THE CAREER SYSTEM IN CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-03578A000300040001-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 38
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 8, 2001
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: February 2, 1955
• Content Type: SUMMARY

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CONFIDENTIAL
"THE CAREER SYSTEM IN CIA"
Presented by
In Personnel Lecture Series Conducted by Office of Personnel
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2 February 1955
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CONFIDENTIAL
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- AM& CONFIDENTI 7 'L
"THE THE CAREER SYSTEM IN CIA"
Presented by
In Personnel Lecture Series Conducted by Of ce of Personnel
2 February 1955
Our discussion today, as you know, is the Career
Service System in CIA, the history and concept of the Career System, its
relation to the Civil Service, a comparison of other career systems in
the Government and elsewhere, and the significance to CIA of an organized
Career System.
I'd like to provide a sort of a frame of reference or back-
ground for this by recounting the history of this concept because, as I
say, I don't believe it is down in black and white anywhere. As far as I
know, however, it goes back to 1944, because in 1944 in OSS, General
Donovan, who had the concept of OSS--the idea of OSS, and who also had the
idea of--and I'm using small letters, not capitals--"centralized intelli-
gene", established in November of 1944, before the Battle of the Bulge,
when, as you recall, it looked as though the war was going to be over in
Europe very shortly, and then it just didn't happen that way--didn't happen
until May--but anyway, at the very end of the war, or what appeared to be
the end of the war, when all the officers were being demobilized and getting
out of the service, and so on, General Donovan established a planning com-
mittee to continue the concept, the theory, the spirit, or whatever you want
to call it, of centralized intelligence.
Now, you must remember that OSS was responsible to the
Joint Chiefs of Staff. There was no civilian intelligence organization at
that time. One of the first problems which had to be faced was: In time
of peace should the central intelligence concept be a military one or a
civilian one? At that time it was decided, with the concurrence of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff--and it wasn't without some argument, I might add--
that centralized intelligence--because there was no Central Intelligence
Agency, of course, at that time--centralized intelligence would have to be
a civilian activity if we were to carry out the basic principles and pre-
cepts of the American democratic system. In other words, we were not going
to establish military intelligence on a national basis, and we--the United
States--were not going to establish the concept of the military services
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controlling the National intelligence, because the State Department, the
Commerce Department, etc., had a very large stake in it, especially during
peacetime. I happened to be on that planning committee in OSS at that
time, so I speak with a certain amount of first-hand knowledge. Of course,
you all realize that the planning very quickly got way beyond the competence
and the capacity, and the stature, let's say, of the persons who originally
started the planning. It got out into the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and so on,
and so those of us who started it lost continuity for awhile. But the
important thing was that at that time there was established a list of those
persons who, in the opinion of their supervisors and their chiefs in OSS,
could be called "career personnel", for whom it was extremely desirable that
a system, a concept be devised sd that they would stay in the intelligence
business, rather than tearing the whole thing down and then, at some future
time, starting over again. So in 1944 there was started what you might call
"an executive registry" or "an executive roster" of intelligence personnel.
Very occasionally you will find a reference to one of those forms which
describe the capabilities and potential of these persons, in an Official
Personnel Folder. That is the significance of that form, which you will
find in a few Folders of those persons who are still on duty with CIA--there
25X1A are a number of them: Sherman Kent, and so on. I could mention
a number of others. ?
I don't want to spend too much time on the next couple of
years because aside from that first burst of activity--which I believe was
the first one on the centralized intelligence concept and the career con-
cept--there wasn't much within the succeeding organizations of SSU, the
Strategic Services Unit, which came into being on the first of September,
1945, when OSS was abolished by Executive Order, or even in the Central In-
telligence Group, but that is where this concept began to gather force and
weight, and get some flesh on the bare bones of the skeleton. In 1946 the
Central Intelligence Group was established by Executive Order, again
because there was no law which would make it possible for a central intelli-
gence agency to be established. The Armed Forces had not yet been amalgamated.
