: Winter YEAR: 1980Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580pproved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580INTELLIGENCEA collection of articles on the historical, operational, doctrinal, and theoretical aspects of intelligence.All staftemepts of fact, opinion or analysis expressed in Studies in Intelligence are those ofthe authors. They do not necessarily reflect official positions or views of the CentralIntelligence Agency or any other US Government entity, past or present. Nothing in thecontents should be construed as asserting or implying US Government endorsement of anarticle's factual statements and interpretations.Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580-Intelligence is like money and love:there is never enough."? A Senior White House OfficialAN OPPORTUNITY UNFULFILLEDThe Use and Perceptions of IntelligenceAnalysis at the White HouseRobert M. GatesOUR GOAL-Collection, processing and analysis all are directed at one goal?producingaccurate reliable intelligence. . . . Who are the customers who get this finishedproduct? At the very top, of the list is the President. He is, of course, the CentralIntelligence Agency's most important customer."?Intelligence: The Acme of Skill(CIA Information Pamphlet)And what have our most important customers and their principal assistants had tosay about how well we achieve that goal?am not satisfied with the quality of our political intelligence."? Jimmy Carter, 1978-What the hell do those clowns do out there in Langley?"? Richard Nixon, 1970-In the 1960s and early 1970s, for eleven years in a row, the Central Intel-ligence Agency underestimated the number of missiles the Russians would deploy;at the same time the CIA also underestimated the totality of the Soviet programeffort and its ambitious goals. . . . Thanks in part to this intelligence blunder we willfind ourselves looking down the nuclear barrel in the mid-1980s."? Richard Nixon, 1980"CIA Director McCone . . . made recommendations for checking and improvingthe quality of intelligence reporting. I promptly accepted the suggestions. . .? Lyndon Johnson, Memoirs-During the rush of . . . events in the final days of 1958, the Central Intel-ligence Agency suggested for the first time that a Castro victory might not be in theinterests of the United States."? Dwight Eisenhower, Memoirs?"The Agency usually erred on the side of the interpretation fashionable in theWashington Establishment. . . . The analytical side of the CIA . . . generally re-flected the most liberal school of thought in the government. . . . When warningsApproved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580SECRET Opportunity Unfulfilledbecome too routine they lose all significance; when reports are not called specificallyto the attention of the top leadership they are lost in bureaucratic background noise,particularly since for every admonitory report one can probably find also its oppositein the files.-? Henry Kissinger, Memoirs-During the past year, I have seen no clandestine reporting from Soviet sourcesthat significantly influenced my judgment on how to deal with- the SovietUnion. . . . The Intelligence Community must find ways to sharpen and improve itsanalysis. . . . We see too many papers on subjects peripheral to our interests. . . . Toooften the papers we see explain or review events in the past and give only a bare nodto the future.-? Zbignier Brzezinski, 1978During the darkest days of revelations about CIA by the Rockefeller Commissionand the Church and Pike Committees, professional intelligence officers clung to thenotion that, whatever misdeeds might have occurred, throughout its history CIA hadrendered exceptional service to American Presidents by producing the finest analysisbased on the best human and technical sources in the world. We judged our contribu-tion to White House decisionmaking on issues of moment and events great and small,and found it outstanding. This contribution made us, in our view, indispensable andcemented a special relationship between several Presidents and CIA. Have we been solong and so deeply mistaken? Has an entire Agency of people who specialize inpolitical nuance, subtle signals and human relationships deluded itself and over ageneration totally miscalculated the value of its work to six very different Presidents?The above quotations would suggest so. After all, they did in fact say those terriblethings about us?and still are.The way intelligence is processed at the White House and how it is received andregarded behind the scenes has never been clear to CIA, even at senior levels, exceptin broadest outline. It is time to lift a corner of that curtain in order that intelligenceprofessionals might better understand what happens at the White House to the prod-uct of our collection and analysis, what the President and his Assistant for NationalSecurity Affairs expect, what they see, how it is processed, how they react?and,finally, whether they really mean what they say about