STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL HOYT S. VANDENBERG DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

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• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP67-00059A000200200059-3
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• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 29, 2000
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• Content Type: STATEMENT

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FOP, RELEASE ON DELIVERY
Statement of
LIEUTENANT GENERAL HOYT S. VANDEVBERG
Director of Central Intelligence
Before The
Armed Services Committee
of the
United States Senate
On S. 758,
"The National Security Act of 1917'
FOR RELEASE ON DELIVERY
(756)
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Itr. Chairman and members of the Committee:
My appearance before your Committee this morning is in support
of Section 202 of the proposed National Security Act of 1947. This
section of the bill wouldrovide the United States, for the first
time in its history, -,Tith a Central Intelligence service created by
Act of Congress. Our present organization, the Central Intelligence
Group -- which I have the privilege of directing -- has been iwn exis-
tence since January 1946, by authority of an Executive Directive of
the President.
Since the day that the Central Intelligence Group was established,
the Directors of Central Intelligence -- nay predecessor, Admiral Souers,
and I -- have looked forward to the time when we could come before the
Congress and request permanent status through legislative enactment.
I sincerely urge adoption of the intelligence provisions of this
bill. Section 202 will enable us to do our share in maintaining the
national security. It will form a firm basis on which we can construct
the finest intelligence service in the world.
In my opinion, a strong intelligence system is equally if not
more essential in peace than in war. Upon us has fallen leadership
in world affairs, The oceans have shrunk, until today both Europe
and Asia border the United States almost as do Canada and Mexico.
The interests, intentions and capabilities of the various nations on
these land masses must be fully known to our national policy makers.
We must have this intelligence if we are to be forewarned against
possible acts of aggression, and if we are to be armed against
disaster in an era of atomic warfare.
I know you gentlemen understand that the nature of some of the
work we are doing makes it undesirable -- from the security standpoint to discuss certain activities with too much freedom. I feel that the
people of this country, having experienced the disaster of Pears. Harbor
and the appalling consequences of a global war, are now sufficiently
informed in their approach to intelligence to understand that an orga-
nization such as ours -- or the Intelligence Divisions of the Armed
Services, or the F.B.I. -- cannot expose certain of their activities
to public gaze. I therefore ask your indulgence -- and through you
the indulgence of the people -- to limit my remarks on the record
this morning to a general approach to the subject of a Central
Intelligence Agency.
I think it can be said without successful challenge that before
Pearl Harbor we did not have an intelligence service in this country
comparable to that of Great Britain, or France,, or Russia, or Gearmany,
or Japan. We did not have one because the people of the United States
would not accept it. It was felt that there was something Un-American
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about espionage and even about intelligence generally. There was a
feeling that all that was necessary to win a war -- if there ever were
to be another war -- was an ability to shoot straight. One of the
great pre-war fallacies was the common misconception that, if the
Japanese should challenge us in the Pacific, our armed services would
be able to handle the problem in a matter of a few months at most.
All intelligence is not sinister, nor is it an invidious type
of work. But before the Second World War, our intelligence services
had left largely untapped the great open sources of information upon
which roughly 80 per cent of intelligence should normally be based.
I mean such things as books, magazines, technical and scientific
surveys, photographs, commercial analyses, newspapers and radio broad-
casts,-and general information from people with a knowledge of affairs
abroad. What weakened our position further was that those of our
intelligence services which did dabble in any of these sources failed
to coordinate their results with each other.
The Joint Congressional Committee to Investigate the Pearl Harbor
Attack reached many pertinent conclusions regarding the short-comings
of our intelligence system and made some very sound recommendations
for its improvement. We are incorporating many of these into our
present thinking. The Com ittee showed that some very significant
information had not been correctly evaluated. It found that some of
the evaluated information was not passed on to the field commanders.
But,'bver and above these failures were others, perhaps more serious,
which went to the very structure of our intelligence organizations.
I am talking now of the failure to exploit obvious sources; the failure
to coordinate the collection and dissemination of intelligence; the
failure to centralize intelligence functions of common concern to
more than one department of the Government, which could more efficiently
be performed centrally.
In the testimony which has preceded mine in support of this bill by the Secretaries of War and the Navy, General Eisenhower, Admiral
Nimitz, and General Spaatz, among others -- there has been shown an
awareness of the need for coordination between the State Department
and our foreign political policies on one hand and our National
Defense.Establisiunent and its policies on the other. Similarly with
intelligence, there must be coordination and some centralization, so
that no future Congressional Committee can possibly ask the question
asked by the Pearl Harbor Committee: "Why, with some of the finest
intelligence available in our history -- why was it possible for a
Pearl Harbor to occur?"