The Air Force was still the Air Corps of the Army. So in 1946 there was
established, in place of OSS and in place of SSU, the Central Intelligence
Group, which, again, was just a group of people established by the authority
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of the President, and that Central Intelligence Group encompassed all that
remained, let's say, of OSS after the " i period" in 191+
~ y, 5--that is
what we called it--when it was necessary to take down the tremendous or-
ganization that had been built during the war. But a very important action
took place which had affected all of us at that time. Those of us who were--
how shall I call it?--who were concerned with the content of intelligence in
OSS, were not appointed as we are now. We all worked on contract. Every-
body was a contractual employee, and we signed a contract. So there was at
that time, during the Central Intelligence Group period in 1911.6, a transfer
from unvouchered-funds-contractual-status to vouchered-funds-excepted-appoint-
ment status. For example, in my case I vacated or abandoned the contract
under which I had been employed by OSS, which was on an unvouchered funds
basis--all of them were on an unvouchered funds basis, and I was just one of
many thousands--and I went on an excepted appointment on vouchered funds.
That has an important bearing--I mean this concept of unvouchered-funds-
contractual-basis versus vouchered-funds-appointment-basis is a thread which
carries all the way through the thinking on this.
The next important point, I believe, was, as you all know--
and I only mention it in passing because it is a milestone--the Armed Forces
Act of 191+7, which established CIA. And just as a matter of interest let me
describe to you the effective date of the beginning of CIA. The Armed
Forces Act said that this particular part of the Act which establishes the
Central Intelligence Agency shall become effective the day after Mr. Forrestal
takes the oath of office. Now that was an extraordinary kind of a provision
in a law, and it was there because there wasn't anybody in the Armed Forces--
Army, Navy, Air--who had confidence in any other single human being to be
the first Secretary of Defense except James Forrestal. Therefore, the Act
which established the amalgamation of the Armed Forces, which established
the National Security Council, which established CIA, etc., was based on the
personality and the confidence which the country reposed in Forrestal.
Forrestal took his oath of office in the second week of September, and Ad-
miral Hillenkoetter took his oath of office on the 17th of September, and so
the 18th of September, 191+7, is the official date of the beginning of CIA.
And if you will look at our which is the longevity
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Regulation of CIA, you will see that 18 September 1947 is there fixed in
the Regulation, after all kinds of research, and confirmation by the General
Counsel, as the effective beginning date of CIA. Therefore, our longevity
program in CIA stems and dates and is controlled by that date. That was
Public Law 253, as you know, of course.
The next milestone was 1948, the Central Intelligence Act,
Public Law 110, which, for the first time, gave to the Director all of the
extraordinary powers which he exercises, which the Congress has given to him
to administer and to operate CIA. In that, for example, is exemptions from
the Classification Act, which is an extremely important factor because that
has enabled CIA to establish its Career Staff in the way in which it has.
Now I can't find or I can't recall anything very significant
in 1949 except an awful lot of hard work trying to get this thing going. I
don't find in my memory or in any of the documents, any real milestones in
1949. But in 1950, of course, General Smith became the Director of Central
Intelligence. And here in 1950 we pick up, again, the direct thread of the
concept of "The Career Service", "The Career Staff", "The Career Program", or
whatever you want to call it. Only a very short time after General Smith be-
came the DCI--as a matter of fact, I think it was five weeks afterwards, in
November of 1950--he was informed that there was an Air Force colonel in
Washington who had been called back to duty. This was during the Korean emer-
gency, as you know. This Air Force colonel was Matt Baird. And in conver-
sation, in November of 1950, General Smith told Colonel Baird that he wanted
him to join CIA and was asking for him to be assigned to CIA for the purpose
of developing a career corps in CIA. When Matt Baird came on duty on the
3d of January, 1951--which was two months later, when the papers and so on
had gone through--he found that he was Director of Training; but he also had
the personal responsibility to General Smith to develop this concept of a
career system in CIA.