us.SETTING THE SCENETo understand how intelligence is used and regarded at the White House firstrequires an understanding of the context in which it is received. The sheer volume ofpaperwork addressed to the President is staggering. Hundreds of federal employees inmore than 200 agencies seek to draw his attention to this or that program, proposal orvital piece of information. An astonishing amount of their work survives departmentalreview and finds its way to the White House. There these papers join a river ofcorrespondence to the President from countless consultants, academics, think tanks,political contacts, family and friends, political supporters, journalists, authors, foreignleaders, and concerned citizens. (Lest you think such correspondence can easily bedisregarded, it is my view that most Presidents often attach as much?if not more?credibility to the views of family, (old) friends and private contacts as they do to thoseof executive agencies. Vice President Rockefeller once asked my office if Denmarkreally was planning to sell Greenland. Wondering all the while if he was in the market,we confirmed with CIA that this rumor from a private source was untrue. But Rocke-feller had taken it seriously.)18 SECRETApproved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580Opportunity Unfulfilled SECRETIt is the responsibility of the Domestic Policy Staff, the NSC, other Executiveoffices, and the White House Office itself to impose order on this avalanche of pulpand to reduce it to proportions manageable by someone who works 15-16 hours a day,often seven days a week. The NSC alone processes 7,000-10,000 "action- papers ayear?not including intelligence analyses or other purely -informational- papers. Dr.Brzezinski once asked me to calculate how many pages of reading he sent to thePresident weekly; the total averaged many hundreds of pages?and among WhiteHouse offices the NSC is among the most stringent with respect to the length andnumber of items going to the President. These, then, are the first hurdles that anintelligence product faces: a president with a heavy schedule, inundated by paper anddemands for decisions, surrounded by senior assistants who have as a main role tryingto keep that President from being overwhelmed by paper; and a President with vastand varied non-intelligence sources upon which he also relies and in which he oftenhas considerable confidence.WHAT HE GETSThe President routinely receives only one intelligence product that is not sum-marized or commented upon by someone outside the Community: The President'sDaily Brief. He is handed this by his National Security Adviser early every morning,along with a package that has varied little from President to President: a few (3-6)State and CIA cables of special significance; occasionally a typescript, sensitive intel-ligence report from the DCI; selected wire service items; State or CIA situation reports(never both) if there is a crisis abroad; and often from the NSC and State/INR morningcable summaries. Contrary to what is commonly believed, this is the only regularlyscheduled package of current intelligence the President receives during the day. How-ever, through the course of the day, the National Security Adviser keeps the Presidentapprised of significant developments overseas and may handcarry especially impor-tant cables directly to the President. In a crisis, the flow of information increases. Moreanalysis and reports will be given to the President. He will receive current intelligenceorally in meetings with his senior White House, State, Defense and Intelligence advis-ers, as well as from the media?often the first source of information. Nevertheless, ona day-to-day basis apart from the PDB, successive Presidents generally have seen onlythat current intelligence selected by the National Security Adviser, who works to makethat morning package as succinct and small as he responsibly can.It was not always this way?even in modern times. Before the Kennedy Admin-istration, the President, his National Security Adviser and the NSC Staff relied almostentirely on CIA and State to provide incoming current intelligence as soon as it wasprocessed by their operations centers and circulated to substantive officials who coulddecide what to send to the White House. This system was revolutionized, however,when President Kennedy created the White House Situation Room to which CIA,State, NSA and the Pentagon began to provide unprocessed intelligence informationelectronically. Thus, the NSC and President began receiving intelligence and diplo-matic cables on developments abroad often as soon as, and often before, intelligenceanalysts. (The present system is not without flaws, however. Henry Kissinger observesin his memoirs, for expample, that, "It is a common myth that high officials areinformed immediately about significant events.... It happens not infrequently?much too frequently for the security adviser's emotional stability?that even thePresident learns of a significant