STATEMENT OF GENERAL HOYT S. VANDENBERG DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-03362A000500180007-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: R
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 26, 2002
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: April 29, 1947
• Content Type: STATEMENT

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Statement of
LIEUTENANT GENERAL HOYT S. VANDENBERG
Director of Central Intelligence
Before The
Armed Services Committee
of the
United States Senate
and Before
House Committee
On Expenditures
in the
Executive Departments
on 1 May 1947
on S. 758,
"The National Security Act of 1947".
29 April 1947
200mgnt No.
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Mr. 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 would provide the
United States, for the first time in its history, with 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 in
existence 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 -- my
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 Pearl Harbor and the ap-
palling consequences of a global war, are now sufficiently
informed in their approach to intelligence to,?understand
than an organization 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 there-
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fore 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 Prance, or, Russia, or Germany, or Japan. We did not have
one because the people of the United States would nat accept
it. It was felt that there was something Un-American 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 idious
type of work. But before the Second World War, our in elli-
gence 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, photo-
graphs, commercial analyses, newspapers and radio broadcasts,
and general information from people with a knowledge of af-
fairs 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 regard-
ing the short-comings of our intelligence system and made some
very sound recommendations for its improvement. We are incorpor-
ating many of these into our present thinking. The Committee
showed that some very significant information had not been
correctly evaluated. If found that some of the evaluated in-
formation was not passed on to the field commanders. But, over
and above these failures were others, perhaps more serious,
which went to the very structure of our intelligence organiza-
tions. I am talking now of the failure to exploit obvious
sources; the failure to coordinate the collection and dissemin-
ation 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 Eisen-
hower,'Admiral Nimitz, and General Spaatz, among others -- there
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has been shown an awareness of the need for coordination
between the State Department and our foreign political poli-
cies on one hand and our National Defense Establishment 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
centralization of authority and clear-cut allocation of re-
sponsibility. 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
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 re-
sourcefulness 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 intelli-
gence services are just as essential in time of peace as in
war."
All of these findings and recommendations have my hearty
concurrence. 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 rr ojected into
a global war, immense gaps in our knowledge became readily ap-
parent. 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 unco-
ordinated 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.
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When, during the war, for example, officials requested
a report on the steel industry in Japan or the economic con-
ditions 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 necessary for each of them
to back up its experts by asserting that its particular re-
ports were the best available, and that the others might well
be disregarded.
As General Marshall stated in testifying on the unifica-
tion 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." Prom 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."
There are great masses of information available to 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 purposes of gathering together man of excep-
tional background and ability who could operate in the field of
national, rather than departmental, intelligence. In weighing the
writs of the O.S.S., one should remember that it came late
into the field. It was a stop-gap. Overnight, it was given
a function to perform that the British, for instance, had been
developing since the days of queen Elizabeth. When one con-
elders 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 policie$ the basis
of intelligence collected. compiled, and interpretedn. by some
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foreign government. St &(MM? TIAI ge 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 mat-
tersao 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.
This Executive Directive established the National Intelli-
gence Authority. It consists of four voting members -- the Secre-
taries 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
are transferred to the National Security Council under Section
202 (c) (1) 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 transferred to the new Central
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.
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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.
to
be
3. The dissemination of the national
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intelligence produced.
4. The performance of such services of common concern
the various intelligence agencies of the Government as can
more efficiently accomplished centrally.
5. Planning for the coordination of the intelligence
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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.
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 sever-
al departments and their agencies,.nor will it duplicate their
work. I can say that the several coordinated plans and pro-
grams already in effect or in preparation have the support of
the agencies. They see in these programs prospects for orderly
operations and elimination of wasteful duplications. When every
intelligence agency knows exactly what is expected of it in re-
lation to its departmental mission and to the national intelli-
gence 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 responsi-
bilities, we are -- in the fields of collection, production and
dissemination -- preventing overlapping functions -- that is,
eliminating duplicate roles and missions, and eliminating dupli-
cate 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 established 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 made, moreover, to invite the
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heads of other intelligence agencies to sit as members of the
Advisory Board on all matters which ould affect their agencies.
In this manner,- the Board serves to rurnish the Director with
the benefits of the knowledge, advice, experience, viewpoints
and over-all requirements of the departments and their intelli-
gence 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 exer-
cised. 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 func-
tions will assure that the Central Intelligence Group can never
become a Gestapo or security police.
- Among the components of any successful intelligence organiza-
tion are three which I wish to discuss --collection, production,
and dissemination. Coi_lection in the field of foreign intelli-
gence consists _of securing aI1 poss3b~a data pertaining to
_ore fin., goverrim nt's=-ar Y e national "___ ensa and security of tIIe
United states.
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 xnd should be collected by overt
means. By overt means I i,,.'dan 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 Yast an amount of
information from so many varied sources that it is virtually
staggering. It encompasses every field of endeavor -- military,
political, economic, commercial, financial, agricultural, mineral,
labor, scientific, technical, among others -- an endless and
inexhaustible supply.
There exists a misconception in tbominds 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 dif-
ficult 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, prisgner-of-war _interogation, and aerial_photo-
graphs taken in spite of enemy resistance -- to meet on_-a few.
But these sources are drastically reduced as our forces return
home. Such information, which can be collc,t.ed during actual
combat,, ie`-Iargeiiwenied us in peace-_time In times of peace,
we must relyow the painstaking study of that available overt
material I mentioned a minute ago, in order to replace the
material readily available during combat.
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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 informa-
tion. We must realize also that we are competing with other
nations who have been building up their intelligence systems
for centuries to keep their leaders informed of international
intentions -- to inform them long before intentions have
materialized into
Among the primary collecting agencies in the field of
foreign intelligence are the military, air and naval attaches
of the defense establishment, 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
departmental collection become firmly defined, and wasteful
duplication and overlap are eliminated or reduced.
As I stated, it is not the province of the Central Intelli-
gence Group to take over departmental collection activities.
This is the type of collection which can beat be done by the
experts of the departments in their various fields.
The role of the Central Intelligence Group is to coordinate
this collection of foreign intelligence information anUto avoid
wasteful duplication. The State Department should collect
political and sociological 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
War Department with detailed political and political - economic
analyses. This material should be collected by the State De-
partment. If a military attache should receive political in-
formation, 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 Govern-
ment agencies to ascertain their requirements in foreign in-
telligence. When two or more agencies have similar or identical
requirements, the collection effort for one can be made to satis-
fy 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 useful 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 centralized
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intelligence agency, intent on completing the natconal intelli-
gence picture, must have the power to send out collection direc-
tives 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 legislation, to coordinate all this foreign
intelligence collection. .
The second major component of a successful Central Intelli-
gence Agency is that coming under the broad general heading of
roduction. This