The Committee recommended that intelligence work have centraliza-
tion of authority and clear-cut allocation of responsibility, It found
specific fault with the system of dissemination then in use -- or, more
accurately, the lack of dissemination of intelligence to those who had
vital need of it. It stated that "the security of the nation can be
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insured only through continuity of service and centralization of
responsibility in those charged 'with handling intelligence." It
found that there is no substitute for imagination and-resourceful-
ness on the part of intelligence personnel, and that part of the
failure in this respect was "the failure. to accord to intelligence
work the important and significant role which it deserves."- The
Committee declared that "efficient intelligence services are just
as essential in time of peace as in war. I?
All of these findings and recommendations have my hearty concur-
rence. In the Central Intelligence Group, and in its successor which
this bill creates, must be found the answer to the prevention of
another Pearl Harbor.
As the United States found itself suddenly projected into a global
war, immense gaps in our knowledge became readily apparent. 'The word
"intelligence" quickly took on a fashionable connotation. Each new
war-time 'agency -- as well as many of the older departments -- soon
blossomed out with intelligence staffs of their own, each producing a
mass of largely uncoordinated information. The resultant competition
for funds and specialized personnel was a monumental example of waste.
The War and Navy Departments developed full political and economic
intelligence staffs, as did the Research and Analysis Division of the
O.S.S.. The Board of Economic Warfare and its successor, the Foreign
Economic Administration, also delved deeply into fields of economic
intelligence. Not content with staffs in Washington, they established
subsidiary staffs in London and then followed these up with other
units on the continent.
When, during the war, for example, officials requested a report
on the steel industry in Japan or the economic conditions in the
Netherlands East Indies, they had the reports of the Board of Economic
Warfare, G-2, O.N.I. and the O.S.S. from which to choose, "Because
these agencies had competed to secure the best personnel, it was nec-
essary for each of them to back up its experts by asserting that its
particular reports were the best available, and that the others might
well be disregarded.
As General Marshall stated in testifying on the unification
bill before the Senate Military Affairs Committee last year, "...Prior
to entering the war, we had little more than what a military attache
could learn at a dinner, more or less over the coffee cups." From
this start, we suddenly had intelligence springing up everywhere.
But nowhere was its collection, production or dissemination fully
coordinated -- not even in the armed forces. General Marshall pointed
this out in his testimony when he mentioned "the difficulty we had in
even developing a Joint Intelligence Committee. That would seem to
be a very simple thing to do, but it was not at all."
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There are great masses of information available o us in peace
as in war. With our war-time experience behind us, we know now where
to look for material, as well as for what to look. The transition
from war to peace does not change the necessity for coordination of
the collection, production and dissemination of the increasingly vast
quantities of foreign intelligence information that are becoming
available. This coordination the Central Intelligence Agency will supply.
President Roosevelt established the Office of Strategic Services
for the purpose of gathering together men of exceptional background and
ability'who could operate in the field of national, rather than depart-
mental, intelligence. In weighing the merits of the O.S.S., one should
remember that it came late into the field. It was a stop-gap. Over-
night, it was given a function to perform that the British, for instance,
had been developing since the days of Queen Elizabeth. When one con-
siders these facts, the work of the O.S.S. was quite remarkable and its
known failures must be weighed against its successes. Moreover, it
marked a crucial turning point in the development of United States
intelligence. We are now attempting to profit by their experiences
and mistakes.
Having attained its present international position of importance
and power in an unstable world, the United States should not, in my
opinion, find itself again confronted with the necessity of developing
its plans and policies on the basis of intelligence collected, compiled,
and interpreted by some foreign government. It is common knowledge that
we found ourselves in just that position at the beginning of World War
Two. For months we had to rely blindly and trustingly on the superior
intelligence system of the British. Our successes prove that this trust
was generally well placed. However, in matters so vital to a nation
having, the responsibilities of a world power, the United States should
never again have to go hat in hand, begging any foreign government for
the eyes -- the foreign intelligence -- with which to see. We should
be self sufficient. The interests of others may not be our interests.