occurrence from the newspapers." He notes thatPresident Nixon learned of the historic 1969 meeting in Beijing between Kosygin andChou En-Lai when he read about it in The Washington Star. One result of theestablishment of the Situation Room was a significant diminution in the value ofcurrent intelligence publications that to this day has not been fully grasped by theSECRET 19Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580SECRET Opportunity UnfulfilledIntelligence Community. Only analysis by experienced intelligence specialists lent(and lends) value to current intelligence provided the White House. Daily publicationsreporting purely factual information without trenchant analysis?apart from SituationReports on crises?too often have been duplicative, too late and irrelevant. Thanks tothe Situation Room, urgent information from abroad is often in the President's handsbefore reaching the DCI, other senior intelligence officials, and sometimes the media.Naturally, the President receives information through channels other than theearly morning folder and the occasional cable during the day. For example, PresidentCarter routinely received current and longrange intelligence analysis through regularbriefings by the DCI. Such frequent sessions specifically devoted to analysis were aninnovation under Carter and provided an opportunity that did not exist before 1977for interchange among the President, Vice President, Secretary of State and NationalSecurity Adviser on substantive intelligence issues. DCI Bush on occasion gave Presi-dent Ford personal analytical briefings and, of course, analytical matters would oftencome up spontaneously during Bush's twice-weekly meetings with the President. AllDCIs also have briefed the President and his senior advisers routinely in formal meet-ings of the National Security Council. Moreover, discussion at such meetings serves toconvey information to the President from diverse sources. The President also receivesabbreviated versions of intelligence assessments which are included in policy optionspapers.President Carter saw fewer CIA assessments, NIEs, research papers and otherlonger range studies than either Presidents Ford or Nixon. This is due primarily togreater encouragement during the latter two Administrations for the NSC Staff toprepare -Information Memoranda- summarizing for the President the salient pointsof such longer intelligence papers and attaching the full text. The only longer intel-ligence reports to reach President Carter were those the DCI delivered personally orthe infrequent instances when the National Security Adviser forwarded an exceptionalone for the President's reading. Thus, while under Nixon and Ford virtually no majorintelligence study reached the President without an NSC cover memorandum sum-marizing it and perhaps making independent comments or judgments, many morereports reached their desks than reached Mr. Carter. The NSC Staff was not encour-aged to forward such studies, due in large measure to reluctance to burden the Presi-dent with additional?and optional?reading: again, the consequence of the volume ofpaper coming into the White House. This was due in part to President Carter's pen-chant to read an entire paper?not just the summary?and the consequent effort toavoid diverting him with -interesting- versus -essential- reading.In sum, each of the last three Presidents has received through regular channelsonly a tiny portion of published intelligence and only a fraction even of analysisspecifically prepared for senior policymakers. This has placed a premium on thePDB?an opportunity neglected until recently?and on the willingness of the DCI togive important assessments (published or oral) directly to the President or call them tothe direct attention of the National Security Adviser. (Even personal transmittal slipsto the latter are of little value since as everyone resorts to this device and thus render ittoo common to be effective.) Disinterest or reluctance on the part of a DCI to take anactivist role is a severe?even irreparable?handicap to ensuring that intelligenceassessments are read by the President and the National Security Adviser.WHAT PRESIDENTS THINK OF WHAT THEY GETPerhaps in recognition of how busy Presidents are for years there has been anadage at the White House that the absence of criticism should be regarded as praise.Along these lines, Presidential comment on intelligence assessments are so rare that we20 SECRETApproved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580Opportunity Unfulfilled SECRETare understandably tempted to assume satisfaction with what is being received.Regrettably, however, this is doubtful. Many of the infrequent comments we do re-ceive are critical and, more importantly. Presidents have repeatedly (during or aftertheir term of office) expressed general dissatisfaction with broad aspects of intelligenceanalysis?as for example President Carter did in his well-known note to the Secretaryof State, DCI, and National Security