So that brings us to the beginning of 1951. On the 17th of
March General Smith wrote to who was the High Commissioner in
at that time, and I'd like to read to you what he said. 17 March
1951, from SMITH to -this is a quotation from his letter--"I am try-
ing to build up a corps of well qualified men here who are interested in
making a career with the Central Intelligence Agency. To effect this I
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recently established a training section which functions, as much as I dis-
like the term, as a sort of 'career management office'." Now, that quotation
I read to you only to document the fact that it was Smith's drive and con=
cept which picked up the original concept of Donovan's in 1944, made it
effective, and drove this whole thing forward to a conclusion--no, I won't
say a "conclusion" because it isn't concluded yet, and it won't be for a long,
long time, as I believe we will agree.
Well, the first responsibility that Baird had when he came to
CIA was to implement what Smith had brought him into the Agency to do, and
some six months after his arrival on duty, namely, on the 3d of July, 1951,
he presented this paper: A Program for the Establishment of a Career Corps
in the Central Intelligence Agency. This was approved in principle by Gener-
al Smith. And if you will recall, Trubee Davison had become the Assistant
Director for Personnel on the first of July, 1951, and Trubee Davison, also,
to the Director, writes--which is here in this Staff Study--"I am in hearty
accord with the proposal, subject to minor qualifications in timing, and
recommend that you approve the plan in principle." And this plan--A Program
for the Establishment of a Career Corps in CIA--was approved in principle
immediately by General Smith. It was then disseminated throughout the Agen-
cy to all the Heads of Offices in the Agency for their comments and for their
constructive criticism. The comments were legion and the constructive
criticism was even more voluminous; and along with it--I might add--there
was a certain amount of destructive criticism because, unfortunately and
inadvertently the term "elite corps" was used in this paper several times.
Everybody said: Who is going to be the elite corps? Am I in it or am I not?
And there was an awful row. So these comments started flooding in. And
General Smith said, "Well, this isn't the way I planned it. Let's do some-
thing about it." So on the 1st of October of 1951 there was established
the CIA Career Service Committee, which was reporting directly to General
Smith, and its purpose was to take this plan and all these comments which had
come in--and there were bushels of them--and bring some order out of this
terrific amount of paper and ideas. At that time I entered into the picture
again because, with a certain amount of desk pounding--of which I probably
should be ashamed, but nevertheless happened--I insisted, to the extent that
one can insist, on at least being considered for the opportunity of serving
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this Committee, because for so long--back to 1942--I had felt strongly
about the concept of an intelligence career, and I wanted to do something
about it. So, since there wasn't anybody else that felt as strongly as I
about it, or at least who didn't make so much noise about it, I became the
Executive Secretary of the CIA Career Service Committee. That Committee
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was almost immediately taken by representing the covert services. 25X1A
That Committee then started to function immediately--in October--and it set
up a schedule of weekly meetings, with weekly agenda and staff papers for
its consideration. Some of you know this part of it, I'm sure, but I will
skip over it as briefly as I can, in order to make sure that we all have the
same background on it. It established the principle that it would devise
a system for CIA out of the experience and out of the recommendations of the
chain of command. It would not do it from a staff point of view, but would
do it by imposing responsibilities, in addition to their other duties, on
the operating personnel. That meant, then, that the various working groups,
task forces, and so on, which were established to handle various concepts and
principles which had to be solved, were composed of division chiefs, deputy
assistant directors, and so on, from all over the Agency, with, in every case,
who was the Assistant Director for Personnel,
Chairman, Matt Baird, Lyman Kirkpatrick, Sherman Kent, and
was the Assistant Director for OCI. The Committee was com-
posed of four persons: The Assistant Director for Personnel, the Director of
Training, and one representative from the covert services and one representa-
tive from the overt services, namely, and Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick
got polio very shortly thereafter, while on a trip overseas, and so his place
a representative from the Office of Personnels and a ,representative from the
Office of Training on the task force. But they were outnumbbred, numerically
at least, by the operating personnel from various parts of the Agency. There
were about 10 or more of these task forces, each of which consisted of about
eight people. The task forces met weekly and the Career Service Committee
met weekly. There was a terrific schedule of meetings and staff studies, and
a snowstorm of papers on this problem. This went on from the lst of October
until the lst of June. The Career Service Committee held 40 weekly meetings,
and each of these 10 task forces held approximately an average of 15 meetings.
