MINUTES OF THE FIFTY-SIXTH MEETING OF SUBCOMMITTEE OF EXPLOITATION OF FORIEGN LANGUAGE PUBLICATIONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-03130A000100030073-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 19, 1999
• Sequence Number: 73
• Publication Date: July 13, 1998
• Content Type: MIN

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C O N F I D E N T I A L
HENM Op' TEE Fly[ '-SIXTS MEETING CP SUBCt a 'TEE ON
MLOITATIQN ' FOREIGN LANGUAGE PUBIICATIt S
7 October 1955
Present
Members: John Lacey,, State
Stanley Wilcox, State
Richard Bauer, Arny
ITJG William C. Nyce, Navy
Consultants: George Pughe, AID/Air Force
1. The 56th meeting convened at 1400 hours, and the minutes of
the 55th meeting were approved with the following emendations and
statements:
Hr? Lacey stated that his presentation, as reported
in the minutes of the 55th meeting, was summarized into
too conder.zed a form to convey the State position. The
first sentence indicating shortage of 3.1nguistic capability
should be limited to "certain areas, particularly in Per
E st,e n languages, there is a lack of linguistic shills.*
in the first paragraph,, on page 2, in addition to the state-
ment of need for some reservation of effort for translation
service, the need for service on specific requests is also
Important to these considerations. None of the text in
quot ton marks was in effect a direct quote of Mr. Lacey'a
prey;entation
2E I called attention to the fact that CIA's
Interests in the collation of subjects not now being covered by
FM were quite incomplete as only the interests of-one office were
included, and those of other offices would actually cover most all
Of the categories.
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Mr. Bauer stated that Armyte interests were also only partially
.overed,as some of the Technical Services had not replied.
FOIAB3C presented the following:
BSA supports additional coverage on the following categories
which, due to an error, were omitted from a list of MA require-
ments submitted on 10 August 1955. It is requested that the
1 July collation of categories be revised to reflect these needs.
BDI ARIA
Requirements for exploitation of Bulgarian central and
provincial newspapers and military publications for all
categories of military information.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Requirements for exploitation of Czechoslovak central
and provincial newspapers and military publications for all
categories of military information.
POLAW
Requirements for exploitation of Polish central and
provincial newspapers and military publications for all
categories of military information.
FAR MAST
Political - Military
The Chairman said he realized that the collation was incomplete
but that it had been made as promised purely as a guide to the members
and consisted of only those specific replies that had been made at the
time of its typing.
3. Old business - Translation Service
Mr. Bawer presented Army's statement as follows:
Translation facilities within the Department of the
Arm' are adequate to meet minimum requirements in the Romance,
Germanic, and Slavic languages, but are inadequate in other
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language groups. FDD services many of Army's requirements
for translation, and other requirements are met on a con-
tractual basis. The Technical Services, chiefly Engineers,
Signal Corps, and Ordnance, translate many documents within
their fields of interest, but their translation servlcc.a
are not entirely adequate and are generally limited to a
few key languages, such as Russian and German.
My of the translations, especially of a highly
technical or specialized nature, performed by DA trans-
lation facilities are not of particularly high quality,
and delays in translation are often considerable. The
fact that existing translation facilities meet the minimum
requirements in some of the languages is not the result of
adequate staffs of linguists being available, but is more
a result of a paucity of translatable material. Even so,,
much potentially valuable material (especially from the
mans--3no-8viet Bloc countries) is not being translateed
or otherwise being exploited due to the necessity off' jus-
tifying the cost of the translation or because it does
not warrant a high priority.
Many of the Army Attaches and some of the Field
Coss translate articles from periodicals which are
considered to be of intelligence value, but these trans-
lation often duplicate translations undertaken by POD.
In the case of the attaches, this activity consumes time
which could be better devoted to other collection activities.
Two possible sources of additional translation services
have been considered by G2, DA. The first of these is the
employment of indigenous personnel in the field, and the
second is the establishment of contracts with private trans-
lation services. No actions have been taken in either
regard. Establishment of a central contracting agency
might meet Army's requirements.
FDD might help to relieve some of the translation load
from the Army attaches in Iron Curtain countries if an
arrangement could be made by which the attaches, in scanning
newspapers and periodicals, could call attention to an
article which appeared to warrant translation and FDD would
undertake to translate or otherwise exploit the article.