Adviser in November 1978, and as PresidentNixon did both while in office and in his memoirs. Mr Nixon often criticized CIAanalysis of the Soviet Union and Europe for not being sufficiently -tough-minded."Kissinger also presumably reflected both Nixon's and Ford's dissatisfaction when hewould assail CIA's failure to predict various developments or events abroad, or forpreparing -flabby" assessments that he regarded as written from the standpoint of abureaucrat of the subject country rather than of the United States Government.These and other principals?note the introductory quotes of this article?alsohave faulted the Agency for lack of imagination in anticipating the needs of thePresident and for insufficient aggressiveness in keeping itself informed on policy issuesunder consideration. Neither these Presidents nor their Assistants for National SecurityAffairs felt it their responsibility to keep senior Agency officials well informed in thisregard, to provide day-to-day detailed tasking or to provide helpful feedback. TheAgency had to depend for such guidance on what the DCI could pick up in high-levelmeetings and contacts?and the skill and interest of different DCIs has varied greatlyin both.Of the three Administrations I served at the NSC, the Carter team worked mostconscientiously to inform CIA of the analytical needs of the President and construc-tively to advise the Agency of perceived shortcomings in its analysis, especially withrespect to subject, timing and form. President Carter personally communicated hisconcerns and criticisms.Pehaps the most comprehensive White House guidance (and indication of thePresident's views) in recent years was provided by Dr. Brzezinski in January 1978,when he sent a memorandum to the DCI that made the following points:? Greater attention needs to be paid to clandestine collection targeted on thethinking and planning of key leaders or groups in important advanced andsecondary countries, how they make policy decisions and how they will reactto U.S. decisions and those of other powers.? Political analyses should be focused more on problems of particular concern tothe U.S. Government. Too many papers are on subjects peripheral to U.S.interests or offer broad overviews not directly linked to particular problems,events or developments of concern to the U.S. Government.? There needs to be greater attention to the future. More papers are needed thatbriefly set forth facts and evidence and then conclude with a well-informedspeculative essay on the implications for the future: -We expect and hope forthought-provoking, reasonable views of the future based on what you knowabout the past and present.... Analysts should not be timorous or bound byconvention.-- Chiefs of Station often have great understanding of the situation in their hostcountries and should be encouraged to submit more frequent field assessments.The Carter White House took other steps to ensure better communication ofhigh-level substantive concerns as well as perceptions of analytical shortcomings. ThePolitical Intelligence Working Group, set up to organize remedial action in response tothe President's November 1978 note, interpreted its charter broadly and worked toSECRET 21Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580SECRET Opportunity Unfulfilledimprove and better focus field reporting by State, CIA and Attaches; to improve coverso critical to good reporting; to resolve bureaucratic impediments to good reporting;and a number of other issues aimed at improving analysis and making it more respon-sive. As part of the work of this informal group, senior staff representatives of Dr.Brzezinski met periodically with representatives of the Secretary of State and the DCIto review foreign developments or issues of current concern to the President and toprovide feedback on intelligence coverage. I believe all involved would agree thatthese efforts had a salutary effect in improving communication between intelligenceand the White House and thus improving intelligence support to the President.Presidents and their senior advisers will never be fully content with intelligencesupport and analysis. First, and despite occasional protestations to the contrary, Presi-dents expect that for what they spend on intelligence, the end-product should be ableto predict all manner of coups, upheavals, riots, intentions, military moves and the likewith accuracy. Intellectually, they know most such specific events are incredibly hardto predict?and that we are incredibly lucky when we do. Nevertheless, in the earlymorning hours when the National Security Adviser must repair to the President'sstudy with the (usually) bad news about such events, the Chief Executive will notunnaturally wonder why his billions for intelligence do not spare him surprise.Second, Presidents do not like internal controversy in the Executive Branch?especially if it becomes public. And, from time to time, intelligence analyses provokedispute, often in public. DCI Helms' disagreement