Each one was assigned a different problem: one was assigned the problem of
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selection criteria; another was assigned the problem of rotation; another
was assigned the problem of evaluation--and out of that task force came
the PER, for example. In June all of these papers had been studied and
approved by the Career Service Committee, and some ten months after this
series of study groups and task forces had been established, there was laid
on General Smith's desk the final report of the Career Service Committee.
Here is Copy 1, dated 13 June 1952. At the bottom it is signed: Walter B.
Smith - APPROVED.
Now this was the Career Service Program of CIA which was
approved in June of 1952, and which was the charter for our Career Service
System from then until 1 July of this past year c1954J. It was this Staff
25X1A Study which was published in The CIA Career Service Program,
f9~
also in June of that year. It was this Staff Study and the recommendations
of this Study which established, for example, the CIA Career Service Board,
the Office Career Service Boards, the career designation system, the rotation
program with Career Development Slots, the Personnel Evaluation Report (PER),
all of those things were wrapped up into this, and dated from that time.
There is one thing which it did not do, which was extremely
important and had been anticipated for a long time--from the very beginning--
and that was the establishment of a SERVICE. Now, the terminology gets very
confused and you have to realize how these words are used. For example, we
had a career service PROGRAM but we didn't have a career SERVICE. We didn't
have a service, a corps, a group, to which a person belonged or did not be-
long, as in the case of the Foreign Service of the United States. Let's take
the State Department set-up for a moment. There are-what?-20,000 people who
work for the State Department, but there are only somewhat less than 2,000
who are Foreign Service Officers. The others are Foreign Service reserve
officers, Foreign Service staff officers, fey are departmental employees
of the Department of State, but they are not Foreign Service Officers, and
they do not belong to the Foreign Service.
Let's take another example, an Officer in the Army who holds
a regular commission
other words, he is commissioned as an Officer in the
U.S. Army, or he is commissioned as a Reserve Officer in the U.S. Army Reserve.
We have samples of those commissions here so that you can see the differences
in these services. Another example: a member of the Public Health Service,
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as opposed to a Civil Service employee who works in the Public Health Service.
Or the Coast and Geodetic Service as opposed to a Civil Service employee
who works for the Coast and Geodetic Survey. What I an trying to say is
that while we had a career service PROGRAM in 1952, we did not have a SERVICE.
We did not have a corps yet, we only had a "program", which you could define,
perhaps, as a system of policies, principles, schedules, opportunities,
procedures, which according to the program, when approved, applied to every-
body in CIA, but they applied to employees of CIA as employees of CIA, not
as members of a corps, not as members of a SERVICE.
So one of the first responsibilities of the CIA Career Service
Board which was established in June of 1952--by this approval of General
Smith's--which held its first meeting on 26 August 1952 and has held 4o or
more since then, one of its first responsibilities was to continue the
search for and the devising of the Career Service of CIA, as opposed to what
had already been established--the Career Service PROGRAM. That was likewise
the responsibility of the various Office Career Service Boards, of which, as
you know, there were about 20 at one time, one for ONE, Personnel, Como,
Training, OCI, Logistics, and so on. There are less than the maximum now
because certain consolidations have taken place, as you know. Well, that
was the culmination, let's say, of quite a lot of activity during 1952. And
this program was implemented, to the extent that the Agency was able to do
so, during 1953. By that time, Walter Wolf, who was the first Chairman of
the Career Service Board, had resigned. His place was taken by Lyman Kirk-
patrick, Chairman of the Career Service Board, who relinquished his post
as Chairman, as you know, to Mr. Reynolds after he had become Assistant
Director for Personnel in the early part of 1954, a year or so ago. By
that time the studies, which had been continued for the CIA Career Service
Board, had reached the point where we were just about ready to establish the
Intelligence SERVICE, which, as you know, is now called "The Career Staff".
