WEEKLY ACTIVITIES REPORT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP61-00442A000200040181-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 18, 2009
• Sequence Number: 181
• Publication Date: January 21, 1959
• Content Type: MEMO

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/18: CIA-RDP61-00442A000200040181-5
Office Memorandum ? UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
TO : Chief, Language and Area School
FROM : Deputy Chief, Area Training
SUBJECT: Weekly Activities Report
DATE: 21 January 1959
A. SIGNIFICANT ITEMS
1. Our first "Saturday Special" area briefing for dependents
was run from 0830 to 1700 hours on the 17th and was success-
ful beyond our hopes. A total of only two or three dozen
dependents per year had been enrolled in these Americans
Abroad orientations on week-days, while this single Saturday
offering drew 16 dependents despite severe weather. These
briefings are keyed to the particular foreign areas of as-
signment and stress problems of personal adjustment to the
new society for those entering it the first time. Despite
three years of effort in improving and making known this
program, however, it receives indifferent support or none
at all in a large number of components. We believe this
attitude is due either to a lack of appreciation by some
supervisors of the critical importance of intercultural
adjustment on the part of employees and dependents alike,
or to a risky assumption that briefings given in the
branches or in the home suffice. We believe that these
non-QTR briefings are generally inadequate - if given at
all - because they tend to be unsystematic and lack the
broad experience of the teams of staff briefers and recent
returnees which we use.
cally on the 17th by six employees in various compone
Especially gratifying was the help volunteered enthusiasti-
including of Processing, and
of LAS .
B. OTHER ACTIVITIES
1. An additional offering of the full Americans Abroad Orienta-
tion will be run the week of 13 April, followed
by a Saturday Special" on the 18th on Western Europe (in-
and Latin America. This follows a recom-
men a on o nd is intended to take care of the peak
season of PCS assignments.
25 YEAR
RE-R Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/18: CIA-RDP61-00442A000200040181-5
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/18: CIA-RDP61-00442A000200040181-5
2. deserves special mention for the highly effective
part he played on two panels during the first s f the
AAp His unusually broad experience
and his sympathy for our "effective interpersonal rela ons
overseas" theme make him an ideal recruit for the critical
opening session of this course.
3. We still lack the first guest speaker for 5 and 6 March, in
our Current Problems Seminar on Free Europe, but are still
hopeful that the DD/I will succeed in obtaining a commitment
from The DD/I Informed us on Monday
that he was sorry he had not contacte during
the previous week spent in New York.
4. We are about to request permission to cancel Free Europe -
Regional Survey #3, scheduled to begin 2 February. As of
the deadline, only 5 Agency and 3 non-Agency candidates had
registered. Thus our best efforts to revise this course in
order to fill a serious training need of many case officers
and analysts at the Grade 9-13 level have been in vain.
5?
discussions with supervisors in some components convince him
that the regional perspective aimed for in this course is
badly needed by personnel who have over-concentrated on one
country or one functional specialty. This is our second dis-
appointment with registration for this course, however, and
we intend to drop it from our 2-year cycle of survey courses
offered in the Western Department, believing that our meagre
resources should be concentrated on high priority items such
as the new course on effective interpersonal relations over-
seas and an expansion of the senior-level Current Problems
Seminars.
structor were unsuccessful.
Permission has been requested to cancel the Basic Country
Survey course on the Balkan States, originally scheduled to
run from 11 May 59 to 12 June 59. Cancellation is attributed
to the fact that the extension of the course on East Germany,
Poland and Czechoslovakia to ten weeks gives us insufficient
time to prepare for the course on the "Balkan States" this
spring. In addition, our attempts to "beg or borrow" an in-
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/18: CIA-RDP61-00442A000200040181-5