with Secretary of Defense Laird adecade ago before Congress on whether the SS-9 was a MRV or a MIRV is a case inpoint. Internal Executive Branch disputes over energy estimates, technology transfer,Soviet civil defense, and verification of aspects of SALT are others. Such controversieshave become more frequent as disputes to contain within the Executive Branch be-come harder by virtue of greater Congressional access, journalistic aggressiveness andleaks. The White House's general unease with unclassified CIA analysis is rooted inthis dislike for what is regarded as needless controversy. Our own citizens, not tomention foreign readers, cannot be expected to assume that a CIA publication does notreflect an official U.S. Government view?and this confusion is of concern to theWhite House and often a public relations and policy headache. Thus, to the extentintelligence analysis results (in White House eyes) in internal government controversy,problems with the Congress, or embarrassing publicity, it will draw Presidential ire orat a minimum leave the Chief Magistrate with unflattering and enduring feelingstoward intelligence.Third, Presidents do not welcome new intelligence assessments undercutting poli-cies based on earlier assessments. As professionals, we are constantly revisiting impor-tant subjects as better and later information or improved analytical tools becomeavailable. When this results in changing the statistical basis for the U.S. position inMBFR, substantially elevating estimates of North Korean forces at a time when thePresident is pressing to reduce U.S. forces in South Korea, or -discovering- a Sovietbrigade in Cuba, it is no revelation to observe that Presidents regard us less thanfondly. Presidents do not like surprises, especially those that undermine policy. Intel-ligence is most often the bearer of such surprises?and pays the price such messengershave suffered since antiquity.Finally, successive Administrations have generally regarded with skeptical thegrowing direct relationship between Congress and CIA above and beyond the actualoversight process. In recent years, the provision of great quantities of highly sensitiveinformation and analysis to Members of Congress and their staffs has eroded theExecutive's longstanding advantage of a near monopoly of information on foreignaffairs and defense. The flow of information to the Hill has given the Congress a22 SECRETApproved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580Opportunity Unfulfilled SECRETpowerful tool in its quest for a greater voice in the making of foreign and defensepolicy vis-a-vis the Executive?and Presidents cannot be indifferent to the fact thatintelligence has provided Congress with that tool and that the White House is nearlyhelpless to blunt it except in very rare cases.OVERCOMING ISOLATION (OURS) AND SUSPICION (THEIRS)Presidents expect their intelligence service to provide timely, accurate and farsee-ing analysis. Thus, nearly all Presidential comments on the quality of intelligence arecritical?prompted by our failure to meet expectations. Indeed, all but one quote atthe outset of this article was in response to a specific situation where intelligence wasperceived to have failed to measure up. In short, Presidents often consider intelligenceas much another problem bureaucracy to be dealt with and warily watched as it is asource of helpful information, insight and support.To the extent intelligence professionals isolate themselves from WhiteHouse/NSC officials and are unresponsive to White House analytical needs, thisadversarial nature of the relationship will be emphasized and understanding of whatwe can and cannot do will be lacking. Thus, the Intelligence Community must takethe initiative to establish and maintain close personal ties to White House and NSCofficials from the President on down. It must also aggressively seek new ways to getthe maximum amount of analysis before the President, even while experimenting withold mechanisms, such as the PDB. White House procedures and relationships arealways dynamic; accordingly, we must always be searching for new and better ways toserve our principal customer.Although the routine order of business and internal organization may vary greatlyfrom Administration to Administration, I would suggest several general rules:? Senior intelligence officials must establish and maintain a network of personalcontacts in the NSC Staff and the immediate office of the National SecurityAdviser to ensure that we are well informed as to the issues of concern to thePresident; policy matters under consideration in which intelligence analysiscan make a contribution; and the overall foreign and defense affairs agenda sothat we can anticipate the President's needs.? For intelligence to be useful, it must be timely. Insofar as policy issues,foreign visitors and such are involved, often a day or two makes thedifference between a vital or irrelevant contribution.? Periodic visits to NSC staffers on a quarterly, semiannual, or