One of the principal study groups, task forces, or whatever you want to
call them, which had that responsibility, and which made the greatest con-
tribution to this concept and to the mechanism, was the Professional Selec-
tion Panel, which had been established under the original program in 1952.
Without going into all the gory details of what happened, who did what to
whom, and so on, what groups were established and the timing of these things,
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just let me refer briefly and in passing to the series of task forces and
committees, and so on, that came into being last March and April, a year
ago, to establish a promotion program--that was done by a task force of the
Career Service Board; our Career Development of Junior Personnel Program;
and so on. Those were established, then, in the closing weeks of Fiscal Year
1954, and at the same time there was placed before the Director, for his
approval, the establishment of the Career Staff, which was really the goal
that had been started back in 1944 and which finally became effective on
1 July 1954, the establishment of the Career Staff of CIA, which is recounted,
as you know, in
Now that is, by and large, the history and the timing and the
sequence of steps which took place over a period of ten years, which led to
the Career Staff.
I'd like to leave, now, the historical aspects of it and talk
about some of the substantive aspects. One of the things--I am responsible
for this because I said I would talk about it--is the relation of the Career
System in CIA to the Civil Service. That is an extremely large subject. I
am not the most competent person to talk about this because I don't know
enough about the Civil Service system to do it with final and sufficient
authority for you. At the risk of misleading you, however--I certainly won't
be doing it deliberately--I'd like to ask you to think about the difference
between membership in the Career Staff of CIA and permanent Civil Service
status under the Civil Service system. In the first place, membership in the
Career Staff of CIA has no legal force. It is not based in law--we will
come back to that later--it has force and effect only within CIA, and, in
actual fact, by recent ruling of the Career Council, when the Selection
Board has passed on your application your membership in the Career Staff is
a classified matter. In other words, while the terms of membership in the
Career Staff are not classified, your individual membership is classified.
To put it in a practical way, the unsigned application for membership in
the Career Staff is not classified, but the minute you sign it it automatical-
ly becomes classified. The reason for that is that the Career Council, at
its very last meeting, decided that a basic change would be made in our
system of notifying persons of personnel actions, and that employment of
an individual by CIA was a classified matter; and there follows, as a
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corollary, that your membership in the Career Staff of CIA is classified.
I mention that only to point out and emphasize the fact that membership in
the Career Staff of CIA has force and effect only within CIA and has, you
might say, no existence outside of CIA; whereas the holding of Civil Service
status has force and effect throughout the Government. Now, what this means,
then, is that CIA is interested primarily in your continued activity as a
member of CIA, and is only very mildly interested in your opportunities for
working in the rest of the Government. In other words, CIA takes a pretty
selfish view of this. CIA is not really interested in helping you to make
yourself more useful and more available in other parts of the Government
because CIA is bending every effort to retain your services for CIA. It is
in those terms that I think we should think of and compare the difference in
these two concepts, the concept of belonging to the intelligence Service
within CIA as opposed to belonging to the Government-wide Civil Service.
In the application for membership in the Career Staff there is
the word "tenure". I may be wrong, but I think this is the only place where
"tenure" is used in CIA literature, as it were. I want to speak about that
briefly. I will read you the sentence:
"By virtue of this application for membership
and upon my acceptance in the Career Staff, I
an assured that, with continuing satisfactory
work performance and conduct on my part, just
and equitable attention will be accorded my
personal progress during my tenure in the
Career Staff."