The need for our own coordinated intelligence program has been
recognized in most quarters. The Pearl Harbor disaster dramatized that
need and stop-gap measures were adopted. As the war drew to a close,
the President directed the Joint Chiefs of Staff to study the problem
and draft recommendations for the future. The solution offered by the
Joint Chiefs of Staff was referred to the Secretaries of State, War,
and the Navy. The program which they evolved resulted in an Executive
Directive from President Truman, dated 22 January 1946, With your
permission, Mr. Chairman, I would like to introduce that Executive
Directive into the record at this point.
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This Executive Directive established the National Intelligence
Authority. It consists of four voting members -- the Secretaries of
State, 'War and the Navy, and the President's personal representative,
at this time his Chief of Staff, Fleet Admiral Leahy. A fifth member --
without a vote -- is the Director of Central Intelligence. The
National Intelligence Authority was directed to plan, develop and
coordinate all federal foreign intelligence activities, so as "to
assure the most effective accomplishment of the intelligence mission
related to the national security." These functions of the National
Intelligence Authority arc transferred to the National Security
Council under Section 202 (c)(l) of the bill,
The President's Directive also provided for a Central Intelligence
Group as the operating agency of the National Intelligence Authority.
The functions, personnel, property and records of the Group are trans-
ferred to the new Central Intelligence Agency by Section 202 (c)(2) of
the' bill.
The Director of Central Intelligence is presently charged with
the following basic functions:
1. The collection of foreign intelligence information of certain
types -- without interfering with or duplicating the normal collection
activities of the military and naval intelligence services, or the
Foreign Service of the State Department.
2, The evaluation, correlation and interpretation of the foreign
information collected, in order to produce the strategic and national
policy intelligence required by the President and other appropriate
officials of the Government.
3, The dissemination of the national intelligence produced.
!,. The performance of such services of-common concern to the
various intelligence agencies of the Government as can be more effi-
ciently accomplished centrally.
5. Planning for the coordination of the intelligence activities
of the Government so as to secure the most effective accomplishment
of the national intelligence objectives.
As we progress and determine the primary responsibilities of the
various intelligence agencies within the Government, the functions of
the C.I.G. will be aggressively, economically and efficiently executed
to the best interests of all agencies. We feel confident that if
Section 202 of this bill is enacted into law, the results will be
efficiency and economy.
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Contrary to some criticism which has appeared in the public press,
the full operation of a Central Intelligence Agency will not interfere
with the legitimate activities of the several departments and their
agencies, nor will it duplicate their work. I can say that the sev-
eral coordinated plans and programs already in effect or in prepara-
tion have the support of the agencies. They see in these programs
prospects for orderly operations and elimination of wasteful duplica-
tions. When every intelligence agency knows exactly what isexpected
of it in relation to its departmental mission and to the national
intelligence mission, and when it can count, as the result of firm
agreement, on being supplied with what it needs from other fields,
each agency can concentrate on its own primary field and do that
superior job which world conditions require.
By the assignment of primary fields of intelligence responsibi-.
lities, we are -- in the fields ,of collection, production and dissemi-
nation -- preventing overlapping functions -- that is, eliminating
duplicate roles and missions, and eliminating duplicate services in
carrying out these functions.
In order to perform his prescribed functions, the Director of
Central Intelligence must keep in close and intimate contact with the
departmental intelligence agencies of the Government. To provide
formal machinery for this purpose, the President's Directive estab-
lished an Intelligence Advisory Board to advise the Director. The
permanent members of this Board are the Directors of Intelligence of
the State, War and Navy Departments and the Air Force. Provision is
rude, moreover, to invite the heads of other intelligence agencies to
sit as members of the Advisory Board on all matters which would affect
their dgencies. In this manner, the Board serves to furnish the
Director with the benefits of the knowledge, advice, experience,
viewpoints and over-all requirements of the departments and their
intelligence agencies.
One final thought in connection with the President's Directive.
It includes an express provision that no police, law enforcement or
internal security functions shall be exercised. These provisions are
important, for they draw the lines very sharply between the C.I.G.
and the F.B.I.. In addition, the prohibition against police powers
or internal security functions will assure that the Central Intelli-
gence Group can never become a Gestapo or security police.
Among the components of any successful intelligence organization
are three which I wish to discuss -- collection, production, and dis-
semination. Collection in the field of foreign intelligence c?nsists
of securing all possible data pertaining to foreign governments or
the national defense and security of the.United States.