annual basisto seek guidance during the coming period is worse than useless; they canbe misleading and eventually waste valuable analytical resources. MostNSC staffers do not think about their work in these terms. The ordinaryresult of such an approach is that the staffer will respond off the top ofthe head (or off the wall) or ask for work related to what he has justcompleted or knows to be in his in-box. We will do ourselves more goodby establishing daily dialogue.? Similarly, as has been done occasionally in the past, the terms of ref-erence of major papers should be shared with the NSC to ensure thatwhat we have in mind best meets the policy need and to obtain sugges-tions of additional points to be covered to be most helpful.? The role of the .DCI is central to understanding the President's needs andconveying analysis to him. Few DCIs before Admiral Turner took a sustainedinterest in analysis or an active role in getting substantive matters before theSECRET 23Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580SECRET Opportunity UnfulfilledPresident either orally or in writing. Few have been so brash as literally tohand the President published intelligence reports to read. Future DCIs mustbe persuaded that these undertakings are central to their role as the President'sprincipal intelligence adviser. Moreover, the DCI should assume a similar rolewith the National Security Adviser?perhaps the best source of information onissues of topical interest to the President and the foreign affairs and defenseagenda. Finally, the importance of routine, detailed feedback by the DCIfrom policy meetings, briefings and conversations with the President, VicePresident, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, the National Security Ad-viser and Chairman, JCS to analytical managers, NIOs and senior analystsmust be impressed upon DCIs. The dearth of feedback before 1977 was dam-aging to our work and contributed to a sense -downtown- that we were un-helpful and unresponsive. Contrary to the views of some intelligence pro-fessionals, we cannot properly do our work in splendid isolation.? We must exploit every opportunity to get analysis to the President. Whenexceptional analysis is available, an appropriate senior intelligence officialshould telephone his personal contact(s) noted above and alert him to thepaper (but judiciously to preserve credibility). Meanwhile, DCI briefings, NSCmeetings, intelligence contributions or annexes to policy options papers, type-script memoranda, spot reports, and all other means need to be used to getinformation to the Security Adviser and to the President.? Intelligence should be unafraid to speculate on the future. Everyone elsearound the President does?and most are far less experienced or capable an-alysts than we. A preferred approach would be to alternative futures and thenabove all state clearly our best estimate, however we caveat it. Wafflingconclusions have too long made intelligence estimates a laughingstock amongpolicymakers. -On the one hand ... but on the other . is no help to apolicymaker and clearly undermines confidence in our analytical capacity. Ifwe have no confidence in our judgment, why should the President?? In all but two or three cases National Intelligence Estimates as presently pre-pared have been ignored by the White House in recent years. They are usually_too late,too formalistic, and too equivocal to be of value to seniorpolicymakers?much less the President or his Security Adviser. This need notbe so. A return to the practice of issuing brief, short-deadline special NIEs thatwould focus on specific policy relevant issues would mean that intelligencewould be available before decisions are made?and would better serve thePresident and his senior advisers. It would also ensure that the intelligenceassessment is not buried in long options papers which rarely reach the Presi-dent anyway.? Such SNIEs would have to be disseminated on a restrictive basis. Onimportant issues, the circle of policy players is kept small; the contribu-tion of any intelligence paper will be enhanced by its limited circulationand, more importantly, by the perception by its readers of its limitedhigh-level readership. If the President or his closest advisers make a spe-cial request of analysis, they do not like to see a response apparentlypublished in the hundreds of copies. We are mistaken as well when webecome preoccupied with format and presentation to the detriment ofanalytical (vice reportorial) content?a problem in the past.? The responsibility for making intelligence more relevant, timely and helpful isthat of senior officials of the Intelligence Community alone. Analysts and24 SECRETApproved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580Opportunity Unfulfilled SECRETmanagers at all levels must assume the burden of keeping better up to date onevents and policy issues relevant to their area of professional concern. Suchawareness must infuse all analysis from drafter to Director. Only