REVISED DRAFT OF FBIS HISTORY TITLED "THE FOREIGN DOCUMENTS DIVISION, 1946-1967"

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP05-01429R000100060001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 232
• Document Creation Date: January 4, 2017
• Document Release Date: October 16, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: October 30, 1972
• Content Type: MEMO

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Le ?../ OCLorNC I
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30 October 1972
MEMORANDUM FOR: FBIS Historical Officer
SUBJECT
Revised draft of IBIS history titled
"The Foreign Documents Division,
1946-1967"
1. The DDI Historical Officer has read and
approved the revised draft of the FBIS history titled
"The Foreign Documents Division, 1946-1967" by
has done an excellent job of revising
-Nig?draft and
processing.
the paper is now ready for further
2. The reviewer has a single suggestion -- that
the present Appendix A "Commentary" be renamed
"Conclusion" and made Ehe final chapter of the history.
Some minor changes, mostly editorial, have been made
directly on the manuscript and are noted for the
record in the attachment.
3. The Historical Staff will forward this
paper directly to the DDI Historical Board for re-
view prior to final typing of the manuscript in FBIS.
Attachment
DDI Historical Staff
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1
I.
THE FOREIGN DOCUMENTS DIVISION
1946 - 1967
VOLUME I
by
Secret
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Secret
DDI FBIS 5
April 1974
Copy No. 2 of 2
PERMANENT HISTORICAL DOCUMENT
DO NOT DESTROY
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WARNING
This document contains information affecting the national
defense of the United States, within the meaning of Title
18, sections 793 and 794, of the US Code, as amended.
Its transmission or revelation of its contents to or re-
ceipt by an unauthorized person is prohibited by law.
WARNING NOTICE
SENSITIVE INTELLIGENCE SOURCES
AND METHODS INVOLVED
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Access Controlled by CIA History Staff and DDI
LI
Ii
THE FOREIGN DOCUMENTS DIVISION
1946 - 1967
VOLUME
by
Approved:
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Foreign Broadcast Information Service
Directorate of Intelligence
April 1974
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Copies:
#1 - CIA-HS
#2 - DDI
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Foreword
The purpose of this history is to record and contemplate
the origin, growth, and maturation of foreign-language docu-
ment exploitation in the US intelligence comnunity. The work
was written to provide future intelligence officers assigned
responsibility for this function with a record of past accom-
plishments and failures in document exploitation for comparison
and guidance in situations which may then apply.
In commenting on a survey on the usefulness of overt
lbreign literature performed by the Publications Procurement
Subcommittee of the Advisory Committee on Foreign Language
Publications, the State Department in 1957 declared that the
study had conclusively demonstrated that open published material
was "the principal source of information on the U.S.S.R. for
many intelligence agencies and a major source of data for most
organizations concerned with research on the U.S.S.R." There
is ample evidence that this judgment applied equally for open
literature from non-Soviet areas.
It was in light of the importance attached to overt docu-
mentary materials, as reflected in this statement, that the
Fbreign Documents Division was established following the end
of World War II. The story related in the pages of this history
describes the development of foreign-language document exploita-
tion as it unfolded in the course of the next two decades. It
sets out to show the many prObaems, dilemmas, and frustrations
encountered, the occasional triumphs and satisfactions achieved,
and the lessons learned in the process.
At the outset during and after the war the methodology
applied in document collection and exploitation was largely
hit or miss, and every "cook" in the community had his fingers
in the pot. The history traces the evolution of the activity
from this state of the art through the various stages of growth --
the consolidation of foreign-language document handling under
CIA, the division's quest for official recognition of its
common-service mission, the honing and refinement of opera-
tions, the expansion of services, and, finally, failure of
the attempt to retain independent status.
Of necessity, much of interest in the human sphere
has been intentionally, though reluctantly, omitted. FDD's
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most important asset was people, talented individuals who
contributed immeasurably to whatever success the division en-
joyed in performing its mission. Associated with their daily
activity was much humor and pathos which in itself would fur-
nish a fascinating account of intelligence production in action,
but the limitations of time and space preclude dealing with
this aspect in depth in the narrative which follows. The
treatment herein has had to be confined to the higher levels
of FDD policy and operations.
At this writing the Foreign Documents Division no longer
exists. Its function -- overt publications exploitation --
still continues in a more restricted and somewhat altered
form as an adjunct to total overt source monitoring, but the
full-blown concept of the operation as the division conceived
and nurtured it in the 1950s and early 1960s is now in limbo.
Were I to state in brief what FDD's chief accomplishment in
the 20 years of its life was, it would be this: it was the
major contributor to the orderly and effective development
of document exploitation as a primary intelligence function.
And finally, a brief word concerning my qualifications
for writing the story of FDD. My academic training, under-
graduate and post-graduate, was in the field of history.
Following military service during World War II and after,
most of it as a signal intelligence officer, I was employed
as a civilian by the National Security Agency in 1949. In
July 1952 I transferred to CIA and have been affiliated with
the Agency since then, spending the major part of my CIA
career as a member of FDD. In 1967, along with the division's
complement and functions, I was absorbed by FBIS and have
continued in this status since then. My professional interest
and activity in this period were devoted exclusively to overt
intelligence collection from open foreign document sources,
specifically in the Soviet area -- initially in the economic
field, then in political/sociological collection from 1958
to 1966, and finally a return to economic coverage. At the
same time I was also an associate of FDD officers working
in the various non-Soviet areas of document exploitation and
was privileged to observe their dedicated and highly pro-
fessional conduct of operations.
Langley, Virginia
June 1973
iv
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Foreword
Contents
Volume I
Page
I. Consolidation of Document Exploitation in the Post-
Wbrld War II Period 1
A.
B.
C.
D.
Initial Step
The Washington Document Conference
The Washington Document Center (Advanced) .
Consolidation of Exploitation Activities . .
4
12
16
II.
The Washington Document Center Joins the Central
Intelligence Group
25
A.
Transfer of Document Exploitation to Civilian
Control
25
B.
Problems of Administrative Integration . . . .
30
C.
Consolidation Completed
40
III.
New Approaches to Document Exploitation
53
A.
The Move Toward an Exploitation Function. . .
53
B.
First Try for a Charter
70
IV.
The People and the Organization
80
A.
Staff Development
80
B.
Training
99
C.
Organizational Development
106
D.
The Question of Subordination .
117
V.
The Sources
123
A.
Community Cooperation
123
B.
The Search for Sources
134
C.
Interdepartmental Rivalries . . * .
146
D.
Development of Procurement Procedures . . .
154
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1
Page
VI.
The Products
164
A.
Phase-Out of Captured Document Processing . .
164
B.
Transition to Processing of Current Materials.
177
C.
Special Problems
198
1. Source Curtailment and Security Classifica-
tion Policy
198
2. Transliteration
202
3. Copyright Constraints
208
4. Dissemination and Reproduction
214
Volume II
VII.
The
Consumers
218
A.
General
218
1. Consumer Attitudes
220
2. Requirements
223
3. Liaison
231
B.
Intra- and Inter-Organizational Relations
235
1. The CIA Offices
235
2. The 00 Divisions
249
3. The IAC Agencies
258
4. The Allies
269
5. The Non-Intelligence Sector
273
VIII.
Translation Services
278
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LI
B.
Translation Coordination: The Central Foreign-
Language Document Exploitation File and the
Page
Consolidation Translation Survey
305
1. Initiation
305
2. Expansion
318
3. Operations
321
IX.
A New Charter
333
A.
First Steps
333
B.
Second Effort
341
C.
The New Committees and Problems of
350
D.
Sequel: A Revised Charter
355
X.
Growth of Operations
363
A.
Reorganization and Reorientation
364
B.
Overseeing FDD Operations
384
C.
Procurement Problems
390
D.
A New Reporting Policy
402
E.
New Procedures and Problems in Operations
412
F.
Special Functions
423
1. Ancillary Activities
424
2. Special Projects
428
G.
Reorganization of the Reporting Program .
436
Volume III
XI. Three FDD Staffs 449
A. Linguistic Support . ? . ? 450
B. Propaganda Analysis 458
C. Current Intelligence ? 471
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XII.
Cold War Problems
A. EMergency War Planning
Page
- 482
483
1. Early Action and the War Planning
Exercises
483
2. FDD and the Armed Services Document
Intelligence Center
493
B. Vietnam Support
511
1. Development of Vietnamese Language
Capability
? 512
2. Headquarters Translation Service
513
3. Personnel Support ?
?
516
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4. Intelligence Information Reporting
Program
518
C. The Sputnik Flap: AL Dissemination Problem .
.
526
XIII.
Expansion of Service: The US Joint Publications
Research Service
548
A. Establishment of the Organization548
B. Its Operations
562
C. Its Relations With Consumers . ? ? O ....
584
XIV.
Man Versus Machine: FDD and the Automatic
Language Processing Experiment
596
A. FDD and the Georgetown Project . .
601
B. The Division Turns to Private industry 0 0 0
618
C. MT Experimentation in Other Languages
637
D. FDD-Air Force Cooperation . ? . . . . . ..
641
E. The Outcome
?
647
1. Development of the System
647,
2. Testing and Termination of the Project.
.
666
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Volume IV
Page
XV. End of the Line: Transfer and Merger 676
A. The OCR Interlude 677
1. The Transfer and Reasons for It 677
2. FDD Under OCR 683
692
B. Merger With FBIS
1. Foxmation and Work of the
Group
2. The
3. Th
Study 25X1
692
705
714 25X1
sition Paper
Report and Aftenmath
XVI. Conclusion 721
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Appendixes
Page
A. Organizational Charts 727
1. 17 December 1946 728
2. 27 June 1947 729
3. 29 July 1948 730
4. 24 August 1949 731
5. 27 June 1951 732
6. 7 May 1953 733
7. 1 October 1953 734
8. 1 April 1957 735
9. 9 June 1960 736
10. 1 April 1965 737
B. Foreign Documents Division Statistics, 1947-1967 738
C. Executive Personnel 739
D. National Security Council Intelligence Directive
No. 16: Foreign Language Publications 740
E. Abbreviations 742
F. Chronological Table 754
G. Source References 771
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1
1
VOLUME I
CHAPTER ONE
Consolidation of Document Exploitation
in the Post-World War II Period
A. Initial Step
The emergence of the Foreign Documents Division of the
Central Intelligence Agency was the culmination of a trend
toward the organized exploitation of enemy documents which
had its inception in the last year or two of World War II and
in the immediate postwar period. The use of captureddocunents
as an intelligence source in the conduct of military operations
is, of course, as old as war.itself; but until the mid-1940s
this source of information had been used by the United States
only on a narrowly tactical, largely-disorganized basis with
little or no coordination among the various branches of the
armed services. Thus, to the extent that documents were
exploited at all, the results were usually incomplete and often
duplicative. The exigencies of conducting the war permitted
little more than this relatively primitive effort on the lower
combat and staff levels.
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With the approach of the war's end following the invasion
of Europe in the Western theater and the movement of Allied
forces against the Japanese home islands in the East, a new
factor entered the picture. The rapid progress of the Allied
armies, particularly near the end as the German and Japanese
home fronts disintegrated, led to the capture of an increasingly
large volume of documentary material by the advancing Allied
forces. In the absence of an over-all, coordinated plan for
handling and disposing of this material, most of it was
hurriedly gathered together and temporarily stored in various
depots in the respective war zones and here it remained until
the end of hostilities. While the war was still in progress,
some of the captured material was exploited for tactical
purposes by commands which had translation and prisoner inter-
rogation units attached to them for the production of low.-level
intelligence. Document-processing organizations of this type
established in the Pacific theater were the Allied Translator
and Interpreter Section, Southwest Pacific Area (ut's, SWPA),
the Southeast Asia Translation and Interrogation Center (SEATIC),
the Joint Intelligence Center, Pacific Ocean Area (JICTOAL),
and the Sino Translation and Interrogation Center China (SINTIC).
Foamed primarily to meet the needs of operational intelligence,
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these units were equipped to serve only incidentally the
long-term strategic needs of the War Department, Army Air and
Service Forces, and Navy. Even between the theater commands
there was a lack of coordination and adequate liaison; much
duplication and overlapping of effort existed. There was no
overall plan regarding the types of documents to be exploited
or methods of processing them and no effective exchange of
techniques or operational results.
Accordingly, in the summer .of 1944 the Military Intelli-
gence Service (MIS), G-2, War Department General Staff (MOGS),
developed a plan to establish a centralized agency to coordinate
the efforts of all theater document sections and to serve the
War Deparbrient and other authorized Federal and Allied agencies
interested in long-range intelligence. As a result of this
plan, the Pacific Military Intelligence Research Service (PACMIRS)
was activated on 6 September 1944 and based at Camp Ritchie in
the Maryland mountains same 75 miles north of Washington. This
new agency was at that time the sole organization in the armed
forces, and in fact in the government, dedicated, if an a
modest scale, primarily to the exploitation of foreign-language
documents for strategic intelligence. PACMIRS effectively
perfonned its assigned function down to the end of hostilities
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I.
and beyond. Eventually it would serve as one of the building
blocks upon which further progress in the development of
formalized foreign-language document exploitation was to be
based.
B. The Washington Document Conferences
Near the close of 1944, with the end of the war
increasingly imminent, further thought had to be given to
formulating an overall plan for disposition of the captured
documents in both war theaters, in regard to both cataloging
and permanent storage in the near-term and eventual exploitation
of the material on a long-term basis. A step in this direction
was taken while the war was still in progress with the convening
of a conference in Washington, D.C., to discuss matters related
to the disposition of captured Japanese documents. The meeting,
held during the period 28 December 1944 - 15 January 1945 under
the chairmanship of Col. john R. Lovell, MMS, WDGS, was attemded
by representatives of the army and navy zone-of-interior and
overseas commands, including the various intelligence units.
In the latter contingent were personnel from PACMIRS.
As stated prior to the conference, the problem facing
the assembled group was to coordinate the activities of all
Allied Japanese-language personnel under an over-all inter-Allied,
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inter-service plan aimed at the production of a maximum of
intelligence from document sources for each echelon of the
Allied air, ground, and naval commands in the Far East and in
Washington by utilizing the limited number of such personnel
and their product in the most efficientmanner.* 1/ The
emphasis on centralization and on coordination of effort in
this statement set the tone for future developments in the
field of document exploitation, but as events were to prove,
particularly during the formative years of the future FDD, the
mere definition of the problem was a far cry from easy attain-
ment of the goal stated at the Washington Conference.
TO deal with the enormous mass of documents, which were
of no tactical value but were considered strategically important,
the conference advanced a number of recommendations. It set as
the general mission of PACMIPS the establishment of a world-
wide organization, with headquarters in or near Washington for
the translation and dissemination of strategic information
extracted from captured documents forwarded to it from the
various theaters. TO facilitate the flow of material to the
central headquarters, PACMMPS was to establish advance echelons
in each Far East theater to perform the required screening,
indexing, and transmitting functions. Precedent for establishment
* For serially numbered source references, see Appendix G.
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1
of such advance echelons was to be found in the system of
docurrent exploitation then in force in the Western European
theater of operations. PACMIRS was to have no control of
theater language units, whose sole function was to deal with
exploitation for tactical and local intelligence for theater
use.*
In the course of the next few years the conference's
recommendations were acted upon and a gradual beginning was
made at bringing order to the chaotic postwar captured document
situation. In this connection, a further step was taken in
the summer of 1945 when the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2,
Maj. Gen. Clayton Bissell, issued a call for a second Washington
conference to deal with problems related to handling and
exploiting Japanese documents. In his nernorandum Bissell
placed particular emphasis on securing approval fram the
military agencies for the establishment of a single Japanese
Military Document Section to be located in the Washington
area./
* The proscription against interference by the central .
exploitation facility with local translation units was to
carry over in later years during development of FDD-IAC relation-
ships.
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The second Washington conference an captured Japanese
documents was held as scheduled from 29 to 31 August 1945 and
covered much of the same ground as the earlier meeting but
with refinements and, on the basis of experience gained in
the intervening months, with a closer zeroing in on the target
at hand. The conference was organized by a committee consisting
of three PACMIRS officers -- Maj. Will M. Stremlau, Capt.
Wan Loy Chan and Col. Sidney P. Marland, newly appointed chief
of PACMIRS, who served as committee chairman -- and was attended
by representatives of all the services. Its findings and
recommendations were far-reaching and in effect established
the pattern of document handling and exploitation followed
down to and subsequent to the integration of this function by
the Central Intelligence Group (CIG) at the end of 1946. The
agenda presented to the conference and the resultant recommenda-
tions covered a broad range and consisted of such varied items
as a proposed plan for the physical handling of documents,
coordination with existing overseas translation units such as
ATIS, a plan for postwar document research, utilization of
available personnel, Allied participation in document exploita-
tion, and. last, though perhaps most important, a proposal for
a single service document center. 4,/,
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1
With the end of the war approaching, the conference
recognized the receding importance of the great bulk of
captured documents for tactical operations. Lower echelons
which formerly had handled documents were therefore no longer
involved in the document evacuation process beyond locating
and safeguarding documentary material and the procurement
function would henceforth become the concern of the theater and
of interested agencies in the United States, usually, but not
always, in cooperation with each other. Moreover, the final and
complete exploitation would have to be shifted from the war
zones to the Zone of Interior. Accordingly, the conference
drew up a detailed plan for the selective collection and trans-
mittal to the United States of captured documents, with special
emphasis on coordination of this function with ATIS in Japan
and stressing the inter-service aspect of the operation. In
this connection, arrangements were also made for the dispatch
from the United States to Japan of an advance echelon which
was to facilitate the identification of pertinent depositories
and collections of captured documents and, following preliminary
scrutiny by ATIS for operational purposes, to see to the
expeditious forwarding of this material back to Washington for
final processing.
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Having considered the problem of postwar document handling,
the conference also took up the task of planning for a general
over-haul and streamlining of existing exploitation facilities
in the United States. The war-time operations which had been
set up to carry on this function were the product of necessity
and, at best, considering the pressures of operating during
hostilities, performed their task no worse than circumstances
would dictate. Nonetheless, as the conference recognized, the
manner of operation was wasteful, duplicative, and incomplete
and therefore did not approach the standards envisioned for
peace-time document exploitation. 5/ Thus, plans for reorgani-
zation were drawn up and subsequently implemented.
At the close of the war three agencies in the Zone of
Interior were engaged in the handling of captured enemy
documents. These were PAMIRS, already referred to; Op-32F1411
established near the end of the war by the Office of Naval
Intelligence (ONI) as the naval counterpart of PACMIRS in
Washington, D.C.; and the Washington Document Center 0010, one
of the fruits of the first Washington Document Conference, set
up in February 1945 as a joint Army-Navy clearing station and
evaluation board for captured Japanese documents received from
the Far Eastern theaters. As mentioned earlier, the PACMIRS
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mission was devoted to the strategic-level exploitation of
Japanese material and was aimed mainly toward Army and Air
interests. Op-32F141 functions were similar but were conducted
primarily with naval requirenents in mind. The WDC task, as
then constituted, was largely a library function. In its
performance WDC forwarded to PACMIRS all documents relating to
Army interests, while with respect to Navy documents, only
those which WDC considered useful were sent on to Op-32F141,
the remainder being destroyed.
In considering this arrangement, three overriding factors
were readily evident to representatives at the conference: the
wasteful use of highly trained linguistic personnel, soon, with
the precipitant postwar demobilization just around the corner,
to be in limited supply; the overlapping interest in the
documents being processed, not only by the armed services, but
also by other government agencies and even non-goverrnnent
organizations as well; and the impracticability of two or three
agencies, performing an identical type of operation, being
physically so widely separated. Carefully considering these
factors the conference recommended incorporation of Army and
Navy translating and research facilities into one working unit.
Since the WasIlingtonnoccunent Center was the focal point for
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all captured documents evacuated from the Far East and since
Op-32F141 and PACMIRS were intimately associated with WDC, it
was considered appropriate that WDC expand to include the
functions then performed by these two organizations. The
consolidation was to include not only their translation
functions but also incorporation of the two document libraries
into WDC's holdings. At the same time, expressing doubt that
the full advantage of a consolidated document research center
could be completely realized unless it were placed in reasonable
proximity to the using agencies, the conference recommended
abandonment of Camp Ritchie as the PACMIRS site and the transfer
of PACM1RS personnel to Washington. 6/ In the matter of
personnel, the conference rupresentatives expressed concern
that the imminent release frcm military service of the bulk of
the armed forces would cause unrest among the key specialist
personnel of WDC who had to be retained indefinitely in service.
This factor, coupled with the need for reducing Army strength
in the Military District of Washington, indicated to the con-
ference the advisability of providing Civil Service positions
for certain qualified translator and non-translator personnel. 2/
With its work completed, the conference prepared a final
report and submitted it to higher headquarters. In retrospect
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the recomereations and decisions adopted by the conference
must reflect to the credit of its participants, in particular
of its steering committee. The groundwork laid here did much
to ease the transition to strategic-level peace-time document
exploitation and the pattern of action adopted proved to be
most effective in its subsequent development.
C. The Washington Document Center (Advanced)
With the end of hostilities in September 1945 and as a
first step in implementing the recommendations adopted at the
second Washington Document Conference, measures were taken to
activate and dispatch to Tokyo the WDC forward echelon, which
was designated the Washington Document Center (Advanced).
Scheduled to leave for Japan early in October, delays for
various reasons prevented the unit from departing before the?
last week in November. A complement of 29 officers and 31
enlisted men reached Tokyo on 24 November and upon arrival
joined a Navy group already on the scene and working. In all,
91 Army and Navy personnel were involved in the project at its
inception, of which 39 were officers and 52 enlisted men.
Approximately half of the group were linguists. 8/ According
to the recommendations of the second Washington Document
Conference, MC OW was scheduled to remain in Japan only
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three to four months, but this estimate proved optimistic and
the unit required about half a year to complete its work.
At the second Washington Document Conference a preliminary
definition of the WDC (Adv) mission in the Far East had been
drawn up. By the end of October these functions, basically
unchanged, had been more closely defined through liaison
between the officers concerned at both ends of the pipe-line,
that is, in Washington and TOkyo. Approval had also been
secured from Gen. MacArthur's SCAP Headquarters, specifically
through the SCAP G-2, Gen. Willoughby. As set up, the plan
called for close coordination between the Washington group and
ATIS, the TOkyo-based document center, and in fact this meant,
indirectly at least, that WDC (Adv) was to be placed in support
of ATIS, since ATIS would be relieved of the burden of serving
the Washington agencies and would thus be able to concentrate
on meeting theater requirements. In this connection it was
anticipated that in addition to Army-Navy requirements, WDC (Adv)
would also look after the interests of authorized civilian
government departments in its search for and handling of
documents. 9/ It was felt that this arrangement would go far
toward preventing a confused document situation like that which
had arisen in Europe as a result of the independent action of?
many agencies after the conclusion of hostilities there.12/
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As finally agreed, the functions of WDC WINO in the Far
East entailed essentially the establishment of a central document
clearing point in the Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha muo
Building in Tbkyo, which was to receive all documents selected
in the field, keep all collection agencies in Japan informed of
available materials, and see to shipment of the screened
documents to WDC in Washington. TO avoid duplication and assure
expeditious evacuation of high-priority documents, technical
specialists on its staff were to maintain liaison with War
Department technical teams in Japan. The actual screening for
documents was to be accomplished by WDC (Ach) teams which Were
to coordinate their activities with ATIS screening operations
in the field. This collection coordination was to extend to
Korea as well as Japan. As documents were seized, ATIS was to
extract from them all information pertaining to matters of
interest to the Supreme Allied Commander and then continue the
flow of documents to WDC WhO for shipment to Washington.
Finally, WDC WINO was to maintain a document information
center to serve all intelligence teams active in Japan. Its
function was to advise collecting agencies of the volume and
quality of material on hand or evacuated relating to subjects
of interest to the collecting agency. 11(
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1
Despite the usual initial confusion in setting up the
operation, WDC (Mv) became a functioning organization by early
December, largely through the efforts of the Executive Officer,
Capt. Wesley Meginn. It was composed of six parts: the
Headquarters Staff with an Army officer as chief and a Naval ?
officer as his deputy, the Production and Information Section,
the Special Acquisitions Section, the Liaison Section, the
Documents Section, and the Teams Section. The latter was
composed of 16 field teams, each consisting of a language
officer, a language enlisted man, and a basic enlisted man. 12/
Thus established, the personnel of %DC WhO went to work.
Immediate postwar conditions in Japan, and also in Korea, were
chaotic, particularly, fram the WDC (Ach) standpoint, in
connection with enemy official documents and records. Because
of the deteriorating home front near the end of the war, most
of the collections, where they had survived destruction, had
been neglected and left in great disarray and therefore required
intensive screening. A screening team sent to Korea early in
January 1946 found the situation tense and fluid. The hardening
in Korean and.Arrerican Military Government attitudes was such
that a second screening team sent from Tokyo the following
rronth was actually unsuccessful in evacuating material of any
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real value. The January survey revealed that considerable
valuable material was available. At the turn of the year and
only four months after liberation the Koreans were still so
anti-Japanese that they were willing to throw out anything
Japanese, but a month later, and possibly as a result of the
January survey, the value of Japanese records and official
documents was beginning to be recognized by the Koreans and
they therefore became much, more difficult to obtain. 13/ This
instance was quite typical of the problems facing the WDC (Adv)
screening teams in the Far East. Hawever, despite the numerous
? problems encountered, the unit was eminently successful in
fulfilling the task it had been sent to do, and in the six
months that it spent in Japan it succeeded in collecting,
selecting, and evacuating to Washington 650,000 items, some
500 tons of documents. 14/
D. Consolidation of Exploitation Activities
Meanwhile, as the overseas work of WDC (MO continued,
progress was being made in Washington on the in:cc-tent move
toward consolidation of the various document exploitation
facilities in the Capital area. This was, however, not accom-
plished without delays and initial set-backs in the move. On
3 January 1946 an inter-service meeting, termed the Washington
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Document Center Conference, was convened to discuss the general
subject of postwar document exploitation. A number of
recannendations ware put forth which threatened to sabotage
the earlier-expressed concept of centralizing document
exploitation in PACMIRS and, subsequently, in its successor
organization, the expanded Washington Document Center. This
trend was protested by Sidney Marland's successor as chief of
PACYLUIS, Col. Gaspardi F. Blunda. In a memorandum to the
Director of Intelligence Research, MIS, Blunda opposed the
apparent purpose of the meeting's participants, who, in
contravention to the August 1945 Washington Document Conference,
seemed intent on decentralizing PACKERS so that each government
agency could start to exploit documents solely to satisfy its
own requirements. Based on the Washington Conference delibera-
tions and recormendations, Blunda vigorously emphasized the
need to centralize linguistic effort. in PACTURS/OP-32F141 (the
future WIJC) since docunentary research by the operational
agencies could only lead to wasteful competition for and
employment of the few available linguists and to inadequate
dissemination of the information. With the increased load
which would be put on the new MC shortly it was essential
that piecemeal and competitive attempts to obtain documentary
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information should not be indulged in. The alternative, Blunda
concluded, was that decentralization would result in PACMIRS
being nerely a clearing house, which was the present function
of the old WDC and would obviate the need for an organization
such as the Washington Documnt Conference had recarnended.
This impassioned plea did not allay the problem and
pressures for decentralization were to recur frequently in the
next few years. This was, however, a period of trial and error,
and decisions and recommendations valid one day were often
subject to change the next. The situation was one of flux. It
was with problems such as this that the augmented Washington
Document Center came into existence.
During the fall of 1945 and spring of 1946, while WDC (Adv)
was actively screening and c9llecting captured enemy documents
in the Far East, the entire Japanese document exploitation
venture in the Washington area was being merged into a joint
Army-Navy operation. On 17 April 1946, PACMIRS, Op-32F141, and --)
the old WDC were combined as a single operation in one location,
assuming the existing name of "Washington Document Center" (WDC)
for the new composite grouping. In this form it operated as
Section F-5 of the Office of Naval Operations until 1 December 1946
when it was transferred to the newly formed Central Intelligence
Group as part of that agency's Office of Reports and Estimates (ORE).
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This consolidation of document exploitation marked the actual
inception of what was to become the Foreign Documents Division.
