(Classified)'S MEMORANDUMS RE ICAPS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP67-00059A000200110059-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 18, 2000
• Sequence Number: 59
• Publication Date: September 19, 1949
• Content Type: MEMO

Approved For Release 2000 67-00059AO002QQi 10059-3
19 September 19149
ICAPS ONLY
SUBJECT: s Memorandum re ICAPS 25X1A9a
After my first glance at this, in a Very cursory manner, herewith are my
comments:-
1. His paragraph 1 about rotation of ICAPS personnel is very good, but
on the other hand it does have its value, in keeping this section of CIA at
any rate, from becoming~'too sot in its ways: Later on he refers to "reconcilia-
tion" among the Assistant Directors, and to "allegiance" to certain components
of CIA, which indicate what happens when one is too permanently associated
with a particular segment of this organization.
2. I (alone in the wilderness). strongly favor simplification, a word
that apparently is not in any dictionary used in Washington. I concede that
this is a complex town, and that any large agency or department therein is a
complex organism, but I think we should try to simplify and control cellular
growth in this"Atomic`Age.
A difficulty during the past couple of years has been that ICAPS, by
instruction, has not had duties "within CIA," but only in the interdepartmental
field; so there has grown up, I believe, in each CIA office a planning staff
now well entrenched. Rather than transfer ICAPS planning responsibilities to
a new planning staff, I should think that these office planning staffs should
be instructed to clear with ICAPS before going off into the blue or elsewhere,
.aeTheir eager beavers may have many good ideas, but some of them may be wholly
impractical for reasons not known to them or because of the Director's policy
1regarding this new agency. As a counter-proposal, I would suggest that the
Chief of the Offices' planning staffjrhave the "planning ability, operational
experience, and long-term duty in the agency," and that they present their
wishes and desires and ideas, etc# to ICAPS daily, or weekly, or whenever they
wish. I think it unnecessary that they be assigned permanently to ICAPS "with-
out allegiance to any other component," and I also think it unnecessary that
ICAPS be built into a big departmentalized office within CIA.
3. The four ideas presented in this paragraph are, I believe, contem-
plated by the Executive in the new charter for ICAPS.
14. This responsibility, too, I believe, is contemplated by the Executive
(without the assignment of OCD to ICAPS).
See also the attached memorandum frou- especially the first
of it.
PRESCOTT CHILDS
Chief, ICAPS
Approved For Release 2000/05/04 67 OOO59AOOO2OO11OO59-3