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I feel It is safe to say that in peace time approximately 80 per
cent of the foreign intelligence information necessary to successful
operation can and should be collected by overt means, By overt means
I mean those obvious, open methods which require, basically, a thorough
sifting and analysis of the masses of readily available material of all
types and descriptions. Into the United States there is funnelled so
vast an amount of information from so many varied sources that it is
virtually staggering, It encompasses every field of endeavor -- mili-
tary, political, economic, commercial, financial, agricultural, mineral,
labor, scientific, technical, among bthers -- an endless and inexhaus-
tible supply.*
There exists a misconception in the minds of some people regarding
the task intelligence is to perform in time of peace, as contrasted
with its task in time of war. This misconception is that in wartime
intelligence is more important and more difficult than in time of peace.
This is a fallacy. In the midst of a war, our armed forces, with their
intelligence services, gather vast amounts of strategic and tactical
information. This may be secured through the underground, or resistance
movements, reconnaisance, prisoner-of-war interrogation, and aerial
photographs taken in spite of enemy resistance -- to mention a few.
But these sources are drastically reduced as our forces'return home.
Such information, which can be collected during actual combat, is
largely denied us in peace-time. In times of peace, we must rely on
the painstaking study of that available overt material I mentioned a
minute ago, in order to replace the. material readily available during
combat,
If we fail to take advantage of these vast masses of material, we
are deliberately exposing the American people to the consequences of a
policy dictated by a lack of information. We must realize also that we
are competing with other nations who have been building up their intelli-
gence systems for centuries to keep their leaders informed of interna-
tional intentions -- to inform them long before intentions have mater-
ialized into action.
Among the primary collecting agencies in the field of foreign in-
telligence are the military, air and naval attaches of the defese es-
tablishment, and the Foreign Service officers of the State Department.
The Central Intelligence Group can not and will not supplant these people.
They do most valuable work in the field of collection. As national aims
and needs in this field are established, their value will be increasingly
apparent. This will be. particularly true as the boundaries of depart-
mental collection become firmly defined, and wasteful duplication and
overlap are eliminated or reduced.
As I stated, it is not the province of the Central Intelligence
Group to take over departmental collection activities. This is the
type of collection which can best be done by the experts of the depart-
ments in their various fields.
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The role of the Central Intelligence Group is to coordinate this
collection of foreign intelligence information and to avoi wasteful
duplication. The State Department should collect political and socio-
logical intelligence in its basic field. The Navy Department should
devote its efforts primarily to the collection of naval intelligence.
There should be no reason, for example, for the military attache to
.furnish the gar Department with detailed political and political -
economic analyses, This material should be collected by the State
Department. If a military attache should receive political ini'orna-
tion, he should hand it right across the desk in the embassy to the
appropriate member of the Foreign Service, and vice versa.
We are engaged in making continual surveys of all Government
agencies to ascertain their requirements in foreign intelligence.
When two or more agencies have similar or identical requirements, the
collection effort for one can be made to satisfy all others. The only
additional action necessary is the additional dissemination?
In determining, apportioning and allocating the primary field of
responsibility among the various agencies of the Government, it is use-
ful to note one additional factor. After this mass of material has been
studied and evaluated, certain gaps in the over-all picture will be
readily apparent. A contralized intelligence agency, intent on complet-
ing the national intelligence picture, must have the power to send out
collection directives and request further material, to fill these gaps,
Once the initial field of collection is delineated,, the responsibility
for securing the additional information can be properly channeled and
apportioned. Central intelligence, however,, needs the authority granted
originally by the President's Directive, and now by this proposed legis-
lation, to coordinate all this foreign intelligence collection.
The second major component of a successful Central Intel.lig
Agency is that coming under the broad general heading of dione
This involves the evaluation, correlation and interpretation of the.
foreign intelligence information gathered for the production of intel-
ligence. It involves the process of systematic and critical examina-
tion of intelligence information for the purpose of determining its
usefulness, credibility and accuracy. It involves the process of
synthesis of the particular intelligence information with all available
related material. It involves the process of determining the probable
significance of evaluated intelligence.
Information gathered in the field-is sent to the department ?espon-
sible for its collection, This material is necessary to that department,
in. the course of its day-to-day operations. Each department must have
personnel available to digest this information and put it to such use
as is necessary within that department. The heads of Government depart-
ments and agencies must be constantly informed of the situation within
their own fields to discharge their obligations to this country. With
this departmental necessity, Central Intelligence will not interfere.
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 Each department must evaluate and correlate and interpret that intelli-
gence information which is within its own exclusive competence and which
is needed for its own departmental use.