The new organization was first headquartered in the Steuart
Building at Fifth and E: Streets, NM., in Washington and remained
at this location for the next seven and a half months until its
integration into CIG. The first head of the consolidated WDC
was Ranson FullinwidPr, a Navy captain. His tour in this assign-
ment was relatively short, same three months, and he was succeeded
in July by Cmdr. Mark T. Little, who remained in charge of the
operation for the duration of its existence as a service-controlled
organization.
The job of these two men and their subordinates consisted
primarily of overseeing the transition of the enlarged document
exploitation effort from a war-time to a peace-time basis. What
this amounted to was the liquidation of document work based on
war-related requirements, the preparation for and adjustment to
an expanded document-exploitation program necessitated by the
large influx of enemy documents sent to Washington by WDC (100,
and, finally, readjustments required in connection with personnel
shifts, a problem created not only by the new amalgamation but
even more by the end of the war. It was doubtless the last of
these aspects which caused the greatest difficulty. Still a
service organization at this time, WDC was a hybrid of the most
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?1
varied kind. It consisted of officers, enlisted men, and
enlisted women, of linguists and non-linguists, of personnel
from all components of the United States armed forces, from
the British Army, Navy and Air Force, and from the Canadian
Army. At the time of the amalgamation it even included some
civilians. The major problem the unit had to face was the one
of flux and impermanence. With the war just over and rapid
demobilization the vogue, the chances of losing valuable
experience and talent were, of course, infinitely greater than
under war-time conditions or in a stable peace-time civilian
economy. When the three units combined into one, the total
complement amounted to 278 individnals. 16/ This figure varied
from week to week but remained fairly stable until August 1946.
Indeed, as reported in the weekly progress report of 24 July 1946,
it once increased to a total of 309 personnel. Fran mid-August
on, however, personnel totals gradually decreased until at the
end of November -- on the eve of the integration into CIG -- the
figure had declined to 161 individnais.
While the scope of operations of the new WDC was consider-
ably enlarged by the April amalgamation, the functions of the
three oaabinedumits changed little if at all. Agradual
interchange of expertise and personnel occurred but actual
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change in the organization at first was more the result of the
external influences already cited than of deliberate internal
innovation. The task of coping with administrative shifts left
little time for other matters, so that, qualitatively if not in
quantity of workload, the organizationnerked time for its first
seven months.
Organizationally, the Washington Document Center, as of
1 August 1946, included the administrative staff headed by
CMdr. Little as chief of the Center and three operational
sections -- Library, Research, and Publications -- which were
headed, respectively, by Lt. Joseph Becker, Lt. CMdr. John Bagnall,
and Capt. Wesley Meginn, the latter only recently returned frat
his assignment with WDC (Aldv) in the Far East. The Research
Section included seven sub-sections: Screening, Editorial,
and the so-called Projects A4 B, C, D, and E (code designa-
tions for the following research areas: Soviet Russia,
Manchuria-Mongolial China, Japan, and Scientific and
Technical). 17/ It is of interest to note that the respective
chiefs of the Publications Section (Meginn), the Soviet Russia
Project (Talbot Bielefeldt), and the Scientific and Technical
Project (Lawrence Bucans) continued as chiefs of these subject
areas for the remainder of their professional careers. By the
time these men retired, the importance and size of these
components had grown considerably.
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The mission of the new WDC was threefold: the rapid
exploitation of the documents coming in from the Far East for
actual or potential strategic intelligence based on requirements
from the War and Navy Departments and other authorized agencies;
establishment of a central comprehensive library embracing all
Far Eastern documents received; and the disposal of those
documents deemed of no value to the War and Navy Departments
and their consignment to the Library of Congress.
In connection with its library function and to facilitate
research by its consumers, the first efforts of WDC were directed
toward completion of document cataloging and indexing according
to the M)RI-KIYOSHI (Japanese dual-decimal system) and the BID
system (Basic Intelligence Directive). The potential gains from
this operation were considerable since the collection forwarded
to Washington by WDC (Adv) was at that time the world's most
complete source of information on the Far East.
As regards its exploitation function, WDC 's major effort
was devoted to the processing of documents pertaining to the
USSR, Far East, and the Eastern European countries. Only a small
portion of linguist and non-linguist strength was spent on the
processing of material on other world areas on a long-range
basis. TO facilitate the operation, close liaison was maintained
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with the intelligence agencies of the War and Navy Departments
in order to obtain guidance in the exploitation effort. It
was anticipated that by 1 October 1946 all documents pertaining
to the USSR, Far EaSt, and Eastern Europe would be scanned, and
after that date, consistent with the personnel at hand, the
Center' s effort would be placed on the continuing exploitation,
that is, translation and abstracting, of the highest-priority
documents dealing with these areas as such material was received.
At the same time WDC would continue to catalogue and index
documents then in process. During this period, with a
requirements regime based on the needs of potential users of
the material still in a formative stage the Center's work
was largely of a contingency nature designed to bring order to
a large mass of material. ,
By 1 August 1946 approximately half of the 500 tons of
documents seized by WDC (Adv) and sent to Washington had been
processed. This left the remainder to be catalogued, indexed,
and exploited in the two months remaining if the 1 October
&mach me was to be met.32/ This promised to be a formidable
task in view of the deteriorating personnel situation. The
loss of all civilian employees in WDC was anticipated by
October and the continuing reduction in linguist officer and
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I.
I.
enlisted personnel strength through attrition would further
handicap the successful completion of the mission. US Navy
participation would be materially decreased as of 1 December 1946.
That of the British Navy had ended on 15 August and the partici-
pation of the British Army would cease as of 1 January 1947.
Moreover, Canadian Army and RAF operations after 1 January were
still in question. The problem facing WDC was clearly evident
and an appeal was made to augment the WDC personnel in the near
future. 20/
Fortunately for the future of postwar document exploitation,
planning was already under way to alleviate the crisis. Recog-
nizing the increasingly precarious position of the Army and Navy
as sponsors because of postwar budget cuts and aware of service
plans for the abandonment, or at best the drastic de-emphasizing,
of the operation, the recently established Central Intelligence
Group initiated negotiations involving the Army, Navy, and CIG
during the late summer of 1946 relative to centralizing the
document exploitation effort under CIG control. 21/ This
development and the adjustments attendant to it were now to
occupy the Washington Document Center for the next six to twelve
ncaths; by that time the pattern upon which the evolvement of
the organization was to be based had been fairly well established.
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CHAPTER. WO
The Washington Document Center Joins
the Central Intelligence Group
1
A. Transfer of Dccument Exploitation to Civilian Control
In line with the general reorganization of the Central
Intelligence Group effected by Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg following
his appointment as Director of Central Intelligence ono in
June 1946 and pursuant to the policy of replacing committee
procedure by direct executive action, the Interdepartmental
Coordinating and Planning Staff (ICAPS) was created on 20 July
with Donald D. Edgar as its head. During the next six months
this group initiated, planned, and completed a number of
important projects, one of which was the incorporation of the
Washington Document Center into CIG operations. As stated
earlier, this move was necessitated by the inability of the
armed services, because of budget and personnel cuts following
the end of the war, to continue the operation. From a financial
standpoint, the move of %DC to CIG proved successful and re-
sulted in a budgetary saving not only to each department in-
volved but to the government as a whole. However, as early as
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the initial stages of negotiations which led up to the transfer,
it was foreseen that the benefits would be not only financial
but in the long run would also include greater effectiveness
in this type of operation. This was true because from the
outset it was anticipated that the new organization, once
separated from military control, could be used to form a
nucleus for the further centralization of foreign document
exploitation. The activity was at that time widely scattered,
particularly among non-military organizations within the govern-
ment; none of these could perform the operation as efficiently
as a centralized unit. 22/
The groundwork for incorporation of the document exploita-
tion operation under the CIG aegis was laid with considerable
care. The task of investigating its feasibility and impact
was assigned to Cbl. Sheffield Edwards, Assistant Executive
Director, CIG. During a period of several months beginning
in September 1946, he conducted a series of conferences and
visitations which resulted in a variety of recommendations
pertaining to the subject. As a first step, he visited the
War Department's Washington Document Center to study its
operations, functions, and value. As a result of his findings
? he recommended that CIG take over the 55 War Department
? civilian personnel of WDC without delay and before 9 October,
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their projected date of discharge, and, further, that plans
be made to take over the entire Document Center in its existing
location in the Steuart Building on or about 1 December. It was
also as a result of one of Edwards' directives that the initial
subordination of WDC within CIG was established. In September
the Office of Research and Evaluation* was directed to make
definite plans to take control of WDC by 1 December. 23/ WDC's
assignment to ORE at this time appears, in retrospect, to have
been a move of convenience, although there were those in ORE
who felt then, as later, that the arrangement was proper be-
cause the true role of WDC/FDD personnel should be to serve
ORE research efforts rather than to provide a common service
for all government intelligence organizations. Tbe Office of
Operations (00), to which WDC was subsequently shifted, was
then not yet in existence, though it was established a month
after %DC was assigned to ORE.
It is of interest at this stage to note that the problem
of WDC/FDD subordination has been a recurrent one. At intervals
throughout its life-time the question of the proper place of FDD
in the general CIA scheme-of-things has evoked indecision.
* This component was redesignated the Office of Reports and
Estimates on 27 October 1946.
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I.
At least in part this was due to the "neither-fish-nor-fowl"
nature of the exploitation operation -- indecision as to whether
it was research, pure collection, a linguistic function, or a
library operation. It was in fact all of these and this made
its placement difficult. Its assignment to 00, when that
Office was established on 17 October 1946, was more or less
by way of compromise.
In view of the impending budgetary and personnel re-
ductions, the Army and the Navy, even at the intelligence
staff level, were not opposed to the loss of the document
exploitation operation to the new civilian organization and
in fact they actively sought the transfer. This attitude was
confirmed in separate memoranda by Col. Ennis, Chief of the
Intelligence Group, DGS, ay and by Gen. Chamberlin, Director
of Intelligence, WDGS, the latter speaking for ONI as well as
]D.25/
A meeting between Ennis and Col. Edwards of CIG to discuss
arrangements concerning service personnel assignments in the
proposed transfer of the document exploitation function to
CIG was held on 8 October. At this conference 12 officers and
20 enlisted men, representing key personnel then on duty with
WDC, were authorized for WDC assignment for the period 1 December
1946 - 1 July 1947. 2?1
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?1
I.
As a follow,-up to the Ennis-Edwards conference, two ORE
representatives, Col. Perry and
net on 10
October with CMdr. Little, the WDC chief, and Maj. William B.
Pohlman, his deputy, to discuss details of the impending
transfer. The outcome of the meeting was Perry's recommendation,
subsequently adopted, that provision be made by CIG for the WDC
Table of Organization (r/o), totaling 151, for the period
1 December 1946 - 1 July 1947. This T/0 was to comprise 98 Army
and 53 Navy people, including, respectively, 28 and 36 civilians.
The latter figure included same 28 of the Naval officers who
would be converting to civilian status. 27/ At the same time
Little drew up a tentative T/0 for continuance of the operation
under CIG after 1 December. This organizational plan provided for
a total of 156 employees and placed strong emphasis on retaining
military officers in key positions. 28/
The preliminaries completed, the formal transfer of WDC to
the Central Intelligence Group occurred in December 1946. On
27 November Col. Edwin K. Wright, Executive to the DCI, in
replying to a memorandum fram the Secretary of the Navy, stated
that in pursuance of the request received from Gen. Chamberlin,
Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, and Adm. Inglis, Director of Naval
Intelligence (DNI), the Central Intelligence Group would take over
operation of the WashingtonsDocument Center on 1 December 1946. 32/
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For the first month WDC carried on its functions under its usual
designation and as part of ORE; then, on 31 December, a memorandum
was issued revoking the ORE subordination and making the organiza-
tion, retroactive to 1 December, part of the Office of Operations
(00)? a relationship which was to last for the next 17 years. At
the same time, the name "Washington Document Center" passed into
history and the unit was redesignated the "Documents Branch" of
00. 30/ On 2 January 1947 Documents Branch (DB) personnel were
formally welcomed into CIG by the DCI 31/ and the transition
from military to civilian control was completed.
B. Problems of Administrative Integration
The move to CIG marked the beginning of a period -- lasting
well into 1947 -- of assimilation into the new parent organization
and adjustment to new situations. The work of DB continued for
the moment basically as before, with major emphasis on captured
document exploitation. However, this was already beginning to
change to a new concept of document work resulting from the fact
that the intelligence to be derived fram captured materials was
running dry and was rapidly being replaced by a demand for in-
formation extracted from current sources.
It may be well at this point, for the record, to note
briefly what the functions of DB were on the eve of its transfer
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1
I.
to CIG, since all subsequent changes in the unit's operations
were based upon this statement of mission. At the time of the
transfer %DC was operating, according to the Acting Chief John
Bagnall, as "a basically factual research organization on the
Far East, to provide CIG with current and background intelli-
gence data on the Far East as found available in oriental
language publications." 22/ With the change-over, the wording
was revised and the new Documents Branch was designated as "an
organization for the exploitation of foreign documents" tasked
"to provide the CIG with current intelligence information on
foreign countries as found available in foreign language publi-
cations." 33/ Amemcrandum issued by the CIG Executive for
Personnel and Administration several days later spelled out in
detail the functions of DB as follows:
(1) TO receive foreign documents for cataloguing,
summarizing, and translation, the determination of
documents to be received to be made in coordination
between the Assistant Director for Operations (AD/0)
and the Assistant Director for Collection and
Dissemination (AD/CD).
(2) TO prepare subject lists of accessions for
distribution as determined by the Office of
Collection and Dissemination (O00).
(3) TO prepare extracts and summaries fram documents
in its possession to meet requirements received from
CCD.
(4) To prepare literal translations of documents in its
possession to meet requirements received frau OCD.
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(5) To provide such technical liaison with similar
activities as might be authorized by the AD/O.
(6) To establish exploitation projects on a con-
tinuing basis as required.
(7) TO dispose of documents not needed in accordance
with policies set by the AD/0 and Assistant Director
for Reports and Estimates (ADAM). 34/
As is evident, these functions were designed primarily for the
processing of captured documents with which the organization
was wholly concerned in the immediate postwar period. However,
as stated above, a change to current material was in the offing
and when this occurred, later in 1947, the functions listed
above, with minor revision, remained applicable.
Operational adjustments were, however, not the only
ones demanding attention. Of more immediate concern were
administrative problems. This while operations initially
continued nearly-unchanged under rather disruptive circum-
stances, great emphasis in the beginning was placed upon
solving organizational problems.
As a first step, the transfer of WDC to CIG was marked by
a physical relocation from the Steuart Building to
This was to be the first of
* A proposal to move DB to the Navy Yards and Docks Building
near Arlington Cemetery had been rejected when it was found
that that structure was not strong enough to support the weight
of the many documents in DB 'S possession.
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four moves made by the unit. Consideration was then and in
the future sporadically given to placing it in close proximity
to its major consumers in CIG, and later in CIA, particularly
so when the new Headquarters Building was under construction
during 1959-1961, but a complete fusion never came about, and
throughout its life FDD conducted its functions physically
separated from its consumer offices. Pa:best this arrangement
constituted an inconvenience, at worst, it was inefficient.
The 'rove to
was completed on the night of 30
November 1946 in coordination with
Strict security measures accompanied the move of the
organizational equipment and documents, with commissioned Army
and Navy personnel acting as guards.
The major concern of DB and its new parent organization
during the transition period was, and was to remain for same
time to came, the problem of personnel. There appeared to be
no diminution of work during the postwar period and indeed,
with the consolidation of intelligence operations under the
DCI in 1946/1947 and the gradual intensification of the Cold
War in the period following, the workload increased considerably.
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1
The problem, therefore, became one of finding, developing, and
maintaining a staff cannensurate in size with the work that had
to be done. This proved to be a difficult undertaking.
Reference has already been made to the 650,000 captured
documents received by UMC. At the beginning of 1947 about
120,000 of these documents had not been completely processed
and it was estimated that of this number about 50,000 possessed
intelligence value and deserved further exploitation. In
addition, there was a backlog of 350 accession lists covering
70,000 documents. Accession lists were being published at the
rate of ten per week but the backlog remained constant due
to the fact that this output of accession lists only equalled
the intake of documents. The receipt of material in early 1947
averaged about 10,000 items per month, composed of about equal
parts of captured documents and current periodicals. 35/ At
the same time, roughly ten requests per day were received from
the 41 consumers with whcm DB maintained liaison and by January
1947 there existed a current backlog of approximately 2,000 re-
quirements which had accumulated since the creation of the
amalgamated WDC in April 1946. 36/ Despite periodic efforts
to weed out outdated requirements which were no longer valid,
the heavy personnel loss due to demobilization and the dis-
ruptive effects of the transfer to CIG made the effort to keep
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up with the remaining requests a losing one. It is easy to
see that if the trend toward personnel departures then under-
way had not been offset by an effective recruitment program,
the situation in document exploitation would soon have reached
crisis proportions. Even with the efforts undertaken then
and continued later on, the problem of securing and holding
qualified personnel sufficient to cope with DB's needs was
never completely solved. It came closest to solution after
establishment of the Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS)
some ten years later but even this was only a partial answer.
When WDC transferred to CIG; on 1 December 1946, only 87
(28 Army, 14 Navy, and 45 civilians) of the 250 persons then
assigned to the organization actually made the change. 37/
According to the DB report issued at the end of the first
quarter of 1947, this total had increased slightly, to 92, by
1 January 1947, 22/ but the overall decline continued and on
11 February Donald Edgar, head of ICAPS, reported to the
Director that, due to losses in the military personnel assigned
to the Document Branch, its roster had been reduced to 69
persons and it was faced with a further reduction of about
20. From a numerical standpoint, this marked the nadir of
the DB personnel problem. Edgar recommended an augmentation
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of DB personnel in order to permit the unit effectively to ful-
fill the requirements of Intelligence Advisory Board (IAB)
agencies. 22/
The loss of military personnel in DB referred to by Edgar
resulted in part from a CIG memorandum of 9 January 1947, which,
in view of the current over-strength status of CIG, required
its ccmponents to take immediate steps to release excess officers
either to civilian life or back to the military services, de-
pending upon the category of the individual. 40/ This created
a particular hardship for DB, almost half composed of military
personnel at the tine of its creation a month earlier. The
organization, however, took steps to comply with the order and
officers and man were gradually released, either by absorption
as civilians into DB, by discharge to civilian life outside
the unit, or by reassignment to the Army or Navy. Among those
in the first category were most of the top echelon of DB,
including Lt. Qtr. John Bagnall, at this time Acting Chief
of the organization, and also many in lower ranks of DB who
in time to come were to form the nucleus upon which the ex-
panded FDD would be built. The phase-out process was a gradual
one and took approximately nine months to complete. The last
contingent, six enlisted men, was scheduled for release on
30 September. .
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Thus the personnel estimate submitted by Qr. Little
early in October 1946 at CIG's request, amounting to 151, far
exceeded the actual number on duty. Prospects of meeting this
figure appeared bleak and the attitude of the top CIG adminis-
trators, faced as they were by their own diverse problems of
change, gave no promise of a rapid improvement. When
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recommending the 151 T/0 to the AD/0 for his suggestions for
action
noted that "since it Nal is a going concern 25X1
it cannot be given first priority in the development of its
final organizational structure and personnel requirements." 13/
Although the personnel situation in DB in the formative
stages of the organization was discouraging and many of the
problems remained endemic, circumstances gradually improved
and with better organized recruitment, the branch, under a TbO
of 344 attained at the end of 1952, eventually reached a comr
plement of more than 300 employees. Fran 1953 on, it remained on
a plateau which seldom varied from a personnel figure of 290-300.
The end of the war and the subsequent transfer of document
exploitation activities fran military to civilian control
created a problem for DB in another sphere, namely, an aspect
of security. TO a limited extent at least, this also contri-
buted to the personnel shortage in the unit. The problem
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pertained to the situation created by the attachment during
the war of Allied personnel, British and Canadians, to the
document exploitation units set up at that time. For example,
linguists from the Canadian Army Language School at Vancouver,
British Columbia, reinforced the language efforts of the
Americans at PACMIRS. Later on, in February 1945, as a result
of the first Washington Document Conference two months earlier,
where one of the reconmendations pertained to consolidation of
inter-Allied language specialists, ten British linguist officers
were assigned to PAC41RS. One of these, Lt. Col. P. Pender-
Cudlip, who had served as British War Office representative at
the conference, was even designated chief of the Translation
Group at Camp Ritchie. Other British and Canadian officers
were appointed section heads., With the incorporation of PACMIRS
into WDC the British and Canadian contingents were transferred
along with their American counterparts. Now, with the move to
CIG, a civilian organization with higher security standards,
circumstances changed. Consequently, on 16 December 1946
the Assistant Executive Director, submitted
to the AD/0 a memorandum involving a policy change relative
to Allied personnel. It directed that henceforth no Allied
personnel would be assigned to WDC; all prior commitments re-
lating to Allied force personnel at WDC were considered
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abrogated as of 1 December 1946, the date of transfer of %OC
to CIG; and the senior officers of the British and Canadian
groups would henceforth serve, with a reasonable number of
assistants, as liaison officers to %DC for their respective
services. The extent of their liaison functions was to be
set at the discretion of the Chief, %JC and the AD/O. 43/
A subsequent memorandum fram the Executive Director spelled
out the future DB relationship with the British in additional
? detail and stated in effect that requests for dissemination
of materials to the British had to come through channels,
via the Foreign Liaison Office of ID or the Director, ONI,
whichever had primary cognizance of the subject matter. In
recognition of the fact that this arrangement was somewhat
cumbersame, DB was
authorized, with minor exceptions, to
maintain its earlier relationship with the British. This was
to be accomplished through routine day-to-day contacts by DB
personnel with a British liaison unit, an organization
eventually replaced by a single British liaison officer. DB
was authorized to continue furnishing the British with clas-
sified accession lists and with translations of a non-sensitive
nature. ...4A/ However, the use as heretofore of British personnel
in the regular operations of the component: was discontinued.
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In the long term the effect of the change in DB operations
was minor, but its immediate consequence was to deprive the
organization of badly needed, well-trained linguistic personnel.
C. Consolidation Completed
In the course of its 20-year existence there were numerous
changes and adjustments in DB's structure and operational methods,
but on the whole these were related to changing problems and
requirements within the Agency and were relatively minor in the
overall picture. The early period, on the other hand, was one of
volatile transition, and changes came rapidly as all the loose
ends of document exploitation were assembled under one authority.
This assimilative process lasted until mid-1947 when the German
Military Documents Section (GDS) and the Special Documents
Section (SDS), the last two document units still operating under
military control, were gathered into the CIG fold. From then on,
the structure of CIG's document exploitation facility Was
essentially established and changes were for the most part dedi-
cated to refining the operation for mwdmum efficiency.
Unlike the earlier components incorporated into DB, all
three of which were concerned with processing Japanese materials,
GDS and SDS operations were oriented to the European theater
and therefore to German documents. GMDS, which during the war had
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operated under the War Department at Fort Hunt, south of
Alexandria, Virginia, performed primarily a library/depository
function. This required a relatively modest complement, which
in the fall of 1946 was authorized at 5 officers and 15 en-
listed men, 4_y but at the end of January 1947 was actually 8
officers and 14 enlisted men. 46/ On the other hand, SDS, also
part of the War Department, had been set up after the war, in
late May 1946, at Holabird Signal Depot, near Baltimore, to
exploit captured German documents dealing with the Soviet
economy and to a lesser extent Russian documents on the same
subject captured by the Germans. A series of research pro-
jects had been established at SDS in response to intelligence
requirements issued by the War Department Intelligence Division
and the Air Intelligence Division. The main SDS effort was
reserved for its Industrial Card File (ICF), an important
collection of Soviet industrial plant information, which was
highly regarded in the US intelligence community. It was ex-
pected that reconstruction of the most recent German intelligence
picture of the USSR economy would be completed by the end of
May 1947. _42/ The personnel strength of SDS in October 1946
was 6 officers, 5 enlisted personnel, and 44 civilians. ly
By reason of their respective functions, GMDS, then in the
Pentagon, and SDS personnel worked in close conjunction with
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each other.
In October 1946, with the project for consolidation of the
Japanese documents organizations well advanced and in line with
the earlier policy decision to divest the military of the docu-
ment exploitation function, Gen. Chamberlin of the War Department
Intelligence Division suggested that GMDS and SDS also be included
in the documents exploitation facility of CIG and proposed that
this transfer be effected by 1 April 1947. 49/ The logic of
incorporating German documents with Japanese documents exploita-
tion seemed self-evident and a study was instituted under ICAPS
auspices to investigate the advisability of this move. 50/
Despite the apparent soundness of incorporation there seems to
have been same hesitation in carrying it out. Even as late as
February 1947 no final decision had yet been reached, although
it was expected that at least one of the units, presumably SDS,
would be accepted. .5.1/ Finally, CIG expressed its willingness
to take over the document exploitation responsibilities of SDS
as of 1 June 1947 and to accept the transfer of the 44 civilians
then employed by the organization. CIG also agreed to take over
the document screening and intelligence operations performed by
GIDS but it refused to accept the library functions of the section.
In the matter of document custody CIG expressed its agreement with
the tentative plan of 11) to turn over to the Adjutant General
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1
documents in GMDS's possession as well as documents received
fram the European theater after the GMDS transfer to CIG on
1 June 1947. This was to be contingent, however, upon provision
of ready access to these documents for CIG and other members of
the intelligence community. 2/ TO facilitate the document
handling involved, DB provided a CIG detachment to operate in
the Pentagon in direct conjunction with the Adjutant General.
This group took over the title "German Military Documents
Section" and all the non-intelligence functions performed
earlier by the original GIDS. These included receiving,
library cataloguing, shelving, storing, loaning to other
agencies, recording, and otherwise handling and disposing of
documents. 53/
In connection with the transfer of SDS duties to CIG
same concern was expressed about the fate of the ICF. The
War Department Intelligence Division felt strongly about the
need for uninterrupted continuation of this project and had
so stipulated in a memorandum directed to the DCI. With
a subsequent memorandum in April CIG allayed ID's concern by
agreeing to assume full responsibility for continuance of the
Industrial Card File project of SDS. .W This did not
fully resolve the question of the project, however, at least
so far as CIG was concerned. Gen. Sibert, the AD/O, made the
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point that maintenance of the ICF was outside the scope of a
document branch since the operation involved the preparation of
cards from non-document sources. He suggested instead ORE
acceptance of responsibility for the activity when the transfer
was made on 1 June but he agreed to let DB handle it temporarily
in view of the difficulty involved in separating ICF functions
fram document exploitation so soon after transfer. A division
of labor could be more easily arranged later on after approval
? and implementation within ORE of the pending Foreign Industrial
Establishments Project. 2.?,/ It was subsequently agreed that ORE
would take over ICF operations on or about 1 October 1947. 2/
Finally, dictated by changes within CIG which separated library
reference functions fram ORE, a memorandum was issued in late
October which provided for the transfer of the ICF Project from
DB (NYW renamed the Foreign Documents Branch) to the Reference
Center, Administration and Management (A&M), by 1 December 1947
and its incorporation into the Foreign Industrial Register as a
central service. 5..Ey Fran then on FDB's only association with
ICF was its continuing contribution of data from foreign docu-
ment sources.
The official transfer of SDS and (DS from the Intel-
ligence Division to DB was scheduled to take place on 1 June
1947 and was so authorized. At that time the units and their
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facilities and personnel were to be moved to the DB premises
SDS from Baltimore and GMDS from the
Pentagon. The move was to include all civilians and such
military as could be persuaded to take civilian employment.
It was suggested in the authorization that no grades higher
than P-6 should be offered and that these should be limited
to three or four in that grade for civilianizing officers.