when prior-ity attention is given at all levels to the relevance and value of intelligence tothe consumer from President to desk officer will intelligence analysis be betterreceived and, in the end, be better.The above "rules- apply to doing our work better. They will not resolve theseveral causes of Presidential displeasure?our support of Congress, changing assess-ments that have policy implications, surprises, and so forth. Even here there are somesteps we can take. For example:? We should take the initiative to let the Security Adviser or the NSC Staff knowthat we are preparing an estimate or other form of analysis that will reviseearlier assessments and have an impact on the President's policies. This wouldinclude advance warning of new and important conclusions in military es-timates such as in NIE 11-3/8 (the strategic forces estimate) or NIE 11-14 (theWarsaw Pact forces estimate), analyses of new weapons systems and so forth,as well as to political and economic analyses.? Intelligence needs to develop a mechanism for better informing the WhiteHouse about support provided to the Congress. The intelligence agencies arepart of the Executive Branch; the DCI is appointed by and reports to thePresident. It is not improper or inappropriate for us to keep the President'sforeign affairs staff more completely and regularly advised of papers we pro-vide the Congress, possibly controversial testimony or briefings, etc. Again,some of this has been done?but a mere schedule of planned appearances oran occasional phone call are not enough. Keeping the Executive informedabout our dealings with Congress is an important aspect of building Presiden-tial confidence that we are not trying to undercut him or his policies byresponding to legitimate Congressional requests.? Finally, it would be helpful to continue keeping the White House informed inadvance when we plan to publish an unclassified substantive intelligence andto highlight possible controversial points. This will become important as pres-sure for such unclassified publications increases. We should acquiesce in thoserare circumstances in which the Security Adviser or the President asks us notto publish certain information for public consumption. Our charter is to servethe President and, secondarily, the Congress. Once information and analysis isprovided to them, our responsibility is fulfilled. Unclassified publications areindeed a public service but also, frankly, a public relations enterprise. If such aservice/enterprise complicates life for the President, we should be prepared toforgo it. Only a fraction of unclassified publications would be affected?andour willingness to withhold them would help build confidence at the WhiteHouse that we seek to be supportive.Although several of the above "rules- and suggestions may be controversial, thereader should be aware that all have been pursued by CIA at one time or another andby one official or another. I wish to emphasize that haphazard, occasional im-plementation has not ameliorated the underlying suspicion and dissatisfaction ofsuccessive Presidents and their advisers with intelligence analysis or their perceptionthat we often peddle our product to the Congress and public in a freewheeling mannerdesigned to benefit us, regardless of the problems caused the policymaker.Some will argue that the steps I propose would subvert the independence of theanalysis process and subordinate our judgments to policy considerations. That is not so!SECRET 25Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580?SECRET Opportunity UnfulfilledNone implies any interference with the analyst or his judgments?except to make thelatter relevant to the needs of the President and to improve the odds someone at theWhite House will value the analyst's work. Most are intended to allot the analyst hisrightful voice in policy deliberations and to ensure that receptivity to his work is notdiminished by irritation or pique resulting from controversy we have sparked on theHill; the White House being caught unawares by analysis that undercuts policies basedon earlier intelligence conclusions; or because the White House has been embarrassedby publication of unclassified analysis.Above all, we in intelligence should appreciate the primacy of personal relation-ships in making government work. We have neglected to develop fully such relation-ships at the White House and NSC in recent years?although of course there havebeen exceptions. We must pursue such contacts?bearing in mind that we start allover every four or eight years and, indeed, every month as familiar faces at CIA anddowntown are replaced by new. These personal contacts and a greater sensitivity toWhite House needs and perceptions (including of us) are essential to mitigating Presi-dential criticism and ensuring that the best possible intelligence product in factreaches our "most important customer" in time to make a difference. The abovearticle is Secret.26 SECRETApproved for Release: 2014/07/29 000617580