The importance of research to the Central Intelligence Agency becomes
evident when we start to deal with intelligence on a national as distin-
guished from a departmental level. The research provided by the central
agency must be turned to the production of estimates in the field of na-
tional intelligence., National intelligence is that composite intelligence,
interdepartmental in character, which is required by the President and
other high officials and. staffs to assist them in determining policies
with respect to national planning and security in peace and in war, and
for the advancement of broad national policy. National intelligence is
in that broad political - economic - military area, of concern to more
than one agency. It must be objective, and it must transcend the exclu-
sive competence of any one department.
One of the greatest contributions which a Central Intelligence Agency
makes is the preparation of national intelligence estimates. Previously,
if the President desired an over-all estimate of a given situation, he had
to call, for example,. upon the War Department, which would furnish him with
the military and air picture; the Navy Department, which would present an
estimate of-the naval potentialities and capabilities; and on the State
Department, which would cover the political and sociological picture. But
nowhere would there be an over-all estimate. Nowhere was there such an
estimate before Pearl Harbor. Each department would, of necessity, pre-
sent an estimate slanted to its own particular field, Now it falls to-
the Central Intelligence Agency to present this over-all picture in a
balanced, national intelligence estimate, including all pertinent data.
From this the President and appropriate officials can draw a well-rounded
picture on which to base their policies. And it should be clearly borne
in mind that the Central Intelligence Agency does not make policy.
The estimates furnished in the form of strategic and national
policy intelligence by the central Intelligence Group fill a most
serious gap in our present intelligence structure. These estimates
should represent the most comprehensive, complete and precise national
intelligence available to the Government. Without a central research-
staff producing this material., an intelligence system would merely
resemble a costly group of factories, each manufacturing component
parts, without a central assembly line for the finished product.
The third component of the successful Central Intelligence Agency is
that dealing with dissemination. Just as there is no purpose in collect-
ing intelligence information unless it is subsequently analyzed and worked
into a final product, so there is no sense in developing a final product
if it is not disseminated to those who have need of it. The dissemination
of intelligence is mandatory to those officials of the Government who need
it to make their decisions.
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 x- ientral-zntelligence Agency, p- - - - - - - - -- -- - - - - - - - -
roperly cogniz of the intelligence
requirements of the various departments and agencies, is best equipped to
handle the dissemination to all departments of the. material to meet these
requirements.
The complexities of intelligence, the immensities of information
available virtually for the asking, are so great that this information
must reach a central spot for orderly and efficient dissemination to all
possible users within the Government.
In addition to the functions mentioned, it is necessary for a Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency to perform others of common concern to two or more
agencies.. These are projects which it is believed can be most efficiently
or economically performed centrally. An example of such a service is the
monitoring of foreign voice broadcasts. There are many departments of the
Government vitally interested in this matter. No one department should
shoulder the burden of its operation and expense. Nor should two or more
agencies be duplicating the operation. It should rest with a central agency
to operate such a service for all. Similarly, we have centralized the ac-
t,vities of the various foreign, document branches which were operated by
some of the services individually or jointly during the war.
I would call your attention to the fact that the kind of men who are
able to execute the intelligence mission successfully are not too fre-
quently found. They must be given an opportunity to become part of a se-
cure and permanent agency which will grow in ability with the constant ex-
ercise of its functions in the fields of operations and research. We must
have the best available men, working in the best possible atmosphere, and
with the finest tools this Government can afford,
During the war, intelligence agencies were able to attract a great num-
ber of extremely intelligent, widely experienced, able men. Some are still
available and might become members of the Central Intelligence Agency,
should it become possible to insure them that career which was recommended
by the Congressional Committee report I`cited previously. It is very dif-
ficult to recruit such men before the will of Congress is made known. I
do not wish to belabor this point, but it is most important.
In conclusion, I respectfully urge the passage of Section 202 of the
bill under discussion, together with such additional legislation as is
needed to make for operational efficiency. I urge your increased and
continued interest in an intelligence system which can do much toward
safeguarding our national security.
Such a system indicates the necessity for a Central Intelligence Agency
to augment and coordinate these intelligence missions and functions of the
armed services and the Department of State. Such an agency should be given
the authority to provide research and analysis in the interest of national
intelligence. We know that the passage of such legislation will enable us
to establish a field attractive to men of outstanding-background and exper-
ience in intelligence. These individuals will meet the challenge of the
task before them -- the most stimulating in which men can serve their
country -- by the production of a positive safeguard to the national
security.
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