Civilians then on duty were to be assured of permanency of
employment provided they could pass the Civil Service Board
and the necessary background investigations. _u/ Though not
then foreseen, the latter provision was to create considerable
difficulties in consummating the transfer. Early in May, be-
cause of doubt that security clearances on the civilians to
be transferred could be completed before the deadline and
also to permit the completion of certain short-range projects
and special translations still in process, the date of trans-
fer was delayed a month and set at 30 June. 60/
On 10 June in preparation for the anticipated amalgamation
of SDS and GMDS with DB, a tentative new T/0 was approved for the
augmented Documents Branch. It increased the T/0 strength of the
organization to 250 and raised the personnel ceiling to 190. 61/
Unfortunately, the strict security requirements of CIG raised
havoc with the plan for assimilating the ID personnel into the
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DB structure. Mbre than two thirds of the SDS/GDS civilians
failed to pass the CIG security clearance. This proved to be
a source of embarrassment to the War Dqparttmnt which found
that it had employed on confidential projects people who could
not be cleared by CIG standards. Since CIG Personnel and
Administration (P&A) refused to take responsibility for in-
forming these employees that they could not be cleared and
could therefore not be employed by CIG, it was necessary for
the War Department to terminate some of them and to find less
sensitive positions for others. 62/
This was not the first such occurrence. The same problem
had been encountered earlier in the year in connection with
the transfer of military personnel in WDC when it was taken
over by CIG. Most military personnel of WDC had been cleared
for intelligence work of high security classification to the
satisfaction of the War and Navy Departments? wartime stand-
ards. CIG 's stricter requirements were quickly reflected when
"waivers" were sought in vain for certain personnel not meeting
citizenship or other requirements. The chief of the Security
Division, CIG, noted in January 1947 that an exception in the
case of Documents Branch might be possible but advised against
it because of the difficulty in discharging undesirable
individuals once hired. ?2/ The security problem was eventually.
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worked out and the crisis passed, but in view of the precarious
personnel situation in DB and the difficulty in securing trained
and knowledgeable intelligence officers and linguists, this
development was an extremely unfortunate one fram the stand-
point of DB operations.
The transition from military to civilian control continued,
and pending the SDS/GMDS move to DB, changes in DB leadership
and structure were initiated. During the short period it
was under Navy control in 1946 WDC had been headed by CMdr.
Mark T. Little. His deputy was an Army officer, Maj. William
B. Pohlman, former chief of PACMIRS. By December John J. Bagnall,
a former Naval officer and now DB Executive Officer, was serving
as acting chief in the prolonged absence of CMdr. Little. The
formal relief of Little as Chief, DB, was announced on 28
February 1947 and the same memorandum formalized Bagnall 's
position as acting chief, effective 1 March. 64/ A short time
after, on 13 March, he was named chief. 65/
The appointment of Bagnall to head the CIG document
exploitation operation was, at this point at least, con-
sidered to be only a temporary assignment. During March 1947
the Office of Personnel and Administration began compiling a
list of all positions in CIG which were to be considered "key
positions." This survey was conducted in order to inform
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member agencies of IAB which positions were being occupied
by military, naval, and State Department personnel. 66/ The
following month Gen. Sibert, AD/O, submitted a number of
lists of key personnel assigned to positions in the Office of
Operations and in the forwardingnemorandum he referred to his
ooarch for an Army officer to become chief of DB at the time
that SDS and GMDS were to be taken into the organization. 67/
This matter was advanced further in July after the two sections
had been absorbed when
Deputy Assistant Director
of Operations (DAD/0), designated several slots as key positions
and suggested they be filled by Army, Air, and Navy Department
personnel. The positions, their suggested grades, and the
service of assignment included chief of the branch (P-8)
to Army, chief of the branch's Far Eastern Division (P-6) to
Navy, and chief of the Scientific and Technical Division (1)...0
to Air.
was then under consideration by
the AD/0 as a candidate for the position of Chief, FDB. 68/
was actually appointed to this position later on in
1947 and held it for approximately a year, but this was the
extent of the assignment of "key positions" to the military.
The increasingly civilian-oriented complexion of the Central
Intelligence Agency (am, which replaced CIG in September 1947,
was reflected in the make-up of its document exploitation facility.
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1
As part of the adjustment to DB's new functions and sub-
ordination the branch entered a period of experimentation which
resulted in a number of changes in its organizational structure.
None of these alterations was profound; they were instead read-
justments designed to seek and obtain greater efficiency. To
a large degree they were in response to changing requirements
from the intelligence community but this was more true later
on than at this time. In 1947 it was more a matter of the
organization getting its house in order to meet new challenges
than anything else.
A tentative Tb O was submitted on 4 December 1946 which
differed slightly from that adopted by WDC the previous August.*
The position of Operations Officer was dropped and Liaison
and Control were divided into two separate offices. In addition,
Screening and Editorial, heretofore units under Bagnall's old
Research Section, were moved up and were themselves made
sections. Total personnel under this T/0 was set at only
about two-thirds of which was filled. 69/ In a presentation of
the WDC mission and functions on 17 December Bagnall submitted
to the 1D/0 another Tb O involving further changes in nomenclature
* Seep. 20.
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and structure. By this move the Liaison Office was abolished
and Administration and Control were designated, respectively,
"Administration and Security Office" and "Control and Planning
Office." The Editorial Section changed to unit status and,
with a new Service Unit, was placed under the Publications
Section. The new T/0 called for a total of
persons.
Against this Bagnall proposed that recruitment be initiated
to bring the curren assigned and on duty to a strength of
70/
Further T/0 versions were submitted by DB on 2 and 12 May
1947 calling for certain changes in nomenclature and for ex-
pansion of the organization, 71/ but these were not approved.
Then on 6 June
Advisor for Management, sub-
mitted one to the Assistant Executive Director and this was
returned approved on 10 June. It provided for the following
organizational changes:
The position of Research Consultant in the Office of
the Chief was eliminated.
The Executive Officer was redesignated "Administrative
Officer."
The Personnel and Administration Section was abolished
and its functions integrated into a new Administrative
Staff.
The Publications Section was abolished.
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1
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The new Document Source Survey Division, which had
been activated earlier in the month, was approved.
The former research projects (15,, B, C, D, and E),
in conformance with their substantive functions, were
consolidated and redesignated the "USSR and Satellites
Division," the "Far East Division," and the "Scientific
and Technical Division." 72/
The 10 June reorganization allowed a T/0 of
but the problems 25X1
of security clearance referred to earlier made prospects of
approaching even close to this figure extremely poor. The in-
creased personnel demands for reproduction and publication
constituted a large problem, and the branch was faced with
increasing difficulties of recruiting and clearance against
the ordered decrease of military personnel. The same held true
in respect to securing qualified civilian personnel.
On 27 June 1947 Gen. Sibert officially announced the
reorganization and redesignation of the Documents Branch. By
this memorandum SDS and GMDS were transferred to CIG as of
29 June; Documents Branch was redesignated the "Foreign Docu-
ment Branch" (FDB) and was to include the reorganized divisions
and administration referred to above; and John Bagnall, Chief
of Documents Branch, was appointed deputy chief and acting
chief of the new FDB. 22/ With its new T/0 of
of June, FDB was operating with a ceiling
of
individuals on duty. 24/
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at the end 25X1
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The date 29 June 1947 serves as an important bench mark
in the history of CIG document exploitation. With its re-
organization completed, the new branch had basically attained
the structure and character with which it was to carry on its
operations for the balance of its life. Many changes lay
ahead, to a considerable degree in the branch's structure
but more particularly in the nature of its functions and its
developing relationships with the rest of the community. This
-would be eb.i.cially so in the near future with the transition
from captured document to current exploitation. In its
essentials, however, the trend of develommtwas fixed.
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CHAPTER THEME
New Approaches to Docunent Exploitation
A. The Move Toward an Exploitation Function
When it was integrated into CIG on 1 December 1946,
DB was performing as a documents processing center with the
bulk of 650,000 captured Japanese documents, the outgrowth
of the earlier WDC (Adv) survey, as its main source material.
This large volume of documentary material constituted the
chief contribution of WDC on its incorporation into the
new organization. A small number of documents had also been
received from State, War, and Navy department channels and
about 10,000 documents per month, including newspapers
and periodicals, were being received at that time from the
current collection of G-2, SCP, in Tokyo.
DB initially screened this material and segregated it
into four categories, namely: items of immediate intelligence
value; items of possible future value; items of interest to
American industry (to be disseminated by the Commerce
Department); and docuire.nts of no intelligence or industrial
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interest. The latter were routinely forwarded to the Library
of Congress. Based on this screening, DB prepared an
average of 2,500 abstracts weekly from the captured documents
and proceeded with a continuing exploitation of the material
based on a review of these abstracts against the requests
generated by the consumer agencies receiving the abstracts.
Men requested, summaries were prepared giving more complete
information on pertinent material. Translations, in whole
or in part, were also prepared to meet requirements submitted
through OCD by consumer Offices. Documentary research,
perhaps the most effective form of exploitation and the
forerunner of what was to became the primary form of operation
in the branch, was conducted on the basis of requirements for
specific information which were answered by preparing the
desired data in its most readily useable form. This might be
in the form of cards, statistical tables or charts, extract
translations from a number of documents, or studies combi-
ning the results of research in a subject unit. Thus, in
December 1946 when the branch became part of CIG, the form of
DB output consisted of the following materials: accession
lists, summaries, translations, research projects, reports,
and card files. There were at this time some 50 translations,
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14 documentary research projects, and 350 accession lists
in process. The backlog of documents awaiting processing
amounted to 145,000. ly
The organization in early 1947 had a potential of
31 different languages, ranging from such common tongues
as German and Russian to the rarer Esperanto, Tagalog, and
Urdu. As was to be expected with the recent conclusion of
the Pacific war and the fact that the German-language
oriented SDS and (]YDS had not yet became part of the new
? branch, Japanese was the principal medium of exploitation
at the time, but it was anticipated that all major languages
and even many of the minor languages and dialects of the
world would be exploited in DB in the future. The personnel
then assigned to the branch formed a competent nucleus for
the beginning of the work. zy
The processing of the vast stock of captured documents
in the immediate postwar period often seemed an insurmountable
task, especially when one considered the large and increas-
ing backlog of materials together with the thin ranks of
competent personnel available to the intelligence community
to handle this load. Even then it was already recognized
that captured documents as a continuing source of overt
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intelligence had limitations. This was true because the,
backlog of available captured materials, large as it was
in late 1946, would eventually come to an end; also, whether
captured documents were available or not, the content of the
materials was bound to become completely obsolete with the
passage of time. Recognizing this fact and also aware of
the potential loss to the country should the expertise
in document exploitation developed during the war be per-
mitted to dissipate, the intelligence community began early
to give same thought to the future of document processing.
With the eventual end of captured documents processing
in view, the obvious answer was to place increased emphasis
on the development of the exploitation of current materials.
In this connection William A. Eddy, Special Assistant for
Research and Intelligence at the State Department, on
25 October 1946 addressed a letter to Gen. Vandenberg
urging his sponsorship of an interdepartmental meeting to
consider the subject of foreign press and periodical exploita-
tion as a source of intelligence information. Eddy cited
the press and periodical analysis service provided by the
Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during the war, a
function subsequently discontinued because of personnel
shortages. As opposed to the catch-as-catch-can operation
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used then solely to meet the needs of particular departments,
he suggested filling this gap by establishing a systematic
monitoring service for the benefit of the wbole community.
He advocated re-establishment of such an operation on a
centralized basis subject to the overall jurisdiction of an
indepartmental board under the DCI and operated in or near the
Library of Congress. Its chief benefit, Eddy opined,
would be the elimination of duplication with its resultant
waste of time and effort. 77/ The proposal was a far-
sighted, if obvious, one. Steps to coordinate community
action on this matter were taken as early as 1948,* but it
was not until almost seven years later that the CIA document
exploitation operation received official sanction as the
intelligence coordinator for this function. bkonmbile,
DB's services along these lines were developed internally,
within the CIA structure.
Nonetheless, a start toward centralized responsibility
for document exploitation was made. On 5 November 1946,
ICAPS sponsored a meeting to discuss the desirability of
having 00 expand its collection activities to include foreign
press and periodicals as well as the product of radio
* Seep. 75..
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intercept. Although no concrete decisions were reached
at this meeting, provision was made for further discussion
of the problem by ORE, OCD, and 00. Consideration was also
directed to a definition of the term "processing," presumably
at the insistence of ORE.
representing 00,
made clear that it was the intent of his office to provide
consumer offices not only with all raw material available,
but to provide it in its most useful form for evaluation
and analysis. 00, he declared, recognized that it was
outside 00 jurisdiction to make any analysis of the material
collected. Its function was to be limited solely to a
process of condensing the huge volume of material collected
on a daily basis in order to effect a time-saving factor
for the benefit of ORE. 2y This aspect of "processing" or
"exploitation" would in the future require further refine-
ment. The problem, a recurrent one, will be more fully
treated on subsequent pages.
The opportunity offered by the State Department memo-
randum of 25 October and the subsequent ICAPS meeting in
November was not wasted by DB. Once the disarray created
by the Shift of document exploitation to CIG control and
the problems of establishing a work regime had been taken
care of, john Bagnall, then Acting Branch Chief, turned his
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attention to defining the DB mission in terms of the sugges-
tions offered by the State memorandum. Addressing the AD/O,
he pointed out that DB would complete processing of the
present backlog of documents, aside fram current Far Eastern
publications, by the end of 1947. He further stated that
currently some 7,500 foreign-language periodicals and
newspapers were being received by the State Department for
distribution to various government agencies, including at
least 4,000 periodicals of intelligence value. It was an
obvious fact that a single periodical contained a variety
of information, only part of which was of interest to the
agency receiving it; as a consequence, much of the remain-
ing information was lost to other agencies due to a lack of
centralization. He therefore requested that DB be authorized
to amend its defined functions so as to receive and process
current foreign periodicals and to make available to the
community all intelligence information contained in them. 22/
With its linguistically and substantively trained personnel
the branch was well organized to carry this out. The request
contravened an earlier definition of DB functions which had
prescribed DB exploitation of documents "with the exception
of current material." In a follow-up memorandum two days
later, Bagnall devoted a lengthy paragraph to his definition
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1
of the term "processing" as employed in the earlier message. Ey
On 2 April, Gen. Sibert, the AD/O, proposed the gist
of the Bagnall request for current exploitation in a memo-
randum to the Chief, ICAPS. This amendment of DB's functions
was, however, to apply only to periodical exploitation,
and handling of the daily press was specifically excluded.
Sibert'iurther suggested that OCD :make arrangements for DB use
of periodicals on temporary loan from the Library of Congress
and other depositories and also proposed that DB receive
cooperation and advice fram ORE on requirements and reporting
format. 81/ Formal approval of the plan by higher authority
/7 (a ri
was forthcaming on 17 April with the provision that for the
present, periodical coverage would pertain only to the USSR
and the Far East. 122/
The immediate outcome of these exchanges VMS the publica-
tion of the first formal DB report under the new arrangement.
This was the so-called Periodical Abstracts, first issued on
2 April 1947 under the customary DB format. This format
consisted of items consecutively printed on a page. The
report in this style was discontinued on 23 June after only
five issues, but it was resumed in July as a report divided
into two parts and published as "Scientific" and "General"
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1
abstracts. A revised format was adopted which entailed publi-
cation of the abstracts in card-cut form, eight to a page,
with about 120 entries in the average issue. The "General"
abstracts report was initially issued on 12 September and
continued for a little over a year but was then discontinued
on 9 November 1948 in favor of new information reports
series. The "Scientific" abstracts report, first published
on 6 August 1947, survived two brief suspensions, being
revived each time by consumer demand, and continued in
existence for a considerably longer period of time.
Then when SDS and GMDS were incorporated into the new
unit in mid-1947, the branch, redesignated the Foreign
Documents Branch, inherited the functions of these two
organizaions, including continuation of an SDS survey pro-
ject on USSR railroads, collection of material for the
Industrial Card File, and the cataloging of GMDS inforMatial
for the Intelligence Catalogue. SDS had, on a limited scale,
also conducted some press exploitation for extracting
industrial economic data.
This, then, constituted the body of the exploitation
program of FDB in mid-1947 during the period of transition
from captured document to current exploitation. TO repeat,
the now toward greater emphasis on current material with
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the expectation that this would eventually become the sole
target of FDB operations was logical and inevitable. But
while the goal of "currency" had been stated and approved,
the functions of the branch continued, at least for the
time being, to be carried out in the same slow and unwieldy
manner as before. Tb remedy the situation John Bagnall in July
1947 forwarded to the 2!D/0 a proposal which he termed a "Dynamic
Approach to Captured Document Exploitation." This new plan,
in essence, involved the development of a comprehensive
informational plan which would result in a spontaneous
production of useful and needed information through document
exploitation. Under the existing method, FDB prepared and
issued thousands of abstracts from the large backlog of
war documents which were rapidly aging and losing their
value. The intelligence comtnunity, almost completely
absorbed in current intelligence--indeed, requirements being
received by FDB ran two to one for current information--
found only occasional abstracts of captured documents of
sufficient interest to request exploitation. Consequently,
the development of basic intelligence information from
foreign documents was dependent on haphazard, piece-meal
requirements. This method was time-consuming, wasteful, and
very inefficient. It was not even logical. Bagnall therefore
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proposed that consumer offices place greater confidence
in the qualified personnel of his branch and grant them an
increased degree of responsibility for selective document
exploitation. Tb carry out the plan he suggested that a
detailed overall set of requirements on the USSR and Far East
be drawn up by ORE, the primary FDB consumer; that intra-
area priorities be assigned for the development of specific
basic information; that accession lists of captured
documents be discontinued; that accession lists of only
current material be issued; and that FDB undertake as a
basic program the spontaneous development of information
from available captured documents according to the ORE re-
quirements and priorities. He stated that the basic program
would not handicap action on current requirements but
rather would provide a sound foundation and a constructive,
logical approach to foreign document exploitation. 22/
The Bagnall proposal, the thrust of which was in-
corporated later in the month in the ICAPS survey of 00,
was an important harbinger for the future development of
FDB operations. An indication that it had found favor at
least insofar as OCD was concerned was received on 1 August
1947 when Capt. Olsen, the AD/CD, spoke in favorable terms
of the Bagnall nerrorandum. He stated that action on all but
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the publication of current accession lists rested within the
present authority of 00, ORE, and OCD and expressed belief
that a dynamic exploitation program would result in better
service and more valuable information to the intelligence
community than would be the case under the old system.
Regarding the establishment of overall detailed requirements,
Olsen indicated that by order of the Executive Director a
survey on this would be made. 85/ Based on these develop-
ments, FDB's operations and service to the other offices
had progressed to such an extent that by the end of the
year Sibert was able to inform Olsen that the receipt of
large numbers of requirements frau ORE and the issuance of
OCD's "Estimates of Intelligence Target Potentials" had
given FDB sufficient information to warrant cancellation
of the then still-pending survey on requirements. L3f/
A further development in the FDB mission during 1947
was the augmentation of the branch's translation service
function. This new move was largely attributable to the
component's staffing problems.
Following informal liaison, the Office of Special
Operations (0S0), CIG's covert Office, on 28 August 1947
requested FDB assistance for translation of approximately
120 pages per month of documentary material in various
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languages. The serious personnel shortage of FDB was con-
sidered in relation to the possibility of seeking a ceiling
rise (from 170), and establishment of a "translation pool"
.that the branch could handle the OSO request with available
was suggested. gy However, the Acting Chief, FDB, declared
personnel and turned down the suggested increase as unneces-
sary. 88/ In view of the frequent requests for branch
personnel augmentation in the years following, this stand
seems surprising and was perhaps one of the few times if
not the only time, that John Bagnall disregarded such an
opportunity.
A time for second thoughts on the personnel problem
soon followed, for in the ensuing weeks and months the demand
for translations from requester offices, not only in CIA
Which replaced CIG on 18 September 1947) but in other IAB
agencies as well, increased rapidly. The problem of furnishing
service for these requests now had to be squarely faced, and
with the increasing workload it was no longer a question of
whether it could be accomplished but rather how large a
personnel complement would be required to do it. At a
14 October 00 staff meeting the matter was thoroughly dis-
cussed and the old issue raised of whether FDB should
establish a translation pool or whether the branch itself
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should serve as a CIA translation service. 89/ 00 and FDB
opted for the first choice and on 6 November 1947 the branch
was authorized to establish a central translation service*
for CIA which was designated the Translation Service Division
(TSD) of FDB. 90/ In implementing thisrmwe,
on 21 November submitted to the CIA Executive for Administration
and Management a tentative vo which provided for a total
complement for the new division of 86 individuals, 67 of
these to be linguists and the balance support personnel. 91/
A subsequent revision cut this total to 44, including 37
linguists, and final approval was granted on 26 December. 92/
Addition of the new division brought the FDB 7/0 to
a
new high. TO circumvent the long delays caused by clearance
procedures and to get the new, unit operative as early as
possible, it was decided to segregate the Translation Service
Division with its assigned linguists awaiting clearance
from the already-cleared FDB employees, and arrangements
* The definition of FDB 's function as a central translation
? service was updated in late 1951 and reissued on 12 January
1952 as CIA Regulation One change, among others,
incorporated in the new version was the right of the organiza-
? tion to reject requests (as a safeguard against indiscriminate
dumping).
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were therefore made to provide space on the first floor
of for the use of newly
recruited linguist personnel for TSD.
The recruitment of qualified linguists for FDB opera-
tions was and remained a chronic problem and will be more
fully treated below. It also affected TSD in that the
vo for the unit was maintained only with difficulty. Bow
? ever, the unit proved its value by enabling the immediate
use of new personnel, thereby doubtless saving for FDB many
of the new people who otherwise, discouraged by the long
? drawn-out security clearance, might have sought employment
in less sensitive agencies. Perhaps TSD's primary draw-back
was the lack of direct connunication between the "temporary"
TSD employees and FDB.
The unit continued as a division of FDB until August 1949,
when it was eliminated in a branch reorganization. Its
functions and personnel at that time were distributed through-
out the area branches; this allowed for broader and more
efficient use of its resources.
Already in Nay 1947 the spectrum of FDB operations had
been broadened beyond CIG limits by a CIG move to coordinate
foreign press exploitation among the various agencies of the
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IAB through the pooling of effort to ensure better coverage
suited to the particular requirements of each participating
agency. Capt. Ford, the Executive Director of CIG, requested
copies of all standing collection directives covering foreign
press exploitation conducted by the IAB agencies and proposed
a study on the overall problems of efficiency and economy. 22/
FDB activities and contacts were still further expanded
in this period by continuing and extending the wartime arrange-
ment which SDS had maintained with the British in connection
with the SDS-produced ICF cards.
In support of'
the argument for US cooperation, Gen. Sibert pointed out
to the DCI that the USSR provincial press was a valuable
source of industrial information not generally available in
the Soviet central press.
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B. First Try for a Charter
With the function of FDB as an "exploitation" organiza-
tion now apparently authorized, the way seemed clear for a
gradual shaking down of the branch into a routine of
document handling. However, the new-procedure did not deal
with and thus had not solved the matter of carrying on
the continuing involvement of FDB in its original basic
function, namely, that of providing translation services
to the community as these related to current sources.
There was in this early period still no charter for implementa-
tion of FDB's operation as a "service of common concern,"
in straight translation as well as in exploitation. Now,
concurrent with the developerent of the exploitation function,
the branch took steps to solve this second problem.
As has been shown above, practical steps were taken to
deal with the large volume of translation requests levied
on FDB by the intelligence community, but what had been done
in noway solved the nagging problem of ultimate responsi-
bility for translation exploitation in the community ?whether
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this was to be a function of each agency on behalf of
its own needs or whether it was to be a centralized operation
handled by CIA, that is, FDB. By provision of the proposed
DCI Directive 1/5 mentioned earlier, under authority of
National Security Council Intelligence Directive (NSCID) 1,
the exploitation of all captured documents and current
periodicals and press, together with appropriate dissemina-
tion and coordination of related activities, was to be the
function of CIA. 22/ Consideration of that directive was
part of the general review by the National Security Council
of all former National Intelligence Authority (NIA) and
CIA directives which was initiated at the first meeting of
the NSC on 26 September 1947. Clarification of the FDB
mission would apparently depend upon an IAC or NSC decision
relative to the so-called implementing supplement 1/5.
Meanwhile, in the fall of 1947 action had begun on
preparation of a new NSCID 8, which was in effect the first
effort to draft a charter for foreign document exploitation
in the intelligence community. After considerable discus-
sion and revision, a proposed version of this document was
circulated on 13 January 1948. Like the Director of Central
Intelligence Directive (DCID) 1/5 it provided the DCI with
authority to exploit captured documents and current materials
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for the benefit of the community. 100/ The 13 January
version of the new directive was not viewed favorably by
FDB, and on 29 January
Chief of FDB,
forwarded to Gen. Sibert a detailed critique of the proposed
directive in which he dwelt especially on its restrictive
nature, emphasizing in particular the lack of clearcut
authority of the DCI in the matter of document exploitation
and also the limitation of the field of exploitation ex-
clusively to governmental agencies. 10l/ As a result of
objections, as well as some by the Army, which had
been the originator of the initial request for an NSCID,
still another version was prepared in early March 1948 by
00 and circulated by ICAPS for consideration by the
Intelligence Advisory Committee (IAC) agencies. The stumbling
block this time was the State Department, which felt that
exploitation should be conducted on the basis of prior agree-
ments between CIA and the requesting agency in all individual
instances. CIA believed this arrangement to be too cumber-
some to be workable and thus impractical. In view of the
State position, CIA felt that issuance of an NSCID at this
time would serve no useful purpose. 102/ Consequently,
ICAPS recommended to the DCI that the proposed NSCID 8,
"Foreign Document Exploitation," be abandoned and that this
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work continue to be done by working level agreeffent under
NSCID 3, "Coordination of Intelligence Production." 103/
This development brought to a close the first phase of the
effort to create a charter for FDB operations. From a
practical standpoint its lack did not deter the branch from
performing its functions effectively; however, it is doubt-
less true that under the aegis of a charter many of the
problems which subsequently arose could have been much more
easily resolved than was the case.
Despite this setback the Agency continued to pin:note
the concept of centralized exploitation and translation. The
logic of this effort was well expressed by in
reacting to the NSCID 8 failure; he pointed out that surveil-
lance of the press could not be successfully done in a hap-
hazard, sporadic manner and that coverage had to be complete
and continuous, so that nothing would be overlooked. Those
in the IAC opposed to the directive who expressed the feelings
that proper exploitation could be done in the various embassies,
by military and naval attaches, or by individuals assigned
to the proper area desk in the appropriate agency in Washington
were, he felt, under a misapprehension as to the enormity of
the language problem as well as the large volume of material
to be handled. lpy In this
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coordination of all governmental foreign documents exploita-
tion and translation could only be done in a really effective
manner by establishing a central point to exercise control,
whether in CIA or some other agency. Logically this focal
point appeared to be FDB by reason of its function and develop-
ment. A proliferation of the same activity by the various
members of the IAC, not to mention other divisions of
the government, spelled at best inefficiency, duplication,
and wastefulness; at worst, chaos.
In August 1948 George Carey informally learned of a
proposal for creation of two separate translation pools in
the goverment, one an Air Force project known as "Treasure
Island," the other a central translating group for the Army,
Navy, and Air Force. He pointed out the obvious fact that
?
lack of an NSCID opened the field of foreign document transla-
tion legitimately to any IAC member who wished to enter
it. 105/ This information about the new proposal triggered
early CIA action. On 3 September, calling attention to the
above developments, the Agency invited IAC member participa-
tion in a meeting to explore, as it pertained to intelligence
materials only, the degree of interest in the IAC for
establishment of a central document exploitation and transla-
tion service as envisaged in Paragraph 7 of NSCID 1. Al:.
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the same time the Agency expressed its willingness to main-
tain such a service provided all IAC umbers cooperated on
the basis of certain prescribed rules. 106/
FEB was fully involved in the CIA planning, and, with
Bagnall representing the branch, the Agency held discussions
with ICAPS regarding the feasibility of a central transla-
tion and exploitation unit for foreign-language documents.
These evolved two months later into discussions concerning
the agenda for an IAC ad hoc committee which was to consider a
centralized translation service. At that time Bagnall sub-
mitted a memorandum to ICAPS through the Ap/o outlining
FDB's position relative to the discussions and recommending
use of FDB to process all non-covert foreign-language materials
for CIA as an inherent function. 107/
The 3 September initiative of CIA bore fruit by the
end of 1948 with the formation of a committee composed of
representatives from all IAC agencies which was designated
the Ad Hoc Cbmmittee on Central Translation. Although of
relatively short duration, this body represented the
first in a series of what may be termed "watch dog" or
"guidance" organizations within the intelligence community
caboose overall function was to oversee all aspects of foreign
language document handling. As such, it and its successors
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played a very important role in FDB activities from this
time on. The new organization's first meeting, called at
the behest of CIA, was held on 10 January 1949 and concerned
itself with a three-part agenda, as follows: translation
being done by present agency staffs and ,by CIA, translation
being done by contract outside the community, and transla-
tion desired but not being done due to shortage of staff or
funds. 108/ A participant in this and subsequent meetings
of the group was John Bagnall, once again the Acting Chief
of FDB following the transfer of to another
assignment in October 1948.