This would help to eliminate duplication of effort and
would help effect considerable administrative savings. PDD
could be made aware of valuable articles warranting trans-
lation by latter (possibly on a bi-weekly or monthly basis)
on a routine basis. The volume of this material would, in
all probability, not be greater than 10-15,000 words per
month per country,, and very likely the total would be less.
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hr.. USSR and Satellites Program Review
State/Mr. W9.lcox: State Department is shocked at
the personnel allocation for political and sociological
coverage in FDD. The economic staff is disproportionately
large in USSR work. The same rough proportions exist on
East Europe. This constitutes an imbalance. The total
staff for East Europe should be larger than the total staff
for the USSR, It requires a much more laborious effort
to cover eight countries than one country. The best
remedy for this is to readjust and we would support an
appropriate readjustment. We could get a useful con-
tribution but not with so much smaller a eteff then wQ
have in DES.
Some of our analysts have noted a great change in
FDD but some of those feel that they get lesq of value
than we got before. For State's needs it is safe to say
that scraps of information are virtually of no value; we
must have collations. For example, reports on a particular
mine are of no value but it would be particularly useful
if you put together pieces on the mines of a whole country.
Actually this applies more particularly to political and
sociological studies than to economic subjects.
Slowness or time lag is the reason for asking you to
get away from scrap material. FDD?s format is too rigid
and duplication continues to exist. I recommend that you
process political material first. We are disinterested
in FM's Central Press items. The only reason you should
look into the Central Press is to avoid reporting duplicatory
material in the Provincial Press.
The Chairman stated that Mr. Wilcox's statement was
valuable to FDD and the Committee, adding that he had felt
that current reporting was not a proper role for FDD as
the beat probable role was the basic type of reporting.
Aren't FMS/BBC and JPRS adequate for current. reporting?
remarks stating that we should consider the advisability-of
expanding the use of JPRS reports. He continued that CIA
can absorb fragments and there is interett in-some types
and it can aid in timeliness as some synthesis is very time
consuming. Economic material is suitable to this type of
reporting. Coverage in FBIS seers to be fairly good in
political matters but it is not adequate for economic
material. Pe acez rot reel that the current imbalance is
so great in view of the availability of material.
was in agreement with the Chairman's
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Mr. Wilcox stated that they did not want political
speeches which were readily available elsewhere. Press
criticism of *ollective farms, etc.; standard themes
brought together in collations are what we need.
felt that the imbalance in staff was due
to, first, the fact that there are more sources reporting
political material, more "people in the act" and secondly,
that economic requirements are quite specific, while
political requirements are far more general.
Mr. Wilcox: I think you should do what you think
should be done and perhaps sell the consumer.
Navy: Lt. Nyce stated that the type of reporting
now done by FM has been satisfactory to Navy.
Mr. Wilcox stated that regarding the current program
Items "B" and "C" under "political" can be dropped.
'Weather and Crops, forestry and forest jroducts, and
data on the rayon level can be dispensed with. State would
like, however, whole topic coverage on such subjects as
ministerial organization, collective farm operations,
typical defects in mining operations, etc. Political
requirements for the Satellites are substantially the
same multiplied by eight ZZ-ountrie 7. State's main
criticism comas from political analysts on the Satellite
side and more manpower is needed in FDD for the job.
Mr. Bauer: We have noticed some duplication with BBC
and the Canadians, but as we discussed some time ago, Army
feels quite strongly that we should not rely on a foreign
agency to provide us with information. It is difficult to
control the product, the time element is longer and there
is always the danger that the effort will be dropped suddenly.
The analysts of G-2 and the Technical Services of Army have
found that the products of FDD are meeting a definite need.
The recent improvements of issuing an 00-W on some important
items which will appear again in the summaries is greatly
appreciated. Some of the Technical Services feel that more
items in summaries could have been reported earlier and they
would like to have more of this type of coverage.
5. Mr. Bauer introduced a statement from Army on the use of the
Transliteration Handbook, which is made a part of the record.
6. The Chairman distributed to the members the first issue of
$AD's "Semiannual Report on Retail Trade in the USSR," Summary No. 673.
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7. Agenda for the next meeting: Continuation of Review of
the t3SR and East European Satellite Programs. The next meeting
will be held on Friday, 21 October 1955, in Room 2125 M Building.
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