As a result of the first meeting of the new Ad Hoc
Committee, together with attendant staff work, a report was
submitted to the DCI in March 1949 presenting a concensus
of the committee members' views on document handling.
Briefly stated, it was their opinion that a really centralized
translation bureau would be too complicated and too unwieldy;
that individual intelligence agencies needed their own trans-
lation sections for limited amounts of priority special-
interest material; that desirable coordination could be
accomplished by maintenance by CIA of a central file of
translated intelligence material and periodic dissemination
of a consolidated list of translations in process, completed,
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and available from each of the agencies; and that a common
service of exploitation of foreign language publications
(oollection screening, and processing) would, be desirable,
not only for the IAC but others as well. Based on these
views, the following reconmendations were submitted: mainte-
nance of individual agency translation sections; coordination
by CIA of translation work accomplished by such sections; and
establishment of a new committee, designated the "Committee
on Exploitation of FOreign Language Documents," to study the
problems on centralized exploitation, and to make recommenda-
tions through normal channels to the IAC. 109/ The 16 March
proposals by the DCI based on the Ad Hoc Committee's recant-
mendations were promptly-approved by the respective intel-
ligence chiefs of the Army, Navy, and Air FOrce during
April. 110/
The importance from the FDB standpoint of the develop-
ments just described cannot be overemphasized. Although a
formal charter on foreign-language documents processing
was still in the somewhat distant offing, here for the first
time had been formulated an official declaration by members
of the intelligence community recognizing the need for
centralized handling, a problem still unsolved more than
four years after the close of hostilities in World War II.
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It was a step long overdue, for the nature of the source
material with which foreign language documentation was
concerned had by now drastically changed. Most of the
captured documents had already been turned over to the
Library of Congress and the National Archives.
Approximately 85 percent of FDB's workload at the end
of 1948 consisted of current material, 111/ and the time
was not far distant when work on captured documents would
be wholly exhausted. Important as well was the emphasis
placed upon the distinction between "translation" and
"exploitation," for with the growing volume of materials
to be processed and the limited personnel to do this work,
exploitation appeared to be the only method to cope with
FDB's increased responsibilities. Straight translation,
as the Director made clear, 'could be carried out as an
operation of "common concern" only for other than normal
needs. The statements in the IAC March declarations were
broad and somewhat nebulous, but they were nonetheless a
significant step forward in the delineation of FDB func-
tions in relation to the overall intelligence field.
On 11 April 1949 the Ad Hoc COmmittee on FOreign
Document Exploitation, with John Bagnall as chairman, was
established hyagreement of the IAC ,at the final meeting of
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the Ad Hoc Committee on Translations. Its purpose, as defined
by the DCI, was to assist and advise CIA on current IAC
exploitation of foreign-language documents with a view
toward eliminating duplication and achieving more complete
coverage. 112/ The new committee and its successor organiza-
tions were eminently successful in accomplishing this purpose.
From 18 April on, the Exploitation Committee met weekly
until its last meeting on 25 July 1949. At that time it
prepared a final report which included the following major
recommendations for official INC concurrence: CIA should
assume responsibility for the overall coordination of foreign-
language document exploitation and for performance centrally
of necessary exploitation; a permanent Foreign Documents
Exploitation Committee should be established to assist the
DCI in the exploitation program; and appropriate instructions
and directives should be formulated embodying the recommenda-
tions outlined. 122/ Together with this report, a redraft
of a proposed NSCID, prepared by Bagnall at the AD/O's direc-
tion, was submitted for ICAPS approval, but it met the fate
of earlier drafts. No final action was taken.
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CHAPTER FOUR
The People and the Organization
A. Staff Development
With the gradual evolution of FDB frau a group of largely
dissimilar units engaged in the processing of captured enemy
documents under conditions of war into a peace-time organiza-
tion with an increasingly diverse and complex function, a
state of change became the norm rather than the exception in
the formative years. In this period, lasting from 1946 to
about 1953, the concepts, objectives, organization, workload,
personnel requirements, and methods of the branch changed
drastically and ware chronically in a state of flux. These
changes were largely attributable to concurrent CIA growth
and reorientation and to changing world. conditions. Important,
therefore, to the fulfillment of FDB's mission under such
circumstances was the establishment and development of an
organizational structure responsive to the needs of the intel-
ligence corrmunity, but even more important was the recruitment
and training of a competent, highly motivated staff of
linguist-intelligence officers. As noted earlier, the branch
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I.
?1
I.
inherited an important nucleus of linguists at the time it was
Incorporated into CMG, but with the rapidly increasingruorkload
as the mission emphasis grminally shifted to world coverage,
the need for a sizable augmentation of the staff was foreseen
and steps taken to bring it about. Unfortunately, the problem
was not eased by the fact that changes in intelligence targets
after the war, particularly the lessening emphasis on captured
document processing, made the available language resources
inherited by FDB less meaningful. In the war and immediate
postwar period German and Japanese had, of course, been the
primary exploitation languages; by the end of the 1940s and
early 1950, as the Cold War atmosphere intensified, these
languages were replaced in importance by Russian and Chinese and
by the languages of Third Wbrld areas in which Communist
influences were strongly in evidence.
In addition to the language problem, still another
change affecting the FDB personnel situation was the growing
emphasis on exploitation, alluded to earlier. This was a
development created by the need to cover large and increasing
volumes of source material with a limited cadre. Since it was
possible to exploit -- that is, translate selectively -- considerably
larger amounts of material than could be covered by straight
and canplete translation, it was logical to use the former
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I.
method. This procedure was eventnally carried a step beyond
the exploitation function when the organization began to con-
duct basic or, more properly, preliminary analysis through its
production of collated reports. Thus, the nature of the
FDB, personnel complement was changing. Fran pure translation
_ .
the branch engaged increasingly in the preliminary functions
of analysis, that is, the selection of materials-WhiCi:WO-Uld
contribute to the final analytical solutions of intelligence
problems. Nevertheless, despite the change to exploitation,
translation work continued and, in fact, did so at an increas-
ing rate. This aspect of the staffing problem also required
consideration.
Since the time of the conversion fran military to
civilian control at the end of 1946, the problem of personnel
shortages in FDB had been a chronic one. Some of the reasons
for this have been discussed earlier. For example, the
inability of some of the former WDC and SDS military and
civilian employees to pass the much stricter CIG and CIA
semirja-..y clearance had resulted in their elimination; further-
more, the strict security requirements made recruitment more
than usually difficult. Also complicating the problem was
the desire of some individuals making the transition from
military to civilian life to seek empIoymeat in other government
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agencies or in non-government fields of endeavor. This re-
flected awish on the part of some to find positions in which
they could use their substantive talents in preference to
their linguistic skills. For these and other reasons the
personnel shortages continued and were a persistent drag on
the capability of FDB to accomplish its tasks. Because of
recruitment difficulties and the imposition of ceilings for
hiring by the Agency, designed to hold the numerical emplor
ment within bounds of the organization's requirements, the
tables of organization established for the branch were for
the most part theoretical rather than actual.
Recruitment problems were unique for the branch as
compared with many other parts of the Agency in that the ideal
applicant for employment in FDB was rewired not only to possess
a command of at least two languages, one foreign and the
other English, but he was also expected to have a substantive
knowledge of the area or field to which he was to be assigned.
Such recruits were sought but were difficult to find, particu-
larly in the face of competition from other units, in and out
of the Agency, many of whon could offer higher grades to
prospective candidates. Since the ideokally equipped employee
was hard to find, the branch settled on a. policy of hiring a
linguist when available and training him in the substantive
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aspects of his job after he had entered on duty. In some
instances FM undertook to train a number of its own personnel
in the rarer languages. Even to obtain linguistically trained
individuals was not always easy, for it was only after the
war that language training and language-area studies became
an important part of the college and university curriculum.
Thus, at the beginning, the competition for recruits was very
sharp. .Later on, as rrore language graduates entered the
labor market, this pressure decreased sanewhat.
Recruitment was conducted at many US institutions of
higher learning, resulting in a constant flow of potential job
candidates to FDD. In this connection contacts ware established
and cultivated with key faculty members, usually in language
departments, who were encouraged to recommend prospective
employees from among their students. This cooperation was
as a rule freely and generously given. At times, the organiza-
tion's ardor in pursuing this means of obtaining badly needed
linguists led to complications. For exanple, in 1947, PTB
promised jobs prospects before the CIA
Personnel Branch had. interviewed them. In the interim,
certain positions had been downgraded and in sane instances
individual s failed the security, investigation. As a result,
sane applicants accused the Agency of discrimination and
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complained to their Congressmen, 114/ creating an awkward
situation. Eventual ly coordination among Agency components
improved and such misunderstandings were generally avoided.
This discussion of the development of a document officer
corps through recruitment and training leads to the question
of what the typical FDD professional was like and what the
nature of his work was. The term "typical" is difficult to
apply to FDD officers. FDD personnel came from a diversity of
backgrounds. They ranged in age from young, inexperienced
individuals recently out of school, with only a modicum of
language training, to middle-aged emigrees who spoke a native
tongue and for whom English had until quite recently been a
foreign language. While generally college graduates, the
educational background of FDD employees also varied widely,
from the high school level to the highest of graduate degrees.
Their substantive backgrounds were equally diverse, ranging
from, say, a history or political science discipline to one
in mathematics or physics. They were assigned within the
division according to their qualifications and were then, by
work experience, trained in the specifics of their jobs.
A. typical work regimen usually consisted of assignment
to the employee of selected foreign press and joUrnal sources
of a particular country, supplemented from time to time by
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book and monograph material. These were regularly scanned,
significant articles or selections were extracted on the basis
of periodically updated consumer requirements lists, and the
selected material was translatedlor summarized either in-house
or was sent out for translation on contract. The results of
these labors eventually evolved as periodically issued reports.
On frequent occasions, specific requests were received from
consumer offices and these were exploited as required. In
arldition, qualified FDD officers would engage in special tasks,
some of which will be treated below, but in general the routine
described above was their typical daily job.
The difficulties encountered in recruitment applied not
only to professional people in FDB but were also evident as
regards clerical personnel. Here the problem was primarily
one of competition with other' parts of the Agency for a com-
modity in short supply, although in this instance the security
clearance aspect was also a factor. There are numerous ref-
erences in FDB personnel reports of the period which emphasize
the acute shortage of clerical personnel. The critical aspect
of this shortage was the disruption created in the production
of the finished FDB product once the research and translation
had been completed. In August 1947, for example, it was
reported that the shortage of clerical personnel in the
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Editorial Section of FDB had limitedpmcductian to only
45 percent of the material received during the month, 115/
and during the following month, of eight issues of the FDB
Periodical Abstracts prepared, only was issued due to the
acute shortage of clerical personnel. 116/ Although these and
similar instances were not the only reason for delays in FDB
output then and later, they were an exasperating contribution
to the branch's poor reputation among consumers for slow
dissanination of its production.
When the new Documents Branch became part of CIG late in
1946, CIG took cognizance of the need to strengthen its fledgling
acquisition, and one of its first official acts relating to
DB was to recommend an immediate increase in the branch's
complement from 90 to 161 bodies. This was designed to effect
a more efficient operation and to make a start on dissolving
the large backlog. 117/ For the reasons stated earlier, the
figure 161 proved an elusive goal. Indeed, with the endemic
problems of recruitment and attrition, this figure was not
reached until same two and a half years later.
Throughout its history there were, as one would expect,
considerable variations in the T/110 and ceiling levels applied
to the branch CLater, division). To cite these figures
merely for the record would prove boring to the reader. and
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would serve no practical purpose. What is more important is
to call attention to trends and changes in the personnel situation
in the organization as these occurred and to direct attention
only to changes in personnel levels which reflected significant
developments.
The recommendation. of 17 January 1947 for the DB Tb O in-
crease
signalled the beginning of a rather rapid rise,
and by when SDS and GMDS employees were added to the
branch the Tb O level was fixed a 118/ This figure stood
until December when the Translation Service Division was added
to the branch. After some maneuvering, a T/O allowing for a
total complement of
was established to permit the staffing
of this division. Slight internal changes in the branch
brought this figure up to 119/ A branch reorganization
resulted in the reduction for Fiscal Year (FY) 1949 to a TbO
of
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this number was reduced still further, to 121/ a level
which was maintained to the end of 1950.
The branch ceilings, meanwhile, had roughly followed the
convolutions of the T/OS. up to the.beginning of 1949 there ?
was generallyadifferential ranging from. approximately 25
positions to about 80. In early 1949. the ceiling finally
overtook the T/0 .and fran then: on, withaxoeption of lags as
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1
T/0s were increased, the two figures were generally identical
or at least close together.
Unfortunately, until approximately the final quarter of
1949 the same could not be said for the numbers of indiviauals
on duty in FDB. Regardless of the number of T/0 positions
allotted to the branch or the ceiling established, recruitment
continued to fall far short of meeting FDB requirements. With
the increasing emphasis on the Soviet and Satellite areas, the
shortage of Russian and East European linguists remained acute.
For example, during the first three months of 1948 an average
of 60 applicants had been under consideration at all times but
the number of individuals hired remained discouragingly
small. The majority were rejected due to language deficiency
or were eliminated for security reasons.
This
response was quite typical.
During its formative period as CIA's document center,
FDB was the frequent target of critician by the intelligence
community for its apparent inability to net the document ex-
ploitation and translation requirements levied on it. The
various offices of CIA seemed to fail to understand the special
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problems facing the branch in its recruitment program and
showed a tendency to place FDB in the role of whipping boy for
the problems rather than to attribute these to actual circum-
stances over which FDB had no control. The reason for this
attitude is not quite clear although it may have been at
least partially due to poor public relations on FDB 's part and
to a lack of meaningful communicaticoL among the parties con-
cerned. Whatever the cause, FDB sought all possible means to
extricate itself from a bad situation not wholly of its own
making. Already in 1947 the Chief, FDB, had suggested that
improvement in procurement of personnel might be effected if
an FDB representative were allowed to contact foreign-language
departments and foreign-language majors in various universities
prior to the end of the academic year. In this way qualifica-
tions determination and clearance procedures could be carried
out during the school year so that new personnel could go
to work immediately upon graduation. 123/
In pursuit of solutions to the critical manpower situa-
tion, and John Bagnall net on 20 January 1948 with
representatives of the CIA Personnel Branch. TWo points were
discussed. -- the location of new sources for recruiting language
personnel, and the use of an unclassified typist pool as a
means of holding clerical personnel until clearance was
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completed. One outcome of the meeting was Personnel Branch's
assurance that it would make a concerted effort to recruit
linguists, first in the Washington area, and then through
colleges and language schools elsewhere in the US. In addition,
FDB was instructed to canvass present employees and forward to
Personnel Branch all possible references. 124/ The employment
of such recruitment practices became a standard means of secur-
ing new applicants for FDB and was applied with increasing
success.
The second proposal, the formation of an unclassified
typist pool, was also implemented. A, pool for uncleared typists
was established near the main operation but separate from it
and proved very successful, both from the standpoint of
assisting in the work of the established clerical force and
of holding potential employees.
The search for solutions continued, but in February, in
answer to a request for assistance fram Gen. Sibert,
the Executive for Administration and Nanagement, placed at least
part of the blame for the personnel shortage on FDB itself and
cited 21 pending cases already in FDB hands for as long as a
montd1where administrative action on FDB's part would have
speeded up clearance and made personnel available. 125/ On
the same day, Whiter Dowd, the Executive Director continued
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the attack. Referring to Sibert's contention that basic
reason for the unsatisfactory personnel situation in FDB was
the lack of adequate personnel procurement, Ford spoke of an
approximate 30-percent turnover, by resignation or transfer,
of personnel in FDB, a rate four-to-five times greater than
that in other CIA units. Tb Ford this indicated the possi-
bility of an unsatisfactory situation in FD's internal manage-
ment, and in view of this he declared his intention to
initiate a combined management and classification survey of
the branch. 126/
Sibert
took strong exception to the allegations
expressed in these memoranda, and at Sibert's request
prepared a six-page memorandum in answer to the contentions
of
and Ford. TO refute the inference of sub-standard
leadership in FDB, he went into person-by-person detail on
reasons for the above-mentioned losses, and expounded at con-
siderable length on the "peculiar" circumstances of FDB's
inclusion in the Agency, namely, the fact that it was the only
organization taken over by CIA that then had to be put on a
peace-time footing. The "weak management" charge seamed to
have touched a particularly sensitive nerve, and took
pains to point to the large volume of intelligence produced
by the branch since its activation 'despite the handicaps
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under which it labored. 127/
apparently made a good
case in his memarimxim defending FDB operations, for no
further reference to poor management appeared in subsequent
exchanges. ALOI conducted the scheduled survey in the spring
of 1948, but the results caused no furor, and 00, with minor
exceptions, readily concurred with its findings. In retrospect
the flare-up in February appeared to have been simply the
result of a case of bad communications between Personnel Branch
and FDB.
Meanwhile, the FDB work force was increasing in numbers and
becoming more stabilized. Whether this was because of economic
stress in industry in the United States and the resultant decrease
in private employment, because of the return to this country of
accomplished linguists formerly employed abroad, or because of a?
wider acquaintance with FDB ' s recruitment program by government
agencies, a steady increase in the number of acceptable
candidates was apparent during the first half of 1949. Though
potential employees were still lost through failure to meet
FDB requirements or through delays in security clearance,
more qualif ied linguist-intelligence officers actually entered
on duty in three months in early 1949 than during all of
1948. 128/ By this time the branch complement hovered in the
vicinity of 150 individuals and in the succeeding months this
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figure graduatWinaved upward. Ftbm mid-1949, when the TbO
reduction had taken place, until the beginning of 1951, when
it was once again increased, the number of FDB employees rose
from and this trend continued. Tb carry the story
somewhat ahead, in mid-1953, following the promulgation of
NSCID 16, the long-sought charter, the Foreign Documents
Division (M), as FDB was by then called, achieved a personnel
complement in excess of
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and throughout the 1950s, the FDD personnel count remained
generally static at approximately employees, and this
figure corresponded roughly to the T/Os and ceilings of this
period. After 1953, there were no longer shortages in terms
of the overall number of employees. If shortages did occur,
they were usually in terms of language specialists within
that number.
Returning, however, to the earlier .period when FDB's
rather sparse personnel was still failing to keep pace with
the increasing requirements, several devices were adapted to,
help alleviate the situation. Early in 1948 the branch
sought and received authorization: to resort to what was
termed an. "overtime program" in an attempt to reduce the
backlog of translations and later to provide for increased
?press and periodical'explaitaticn and-to:wet the: delta-Ids for
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1
translation service. 129/ At the start, approval of Budget
and Finance was required to authorize the needed overtime
allowances for the branch, but with commencement of the Korean
action in June 1950 and the beginning of a period of six-day
work weeks, overtime became standard procedure. The degree to
which this means was used to manage the FDB workload is evident
fram the following figures for hours of overtime: 1948 - 1,900;
1949 - 18,400; 1950 - 15,600; 1951 - 32,800; 1952 - 44,000. Ds/
The "overtime proyram" served the purpose for which it was
instituted but it was nonetheless an artifical expedient.
Other methods used or contemplated were the employment
of qualified linguists called up for duty with the armed ser-
vices and detailed to FDB, 121/ use of a provisionally cleared
linguist pool, and authorization to recruit at 10 percent in
excess of the Tb. So far as is known, the first of these
was never implemented. The second had been standard operating
procedure (SOP) for same time, but in December 1948 the
Executive Director threatened to curtail it. On 7 January 1949,
however, a memorandum from the DCI to the Executive Director,
outlining FDB justifications, approved continued use of the
pool. 1E/ The third method, triggered by theAWD's appeal
for a small increase in the FDD T/0, resulted in no increase
but did grant FDD authorization to apply the 10 percent
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1
formula in recruiting, an important concession toward helping
solve the personnel problem. 133/ In connection with recruit-
ing, briefing sessions were initiated and held periodically
to acquaint field recruiting officers with the division's
needs.
The devices just described were helpful to a degree,
but they were still not sufficient to bring relief to the
beleaguered division. Faced with an estimated workload of
some 98,764 pages of classified foreign-language material
during 1951 George Carey on 5 December 1950, with the con-
currence of FDD 's consumer offices in CIA, requested an
increase of 70 linguists and ten clericals in the division's
personnel complement. This was designed to augment FDD's
current capacity for translation of 20,000 pages a year. Aside
frau the fact that added personnel was actually needed to
accomplish the mission, the request was also designed to side-
track a threat to the integrity of FDD's function as a "service
of common concern." WO, the main requester for this large
bulk of translation, and some of the other =Offices had
suggested recruitment of their own linguists, and in the absence
of any progress up to this time on the formulation of an
appropadateNECMD, the threat to FDD was very real '/.
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Fortunately, the request for an increase, designated CIA Project
No. 00-68-51, was approved by the Project Review Committee on
6 January 1951. On the same date another request, CIA Project
No. 00-67-51, authorizing an additional two positions to
service a new FDD Unclassified Translation Project involving
the contractual translation of 37,000 pages of unclassified
material was also approved. 135/ The latter was a completely
new departure fram the earlier function of FDD and had far-
reaching effects on its future procedures. It will be the
subject of a later chapter in this history.*
In a memorandum sent later in January, Carey informed
Bagnall of his approval of the latter's request that the new
employees be permitted to be used both for exploitation and
translation. This was based on Bagnall's contention that
employment of this combination for the new personnel would
result in a higher morale among than than if the new people
were subjected to the rather deadening routine of continuous
straight translation work. This proviso was, however, granted
only with the understanding that the quota of 90,000 pages of
translation per year was to be met. 136/
With the large increment of 82 positions added to the
FDD T/0 at the beginning of 1951, bringing it to a total of
* See Ch. Eight.
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1
and with increasing success in recruitment, which had
raised on-board personnel from 186 at the time the new T/0
became operative to at the beginning of the third quarter
of 1952 when the T/0 was again changed, 137/ it would appear
that the division had reached a personnel level which would
require little or no change for the foreseeable future. In
actual fact this was not to be, and the relentless press of
new requirements and the growing workload made another appeal
for help inevitable.
In June 1952 Bagnall submitted a request for new people
based on current receipts of source material and on the esti-
mates of the needs of various CIA Offices. Breaking down his
request in terms of clerical personnel and professionals,
the latter including analysts for press propaganda analysis
work (anew operation being undertaken by FDD for the first
time),* Bagnall declared that 98 new positions were necessary
and could reasonably be recruited in Fiscal Years 1953 and 1954.
He therefore recommended a T/0 increase for FY-1953 to 380
positions with a ceiling of 12g/ The 98 total was a
considerable reduction from the figure of over cited by
* See Ch. Eleven. ,
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I.
1
Bagnall in his memorandum as actuaLly needed to. do all the
work, but even the reduced T/0 request met with serious
criticism frau the Planning and .COOrdination (P&) Staff in CO.
The part most severely criticized was not the number of
add i tional bodies asked for but rather the statement that
these could be "reasonably recruited." Louise Davison of P&IC
Staff pointed out that the net gain of 56 new recruits in the
previous 18 months (January 1951 - June 1952) amounted to an
average of 3.1 per month, a rate which would require to the end
of FY-1955 to obtain 98 people. 139/ A re-examination of
priorities and recruitment probabilities resulted in scaling
down Bagnall' s request from 98 to 62, including a reduction in
propaganda analysts from nine to seven, and bringing the final
total to This T/O was approved on 22 September 1952. 140/
This figure was the highest ever attained by FDD. In the fall
of 1953 it was reduced by 13 and in 1954 by ten more. Fran
that time on throughout most of the 1950s the FDD T/0 remained
in the range, but in the 1960s it was gradmal 1 y reduced to
the
and then to the
range.
B. Training
A factor of utmost importance in the development of a
competent staff in FDD cam into play, as it wouLd in any
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organization of this nature, after the process of personnel
procurement had been essentially completed. This factor was
the training of the new recruits for the job that they were
expected to do for the duration of their careers with the
division. In FDD, perhaps more than in most parts of the
Agency, this process was unique in that it involved the neces-
sity to train individuals entering on duty in the division to
perform a dual function. As we have noted, procurement of
personnel for FDD concentrated on obtaining individuals with
a linguistic background. This in itself created difficulties,
particularly in the early years, in that the labor market for
this type of individual was limited and the competition both
within the government and with private industry for good
linguists was exceedingly keen. FDD was, of course, fortunate
in that it had inherited an excellent nucleus of accomplished
linguists when its wartime predecessors were absorbed by the
Agency. This nucleus proved to be a valuable platform upon
which to build the type of organization that was foreseen
when the transfer was effected. However, the new group in
its initial stages was small indeed and the job of creating
a viable and productive organization proved to be a formidable
one. Contributing to the difficulty was the inevitable and
recurrent factor of attrition, for various reasons which
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was and continued to be an irritant factor throughout the life
of the division. It was not an unconmon phencmenon to employ
a promising candidate, train him in his job for many months,
have him gain long-term experience, and then lose him to
what to him seamed greener fields.
The fact that individuals had been hired and slots oc-
cupied did not mean that the problem had been solved. This
was only the beginning. Knowledge of one or more foreign
languages did not mean that the new employees were ready to
fulfill their function and that the division could leave than
to their own resources. They had to be trained and given
careful guidance in order for them to exploit their capabilities
for the greatest benefit to the organization. The unique
nature of their employment in EDD came into play here. They
were expected to be not only linguists but area specialists
as well. While it is true that sane recruits, but relatively
few, had received such dual training in the area studies
courses becoming popular after the war in the nation's colleges
and universities, the majority had not. Even for the few so
educated, the special nature of intelligence work required a
type of preparation not available in a college department. This
was also true of academic training solely in languages since
these courses usually prepared the students as. generalists
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rather than as the linguistic specialists that the intelligence
ccirtrunity needed.
A related problem was the limitation of college offerings
in the rarer languages and dialects needed by CIA. Training
in many of these was simply not available on the outside, and
special classes therefore had to be set up in the Agency to
provide these capabilities. Fortunately, the major languages
sought for intelligence work, Russian and Chinese, ware becom-
ing increasingly available.
The variety and methods of language training as it
affected FDD employees ranged widely. There was first of all
the "on-the-job-training" nature of his employment whereby his
knowledge of the language with which he entered on duty
broadened through experience to the extent that he became an
expert in it and in the specialized vocabulary associated
with his field. Another method, the most prevalent, involved
full- or part-time enrolment in language classes sponsored
by the Office of Training (arro . If arrt did not offer the
language, the employee could be sent for training to another
agency such as the National Security Agency (NSA) or the
State Department's Foreign Service Institute, to one of the
universities in the Washington area or elsewhere, or to a
carmexcial language School such as Berlitz,! Sometimes, for
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special cases or critical needs, external language training
involved sending the employee abroad for as much as a year of
study in a foreign university. In instances where training
in given languages or dialects was not available elsewhere
and a teacher could be temporarily recruited on the premises,
courses would be set up and training provided in FDD itself.
Such instruction was usually of the tutorial type, a method
which proved especially useful for FDD purposes since it
enabled the division to adapt the instruction to fit exactly
the needs of its type of work and thus reduce to a minimum
the time necessary to prepare actual producing linguists. On
infrequent occasions individuals from other parts of CIA
requiring language preparation were permitted to participate
in FDD-sponsored courses.
Language training was not limited solely to professionals.
Classes in elementary Russian for the benefit of clerical
and screening personnel were started in 1951 and conducted
periodically thereafter. This course proved very helpful in
familiarizing support personnel, not normally language-oriented,
with at least the rudiments of Russian and thus helped them
do a more effective job.
The detail involved in providing language training for
FDD personnel early became so great that provision was made to
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plan and regularize all facets of the program, and in June 1952
was assigned to the newly approved post of
Language Consultant on the staff of the Chief, FDD. 111/ On
9 January 1953, was formally designated as Coordinator of
Language Training, lly a position he held until near the
end of 1954 when the post was combined with the Language
Consultant Service to form the new Linguistic Support Staff.*
The preparation of FDD intelligence officers for their
jobs was by no means limited exclusively to language training.
Like other members ofithiCLAE7Oinnanity they had available to
them all the'PertinentJ courses offered by Onitand many took
advantage of these. Some instruction, like the Basic
Intelligence Coursquired of all new employee was compul-
;
sory, but most courses ware voluntary. Some segment of FDD
was always in a training status, in a variety of courses which
Gighangeirram a typing class to attendance at one of the
armed services strategic intelligence schools or
a senior
management course at same prestigious university. As in the case
of language instruction, same of the non-language training
participated in by its employees was FDD-initiated. FOr example,
periodic courses on the techniques of report writing were
* See Ch. Eleven.
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conducted by a. member of the FDD Editorial Section. For eight
weeks in the summer of 1952 a series of seminars on Soviet
history, politics, and economics was conducted for the benefit
of 40 FDD employees by three experts in these fields brought
in from the academic community. During a three-monthperiod
in 1954, 120 FDD officers attended a series of lectures on
,-7
Naxxism-Leninism givealbythe chief of the Propaganda Analysis
Staff.
Other forms of training available to FDD employees were
area familiarization tours, plant tours, and attendance at
professional meetings. The first of these usually ran from
several weeks to about three months' duration and enabled the
more fortunate FDD intelligence officers -- from among those
employed in the "free world" areas of the division -- to travel
to parts of the globe as diverse as Arctic Canada and Africa,
Scandinavia and Indonesia. This privilege, for obvious reasons,
was not open to officers in the Soviet Bloc and Chinese Cbmmunist
areas of FDD although some assigned to the latter did go to
Formosa or Bong Kong.
The extent of FDD involvement in training is evident from
a sampling of the division's training statistics. The numbers
of individuals receiving some degree of training, internal or
external, amounted to 200 in 1953 (up from 94 the previous
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year), 143/ 166 in 1954, 144/ and 180 in 1955. 145/ This
sample of figures indicates a broad use of the available
opportunities by FDD officers and suggests a strong desire
(s, op.,"
for self-improvement.
C. Organizational Development
Concurrent with the development of a staff of linguist/
intelligence officers and support personnel to carryon the
work of FDB, there evolved gradually an organizational structure
designed to permit the branch to conduct its operations and
fulfill its mission in conformity with the designs and purpose
of higher CIA authority. Since, however, the Agency itself
was still in a state of flux in the early period, with its
components often working at apparent cross-purposes and with
their relationships with one another not yet fully defined,
the task of FDB in relating to these stresses was oftentimes
a difficult one. The failure to provide the much-desired NSCID,
which would have authoritatively defined the branch's function
and permanently fixed its place in the community, intensified
the problem. Despite the lack of a charter, FDB rested its
case on the general understanding and agreement in the CIA
and, to a lesser degree in the IAC that it constituted the
"service of common concern" for document exploitation and
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it proceeded to develop its own organization in a reasonable
and logical manner according to existing circumstances. As ?
these changed, FDB adjusted to conform with new conditions
within the Agency. The result was a gradual shake-,down period
which lasted until roughly 1953, and the organization which
had evolved then remained more or less stable for the next
seven years until June 1960 when a consolidation of FDD
components occurred.
The organizational structure of FDB, as it was established
in mid-1947 following the acquisition of SDS and GMDS from
the War Department,* remained unchanged for only about six
months. On 22 December 1947 the new Translation Service
Division with a Tb O of
positions was established and space
was cleared
to accommodate the linguist personnel of
the new division who were to be used there on unclassified
materials pending clearance for work in the other divisions.
The new component was to provide a central translation
service for the CIA and, %alien circumstances permitted, the
other IAC agencies. The scope of its capabilities was quite
* See Ch. TWo,.p. 40.
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broad; in 1949, for example, its translators handled 30
languages. 146/ With the acidition of TSD, FDB had five divi-
sions.
The first change of major proportions in the FDB structure
occurred some six months later. On 3 June 1948, the so-called
"Sunshine Project," a field procurement operation initially
conducted by CIA's ORE and involving a Tb O of six positions, was
taken over by FDB. Mbre will be said about this project in
the next chapter. Than, on 29 July, in response to requests
for wider and more comprehensive coverage of sensitive areas,
further changes were authorized. Three new divisions were
added: the Document Screening and Reference Division, which
assumed the duties of what had formerly been the Administrative
Staff's Library Section; the Eastern European Division, which,
with a newly-designated USSR Division, represented a split-up
of the old USSR and Satellites Division; and the Near East/Africa
Division, a move toward expanded branch coverage. Appointed
as acting chiefs, respectively, of the new divisions were
Division.
continued as chief of the reorganized USSR
remained as the respective chiefs of the Far East,
the Scientific and Technical, and the Document Source Survey
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I.
Divisions. In addition, the Control Section under the Administra-
tive Staff was changed to the Records Section. 147/ It was
felt that the new organization would put FDB on a more realistic
and fundamentally sound operating basis.
During this period of change in FDB, there also occurred
the shift in branch leadership briefly mentioned earlier. This
involved the assignment of a field artillery
colonel, to a tour of duty as chief of FDB.
served in this capacity for almost exactly one year, frau
20 October 1947 to 26 October 1948, and performed commendably
in defending the interests of the branch. During this period
of "military" leadership in FDB, John Bagnall, who had served
as chief of the old Documents Branch and then as acting chief
when DB was redesignated the Foreign Documents Branch, was
assigned as deputy. When was relieved in
October 1948 for assignment elsewhere, Bagnall was restored
as acting chief of the branch. On 14 February 1949, he was
officially-designated chief of FDB and then held this position
for the next 15 years until he left FDD to became Deputy
Assistant Director, OCR. His deputy during most of this
period was Benjamin B. Cain, formerly of Contact Division/00.
Cain served in this position until his retirement from the
Agency at the end of 1959.
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The next major reorganization in FDB occurred in mi1-1949.
This move was undertaken in the face of a reduction in Tb O and
ceiling frau
positions. As a first step, the
Translation Service Division was abolished and its personnel
assigned to operational divisions in the branch in accordance
with their individual language qualifications. 148/ This
change, in effect, brought the exploitation and support
(translation) functions into closer conformity with each other,
thereby providing a better translation product throughccordina-
tion with area specialists and also a diversification of
activity for FDB personnel which resulted in an improvement
in morale. From the consumer standpoint, nothing was
lost; indeed, there was a gain in quality.
This reorganization also involved further readjustments
and reassignments among the area branch personnel. It called
'for formation of a new organization to be designated the
"Operations Division," but this name was subsegmmitlydopped
in favor of "Documents Control Division." The new unit combined
the functions formerly assigned to the Documents Source
Survey Division and the Documents Screening and Reference
Division. Anew Reports Division, to which were shifted the
functions of the Administrative Staff's former Records and
Editorial Sections, was also set up. '149/ Appointed as
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chiefs of the new divisions were
Who had headed
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the Document Source Survey Division)
as chief
of the Documents
Control Division, and as chief
of the Reports
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Division. Both had been members of the old WDC.
While this reorganization was pending, FDB was in the
throes of a physical change. The impending transfer of the
from CIA control had necessitated plans for
moving the branch to a new location. Various sites were
considered and as late as 23 June it was thought probable
that this location would be 1155 Champlain Street, N. W., and
a moving date of 1 July was expected. 150/ This proposal was,
however, rejected and the new home finally selected for FDB
Northeast Washington. The site was a considerable distance
fram the main area occupied by CIA, and this factor, isolating
as it did the branch from its consumers, was to create coordina-
tion problems which would not have existed under more normal
circumstances. The problem of maintaining effective liaison
was a formidable one, and failure to fully solve itinadeFDB's
service functimmuch less effective.
The 1 July =wing date was not met but the move was
made later in the month and campleted by 1 August with a
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minimum of disruption in branch operations. Allocation of
space in the new quarters had been made with the reorganization
plan in mind. Upon approval of the T/0 in late August, FDB
was organized in the form which was to stand substantially
unaltered for the next two years. One minor change did occur
shortly afterward when, on 29 September 1949, the titles of
the "former" Foreign Documents Branch and its component divi-
sions were reversed by CIA order and the organization from
then on was known as the "Foreign Documents Division." Its
subordinate units were thereafter designated "branches." 121/
The large increase in personnel which was authorized for
FDD to accommodate the increased demands of consumer offices
for translation and which was reflected in the new T/0 of.
25 February 1951* did not change the physical arrangements of
the division since.the new agsignments were distributed in.
relation to the requirements levied on the various branches.
However, a fourth wing of the second floor
was
taken over in May to provide space for the newly augmented branches.
This expansion and one further on in October 1952 to meet
the need for additional space when the FDD T/0 was increased
once again proved to be sufficient from then on to serve the
* See Ch..Four, p. 98.
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space needs of FDD.
Organizational expansion of the division had, however,
not yet reached its limit and, concomitant with increasing de-
mands for translation service, a new commitment in the exploita-
tion field had to be made by FDD. At least partially due to the
heavy workload and limited personnel as well as concentration
on higher priorities, the division had up to this point per-
formed no service to the community on Western European source
material. In fact, the Chief, FDD had earlier answered a
consumer requirement for such service with the statement that
00, in view of personnel restrictions on FDD and increased
demands for service, had established a policy that FDD would
not process information on Western Europe. 152/ In March 1951,
however, as the result of a reorganization of the Office of
Research and Reports (ORI) and increased Agency emphasis on
Western European developments, that Office reversed its earlier
position that coverage of Western European sources by FDD
was unnecessary and requested that a unit for this purpose be
set up. The reason given was that the language competence
which ORR originally possessed no longer existed. 153/ FDD
thereupon initiated action to establish a new branch and
submitted a request for an additional 26 employees to staff
it and to exploit the 200 newspapers and 3,000 periodicals
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considered to be of potential value. 154/ However, in light of
the T/O increase approved for FDD earlier in the year, the
still unfilled overall complement of the division, and the so
far unproved potential of the newly formed external translation
project, the 1?D/0 refused at this time to ask for additional
personnel although he did request authorization of the
proposed new branch to net the needs of ORR. 155/ The result
was the establishment, effective 27 June, of FDD's eighth
branch, with designated chief 156/ and an
initial T/O of 19, which was obtained by reducing three of
the other substantive branches by this amount. 157/ Space
to accommodate the new Western Europe Branch was already
available by virtue of the recent expansion to the fourth
wing of Y Building.
The recurrent problem of personnel losses ancmg potential
employees due to long delays in granting security clearances
still plagued the division. Another attempt to solve it was
attempted in April 1951 when FDD proposed employment of these
people in an "unclassified translation pool" to work on un-
classified materials while awaiting clearances. 12/ In addi-
tion to preventing loss of personnel, the plan had the additional
benefit of providing a work force to assist in holding down
backlogs in the large volume of unclassified translation
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requirements still levied on FDD. In this respect, the new
organization was similar to the old Ttanslation Service
Division which had been discontinued some two years before;
however, it was not as formal and did not become an organized
part of the division as the former had been. The new
provisional pool was set up in early summer 1951 and space
for it was provided in a sealed-off part of the FDD area in
Y Building.
was transferred from the Ad-
ministrative Staff and appointed the first chief of the un-
classified pool. L2/ The pool remained active for several
years and served well the purpose for which it was established.
With success achieved in its request for Western
European coverage by FDD, CPR made a further pitch in November
1952, asking that Latin America be taken into the FDD exploita-
tion program. This request was denied for the present because
of other commitments, although Bagnall agreed to search for
Latin American information on a regular basis in sources
covered outside the Latin American area. However, the door
was not closed to consideration of this expansion provided ORR
could justify it and FDD could obtain the needed personnel. 1.6.2/
For the moment nothing further was done.
While the division increased in size and its operations
expanded, changes were also made on subordinate levels. To
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1
improve FDD capabilities, the area branches within the division
were reorganized during 1952 to better fit their operations to
those of consumers on a counterpart basis. This provided for
greater specialization in subject categories. EMphasis on
projects of a research nature also continued to grow. Through
reports resulting from these projects an attempt was made to
save the consumers' time in assembling scattered items of
information and to conserve the linguists' efforts by concentra-
ting production solely on material of value to the project,
thus eliminating the wastefulness of literal and complete
translation. 1.?.1/ At the same time, a restudy and reclassifica-
tion of 188 linguist positions as of 7 May 1952 marked an
attempt, and one that was a definite success, to build the
confidence and 9a1,e of the operational personnel. The new
ratings were intended to be 'commensurate with the increased
responsibilities and greater specialization which had accrued
to the positions held by FDD intelligence officers. Similarly,
23 clerical positions were reclassified as of 10 December
providing for an expansion of duties in these positions and
for greater flexibility in operations. 1.?2/
The description of the staff and organizational develop-
ment of FDD up to this point represents the status of the
division just prior to the issuance of NSCID 16, FDD 's
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charter of common service. It did not mark the end of changes
and innovations in these aspects, for these continued throughout
the life of the organization. Mare followed and they will be
treated in turn.
D. The Question of Subordination
An issue of considprable importance to FDD 's organization
in the formative years pertained to the question of who was to
control the division. The Washington Documents Center,
forerunner of FDD, was initially assigned to ORE. It has been
suggested that this may have been done partially because of
early staffing difficulties. In 1946, in the absence of an
approved Tb O for WDC, slots were borrowed from other Offices,
and WDC personnel, among others, were carried against OSO or
ORE T/O positions which they,never held. WDC's assignment may
also have been due in part to the active role played by ORE
representatives in the early negotiations for the transfer of
docummit activities from the military services to CIA- 163/
On 31 December 1946, however, a retroactive order was issued
assigning WDC, effective 1 December 1946, to 00, which had
been established two months earlier to supervise the Agency
function of overt intelligence collection. This subordina-
tion remained in, force until 23 December 1963 when the division
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was transferred to OCR. Despite the transfer of administrative
subordination to 00, WDC OWN1 later, DB and FD] remained under
2
the operational control of other CIA Offices. The 31 December
order provided for close coordination by ORE and OCD to deter-
mine requirements and priorities for DB production, prescribed
CO coordination with ORE to determine final disposition of
exploited documents, and designated OCD as DB s point of
contact with other government agencies. 164/
In January 1948, the National Security Council designated
Allen W. Dulles, William H. Jackson, and Mathias V. Correa to
investigate CIA and the national organization for intelligence.
In the course of its survey the group studied FDB activities
as part of CO operations, and in its report to the NSC on
1 January 1949 it recommended that the branch be incorporated
in a proposed "Research and Reports" Division (subsequently
ORR) . This decision was based on a conviction that FDB' $
work could best be performed in close relationship with and
under the guidance of the consumer agencies. 165/ NSC 50i
issued on 1 July 1949, approved the recommended transfer.
However, no action was taken and the question of FDB' s
subordination remained at issue.
The question of the continued existence of 00, and thus
of its control of FDB hung fire for a. considerable length of
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time after issuance of the Dulles Report. There was a general
feeling among those reviewing the report that the common func-
tion of 00's three divisions, the collection of intelligence
information from overt sources, had not been fully recognized
by the committee, particularly in connection with the overlap
of FDB operations with those of the Foreign Broadcast Information
Branch (=). 166/ Another factor militating against the
transfer of the branch to ORR, after the latter's formation,
was ORR's specialization in economic and geographic research.
Since the other CIA Offices and the IAC agencies all had need of
FDB's services, it was felt that the branch should not be
controlled by just one of CIA's research units. TO do so
would tend to make document exploitation an adjunct of research
and analysis operations for the primary benefit of a few rather
than to facilitate its growth as the common-service collection
organization that it was intended to be. 167/
In its comments on the Dulles Report in February 1949, ORE
declared its disinclination to assume FDB's functions, provided
the latter 's services continued to be conducted in support of ORE.
In view of the fact that FDB was basically "a source exploitation
facility" involving a substantial library and reference func-
tion, the Office proposed that the branch remain in CO or be
attached to the CIA Library. 12/
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1
The latter part of the ORE proposal appeared to be the
Agency choice when, in mid-1949, the DCI had considered the
possibility of transferring the branch to OCD. 169/
Complications followed. NSC 50 had directed abolition
of OCD and dispersal of its functions to other CIA elements.
The NSC, therefore, in a 7 July meetirxj approved the recom-
mendations in NSC 50, including the proposed transfer of FDB
to ORE, and directed the CIA to carry than out. 170/ In the
course of preliminary hearings on the CIA budget for FY-1951,
representatives of the Bureau of the Budget stated their
opinion that the branch belonged in ORE rather than 00.
Thereupon, the DCI, determined to resolve the problem once
and for all, requested the Management Office in December 1949
to initiate a study and make a recommendation of where best
to place FDD. 171/
In the discussions during the fall of 1949, George Carey
had vigorously argued the case for keeping 00 in existence
and retaining FDD in this Office. He pointed out the incon-
sistency of considering the division's transfer to OCD, an
Office largely devoted to library and reference functions,
and emphasized that FDD collected information rather than
documents. He dwelt on the close relationship of the
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division's collection function with that of the Foreign
Broadcast Information Division (FBID) and the Contact Division
(CD) , FDD's canpartion. divisions in CO. If strategic considera-
tions dictated otherwise, however, and a change was inevitable,
Carey opted for FDD's transfer to ORE in preference to OCD. 172/
The problem pertaining to FDD's transfer elsewhere
in the Agency appeared to be closely related to the concurrent
disposition of FBID and CD. Contact Division had been destined
for merger with the covert Offices and the Dulles Report had
recomrnended the transfer of FBID to a new and primarily covert
"Operations Division." The latter provision was, however,
disapproved by the NSC six months later. For this and other
reasons, the provisions of NSC 50 relating to the rest of CO
were never implemented and FDD retrained under 00 administra-
tion. 173/
The issue of a possible transfer of FDD to OCD was
briefly revived in the latter half of 1951 when William H. Jackson,
at the DCI's behest, made a special survey of 00 during the
period 24 August'- 10 November 1951. In a lengthy memorandum
prepared in Ocbober and forwarded by the AD/0 to Jackson,
John Bagnall presented a detailed analysis of FDD operations
in which he spelled out the dissimilarity, of FDD and OCD
functions. The gist of the memorandum was that FDD exploited
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documents to produce raw intelligence whereas OCD's handling
of documents represented a library-and reference function,
that is, procurement, storage, dissemination, and similar
activities. 174/ The case presented by Bagnall seems to
have contributed to Jackson's reccomendatic'n to maintain the
status quo with respect to FDD.
The Jackson survey apparently put a final quietus on
the question of FUD's subordination. From then on, the matter
was no longer at issue and was not again revived until the
1960s when the transfer to OCR was consummated. This will be
the subject of a later chapter. For the moment however,
let us consider in the next chapter or two the materials udth
which the staff and organization were concerned.
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CHAPIER FIVE
? The 'Sources
A. Community Cooperation
Near the conclusion of World War II, as noted earlier,
the acquisition and preservation of captured enemy documents
became a matter of increasing concern to the intelligence
community. To prevent the loss of this material through
Inadvertent or deliberate destruction and also to plumb sources
which during hostilities had not been open to the intelligence
organizations a. widespread search and procurement effort was
initiated. This was an extensive undertaking, involving all
the services. One of these projects was the effort of the
WDC (Adv) team, discussed earlier, which functioned at the
close of the war in Japan and during a six-month period
selected and evacuated some 650,000 captured document items
to Washington and also provided for the continuing flaw of
materials which served as the basis of WDC (later DB and FDB)
operations until captured documents as a source gradually dried
up. With the decrease in volume and value of this source, the
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nature of intelligence exploitation slawly changed from its
earlier stress on the old captured material to a new emphasis
on current sources, and the procurement effort was revised to
conform to the new need. In this form, it became an important
and permanent part of the intelligence function.
The role played by FDD and its predecessors in source
procurement represents, of course, only a small part of the
total effort. In actual fact source procurement is primarily
a library operation, intrinsically not part of FDD's functions.
It has been, and is, engaged in by many parts of the government,
non-intelligence as well as intelligence, IAC as well as CIA.
Within the CIA it was a major function of what gradually
evolved into the Office of Collection and Dissemination. FDD's
interest in collection of source material was thus peripheral
but, since the quality and quantity of its own product depended
upon the same factors in source collection, its concern with
the problem was nonetheless great. As the 14.DC (Tar) survey
in 1945-1946 had illustrated, during the early period WDC,
FDD 's forerunner, had depended mainly on its own initiative
for document procurement, but with its integration into the
Agency, its source collection function was for the most part
conducted through, or at least coordinated with, OCD. What
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follows deals with publications procurement only to the extent
that FDD was involved.
In the spring of 1947, during the formative period of
Documents Branch, the move toward gradual conversion from the
exploitation of captured documents to the exploitation of
current publications was already underway. At this time the
document status in the branch was as follows: the branch had on
hand approximately 40,000 low priority documents to be screened
and abstracted and about 5,000 captured documents a month were
being received. Operations then consisted of screening and
abstracting the material being currently received plus approxi-
mately 2,000 captured documents a week of the backlog. Ey At
this rate the backlog would last another 20 weeks. The number
of current foreign language periodicals estimated to be
available from abroad at this time was about 4,000, of which
some 1,760 were from Pastern Europe, the Near East, and the
Far East, the developing major target areas. Ey It was
therefore obvious that the volume of current materials was
more than adequate to fill the void that would be left by the
dwindling backlog of captured documents.
There were several methods by which these periodicals
could be procured. The most promising was through the Serials
Branch, Acquisition Division in the State Departrrent. This
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1
unit acted on the basis of requests from any government agency
desiring foreign periodicals and took steps to procure them at
no charge to the requester for the service. The only expense
entailed was the cost of the subscription itself. Another
State Department source was its Reference Division, which had
expressed its readiness to offer its sources on temporary loan
to other goverment components. The same was true of the
Library of Congress, which, in addition to receipts frau the
State Department, also received some periodicals by means of
international exchange, gifts, or purchase. A fourth source
was the Hoover Library, which received a number of USSR
periodicals and had indicated a willingness to make these
available at Stanford University for abstracting. Finally, all
current Japanese periodicals were directly procurable from 'S.P,
Tokyo, at no cost to CIG. 177/ Current source procurement
appeared to be no problem at all.
The importance of document procurerrent was recognized
early when, in the branch reorganization of June 1947, the
Document Source Survey Division was created. It was to play an
important role in surveying repositories throughout the United
States and the rest of the world to determine the existence and
availability of. foreign-language documents of actual or potential
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intPlligence value. In this connection a start was made in
October 1947 when FDB, in coordination with Contact Branch of
00, began a survey of governmental and academic institutions
to determine the extent of documentary material held by thmn
which would be of value to FDB. This activity was subsequently
expanded to include research foundations and private industry.
The procedure established was to have an FDB representative in
company with a Contact Branch officer visit an institution,
check out the potential of its sources, and then establish a
working relationship with a key person there who would be
witting of the CIA representatives' activities. The system,
almost without exception, worked well and was entaloyed by the
branch for as long as it was needed.
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The CIA. Library's role in FDD procurement operations was
no less important although its function pertained more to the
normal collection routine of source acquisition than did that
of Contact Division and OSO. On occasion, however, this
cooperation took a more direct form. For example, in the early
years while the Library was in the process of building up its
English-language holdings, it conducted surveys in various
parts of the ,United States to ascertain the existence and
availability of material of interest. FDD utilized this op-
portunity and, with OCD consent, had the Library representative
check the same depositories for foreign-Language holdings. my
This activity proved very productive.
In addition to procurement assistance inside the CIA
there were also sources among organizations elsewhere in
government. In the latter half of 1947, when FDB exploitation
was shifting gradnally frail captured documents to current
sources, arrangements were ccmpleted with the Intelligence
Division of the War Department, the Library of Congress, the
Office of Naval Intelligence, the Naval Research Laboratory,
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the Smithsonian Institution, the National Research Council,
Intelligence:Acquisitions Division (EAD) of the State
Department, and the Bureau of Manes for the loan of current
periodicals of intelligence value from the Far East and the
USSR to be abstracted by FDB. 182/
Among these non-Agency organizations providing procurement
assistance for FDB in the early years, the most impartinitwas
the Library of Congress. In practice, the arrangement was a
two-way street, especially in the immediate postwar years,
since much of the source material received from the war theaters
was sent to the Library of Congress as final depository. In,
this connection, the Japanese Document Cbmmittee, WDC, decided
at a meeting held in early 1946 to send directly to the Library
of Congress all Japanese documents of a purely cultural nature. my
Arrangements were subsequently made to forward to the Library
much of the additional captured material following its processing
by the intelligence agencies.
In respect to the flow of materials in the other direction,
that is, current sources from the Library to FDB, same initial
difficulty was encountered, but a meeting between Dr. Evans the
Librarian of Congress, and
served to resolve the
problem amicably. The Library at first refused to release any
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I.
documents, then agreed to a three-day loan period which proved
impractical, but finally settled on a two-week loan agreement
with FDB. 184/ This cooperation was carried a step further
when, in the summer of 1948, FDB, with Library of Congress
approval, sent a screening team to the Library to ascertain
what books were of intelligence value in a backlog of 6,000
titles which had accumulated there. Specific items were
selected and sent to FDB, where a bibliography was prepared
for the benefit of the IAC agencies. 185/ FDD's collaboration
with its procurement sources yielded significant results. In
the course of four years, 1948 through 1951, the division
processed a total of about 674,500 foreign-language documents.
Of these, the State Deparbrent furnished approximately 422,000,
the Army 68,000, the Navy 9,000, other CIA Offices 128,000, the
Library of Congress 41,500, and the Smithsonian Institution
6,000. 186/
As these figures indicate, the State Department very early
took over the Library of Congress's role of principal supplier.
of sources for FDD. TO a very limited extent the Deparbmnt
used screening teams, as for example the despatch to Korea in
1948 of such a team which brought back a small number of
documents useful to FDB: 187/ Mich more irnportant were the
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publications procurement officers (PPO) of the State Department.
The significance of their contribution to the intelligence
effort, and to FDD in particular, is readily evident when one
considers that in FY-1952, for example, the PPOs, in conjunction
with the State Department's Foreign Documents Branch, procured
180,000 foreign-language publications. This constituted 70
percent of all documents received by the intelligence community. 1813/
Because of their importance to FDD, it was standard operating
procedure for all State Department PPOs to be briefed by the
division prior to their departure for overseas posts. This
arrangement was beneficial to both parties; it defined the PPOs'
target more closely, and this, in turn, provided better service
for FDD.
Until the spring of 1953 State had provided for full-time
PPOs in London, Paris, Rome, Mosocm, Berlin, New Delhi, and
Hong Kong and part-time PPOs in about 25 other posts. However,
the budget cuts referred to above had placed the entire program
in jeopardy. By May the position in Rome had been abolished,
the Moscow position had been vacant for nearly a year, and the
Berlin PPO had been instructed to cease procurement in the Soviet
Zane due to personal danger. Thus, by the end of FY-1953, only
four of the full-time posts were active and it:was anticipated
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that the budgetary situation would allow only three to be
permanently occupied during FY-1954. 189/ With exception of a
tion. 191/ This plan was approved by the State Department in
September 1953, but no change resulted.
Periodically, consideration was given to the possibility
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1
B. The Search for SOUrodes
Following the transfer of WDC to CIG and especially after
its reorganization as the Documents Branch in mid-1947, there
began a series of survey and procurement trips made at varying
intervals to repositories throughout the United States and the
world which gave promise of yielding significant volumes of
source material of value to the intelligence community.
In the spring of 1948, in connection with its search for
domestic sources of foreign-language documents, FDB became
involved in a procurerrent undertaking known as the "Sunshine
Project," FDB's only field operation until the establishment of
the organization's contractual field units in Later years.
From FDB's standpoint the Sunshine Project was a shortlived
affair, although it had beerrin existence for more than a year
at the time the branch became involved. Inherited fran CRE,
the project had largely accomplished its original mission when
taken over by FDB. However, 00 and the branch had been
interested in it from its inception because of its relation to
foreign-language document sources.
The original intent of the project involved ORE'S desire
to examine the document holdings located at the Hoover Library
of War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University in Palo,
Alto, California, for the purpose of surveying and screening
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this material in connection with an IAC project on psychological
warfare directed against the Soviet Union. As a first step
Col. Edwin K. Wright, Executive to the DCI, Mr. Donald Edgar,
Chief of ICAPS, and Capt. S. B. Frankel, Chief of ORE, had
visited the Hoover Library during the period 2-6 December 1946
and reported on its large volume of Far Eastern documents, on
hand and being received. They also commented on the assent of
the library authorities to the group's proposal for establish-
ment of a CIG research unit at the library to process Russian,
Chinese, and Japanese documents for intelligence information. 122(
On 17 February 1947 Col. Wright requested the services of
of Documents Branch as a Chinese area expert
collection and make arrangements for
of the target material to Washington. 196/
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to screen
transmission
the Hoover
of copies
began his
assignment on 10 March and for the next two
and a, half months made an exhaustive examination of the Hoover
Library materials. He submitted three detailed reports on the
results of his study.
Meanwhile, on 24 March Col. Wright, now DDCI, ordered the
project to be set up under CRE and assigned
to temporary
duty with the research group in a screening capacity. 197/
Disagreement with this arrangenvnt was expressed by John Bagnall.
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In a brief note on 3 April he reccumended that
be 25X1
withdrawn from the project for reasons relating to the fact
that his military rank was subordinate to the ORE civilian
supervisor at Palo Alto. Bagnall also stated his opinion that
screening of documents was the responsibility of Documents
Branch as a central service and should therefore be done by
DB. 198/ This sentinent was echoed by
in his final 25X1
report. 122/ On 29 May he ccmpleted his work and returned to
Washington. With his departure direct 00 participation in the
project ceased for the tine being.
By the following spring, the Sunshine Project was begin-
ning to approach the stage of diminishing returns fram the ORE
standpoint. While full exploitation of the Hoover collections
had not been quite completed, ORE's specific mission of mining
the material for information useful for psychological warfare
had reached the point where added information on the subject
could in future be supplied by new material available in
Washington. Termination of the project by the end of FY-1948
was therefore ma:mended by ORE. 200/ This was followed on
4 May by Wright's order transferring the project, including
personnel, equipaamt, and facilities fran ORE to 00. 201/
The transfer was consummated and six additional slots were
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added to FDB's T/O and ceiling in June to accommodate the new
personnel. 202/ Earlier, however, Bagnall had made a thorough
survey of the project in its current status and concluded that
continuation of the project, fram an intelligence and managenent
standpoint, was not in the best interest of the Agency. He
pointed out that larger quantities of material which showed a
better than ten-to-one ratio of greater intelligence value
were being received in Washington but were not being touched
due to lack of personnel. 203/ Bagnall's recommendation to
close out the Sunshine Project, with concurrence, was forwarded
to the AD/0 by
a week later, 204/ and finally on
2 July the DCI approved the termination date of 30 September 1948
suggested by the AD/O. 22y
Discounting the benefits derived by ORE from the mission,
the impact of the Sunshine Project on FDB was minimal. It
resulted in a thorough review of the holdings available at the
Hoover Library and in the preparation of bibliographic listings
which made this information easily available to the intelligence
community. Same of the material found there was important, but
the bulk of it proved to be of historical interest only and
therefore of limited use for the current needs of intelligence
analysts. Other than the survey performed by
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only active participation in the project was the preparation
of an annotated bibliographic list in cooperation with the
China Desk of ORE. zsly With termination of the project,
arrangements were made to maintain contact with the Hoover
Library so that FDB would be 'continually informed of future
acquisitions. So far as the six researchers in California
were concerned, in the end only one reported for duty in
Washington; thus, the valuable experience gained by the
participants on the project was lost to FDB. Even the benefit
of the additional slots was lost when FDB reverted to the old
T/O of
and at the beginning of FY-1950 dropped down to
One further gain was achieved in the project's final stage,
however. John Bagnall travelled to the West Coast to close
out the project and while there took the occasion to survey
materials available in certain West Coast universities and also
to establish contacts in a number of college faculties with a
view to FDB personnel reaniiiarent. 207/ Thus, the Sunshine
Project was not a total loss.
Concurrent with the search and survey of damestic sources
of foreign-language documents, FDB engaged in similar activity
abroad during the postwar period. A number of trips were taken
by branch personnel to examine various overseas repositories
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and to, provide the means for making significant materials
available to Washington.
One of the first of the expeditions was a procurement
trip organized and sponsored by the War Deparbrent (WI)) through
its Special Documents Section just prior to the latter's
incorporation into DB. On this occasion Henry Jarvinen, then
still an Army officer under WD orders, and aMr. Danciger were
sent to Great Britain and Germany on a temporary duty assignment
which lasted from 6 February to 30 May 1947. In London they
screened, examined, and made available to the War Department a
collection of German and Russian documents
containing material of value to the study of the USSR's
economic potential. This was the Wannsee Collection, so-called
because it included documents an the Soviet Union and adjacent
countries used by the German Wannsee Institute during the war.
It had been evacuated from the St. Lardorechtmonastery after
the war by the British, but only about a third of the material
was held by the British, since the remainder had inadvertantly
fallen into the hands of the Russians. Same 400 of the
documents were found to be of immediate intelligence value and
these were forwarded on loan Jarvinen also
used the occasion of the trip to examine the documentary
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resources of the British Air Ministry and of other document
collections in the European theater as well as to meet with
the document control officers in various army units in
Europe. 208/
In 1948 EDB sponsored a second document survey trip in
Western Europe. The desire on the part of military authorities
in the European theater to arrange for the final disposition
of the captured documents problem made it imperative that CIA
establish formal liaison with the European Command ?um in
Germany in order to permit an orderly examination of available
materials and to arrange for the procurement of documents having
intelligence potential. MUch of the material was improperly
catalogued and therefore considerable quantities of documents of?
low-grade value were being returned to the United States.
Mbreover, a considerable part of the existing volume was
subject to destruction in the event of an emergency as well as
to loss through the return of captured materials to their
former owners. For these reasons further delay, it was feared,
would result in the permanent loss of many valuable documents.
In view of all this, initiated a proposal to send
a small survey party to Europe to examine existing US Anny
repositories, to identify strategic intelligence documents
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required in the Zone of Interior (ZI), and to arrange for the
acquisition of these documents for the benefit of the intel-
ligence community. It was ascertained that the Navy and Air
Force were no longer interested in the documents held in the
European theater. However, the State Departmit and the Army,
having expressed considerable interest, signified their
willingness to have the FDB screening group represent them in
all matters related to the selection and return of documents
to the United States. 209/
The upshot was authorization on 28 May 1948 for the
selection of a three-man team franFDB to go to Europe for a
period of approximately 60 days to conduct the survey.21(1)
The persons proposed by FDB and ultimately approved by CIA for
this assignment were
as head of the group;
of the old GMDS; and
formerly of SDS. The composition of the survey group and its
mission were also approved by State, the Army, and EUCOM. The
survey team left Washington on 12 July and returned to the
United States on 19 September, During this period the group trav-
elled almost continuously and consulted as many knowledgeable individ-
uals and custodians of documents and visited as many repositories
in Germany as time permitted, same 13 locations in all. Over-
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all, the team found about 200 tons of documents of interest to
Washington agencies. Of this quantity, over 20 tons were found
to be of value to the exploitation operations of FDB. 211/ In
general, adequate steps for safe-guarding, destroying, or other-
wise accounting for all documentary material were initiated.
On the team's return, prepared and submitted a formal re-
port showing the group's findings and recommendations, including
the suggestion that in order to assure an exhaustive monitoring
of the disposition of the scattered sources in the European
theater trips similar to the one just completed be made at least
once every two years. 212/
No overseas survey trip was taken in 1949, but in the
following two years FDD was again involved in procurement
abroad -- a survey of Near East published materials in 1950
and a survey in the Far East in 1951. Near East publications
as a source of intelligence information had been the subject
of discussion between the State Department and FDD in
September 1950 and it was felt that this region would be a
? lucrative source. CIA had been receiving same titles through
State auspices, but since State had not had one of its
publications procurement officers in the area since May 1949,
it was felt that many titles were being missed. CIA was
therefore anxious to dispatch a,ccupetent linguist to the
region for a survey trip of approximately twomanths duration
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to determine the current status of vernacular publications in
the area. 213/ The outcome was the assignment of John Bagnall
to make the trip to the Near East. Bagnall departed Washington
on 25 October 1950 and returned exactly twomanths later, a
period during which he visited 13 cities, mainly capitals at
his destination and en route. The purpose of the stops en
route was to locate for FDD unique reference materials on rare
languages. 214/
The results of the trip, to judge by the voluminous report
submitted by Bagnall upon his return, were worthwhile. He
emphasized the great need for a regular PPO in the Near East
and, in connection with the considerable time-lag (three to four
months) in the transmittal of publications to Washington, he
reccarrended assignment of a el1-qualified publications analyst
to Teheran to monitor the large volume of sources there for
information to met intelligence requirements. 215/ Bagnall
followed up the latter proposal in 1951 and recommended, for a
six-month's trial period, of FDD's Near
East/Africa Branch fOr the assignment. 216/ There is no record
that this proposal was irrplertented, although
did attend
a three-month's training seminar in Beirut, Lebanon, about a
year later 217/ ?
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In 1951 FDD dispatched a documents survey team to the
Far East, the first to be sent from Washington to this region
since the %JC (kiv) group in 1945, before the division even
existed. When the WDC (Adv) was dissolved, all initial
exploitation, screening, and shipment functions pertaining to
Japanese documents became the responsibility of the Document
Section, Translator and Interpreter Service (TIS), G-2,
General Headquarters (GHQ), Far East Command (FECOM), and
remained with this unit from that time on. The work of TIS in
the intervening period had came under same criticism. In
December 1948, George Carey had complained about the paucity of
material received by FDB and the generally poor quality of what
was received. He deplored in particular the non-receipt of
Russian language material formerly held by Japanese research
and intelligence agencies which WDC (Adv) records showed
existed in Japan. 218/ In answer to Carey's camplaint, the
Army's Intelligence Division promised to do better and to
consolidate its documents collection activity in response to
CIA requirements. 219/
The opportunity for a. closer relationship with G-2, FECOM,
and its source material came in the spring of 1951 when Gen.
Riley F. Ennis replaced Gen. Willoughby in Tbkyo as the new G-2.
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In the course of an 00 briefing before his departure for the
Far Fast, Minis tendered an invitation to send an FDD document
survey team to
and this was pLcmptly accepted. 220/ The
necessary arrangerents were speedily made and
were designated as the two members of the
FDD field survey team. They were assigned to FBIS,
for administrative purposes. FBIS further contributed
to the mission's Success by facilitating direct liaison
between TIS and FDD through the use of its communication
facilities. 221/ In a briefing prior to their departure,
were assigned the mission of surveying
documents captured in Wbrld War II and the Korean War, current
Asiatic Mainland publications (including Russian) received in
Japan, and Japanese repositories; they were also instructed to
take measures to solidify the recently established TIS-FDD
liaison. 222/ The two nen left Washington on 29 July 19510
successfully completed the assigned tasks
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returned on 24 September. Among the items of interest in the
report they submitted after their return were the statements
that FBOOM still held approximately 3,000 World War II captured
documents; that UN forces in Korea had captured to date
approximately 10,000 documents of tactical and 22,500 documents
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of strategic value; that the Army and Air intelligence
organizations had established their own procurement channels
for serial publications of Far Eastern countries and had agreed
to share these with FDD; and that all problems arising fram
the approved TIS-FDD liaison had been discussed and resolved,
with TIS agreeing to contribute regularly to FDD's Consolidated
Translation Survey (CTS).
223/
More document survey missions were in the offing, but
the foregoing serve to illustrate the benefits derived by FDD
and, in turn, the intelligence community as a result of these
undertakings. They were chiefly of value in that they clarified
the confused status of document holdings abroad and contributed
to a systemized method of liaison between FDD and document
repositories abroad, thereby assuring that available data of
intelligence value would in the course of time be made known
to the community and further assuring that losses of information
would be held to a minimum.
C. Interdepartmental Rivalries
We turn briefly now to a consideration of the day-to-day
procurement and flow of the documents which constituted the
raw material on which, FDD 's routine production was based. As
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has been mentioned, aside from captured documents which the
military provided, the main purveyor of current material at
first was the Library of Congress. In the evolution of source
procurement the Library's contribution gradually diminished
and the major media for acquiring current foreign-language
documents from abroad became the State Department, the service
attaches, and Allied nations through third countries. There
was same direct procurement by FDD, but for themment this
was an exception.
In March 1948, the AD/CD called the DC1's attention tO
the urgent 11099d for improving exploitation of Russian-language
periodicals and cited the cumbersame system whereby the
Library of Congress received incoming periodicals from State
and, after screening them, sent them on loan to FDB for a
two-week period. pa:the same time he reported that State
suggested it be authorized to procure the periodicals for CIA
and send than to the Agency directly. 224/ As a result of a
subsequent dialogue on this subject between CIA and State,
agreement was reached that State would forward to FDB all
foreign-language publications received from the USSR, Satellite
countries, the Far East, the Near and Middle East, and
Scandinavia. The branch was to screen the documents and then
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return them to State. '225/ On 4 June 1948, the Agency provided
for a working fund to reimburse State for the procuremnt
project and FDB submitted lists of periodicals desired. 22y
In this connection FDB also undertook the briefing of State's
.PPOs about to leave for foreign assignmnts and continued this
practice fnam then on. The result was an improvement of the
quality of intelligence content of documents received by FDB.
In mid-1948, the intelligence procuremmt pLaiLam was
expanded beyond the CIA-State agreement. With John Bagnall in
attendance, a conference of IAC representatives was held on
2 July at which the first step toward a coordinated IAC program
for procurement of foreign publications was taken. By general
agreemnt, the first efforts under the new program were directed
to the procurement of Yugoslav documents through State Department
sources. The material was to be channeled by State to FDB for
centralized processing and the preparation of accessions lists
and abstracts. 227/ The program was slow in getting underway
and the first shipment of publications was not received until
April 1949. 228/ Granually it increased in regularity and
volume and in time was expanded to include all major world
Areas.
The elimination Of the Library of. Congress roadblock in
- the FDB procureuent program did much to improve the flow of
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the documents from their source to their final destination in
the branch; unfortunately, it was only the first of a.narber
of irritating problems to plague this aspect of the branch's
operations. Another involved recurrent bickering between FDB
and OCD on matters relating to procurement. Jealously guarding
its prerogatives as the "library" Office of CIA, OCD adopted
a wary stance against any FDB initiatives in document procure-
ment, choosing to regard such activity as an incursion in its
allotted domain. OCD took pains on occasion to remind the
other Offices of its assigned authority in this field. 222/
However, whether FDB wished to be or not, it was much involved
in activities of a library nature, including procurement, and
if it occasionally trod on OCD toes, this is not surprising.
The rather strained relationship on this score between FDB and
OCD in the early period of CIA's existence, when the functions
and missions of the Agency's components had not yet been fully
defined, was not eased by FDB's contention that the OCD
procurement service was unsatisfactory, especially when
contrasted to that of the State Departrent. 230/ Bickering of
this sort made it evident that informal coordination of the
several Offices' proaaremantneeds was no longer adequate to
deal with this and related problems and therefore an attempt
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was made to resolve them by creating a CIA Document Procurement
Committee. The condi:text was formed on 17 March 1949 and net
regularly thereafter. The CIA Librarian, Joseph Becker of OCD,
was to chair the new organization and all CIA Offices were to
be represented. John Bagnall was designated to represent FDB,
and 00. The committee's function was to
coordinate all procurement activities for the various CIA
Offices. 221/ Although the Procurement Committee did not
resolve all procurement problems to FDB's complete satisfaction,
it contributed considerably to alleviating a potentially chaotic
situation.
FDD 's procurement problems were not limited solely to
OCD. Despite the commendation of State's procurement service
cited above, 'a deterioration of sorts set in as regards FDD's
relations with IAD, the State Department procurement organiza-
tion. There were several problems which required solution.
One, which surfaced in early 1950, pertained to a change in
IAD's dissemination policy. Over and above certain specific
. titles paid for and distributed directly to CIA, State obtained
many other periodicals for its own use which had in the past
also been sent first to FDD. This arrangermaltwas deemed
detrimental to State interests and FDD was placed second on
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the distribution with the result that issuances of some titles
were delayed and in certain instances they were never received
at all. The problem was resolved by the allocation of funds
sufficient for State to procure the publications in question --
some 600 -- directly for FDD's benefit. L.21 This improvemant
was enhanced when the Document Procurement Cbmmittee on
27 April 1250 authorized direct publications purchasing by CO
field stations outside Washington. 233/
Another source of contention in IAD-FDD relations arose
in 1950 when, due to a misunderstanding in connection with a
State allocation in February 1950, IAD announced its intention
to divert 55 newspaper and periodical subscriptions needed by
FDD for intelligence exploitation to non-IAC agencies -- the
Library of Congress, the Anny Medical Library, and the Department
of Agriculture Library -- with the provision that these
organizations supply copies of- the titles to FDD by means of
photostats or microfilm. 2_3_4( Bagnall, in a manorandum for
George Carey 's signature, protested this arrangement and
declared IAD's decision to be incompatible with the best
interests of national intelligence. He stated further that
intelligence needs required that FDD be supplied with the
subject titles at the earliest possible date after receipt in
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Washington and that the document "trading" suggested by IAD
would be detrimental in economy of time and inappropriate frau
the standpoint of security. 235/ A series of meetings on this.
matter was held during the spring of 1950 and the solution
reached was to permit the IAD arrangement to stand for FY-1950
and to make the necessary readjustments for FY-1951. 236/
?
During most of its life, and especially in the early
period, FDD had to depend upon outside Offices and agencies to
conduct its document procurement operations. Though they
recognized the central-service function of FDD, these organiza-
tions were in the business of procurement for the entire
goverment community, non-intelligence as well as intelligence,
and for this reason first priority was not always reserved for
FDD. The division, on the other hand, conducted a continuing
battle to assert its function of serving all consumers. This
inevitably led to conflict, as the examples described above
well illustrate. Other disputes could be cited. Partly,
these conflicting interests were the result of the growing
pains of any new operation with the inevitable dislocations
attendant thereto; partly, it was a jealous concern by the
respective Offices for the requirements of their own functions.
Under these circumstances it is not difficult to understand
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I.
why a. perfect solution was never achieved. In view of the heat
generated on occasion, it is indeed surprising that the system
worked as well as it. did. With the passage of time and with
compromise and adjustments on the part of the organizations
involved with procurement, circumstances gradually improved.
FDD disenchantment with State procurement policies
which placed FDD on a par with the less sensitive non-IAC
agencies and also the time-lag in receipt of docurrent sources
from State led to a move in 1951 to by-pass this channel in
favor of direct procurement overseas by the division. In this
connection the proposal was also made to assign several FDD
multi-linguists in strategic areas overseas, such as Europe,
the Far RAst, and the Near Fast, to serve as PPOs for CIA. 237/
As a first step, Carey suggested a trial run on direct procure-
ment frubmWestern Europe, 3.22/ but this proposal net with a
cool reception fran both OCD and State. The OCD reply clearly
demonstrated the lack of communication between 00 and OCD.
Carey was informed that direct procurement of foreign-language
publications had been camenced by CIA Library same two years
before because of difficulty with the State channel and ma
accounted for 18 percent of sources being received from
Western Europe. This figure included same 56 peroent of the
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I.
Western European periodicals needed by FDD. Expansion of this
arrangement , he was informed, was anticipated. OCD felt that
to let FDD procure its own sources would lead to confusion in
covert channels. Moreover, since the CIA Library used the
same channels to obtain certain English-language materials, it
would be unwise to transfer the .procurement operation to FDD. 222(
The effect of this information was to deflate the FDD/OO plan
for direct procurement. Carey did not hide his displeasure at
being kept in the dark about OCD activities but did agree that
OCD direct procurement obviated the need for FDD participation
in this activity. 240/ Bagnall concurred in this and also
suggested holding in abeyance the plan for placing FDD PPOs
overseas until the effectiveness of 000? s procurement activity
could be tested. Thereby he hoped to determine which area or
areas should be supported by PPOs and which could be effectively
covered by OCD without such aid. 211/ This brought to an end
for at least the next few years FDD pressure for direct
procurement and for overseas representation.
D. DevelopmentofProcuremittProcxdures
Wnile a modue vivendi relating to docurrent procurement
was being slowly hammered out, activity in seeking out and
obtaining current overt sources covering inteal 1 germs target
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areas did not slacken. However, concurrent with the problems
discussed above, FDD encountered procurement difficulties from
another direction. This related to the direct procurement of
sources from the major target areas -- the Soviet Union and,
subsequently, Communist China. In the spring of 1948 the
State Department reported that procurement of Russian newspapers,
including the provincial press, was becoming more difficult.
Same existing subscriptions had been cancelled by the Soviets,
new subscriptions were denied, and nultiple copies of periodicals
and newspapers were denied or drastically reduced. State
believed that the Soviets were aware of the use of provincial
newspapers for intelligence purposes and that the denials were
therefore due to security measures. 242/ In the face of these
denials of sources, the possibility of so-called "third-country"
procurement -- that is, the obtaining of the desired Soviet-
published sources from countries outside the Soviet Union, in
particular the Satellite and Scandinavian areas contiguous to
it, was given serious consideration. Beginning in August 1948,
FDB, in cooperation with OCD and the State Department conducted
an informal survey of US and "third country" sources from which
Soviet documents could be obtained. The search involved contacts
with numerous private individuals and enterprises, libraries
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and schools,. goverment agencies, and foreign embassies of the
Free Wbrld. The response was very favorable. In the course
of the survey the branch suggested that arrangements might be
made with the governments of countries benefitting under the
American Aid program to have access to all publications procured
in the USSR by such countries. Such an arrangement with the
Chinese Nationalists, who had diplomatic representatives in
.11 cities in the USSR (whereas the United States had representatives
in only two Soviet cities), would be particularly fruitful,
especially in regard to the Soviet Far East, where material
was very scanty and hard to obtain.
who conducted
the overall survey for FDB, suggested approaching State on this
matter. 243/
In September, the State Department approved George Carey 's
19 August 00 memorandum conveying recomarendation and
immediately instructed its representatives in Moscow and Nanking
to initiate informal contact with the Chinese Nationalists
relative to Soviet sources. Similar arrangements were made for
the procurement of Chinese Communist material. 244/ In early
January 1949, on the basis of a memorandum frail Carey
reported that annual subscriptions for Soviet periodicals had
been placed by the Chinese Nationalist representatives but
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I.
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warned that the availability of these sources depended upon
the ability of the Nationalist Governrrent to maintain the
status. quo in China. In view of the Communist threat to the
latter, he strongly reoammended that immediate efforts be
made to stockpile all other provincial publications available
to the Chinese Nationalist consular offices. 245/
The success of the new arrangements was almost immediately
apparent. In February 1949, the first two air shipments of
USSR provincial press publications were received by FDB and in
the succeeding months many more shipments of this material
arrived. These shipments represented one of the high points
in the FDB-State Deparbment Coordinated Procurement Program. ay
This cooperative arrangement was designated the "Sochi" Program.
The return to China of the Chinese ambassador to the
USSR in May 1949 caused same concern in FDB about the continued
receipt of vital press material fnam the USSR, but the shipment
of these sources to Washington continued into late 1949. In
response to FDB 's query, State assured the branch that attempts
to increase the stockpiling of all categories of publications
from the USSR would continue; however, the security of the
"Sochi" project:was of primary concern. 247/ With the take-over
of the Chimsemainland by the Communists in October 1949 the
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"Sochi" project came to an end and all activity in connection
with it was terminated. The success of the project is evident
from the fact that during the ten months prior to its termina-
tion, FDD received more than 1,100 Soviet provincial newspapers
frau points east of the Urals, sources which would otherwise
have been unobtainable. 248/
Intim the procurement of hard-to-get Soviet sources through
the medium of Chinese Nationalist consular posts became a dead
issue, emphasis on Far Eastern sources was greatly increased.
Some effort was directed to the procurement of non-Chinese
sources; for example, special arrangements were made in November
1949 to initiate the flaw of underground publications from French
Indochina and the procurement, through the Army, of North Korean
sources. 249/ However, with the advent of Communist power in
China, greatest emphasis was put on this area. Special steps
were planned to revitalize the procurement of current Chinese
publications, which recent events in China had seriously impaired.
In view of the increasing importance of the more than nine
million overseas Chinese, a survey of publications issued by
and for them was made at the end of 1949 with particular
emphasis on Chinese publications issued in Central and South
America. a2211 'nen, in January 1950, the British indicated a
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willingness to have their facilities on the Chinese mainland
and in Hong Kong used for procurement of Chinese Communist
publications. 251/ At. FDD's request a procurement program was
started and in May 1,200 Chinese Communist newspapers from 15
Chinese cities were received in the division, 252/ a number
increased to 18 cities by September. 253/ Coverage was
eventually curtailed when the number of British stations in
China was reduced from nine to three, but these continued to
supply Chinese acquisitions on a limited scale. 254/
proposed a revival in
On 18 January 1951,
somewhat altered form of the "Sochi" project employed in 1948
and 1949, this time directed against the Chinese Communists
instead of the Soviets, believed that in exchange for
US aid to the Chinese Nationalists, arrangements could be
effected with Nationalist officials to permit American access
to overt and captured Communist materials. This operation
would in effect constitute the use by the United States of
the widespread Chinese Nationalist intelligence network in
China and Southeast Asia. 255/ The proposal was considered
by CO and in. April Col.. Lawrence K. White, Acting 2?D/O, posed
the feasibility of the undertaking to the Office of Special
Operations,; 256/ The response was favorable and OSO agreed
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?
to take on responsibility for procurement of Chinese Communist
sources for FDD, by regular overt subscription in Hong Kong
while circumstances still permitted or by clandestine means
when and if conditions changed for the worse, as then seemed
imminent. 257/ Like "Sochi," the new project, designated
"Earwig," also proved successful though to a more limited
degree. The first shipment of Chinese Communist publications
under "Earwig" arrived in March 1952 and thereafter shipments
were received on a fairly regular basis. OSO subsequently
served under other programs as procurer by clandestine means of
sources from many parts of the world outside the Far East. 258/
In 1952, a further development in the procurement effort
occurred when, in evaluating recent surveys and estimates, ORR
and the Office of National Estimates (ONE) called attention to
the extent of the Agency's ignorance with respect to Communist
China, particularly in the economic field. This concern was
reviewed with other members of the IAC and resulted in the
issuance of a paper by ONE on 25 July 1952 entitled, "Statement
of Intelligence Deficiencies Revealed in SE-27." It pointed
out the need for coordinating, translating, indexing and
distributing the material already available in the intelligence
community on Communist China. 259/ FDD, together with OCD and
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IAD/State, became closely involved in the resulting project.
Although in its eventual evolution the SE-27 Project resulted.
in the handling of increased translation and exploitation
requirements and in the indexing of new sources, its more
incediate effect on the division related to the survey/
procurement effort involved. Thus, on 8 September agreement
was reached that FDD, in cooperation with OCD, would investigate
and identify all overt and covert Chinese literature in the
United States dealing with Communist China. 260/ On
29 January 1953, George Carey reported to the Assistant
Director of Intelligence Coordination (A41.0, who was in
charge of coordinating activities pertaining to the SE-27
Project, that beginning on 1 February and for a period not in
excess of five nonths, FDD would prepare annotated bibliog-
raphies of Chinese Communist material on Chinese economics
and science. Operations were to begin with the facilities at
Harvard University and would proceed to other institutions
until full coverage had been achieved. 26l/
As we have seen, FDD had already for some time engaged
in the collection and survey of Chinese source materials.
Prior to Carey 's announcement, FDD had, via IAD/State,
initiated the "Third Country" Program for procuring Chinese
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documents. In addition, in December 1952 FDD had completed a
survey of Chinese-language holdings at the Library of Congress,
the Harvard-Yenching Institute in Cambridge, the University of
Chicago, and at various West Coast institutions, including the
Hoover Institute. Anong other procurement arrangements, FDD
had established through 00's Contact Division a system to
receive all current serials from various repositories through-
out the country. 262/
In January 1953 Chief of the Far East Branch
of FDD, went to Harvard University to set up procedures for
preparing annotated bibliographies of the holdings there and
to arrange for the regular receipt of the university's new
acquisitions for the preparation of supplementary bibliographies
on a continuous basis. Ly 'In February,
also of the
Far East Branch, reported to Harvard to begin the preparation
of the bibliographies, a task which he completed in April. 2?1/
Meanwhile,
proceeded on a. tour of 32 American libraries,
colleges, and. universities to survey the Chinese Cbmmunist
publications at these places. On his return in April he
reported finding only two institutions with any significant
collections of such publications; namely, the Hoover Institute
and the library of the University of Southern California. 2E2/
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In the course of his trip
located a total of 1,230
documents on the target subject. Combining this number with
the holdings in FDD, he was able to report 1,759 documents
as answering the SE-27 Project requirement. Of the total,
1,064 were non-duplicated items. 2.6_61
By 1953 the methodology of routine procurement employed
by FDD through its contacts with OCD, State, the military
services, and others was firmly established, and, to the extent
that the division could control it, the flaw of raw source was
reasonably smooth. Little could be done about out-of-the-ordinary
developments, such as the curtailment and denial of Soviet and
Chinese Communist sources, but the division had learned to
adapt to such crises. Special procurement assignments like
the SE-27 Project just described could also be taken on and
were dealt with as they occurred, usually, as experience
increased, in an efficient and thorough manner. The result
of the procurement operation was an increasing volume of raw
source material,* the growth of which created anew problem:
how to synthesize and reduce this mass to a manageable and
,meaningful product. This is the subject of the next chapter.
* During a 12-month period in 1951 and 1952 some 248,144
foreign-language documents were received by FDD. zEz(
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CHAPTER SIX
The Products
A. Phase-Out? of Captured Document Processing
? Almost from the beginning of the postwar phase of document
exploitation, the end of captured documents as source material
was anticipated and plans were made to abandon them in favor of
current sources. The change-over was made and organization and
operations geared to it, but the transition was not abrupt.
While processing of current sources was increasingly emphasized,
from 1946 to 1950 captured documents were systematically ex-
ploited by FDD and its predecessor organizations for information
on the USSR. and Eastern Europe. This operation yielded important
data of considerable benefit to the intelligence community; the
information was mainly, however, of a basic nature. Over 40,000
cards from German and about 52,500 cards from Japanese sources,
incorporated in the SDS-initiated Industrial Card File, were
produced during this period, turned over to OCD, and included
in the CIA Industrial Register (IR1. Also produced were 88
studies 'in depth on various Soviet industrial and economic
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I.
subjects, 42 studies on a Soviet railroad project drawn
from German sources, and 195 accession lists and some 750
miscellaneous economic reports from captured Japanese docu-
ments. 268/
When the research and exploitation functions of GMDS
were transferred to CIA in JUne 1947, custody of captured
German and Italian* documents was assumed by the Adjutant
General, Mr Department. Accordingly, FDB maintained a
screening team physically located in the Pentagon. The team
rapidly scrutinized the large volume of documents continually
being received and prepared abstracts of the small percentage
of documents possessing intelligence value. The abstracts
were reproduced in card form and disseminated to interested
agencies. The second step in this procedure was the ex-
ploitation of these document's to meet intelligence needs.
This was done on the basis of requirements submitted by
recipients of the abstract cards and also in accordance with
special continuing projects established in the branch to
obtain certain types of needed information. Exploitation
necessitated the borrowing by FDB of original documents from
* The number of captured Italian documents held by (DS was
small, only about 4,000. 22/
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the GMDS unit in the Pentagon. Fallowing their processing,
they were returned to the Pentagon shelves. Processing
of captured Japanese documents was similar, with the exception
that this material was in the custody of FDB rather than the
War Department and therefore did not have to be borrowed.
Moreover, abstracts of Japanese documents were distributed in the
form of accession lists rather than cards. 270/ The lists
were issued at irregular intervals under 11 general subject
headings -- geographic, political, technical, etc. 271/
FDB 's work on captured documents moved along at such a
pace that the backlog of Japanese materials, numbering 756,000
items as of 1 December 1946 when CIG took over the branch, and
of German documents, amounting to 50,630 on 1 September 1947
following FDB's incorporation of SDS and GNDS, was estimated
to have been reduced to 26,500 and 22,000 items, respectively,
by 1 September 1948. Meanwhile, approximately 1,000 to 2,000
captured documents per month for each national category were
being currently received. 272/
In addition to routine document handling, FDB from time
to time also engaged in the screening and, when warranted,
exploitation of special document collections captured during
the war. These collections, same of which were very exten-
sive, varied widely in the amount of intelligence information
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they contributed. The so-called Rosenberg Collection, estab-
lished by the Nazi ideologue of that name before and during
World War II to assist in the study of theories and practices
inimical to Naziism, was said to contain a large quantity of
documents of sociological, political, and psychological war-
fare value and was highly recommended to the DCI by George F.
Kennan, then on the staff of the National War College. 273/
Elm scanning of the Rosenberg materials in late 1947 and
early 1948 revealed nothing of intelligence value, however. 224/
Other collections of this nature screened by Ft B in-
cluded the following: the TaMbach Collection of German
documents, dealing mainly with naval information, wtdch, was
processed in 1948; 275/ the Berlin-Dahlem Library, a collection
of 50,000 items primarily of reference value on Eastern Europe,
and the Sven Hedin Institute Library, another reference facil-
ity, both screened in the fall of 1949; 276/ the Vladimir Bruza
Documents, a collection containing valuable information on
Czech industry, which was located by FDD late in 1949; and
the Anders Collection at the Hoover Library in California. The
latter collection, consisting of same 62,000 pages of Polish-
language interrogation reports and statements gathered during
1939-1942 by the Second Polish Corps under GEM6 Anders and
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describing personal experiences and observations on the Soviet
occupation of Poland, was highly regarded by the intelligence
community: 278/ Originally destined for full FDD exploitation,
the Anders project was downgraded and the division's role was
eventually limited to a preliminary investigation in 1950. In
early 1951, financial and operational responsibility for the
project was finally turned over to the Air Force, which appeared
to have primary interest in it. 279/
With the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, FDD once
again became engaged in captured documents exploitation, and
arrangements were made for the division to examine captured enemy
documents returned to the Zone of Interior by FECOM. 280/ As a
result, numerous shipments of captured war documents were received
by FDD for exploitation. 281/, There was a. difference, however,
between this and the older Wbrld War II material in the factor of
currency. The documents captured in the Korean War and forwarded
to FDD were integrated into the division's regular exploitation
program. Beyond the continuing effort to beef up the FDD cadre
to contend with the increased workload, no special adjustments
were made to cope with this category of sources.
By 1950 war document exploitation had reached a point of
diminishing returns front the standpoint of intelligence yield.
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Brief revivals of capbunkidocument researchoccurred, such as
the Korean War operation noted above, but these occasions repre-
sented minor deviations from the routine. They will be treated,
as applicable, later on.
Despite the voluminous output from captured documents in
the immediate postwar years, this activity was primarily a
phase-out operation. As such it generated several problems
quite apart from those connected with exploitation of the
diminishing volume of captured documents. One such problem
concerned the disposition of the documents after their use by
FDB for intelligence purposes, that is, the question of which
documents to retain and stare in permanent depositories, which
to return to their former owners, and which to destroy. Many
non-IAC agencies and non-governmental institutions, knowing
of the acquisitions by forces in Germany and Japan,
sought to obtain a share in the documents. Related to this
was the question of ownership which came up briefly after the
war. Agreements with the Allied forces, which had cooperated
in the collection effort, had to be reconciled with the US
requirements. In early 1947, the British broached the matter
of document ownership and custody of Japanese documents and
approached the DCI concerning the question. Since the armed
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services had had original custody of the documents before trans-
ferring than to CIG in 1946, Hillenkoetter directed the question
to the War Deparbnent. He was informed that Intelligence
Division files contained nothing to deny sole US title to the
documents in %DC. An informal working agreement with the
British on joint participation in exploitation activities
existed, but there was no record of binding agreements re-
quiring British or other foreign concurrence prior to public
release of materials. 282/ The British argued that Japanese
documents were jointly owned because of their capture by Gen.
MacArthur as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, 222/ but
this reasoning was not accepted by the United States. On the
basis of a 1945 British-American agreement on captured docu-
ments, the British contended strongly that unless and until a
peace treaty determined otherwise, the German documents,
whatever their physical location, belonged to the combined
? governments. Lui Fran a practical standpoint, the question
?of custody insofar as it related to the British had little
effect on FDB operations nor did it adversely color FDB's
relations with its British counterpart in the postwar period.
The relationship remained one of cordiality throughout.
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The problem of disposal of exploited captured materials
was considered early and decisions were made on what to do
with the documents. As mentioned in a previous chapter,* in
keeping with the recommendations of the Japanese Document
Conference held in January 1945, all non-military documents
having no intelligence value were divided into two parts.
Those of cultural or historic interest were sent to the
Library of Congress and the remainder, at a later date, to
the National Archives. Documents of intelligence value
were retained and exploited in FDB and subsequently retired
to the National Archives, destroyed, or returned to the
Japanese and Germans. The branch's legal authority in docu-
ment disposal was based on a statement by the General Counsel,
in answer to a query from the AD/CD on 19 August 1947, that
initial responsibility for declaring that intelligence ex-
ploitation of these documents was completed and that they
were subject to final disposal rested with the Documents
Branch. 285/
The branch was able to perform a beneficial service to
private United States industry by making available for public use
a good part of its captured document holdings. This was done in
See Ch. One.
0--r"
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conjunction with a 1945 executive order* which declared it to be
US government policy, subject to the requirenents of national
security, to make available to the public free and general dissemi-
nation of enemy scientific and industrial information. In
accordance with this order, DB, in January 1947, released to
the COmmerce Department's Office of Technical Services (am)
between 1,300 and 1,400 captured Japanese scientific and in-
dustrial periodicals. Duplicate copies of these documents
were retained by DB. German documents of this category were
also released to OTS, which planned to prepare abstracts based
on the contents of the periodicals and to publish than in
accession lists subscribed to by American industrial firms.
All of the documents held by DB were classified, but since
the periodicals concerned had originally been publicly issued
in Japan there appeared to be no difficulty in declassifying
than. The problem of securing authority to do this was left
in the hands of the Department of Commerce. At the same time,
DB also made available to OTS all Japanese patents held by
the branch which were not primarily designed for military
application, so that these could also be released to the
public. 286/ This step represented the first instance of the
* Executive Order No. 9604, 27 August 1945
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branch's contribution to the American public through. MS. In
future years, with establishment of the organization's field
units, this function would be consider-ably expanded and based
on current sources rather than on captured. documentary materials.
This development will be more fully treated in a later chapter.
The disposal of FDB's holdings of captured enemy documents
continued apace, and in 1948 reported the coznpletion?
on 1 April, of the cataloguing and transfer to the National Ar-
chives of 1,478,611 captured Japanese documents. 287/ Inmediately
thereafter, the FDB library was screened to eliminate material
of no intelligence interest. As a result, by 1 September,
157,685 captured documents had been forwarded to the Library of
Congress. 288/ This process of transfer to other depositories
continued at a decreasing pace in the succeeding months as the
volume of documents diminished, until, by the end of 1948,
captured documents represented only a minor part of FDB hold-
ings. 289/ By mik1-1949, the majority of captured documents had
been processed and the emphasis frcm then on was almost entirely
on current publications. On 9 January 1950, legal title to all
captured Japanese documents which had been sent to the Library
of Cangress was transferred by CIA to the Library. 290/ By
March 1951, the number of captured documents remaining in FIM's
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possession amounted to about 40,013Q items. '291/ These were
documents of basic intelligence interest and were to be re-
tained on a permanent basis.
The diminution of captured document holdings in FDD did
not bring to a complete end the exploitation of this type of
source material. Even as late as 1957 sporadic efforts were
made to glean the last bit of potential intelligence data
from these sources. This was not through FDD initiative since
the division, from its experience with captured documents, was
aware of the small likelihood of finding more material in than.
Usually the impetus for a new "go" at the documents came from
other parts of CIA. It proved difficult to convince many of
the Agency analysts that the lode had been thoroughly mined.
However, when projects for new searches were suggested, the
division, depending upon the legitimacy of the request, would
with reluctance offer its services, since the exploitation
function was by authority assigned to it and the division was
the unit best equipped to carry it out.
Among such instances was a joint ORR/FDD program conducted
to exploit available intg.11igence by extracting statistical
tables from Japanese-language documents held in FDD. The pro-
ject, conducted during the period May-October. 1953 by two FED in-
telligence officers, resulted in the preparation of 4,488 tables. 292/
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Concurrent with_this project was one initiated, by an ORR:-
sponsored exploitation committee headed by
Acti-
vated in January 1953, this group prepared plans for a thorough
exploitation of the Gennan military documents stored after the
war in the Federal Records Center at Alexandria, Virginia, under
control of the Adjutant General's Office. 293/ A series of mis-
understandings and lack of coordination led to some friction
with FDD. John Bagnall reminded that the ORR project
was properly an CO function. He further called attention to
the earlier FDD exploitation of these same sources during the
period 1947-1949. Despite this, Bagnall reluctantly agreed to
support the project. 294/ An FDD officer,
was
assigned to the project to assist ORR analysts in screening the
GMDS collection and this activity was carried out in 1953 and
1954.
A. related undertaking and one also concerned with the
captured German documents at Alexandria was a psychological-
warfare project initiated in 1951 as the War Documentation Pro-
ject (WIT) under the code name
This undertaking was
designed to support the planning and conduct of operations against
the Soviet Union and international Communism. Its importance lay
in the fact that the captured German documents comprised the mdst
complete available redordof the only period in recent history
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when a large segment of Soviet territory was open for study and
operation. The project envisaged the preparation of three re-
ports, viz: "Political and Police Controls in the Red Army During
Wbrld War II," "The Peasantry as a Source of Soviet Vulnerability,"
and "Soviet Agent Operations in the German-Occupied Territories
During World War II." It was initially established under an Air
Force contract with Columbia University with Philip Mbsely of
Columbia as the senior consultant. After production of the three
reports by the Columbia staff, the project was terminated in May
1955, but prior to that, CM was approached about continuing the
work. The Requirements Staff/Office of Intelligence Support (R(M/
OIS) canvassed the CIA offices and found that one of the major re-
quirements would be for the preparation of histories of Soviet
military units and, in this connection, a compilation of related
German documents. 295/ It was proposed that FDD handle all DD/P
requirements related to the project, and this the division agreed
to do. The appropriated cost was only $8,500 for overtime, for
which funds were to be provided by DD/P. Scheduled to cover 13
man-months of work, the overtime was to supplement 20 man-months
of regular time spent on the project. This initial estimate con-
trasted favorably to the nearly $100,000 spent for external re-
search at Columbia. University. Eight FDD German document experts
were asaigned at various times to the UDP project and work
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commenced on 1 July 1955. 296/ The early estimate for the project's
duration proved overly optimistic and work continued until May 1957.
It was, however, finally brought to a successful conclusion and FDD's
contribution earned high praise from RQM/OIS. At the latter's request,
citing the further need for WDP material, FDD budgeted funds for con-
tinuation of research on the German documents, at least through the
next fiscal year. This was to be contingent, however, on maintenance
of the levels of FDD funding and personnel then in effect. 297/
During the 1950s, additional exploitation of Japanese and
German documents was conducted by the division, but diminishing re-
turns finally brought this aspect of document exploitation to an
end. The product of the captured document research had provided
valuable information for the Agency's analysts; however, the process-
ing of current sources held a higher priority, and the greatest part
of FDD operations, even during this period, was devoted to current
exploitation.
B. Transition to Processing of Current Materials
The phase-lout of captured document exploitation and transi-
tion to processing of current materials necessitated an increased
alertness on FDB's part to the requirements of the consumer
Offices in the Agency. The target areas after the war had shifted
away It the erstwhile enemies, Germany and Japan, at first
primarily to the Soviet Union and its Satellites and subsequently
to Cbmmunist China. Throughout the Agency the emphasis changed
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gradually from basic research to current reporting, and this shift,
as we have seen, was reflected also in FDB's services to the
community. It required a change franmetlIodical extraction
of data from old, sometimes out-dated documents to rapid re-
porting based on current publications such as newspapers and
journals. This change did not come about all at once; indeed,
,the transition was at times exceedingly slow and, when accom-
plished, was not always successful. But the commibroant was made,
and the branch strove to implement it as rapidly and effectively
as possible. Because FDB as an organization and the concept of
centralized exploitation were both new, the procedures employed
to develop a program were often hit-or-miss -- sometimes success-
ful, sometimes not. The branch was not adverse to adjusting to
valid criticism and suggestion from the outside and, when this
was missing, to engaging in introspection to develop improved
methods on its own. The final result, an integrated and ex-
panded reporting program based on a language capability that
increased over the years from some 30 to about 90 languages,
was, by and large, successful and served capably in the long run
to the satisfaction of most of it consumers.
As has been pointed out, the program FDB inherited in
mid-1947 from its predecessors was, with the exception of a
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small currant press exploitation operation by the old SDS,
basically-oriented to war documents. "Current," in connection
with a few press receipts from the British, was a deceptive
term because the newspapers processed were already relatively
old when received by the branch. Mbreover, only the economic
portion was extracted from the newspapers since political
items were translated by the joint Press Reading Service at
the US Embassy in MOWOW. Small though it was, this operation
represented the first press exploitation engaged in by the new
organization.
Another inherited operation, the publication of accession
lists of Far Eastern documents, was re-examined in the light of
an earlier ICAPS survey of DB operations to determine the need
for its continuance. It was decided that, due to lack of
interest in the lists on the part of FDB consumers, only those
having a "special or current interest" would be continued.
Authorization to effect this change was granted on 9 September
1947. 298/
(hi the basis of the same ICAPS survey, the AD/0 was in-
structed on 30 July 1947 to arrange for publication by machine
recorda of bibliographies of source materials and at the same
time to establish a program for exploitation of foreign-language
documents by Documents Branch in response to detailed requirements
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and priorities to be formulated by OCD. 299/ This directive
is of interest in that it represented the first move in the
direction of an organized program of formal levying of require-
ments on the branch. In August, Gen. Sibert reported that FDB
would compile all relevant bibliographic data on current docu-
ments of intelligence value but not by machine records since
this was a function of Reference Center, ORE, and not of 00. At
the same time he indicated that an exploitation program coordi-
nated with definite requirements and established priorities was
being prepared by CO in cooperation with OCD. 300/ The formu-
lation of such a program was another first for the branch.
Action on bibliographic operations by FDB was not long
in coming. At a meeting of the Projects Review Committee on
10 December 1947, attended by
Bagnall, and other 00 25X1
people, Project 00-20 was approved providing for a complete
bibliography of current Soviet periodicals to be undertaken by
CO upon receipt of a statement of requirements fran ORE. The
initial proposal provided for the Library of Congress to conduct
the operation, hit when the choice of supporting an outside
activity or utilizing CIA funds to improve internal efficiency
was considered, the latter course seemed preferable and the
project was assigned to FEB. As presented to the committee the
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project had been limited solely to scientific and technical
periodicals, which were regarded as having greater intelligence
value, but after some discussion it was decided to include all
Soviet journals. 301/ On being questioned concerning FDB's
capability to perform the work, Sibert replied that insofar as
factors such as workload, availability of personnel, and the
priority situation were predicable, FDB could undertake the
additional responsibility on a continuing basis. 302/ At a
meeting attended by
and Bagnall on 17 February, agreement
was reached that FDB would receive direct from the State De-
partment all incoming Russian-language periodicals of potential
intelligence value and the Library of Congress would continue
to receive from State cultural journals and the like. It was
further decided that FDB would conform to a pattern of priorities
in the following order: Complete bibliographic service (trans-
lation of all tables of contents), abstracts, and translations. 303/
? The project, involving preparation of the new FDB weekly publica-
tion Bibliography of Russian Periodicals, was initiated on 25 March
1948, 304/ and by April the first bibliographies were ready for
? distribution. av The first issue of the new series was dissemi-
nated on 12 May and publication of the bibliographies continued
? until 29 March 1949. By that time a total of 656 had been
published. 221i/
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In April 1948 arrangements were made with the Library of
Congress to disseminate the FDB bibliographies to recipients
elsewhere in the goverment and also to private individuals,
with references to their CIA genesis omitted. At the same
time, the Library agreed to perform a similar bibliographic
service on current USSR cultural publications and to complement
this coverage by performing the same service on all Soviet books
and monographs available to it. The medium of dissemination was
to be a new Library of Congress publication entitled Monthly
List of Russian Accessions (MEM). 307/ By the following spring,
it had beoane evident that the bibliographic operation was
proving more time-consuming than FDB had anticipated and was
creating delays in the production of classified material. The
Library, which had been distributing FDB's Bibliography as a
supplement to its MLR, indicated its willingness to assume
responsibility for reproducing this information for general
distribution after translation by FDB. Its intention was to
incorporate the material in the MERL The advantages of this
arrangsmEnt were rPadily apparent and Carey requested immediate
approval. 308/ This was granted on 5 April 309/ and the effec-
tive date of the transfer was set as 20 April 1949. 310/ The
shift of the publications part of the operation to the Library of
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Congress resulted in a considerable saving of time and helped
ease somewhat the press of work on the short-handed FDB clerical
staff. The use made of the Bibliography of Russian Periodicals
was broad. It received a wide distribution, both inside and
outside the government, and the secret of its origin as a CIA
product was a poorly kept one. Presumably it was useful to many
of its recipients, but as to its value to OPE, the original
reguestor, and other purely intelligence users, 2%D/0 was of the
opinion that it was slight. 311/
Concurrent with the branch activity just described, FDB
in early 1947 began a phase of development which was to estab-
lish the pattern for its major form of activity from then on.
On 2 April 1947, a new report entitled FDB Periodical Abstracts
came into existence on the basis of the authorization granted
the branch to exploit current foreign-language periodicals.
Then, as a result of the exchange
which called for FDB processing of Soviet provincial newspapers,
a second report, designated Soviet Press Extracts, was issued
for the first time on 26 January 1948. The initiation of these
two reports may be said to mark the official beginning of FDD
press and periodical exploitation.
The FDB Periodical Abstracts, in its original format, was
issued only five times and then discontinued on 23 June 1947.
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The following month, the report was reconstituted as a two-part
publication, that is "Scientific" and "General" abstracts. The
"Scientific" abstracts series was issued for the first time on
6 August 1947 and, with the exception of a.hwief hiatus in 1951
when WI unsuccessfully-attempted over the opposition of the
other IAC members to reinstate the earlier Bibliography operation
in place of the abstracts, continued until May 1954. Publication
of the "General" series started on 12 September, but the report
survived for only a little over a year. In the fall of 1948,
declared this method of periodical exploitation to
be unsatisfactory and submitted a plan for discontinuance of the
Periodical Abstracts - General -- the "Scientific" series would be
retained -- and its replacement by a new series of information
reports. The latter differed from the old abstracts, which had
featured summaries of journal articles, in that they were to
include only the intelligence information extracted fram each
article and to exclude the verbose padding characteristic of
Soviet literature. The extracted items would, moreover, be
grouped or collated on one subject or area and thus permit direct
routing to interestedpartieS.
initiative was doubtless
based on the precedent set by the branch in using this method in
its press exploitation. The advantages foreseen fran extracting
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rather than abstracting were quite definite in terms of lower
costs and better service. 312/ On 9 November the "General"
abstracts were discontinued and information reports were sub-
sequently substituted for them. 313/
While the effort to improve reporting methods was going
on, the exploitation of the press
FDB continued and issues of the Soviet Press Extracts were
disseminated sporadically as these shipments were received.
Exploitation
was primarily confined to
the extraction of all industrial information.
Meanwhile, the search for other sources of the Soviet
press was underway and in April 1948 a survey undertaken by
OCD and FDB revealed that copies of approximately 45 Soviet
newspaper titles of interest were being received by, various
agencies in Washington. Arrangements were therefore made with
the Departments of State, Army, and Navy to obtain these sources
for exploitation purposes. 314/ One by-product of the search
for new sources was the receipt from the Army of a number of
Yugoslav publications sent from Belgrade by the US military
attache. TO handle these, plans were underway to develop
translation facilities in FDB to exploit Serbo-Croation material
and it was anticipated that qualified linguists would be obtained
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in the next several months. FDB therefore requested continued
receipt of this material until arrangements could be made with
State to obtain the publications on a regular basis through its
facilities. 315/ Plans were also formulated for procurement of
other Satellite sources through embassy channels. 316/ The re-
sult was an expanded output of intelligence. This was further
broadened when, in May 1948, FDB was authorized to move into
the field of Chinese press exploitation, 317/ a development
which resulted in the first issuance of a Chinese Press Extracts
report on 30 July. At about the same time, on 28 July, the
branch published its first Finnish Press Extracts. Publica-
tion of Korean, Indochinese, and Indonesian press reports
followed soon after. 318/
This expansion continued for several years. In 1952,
among the lesser languages, for example, coverage of the Bengali
and Urdu press and the Afrikaans press was initiated. A, Diaspora
Unit was established to expand coverage of the Jewish world, and
reports were prepared for the first time from information based
on Uzbek, Turkestan, Tatar, and Azerbaijani documents. At the
same time, coverage of Western Europe was enlarged with exploita-
tion of an increased number of newspapers and periodicals re-
ceived from that erect; 319/ Expansion by FDB into other linguistic
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1
areas of the world, some as remote as Tibet, was effected as
personnel with the pertinent language capabilities were re-
cruited, until eventually full coverage of strategic world areas
was achieved. The striking expansion in press exploitation in
FDB is underlined by the fact that from a total of 4,470 issues
of newspapers and periodicals handled in 1947, already by 1948
the number of newspapers alone had risen to 56,630, while 6,616
journal copies were also processed. 320/
With the flood gates open, so to speak, the branch was
well on its way to complete foreign-language overt coverage,
the only drawback being the shortage of linguistic officers
with the required competence to handle all the new sources.
Recruitment efforts to fill the void continued unabated and
the number of languages handled by FDB gradually increased, eo
that from 36 in 1948, 321/ by 1950 the branch had attained a
capability of 54 languages and dialects, 322/ by 1951, 67, 323/
and by 1952, 93. 324/ Since FDB had expanded considerably be-
yond Russian- and Satellite-language exploitation, in September
1948 the press extract report was redesignated the Foreign Press
Extracts. Augmentation of its language capabilities permitted the
breurichsgmrinally to expand its operations to cover the major
target areas of the world. At the end of 1948, these included
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the Soviet Union, Eastern and Western Europe,. Nborth Africa, the
Middle East, the Far East, and South America. 325/
The expansion of source procurement and of the area of
coverage in FDD was accompanied in the next few years by efforts
toward refining the techniques for reporting the intelligence
collected and continued attempts to improve their application.
The effort did not always succeed but this was not frau lack of
trying. Among changes in the division was the gradual reshaping
of its reporting program to conform to the needs of the comunity.
With the shift to greater emphasis on press exploitation, the
program, which had consisted of abstracts, extracts, complete
translations, bibliographies, and accession lists, was altered.
The bibliographies and accession lists were dropped early; the
translation function was retained and expanded, particularly
from 1951 on; abstracting was reduced in scope and limited to
scientific and technical sources; and extracting took the form
of the compilation or collation of information. The latter
change was designed to employ the limited cadre of the division
and its work qualifications to best advantage and to serve the
consumer Offices in the most efficient manner. The changes in
reporting techniques resulted in the development of a series
of special report categories which reflected both the characteris-
tics of FDD's source material and consmum:reapixements on the one
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hand and the division's accumulated experience on how best to
serve as a "common concern" facility on the other.
The report categories included in the FDD program in 1951
were as follows:
FDD Summary -- Essentially similar to the
report but exceeding 15 pages in length and more
elaborate, with tables and illustrations as required.
Q Information Report -- Atranslation of an un-
published foreign-language document or material from
covert sources in response to a specific request, but
containing information of general interest.
FDD Translation -- The same in content as a Q Report
but including reportage in excess of 15 pages or en-
bodying tabular or illustrative material.
U Report -- An unpublished translation prepared in
a single-copy typewritten draft in response to a
specific request of interest only to the requester.
FDD Periodical Abstracts -- Brief translated items
abstracted from foreign scientific and technical journals
(issued in card form after 1954).
FDD Reference Aids -- Collections in terms, lists,
tables, and the like extracted and collated in the course
of routine translation and exploitation in the Division.
In general, the format developed by FDD was well received
by consumers and, with modifications, renamed essentially in the
1951 form for the life of the division.
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The development of the FDD report program was, unfor-
tunately, not without its problems. Although the consumer
Offices were in general favorably inclined toward the exploita-
tion method employed by FDD, considerable dissatisfaction was
expressed over the interminable delays experienced between the
publication date of the basic source and the date of the exploited
information's dissemination by FDD. For example, at the start of
the press exploitation operation, the first report issued in
January 1948 contained items from issues dated September 1947,
a delay of more than four months. 326/ These were
newspapers,
and as procurement shifted to State Department facilities, the
situation improved, but never to the full satisfaction of the
consumers. This type of criticism was endemic in the division's
relations with its consumers in the early period and put it con-
stantly on the defensive, with the result that FDD officers spent
considerable time explaining to consumers the reasons for delay.
Wale the delays were partly the inevitable result of hitches
occurring in the organization's "shako:edam" period, much of the
problem was beyond FDD 's power to rectify. In complaining in
October 1947 that the Periodical Abstracts had not been on a
"current" basis since its inception in mid-July, john Bagnall
cited a. number of reasons for this including the higher priority
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accorded captured document processing and ICF production, repro-
duction difficulties outside EDB, and the critical personnel
situation. Various solutions were suggested 327/ and some were
applied. These and other problems persisted, however, and much
time was spent attempting to find solutions.
The procuranent problem was partially alleviated when the
receipt of the foreign press was arranged through State Depart-
ment facilities, and the use of air transport, first for the press
and subsequently for periodicals, also helped a great deal. Other
operational improvements of various kinds aided in providing
quicker service. At the request of certain FDD consumers, partic-
ularly ORE, a study was undertaken to correct delays. The outcome
took shape in what the division termed its "high speed press" pro-
cedure, designed to process, :exploit, and publish press material
within 48 hours 'after receipt of the source in FDD. 328/ This
method, adopted in October 1949, aided considerably in improving
FDD operations and had the effect of dampening much of the
criticism.
Other efforts to solve the time-lag problem were made. For
example, arrangements for short-cuts in dissemination were worked
out by FDD to provide other Offices with more rapid receipt of
overt OCD '329/ and covert OSO materials; '330/ and the editing of
unclassified translation was dispensed with to speed up delivery
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to requesters. 331/ Other devices were employed, the purpose in
each case being to provide better service to consumer organizations.
In the long run the operational capabilities of the division im-
proved to a point where criticisms of its methods and their results
were reduced to a tolerable level.
Much of the division's progress in improving production
occurred under the aegis of the Ad Hoc Committee on Exploita-
tion of FOreign Documents, during its brief existence in 1949
and subsequently under its successor corrmittees. The primary
accomplishment of these IAC committees was to define more closely
the FDD mission and to guide the division's operations so as to
permit it to serve the community in the best and most efficient
manner possible. The early ad hoc committees in effect directed
FDD to perform the "common service" function which was eventually
formalized in May 1953. '
In addition to exploiting current publications, the division
continued to service the community's translation requests. As foreign-
language document receipts increased and the volume of unprocessed
material grew in CIA Office files, it became obvious that extra-
ordinary effort was necessary to deal with this material. FDD
surveyed Offices having need of translation service and presented
its findings to the Projects Review Corimittee. As a result,
funds for contracting translation of unclassified material and
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creating additional positions in FDD for classified translation
were approved in January 1951. The effect of this step was
soon evident. By June 1951, translation service to CIA, was 100
percent above the amount provided six months earlier. 332/
A citation of FDD's output during these years in terms
of English pages produced demonstrates this effect even more
graphically and also serves to illustrate the rather dramatic
growth, of FDD operations. The division produced some 20,500
pages in 1947. With the onset of greater stability in 1948,
annual production attained a plateau of 50,000-60,000 pages in
the period 1948-1950. With the augmented Tb O of 1951 and
the start of the contractual facility, production almost doubled,
about 114,000 pages, and increased to roughly 136,000 in 1952
and 165,500 in 1953. 333/
Among other functions of FDD were activities of a rel-
atively minor nature which, in essence, amounted to by-products
of the main operation. These included the preparation of
reference aids, the performance of reverse translations, and a
brief trial at exploiting the domestic (US) foreign-language
press. The contribution of these and similar functions in terms
of volume were in the:overall not great, but they served in many
instances to expedite the work of the intelligence cammunity and
? should ie irentiooned for this reason.
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In ally 1951, George Carey called attention to already
extant reference aids compiled by FDD personnel and declared
that more were contemplated. These included glossaries of
technical terms, transliteration tables, generic standardization
lists, and similar collections not normally-available in regular
reference sources. A sampling of these aids had found consid-
erable favor among IAC agencies. In view of FDD 's capability to
undertake this type of project, permission was requested for the
division to start a new, unclassified publication series en-
titled Reference Aids. 334/ Since the additional workload to
prepare the new series would be negligible, the Advisor for
Management, LOA, recommended approval and this was granted on
27 September 1951. 335/ FDD preparation of reference aids con-
tinued until the end of 1955, when, on recamendation of the
Inspector General, responsibility for this function was trans-
ferred to the Office of Central Reference (OCR) with a
stipulation of FDD assistance if translation work was involved.
By that time, FDD had produced a total of 46 reference aids. 22y
Reverse translation was a part of FDD operations almost from
the division's beginning to its end. The function of translating
documents, usually but not always frau English, into a second
non-English language was in the strict sense not part of FDD 's
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defined mission, since it did not involve the collection of raw
intelligence. It was accepted as an added function simply be-
cause the division was the only organization in the community
capable of performing it on a broad scale. However, it further
increased an already heavy workload. Bagnall complained of
this fact in 1951 on the grounds that many of the reverse-
translation projects -- for example, a guerrilla warfare manual
and a short wave radio manual -- were destined for combat opera-
tions rather than to serve intelligence needs. He therefore
proposed a choice of refusing further work of this kind, re-
cruitment of additional personnel, or curtailment of the normal
wyrkload. 337/ He was advised to do none of these but to con-
tinue to perform reverse translation as best he could with the
facilities available. 338/ Thus, the work went on.
The domestic (US) foreign-language press as a source of
intelligence was exploited on a limited scale during Wbrld War II.
There were in this country at that time more than 1,000 foreign-
language newspapers and journals which, according to the 1940
census, served a large minority of 11,500,000 foreign-born
individuals and some 23 million citizens of foreign parentage
resident in the United States. It was therefore felt that these
constituted an important source of foreign and domestic intelli-
gence? particularly for giving advance notice of events
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I.
in foreign countries which had not yet reached the attention
of the United States government's usual sources of information. 339/
Even before World War II, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
had exploited these publications in the interest of internal
security, and during the war the intelligence:organs of the
Army, Navy, and Air Corps had to some degree searched the domestic
press for intelligence information. The only agency to engage
in a comprehensive coverage of this material was the Foreign
Nationalities Branch of OSS, which did so fram 1941 until its
deactivation in the fall of 1945. Thereafter, the only coverage --
and on a limited scale -- was conducted by the State Department. 340/
In July 1946 it was agreed that State would retain responsibility
for coverage of the domestic foreign-language press, but with
coordination by the DCI. 341/
In 1948, the AD/0 requested FDB to make a trial run of one
month's issues of 16 domestic newspapers to determine the value
of exploiting the emigre press. The results were largely negative.
The best sources were found to be Swedish and Greek publications,
but these covered areas better served by readily available native
newspapers. FUELtherefore recammended abandonment of the project.
Of the 733 known foreign-language publications issued in the United
States in 1948, the EDB study revealed that less than two percent
had any potential intelligence:value. Despite the meagre
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results, in November 1949, a new study was undertaken by FDD
and this effort yielded two Albanian, two Chinese, two Jewish,
and several Russian newspapers of some value. 342/ In 1951,
further monitoring disclosed several new newspapers serving
emigres fram Satellite countries which gave promising results. 2.42/
At State Department request, FDD continued monitoring and
? exploiting the emigre press for the next few years, but this
? source was at all times suspect because of the possibility of
foreign control with the attendant lack of credibility in such
publications. In 1956, finally convinced of the unproductive
nature of the undertaking, the State Department expressed its
opinion that emigre publications were, at best, confusing and,
at worst, unreliable. It therefore recommended an end to the
project. 344/ In November 1956, on the basis of this reccmmenda-
tion, FDD ceased to include information fram emigre publications
in its scheduled reports. 2.1y As a source for FDD exploitation,
the emigre press proved to be a very minor part of the division's
program. Though the effort, devoted to it was small, the time
spent on it at the expense of more valuable sources was grudgingly
given. What is surprising is the fact that the project lasted as
? long as it did.
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C. Special Problems
1. Source curtailment and Security Classification Policy
As is true of any operation of the magnitude of FDD's
mission, problems of one kind or other and in varying degrees of
severity were bound to arise, particularly in its early stages.
One of these problems for FDD already touched on, pertained to
the severe limitations the USSR placed after 1947 on the export
of publications not only greatly-restricting the number of titles,
but also the number of copies released. Although approximately
8,000 newspapers and 1,400 periodicals were known to be published
in the Soviet Union by 1954, foreign subscriptions were generally
limited to the Moscow newspapers (the so-called central press),
to two newspapers from each of the republic capitals, and to
approximately 300 periodicals ranging from pure propaganda items
to technical journals. The limitations on the number of sub-
scriptions allowed were most stringently, applied to scientific
and technical journals. 346/
The use of publishedmaterial and "open" sources for intelli-
gence information had undoubtedly long been familiar to the Soviets
as to any other government. The Soviets had been aware of German
exploitation of such USSR material before and during tiorld War II,
In fact, an officer of the US Embassy in Moscow was informed in
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1947 that the wartime use of provincial newspapers for intelli-
gence purposes was well known to the Soviet government and that
the government had no intention of allowing such use to occur
again. In general, this situation also applied in varying
degrees for the areas within the Soviet orbit outside the USSR.
It appeared likely, therefore, that the diminution of sources was
part of a general policy rather than due to the Soviets specific
knowledge of US and British exploitation of the material, although
this awareness of the latter could be assumed. 347/
By 1950 the rapid and continuing decrease in the quality and
quantity of information from the USSR and from areas under its?
control had reached such a level as to create concern in the
Agency, and various avenues to relieve the situation were ex-
plored. Among methods suggested was the peripheral stationing
of US personnel in strategic posts, such as Paris, Frankfurt,
Vienna, and Trieste, to facilitate collection of printed matter
from the Soviet Bloc through contacts with refugees and defectors
as well as by other means. 348/ The Peripheral Reporting Program
established as a result of this initiative was endorsed by the
DCI in August 349/ and proved quite successful.
Despite emangenrefforts such as this, the situation
created difficulties for the division and the Agency. In essence,
1
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it came down to a problem of whether or not to classify FDD
publications and, if this were done, what level of classifica-
tion to apply. A high classification wculd protect the continuing
receipt of source material hit would defeat the desire of the
intelligence canrnunity to give as wide dissemination of FDD 's
output to the public sector as possible. A low classification
would have the opposite effect. This created a dilemma.
In 1948, FDB press exploitation was, as we know, based
primarily on sources obtained fran the British. In November of
that year, GeaLye Carey reported to the DCI concerning a con-
ference
Chief, FDB had been re-
quested to consider upgrading the FDB Press Summaries fram a
"Confidential" and the Periodical Abstracts from a "Restricted"
classification to "Secret." FDB's Bibliography of Russian
Periodicals, unclassified,
had not been discussed
at the meeting, but Carey was of the opinion that these publica-
tions wouLd also have to be considered. Carey foresaw no problem
in reclassifying the SOviet Press Extracts since its dissemination
was limited to the IAC agencies bit, in view of the wirier distri-
bution given the other publications he believed there vmuld be
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1
open criticism of CIA for "classifying newspapers and magazines"
if security measures were suddenly applied to this material.. The
distinction of an intelligence agency processing this material on
a selective and immediate basis wvuld, he felt, not be apparent
to non-intelligence urs. Carey emphasized the urgency of re-
solving the problem by pointing out that from 1947 to 1948
receipt of periodicals of intelligence value (eooncmic, military,
etc.) had declined and receipt of scientific journals had been
reduced from 150 to 100. 350/ The outcctne was a general reclas-
sification of EDB publications to a higher level. In January
1949, DCI Hillenkoetter, with IAC approval, informed the British
that the Soviet Press Extracts and the Periodical Abstracts
(Scientific) had been classified "Secret" and the Periodical Abstracts
(General) would be discontinued and replaced by separate information
reports classified indiv-idilAi ly but no lower than "Confidential." The
Bibliography of Russian Periodicals would remain unclassified. 351/
In November 1949, in a follow-up to the more stringent clas-
sification policy adopted relative to Soviet sources, Bagnall
recomnended a minimum classification of "Confidential" for all
information extracted by FDD on Satellite countries. This rec-
cmnendation was based on a speech by the Hungarian party chief
in which he warned that press publication of econcznic data could be
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1
detrimental to the Hungarian national interest and stated that
production figures should be expressed in percentages rather
than hard totals. A similar situation existed in Poland. 352/
Bagnall's proposal received prompt approval.
The Soviet Bloc's restriction on release of source
material was a long-term phenomenon, but there was a gradual
erosion in the FDD policy on classification, in large part the
result of consumer pressure to permit broader dissemination. For
example, in 1950, an Office of Policy Coordination request for
clearance to release the contents of classified
reports was disapproved by Bagnall, 353/ but by September 1951
Carey formally requested a downgrading of classification of
FDD publications. This request was based on the change in the
report format fram collated to individual extracts from open
sources which did not disclose intelligence requirements. Carey
recommended that the existing minimum restriction of "Secret" be
rescinded and FDD authorized to classify individual extracts and
translations fram Soviet sources according to the nature of the
information and the security of the sources. 354/ This concept:
in general, governed FDD's classification policy from then on.
2. Transliteration
Inherent in FDD operations was the rendition of clear
and accurate English text from an increasing number of foreign
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I.
1
languages and dialects. This function was complicated during
the early period of the organization's growth and expansion
not only by the burgeoning linguistic requirements encountered
but also by the many-faceted subject content of the source
material processed by the division. A further complication was
created by the growing number of linguists, of varying degrees
of competence and drawn from widely separated war-time units,
who were involved in the work of the division. The result was
a lack of uniformity in the translation of common foreign text
into English. Even greater difficulties were encountered in
the rendition and standardization of proper names and specialized
technical terminology unique to particular subject categories.
It became obvious very early that a program of standardization
would have to be instituted in order to create in the intelli-
gence calmunity a feeling of' confidence in the fidelity of the
division's product. Since the division was only if the
largest, unit in the community engaged in translation service, the
problem was not limited to FDD alone and was therefore approached
from a community-wide standpoint. However, as a "common service"
organization, the division played a leading role in the formu-
lation of standards during the next few years.
As early as May 1947, following a meeting of CIG Office
representatives -- including John Bagnall -- to formanad hoc
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1
committee to consider the problem of foreign geographical names,
DB expressed great interest in establishing standards for geograph-
ical names based on its unique collection of sources and its
exploitation of foreign documents. 355/ In October 1948, as a
result of the studies on this problem which the cammittee had
initiated, through George Carey, recommended further
studies leading to the establishment of a permanent government
board similar to the US Board of Geographic Names (BGN) which
would be empowered to decide on the authorized transliteration
and spelling of all personal names and words other than geo-
graphic. 356/ The proposal was enthusiastically endorsed by the
other CIA offices, 357/ a committee was formed on 8 December 1948,
and on 29 December the first meeting of the CIA Transliteration
Committee (MC) was held. Bagnall temporary chairman of the
meeting, was elected permanent chairman of the new cammittee. The
initial objectives of the CTC were to determine the most acceptable
transliteration system for each language with a view toward
establishment of transliteration standards throughout CIA and
to recommend to ICAPS that discussions be held with IAC members
to reach agreement on the subject. Subcommittees were formed
to deal with major categories of languages -- that is, Slavic, Near
Eastern, and Far Eastern and the appropriate FDB division chiefs
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were appointed respective chainnea of the subcommittees. 358/
The new groups met in the course of the next few months
with representatives of the IAC agencies and on the basis of their
deliberations the CTC recommended the use of the appropriate BGN
system wherever possible or, otherwise, familiar systems already
in use. The recommendation was approved by a memorandum for the
DCI to all IAC agencies on 7 July and was given official force
by issuance of an Administrative instruction on 27 June 1949
(subsequently replaced by CIA. Ru1atior dated 31
January 1952). This provided for the transliteration of Slavic?
languages by the appropriate BC N systems, Chinese by the Wade-
Giles system, Japanese by the Hepburn system, and Korean by the
McCune-Reischauer system. Instructions for other languages were
to be issued when appLopriate systems had been approved. 359/
The committee further determined that, in accordance with Public
Law 242 of the 80th Congress, the HGN and the Secretary of Interior
were to provide for uniformity in geographic nomenclature and
orthography throughout the federal government. TO avoid the
confusion of establishing a separate system of transliteration
for words other than. geographic names, the CTC approved in
principle the concept that wherever the HGN had established a
transliteration. system for foreign geographic names, that system
would be adopted as standard for all transliteration. With this
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determination in mind, systems for all the major foreign languages
were developed and approved by the dc 360/ By March 1951,
transliteration tables for some of the lesser Far Eastern and for
the Near Eastern languages were adopted. It was agreed that
systems for the rare languages be held in abeyance until problems
relating to these arose in the Agency. 361/
This action provided a basis for uniform transliteration
practices in the intelligence community and, with same exceptions,
it proved successful. The differences which arose were essentially
minor in nature and were usually-resolved by liaison between FDD
and the differing parties.
TO formalize the procedures adopted and to make the trans-
literation systems more accessible to their users, preparation
was undertaken in mid-1951 of a Transliteration Handbook which
covered the broad spectrum of all major languages handled by FDD.
In order to assure wide dissemination, it was decided to issue
the publication in unclassified form under the imprimatur of the
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (nus) without reference to
CIA. FDD therefore turned over the material it had prepared for
the document to FB1S:'362/ The Handbook was completed and pub-
lished in. early 1954; '363/' and a CIA, regulation* was issued
CIA Regulation
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authorizing its use in official Agency intelligence reports
and publications and by collection offices insofar as sources
and operations permitted. With its work completed, the CTC
was dissolved and from then on any further transliteration
problems were to be referred to Chief, FDD. 364/
Meanwhile, in mid-1951, to implement the decision on
standardization, the CTC had appointed a five-man subcommittee
called the Ad Hoc Committee on Standardization of Translated
Russian Terminology; Bagnall, and later
as chairman. Other members were
and
served
all of FDD. The subcommittee met five times
between 17 June 1951 and 13 January 1952 and in that period dealt
with USSR Ministries, Russian organization and administrative
terms, and agencies of the Soviet Council of Ministers. The sub-
committee presented its final report on 29 May 1952. It then
adjourned sine die and the results of its work were transferred
for action to the IAC Advisory Cbmmittee established under the
new NSCID-16. 365/
The transliteration standardization problem was one which
resisted full resolution and remained with FDD as long as the
division existed. In 1955, Bagnall, as chairman of the NSCID-
, 16 Exploitation Subcommittee, brought up the subject again after
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a review of transliteration problems in the community and re-
quested a survey in the IAC agencies on the use made of the
Transliteration Handbook. 366/ The problem surfaced again in
1957 when the question was posed as to the extent of pLoyiess
in getting other agencies to use the recommended Russian trans-
literation system. 367/ In 1961,
representing
CIA at a conference on standardization of Russian transliteration
sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), reported that
the attendees recognized the need for standardization but the
majority of them, with the BGN dissenting, favored adoption of
the British Standards Institution system. 368/ Finally, in 1965,
a Working Group on Transliteration, with in attend-
ance for FDD, discussed the need for a standard unambiguous
transliteration system (computer oriented) within the United
States Intelligence Board (USa)) agencies and, if necessary,
the development of such a system. 369/ TO hope to achieve full
standardization was to expect the impossible. The work of the
CTC had made an important contribution in standardization for
the CIA and to some extent the IAC, but enforcement beyond this
level seemed unlikely.
3. Copyright Constraints
A recurrent and irritating problem in FDD operations
throughout the life of the division was the risk of copyright
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infringement involved in the use of foreign publications. It
was a problem which also affected other parts of the Agency but
it was particularly relevant to FDD due to the nature of the
division's activity. This risk was never a factor in FDD's use
of Soviet documents since the USSR was not a signatory to either
of the major international conventions relating to copyright,
the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC) and the International
Copyright Convention (ICC). The United States, on the other hand,
was a signatory of the first although not of the second. The
complications inherent in copyright laws as they related to FDD
operations had to be considered, however, in connection with the
processing of Western publications, and in the late 1950s this
was also becoming a factor in the exploitation of Satellite
sources as some of the Soviet Bloc countries took steps to join
the UCC or to establish bilateral reciprocal copyright agree-
ments with the United States.
Although FDD had earlier shown some uneasiness about pos-
sible copyright infringement and had requested guidance on the
Agency's policy in this matter, 370/ the division's problems re-
lating to safeguards against infringement really developed in
November 1953 with an executive order eliminating the the clas-
sification "Restricted." Tb cover copyright material, FDD
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initially resorted to the use of the newly created control "For
Official Use only" (ilan) in conjunction with a caveat concern-
ing laws relating to copyright, limiting the material to FOU0
and placing the onus of violation on the releasing individual.
After 1953, FDD's uneasiness about the publication of copyrighted
material resulted in several revisions of the above-mentioned
caveat. 371/ The actual value of this caveat was suspect, at
least in the opinion of
the AD/IC, wbo believed
that it served only as 00's (and FDD's) attempt to confine the
use of copyright information to official purposes without really
providing a legal safeguard against liability.
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that 00, with. General Counsel assistance, recommend appropriate
legislative or executive action to provide adequate protection
to the DCI. 372/ A, bill, FIR 6716, to provide some measure of pro-
tection against copyright infringement finally came before the
Congress and was approved in mid-1955. 373/
In a review of FDD copyright procedures in October 1955,
the Office:of the General Counsel cited a disturbing feature
of the new law which immunized the federal government but not
federal employees fromoopyright infringement. The law further
provided that suit against the government could not be brought
by a US citizen but made no mention of the degree of liability,
if any, if the suit were brought by a non-citizen. 374/.
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The continuing concern about the copyright problem cropped
up once again in October 1957. Carey pointed out that it was
FDD practice to keep the classification of its reports as law
as was consistent with security. Where possible, the division
used devices, such as the use of non-USIB organizations, to
disseminate its material as widely as possible to US industrial,
academic, and scientific sources.
In October 1958, particularly in the interest of safeguard-
ing FDD 's expanded publication efforts through JPRS,
Chief of JPRS/DC, conferred with George D. Cary, Copyright Office,
Library of Congress. Cary stated that few registrations were made
with the US Copyright Office by publishers or authors in the Eastern
European nations with which the United States had bilateral reciprocal
copyright agreements. At that time no Soviet Bloc nation belonged
? to the UCC to which the United States had subscribed. Cary rec-
amended that unclassified FDD (Jpils) reports based on Soviet
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Bloc material make no mention of the existence of a copyright.
In the case of Western European material, he discouraged the
\
use of a copyright warning and recommended instead obtaining
permission of the copyright holders prior to release. 377/
Based partially on Cary's advice, FDD practice from then
on was to use no copyright warning on publications derived
from Soviet Bloc materials. On unclassified reports from
Western sources involving copyright restrictions, however, the
division continued to apply a. revised warning, suggested by
Cary, under the restrictive control FOUO. 378/
In 1960, FDD was compelled to make a change in its pro-
cedures when it became known through the US EMbassy in Prague
that Czechoslovakia had ratified the UCC agreement in September
1959 and had adhered to its principles effective 1 January 1960.
TO cover this development, the division applied the same practices
in regard to Czech material as was done with that of the Western
nations. 379/ There also appeared to be some justification for
concluding that other East European nations would follow the
Czech lead and became signatories to the UCC in the near future.
In light of this possibility a.ruling on FDD 's legal obligations
with respect to East European copyrights was requested from the
General Counsel. 380/ FDD made preparations to deal with the
problem should it' arise, but with the exception of Czechoslovakia
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it never became an issue.
In 8 September 1960, Public Law 86-726 was enacted. This
legislation amended a section of the US code covering inventions
and patents so as to include copyright. The amendment appeared
to safeguard any federal employee or contractor concerned and
provided recourse to the copyright holder through action against
the United States for recovery of damages. However, a second
paragraph of the amendment provided that the section did not
apply to any claim arising in a foreign country. It thus
appeared that the US government was subject to suit by foreign
nationals for copyright infringement, but it was still unclear
whether such suit could also be directed against government
employees as individuals as opposed to suit against the US gov-
ernment. In view of this, for greater protection FDD adopted a
policy of applying more restrictive classification or controls
and, in the case of copyright material, to limit the number of
copies for dissemination. 381/
In the long run, the copyright problem did not interfere
seriously with normal FDD operations, but the potential threat
of legal action created the necessity for extra vigilance and
thus an additional camplication in operational procedures.
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4. Disseminatioft and Reproduction
FDD operations were rather seriously harnpered during the
formative years by dissemination problems, in particular the
persistent time lag which developed in providing consumers with
the FDD product. The physical distance separating FDD frau the
Offices and agencies which it served caused the division to per-
form less effectively in supplying avert information to the
consumer than would have been the case had it been more favorably
located. In this connection, FDD was a victim of security and
logistics syndranes in the Agency.
Distance was not the only factor, lowever. Delays of one
kind or other, whether in the receipt of sources, their actual
processing, or the final publication and dissemination of the
product, were perhaps even more to blame. Whatever was at fault,
the problem led to recurrent recriminations and bad feeling be-
tween the division and other units of CIA. 'lb dispel sane of
this, urgent needs were satisfied in rare instances with "advance
copies" of FDD reports prior to submitting them for publication
and, as time passed, this device was used with increasing fre-
quency. This was, however, an expedient and did not solve the
basic problem. As with other difficulties encountered by FDD,
attempts at solution' were protracted, hit persistent effort on
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the part of those concerned brought sane' improvement in dissem-
ination by the mid-1950s.
Regarding itself as the victim of circumstances over which
it exercised little or no control in the matter of dissemination,
a responsibility mainly of OCD, FDD engaged in an exchange of
manoranda with the latter in 1952 and finally to a mutual study
of the problem. In July 1952, George Carey informed OCD that
an 00 survey of FDD reports had revealed a time lag of 16-17
days between the time the duplimats were transmitted from FDD
and the final reports were distributed by OCD. 382/ The Deputy
Assistant Director for Collection and Dissemination (DAD/CD)
disputed Carey's figure and cited an OCD survey which had shown
the delay factor to be 7.3 days, the difference accounted for
by 00's use of calendar rather than rking days. 383/ 00
countered with a third survey which revealed a time-lag range
for disseminating FDD reports of from 7 to 15 working days, the
7-day elapsed-time figure representing FDD's Periodical Abstracts,
which was distributed not through OCD hit directly fran the Re-
production Division. 384/ A subsequent survey by FDD, covering
the last three months of 19521 showed little improvement. The
dissemination, time-lag this time ranged frau one to 39 days,
with an average of 14,; 385/,
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The effort to solve the problem continued during 1953.
A series of conferences with CCD was without result, and still
another survey, covering the period November 1953 - February 1954,
revealed no progress. 386/ Persistence began to pay off, however,
and by mid-1954 dissemination delays were considerably reduced.
Revised methods of processing reports through OCD, assisted by
FDD's cooperation in supplying multiple copies for screening,
dropped the average elapsed time from 14 to ten working days. 2E(
Unfortunately, CCD's improvement in dissemination did not
measurably affect the time required to place FDD reports at the
consumers disposal. Report reproduction was another delaying
factor. As demands on CIA's Reproduction Division increased,
time-lags built up and in extreme cases delays of as much as 79
to 90 days occurred in the printing and reproduction of FDD re-
ports, 388/ accompanied by continuing complaints fram Agency
analysts. This resulted in a shift of FDD's attention to the Re-
production Division in an effort to break the log jam. A con-
ference between FDD and Reproduction Division officers was held
in July 1955 to examine the cause of printing delays and to try
to get production an a current basis. This meeting led finally
to improved results and much of the backlog was eliminated as a
result of suggestions stemming from it. 222/
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The foregoing account of the dissemination/reproduction
issue is by no means exhaustive but serves to illustrate the
magnitude of the problem. It was a situation over which FDD
exercised no direct control, but since the success of the
division's operations was directly related to the speed with
which its reports were dispatched to its consumers, FDD was
vitally concerned in eliminating or at least alleviating the
persistent difficulties in this area.
This chapter has presented an account of the origins of
FDD' s production program as well as a recital of some rep-
resentative problems encountered in its development. Once
established, the program did not remain fixed but was from
then on attuned to the intelligence goals of the Agency. As a
result, it came under constaqt self-scrutiny and, as CIA needs
evolved, it was adapted to the directions called for. This made
necessary close FDD cooperation with consumer Offices and the
coordiniM;icn of FDD reporting methcds with consumer requiremen .
The next chapter deals with this aspect.
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