Well, "tenure" is the important word that I would like us to think about at
the moment. "Tenure" is an abstract term. It means various things to
various people, and in various contexts. But I think we probably could
all agree that tenure with respect to employment has an important bearing
on job security, continuity of employment, and so on. In other words, CIA
has never used the word "tenure" before because, and I am expressing my own,
personal opinion now, because I believe heretofore CIA has not faced the
fact that it could, should and would convey status to its employees. Mem-
bership in the Career Staff, then, is a kind of status which you acquire,
which is different from Civil Service status. It has no force or effect
outside of CIA, but it does have effect and force and significance within CIA.
Now I don't want to get involved, and I couldn't get involved too deeply, in
reduction-in-force, which is one way of approaching the job security and
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continuity of employment problems. But before the Career Service Board, in
June, recommended to the Director that he sign this Regulation establishing
the Career Staff, the Regulation and the application were checked out with
the Civil Service Commission, and their reply, which is an informal reply,
was read into the transcript of one meeting of the Career Service Board.
As nearly as I can recall it, and I'm not trying to quote, I'm trying to
give an account of what it was rather than a direct quotation, a very respon-
sible official of the Civil Service Commission said that while it was not an
official ruling, because until an appeal case was brought to the Commission
it could not be an official ruling, and the Commission could not give an
official ruling until that happened, the unofficial opinion of the Civil
Service Commission was that membership in the Career Staff of CIA, when used
and operated under certain conditions, would and should become a factor in
reduction-in-force proceedings, within the terms of the Veterans Preference
Act. Now that is an extremely important factor. What this means, then,
according to my understanding, is that if we use and administer the Career
Staff properly and skillfully, it means that membership in the Career Staff
places a person in a different area of competition from a person who is not
a member of the Career Staff in CIA. The reason for that is that the declar-
ation of desire to make a career with CIA, and the willingness to serve in
various capacities, anytime and anywhere, places the individual in a more
mobile status than one who has not made such an application; and, therefore,
in the view of the Civil Service Commission, the person who has become a
member does not compete with the person who is not a member.
Now, I am not an expert on the Veterans Preference Act. You
know how complex it is. I don't pretend or I don't want to be misunderstood
as being a final authority on how this would be used or how it would be ad-
ministered in the event of a reduction-in-force procedure. I only give you
what this member of the Civil Service Commission told CIA on an informal
basis, but his point was that should this be brought to the Commission on a
formal basis, it was his opinion that that is what the Commission would rule.
That is about as far as I think I should go, in view of the
short time I have here today, in the relationship of the Career Staff to the
Civil Service of the Government.
There is one other thing I want to point out to you, and that
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is whether you hold permanent Civil Service status or not makes absolutely
no affect on your personnel actions within CIA. In other words, you are
as available for assignment to any job in CIA whether you hold permanent
Civil Service status or not.
Now, when this membership in the Career Staff becomes fully
implemented--and those of you who are interested in what I have to say about
the Career Staff membership, next week you will see what I mean about that--
when it is fully implemented, membership in the Career Staff may become,
could very well become a factor in assignments, because certain positions
may--I don't say will--may be open only to members of the Career Staff, just
as certain training opportunities right now are open only to members of the
Career Staff, the reason for that being--if I can digress for just a moment--
that external training, which is an extremely expensive undertaking--most of
you don't realize, perhaps, how many thousands of the taxpayers' dollars are
involved in the teaching of a language over a period of a year, but it is
thousands of dollars--those opportunities will not be available to anybody
who is not a member of the Career Staff unless the Head of the Office certi-
fies, over his own signature, that it is absolutely essential to the perform-
ance of the individual's current responsibilities. The reason for this is
the Director of Training is responsible for administering that part of Public
Law 110 which gives to the Director the right to spend money for external
training programs, an opportunity or a facility that is greater than that of
any other member of the Executive Department of Government. Experience has
shown that there are a number of persons who, after having accepted and gained
great benefit from these expensive training programs, have then taken off
and resigned, and gone about their own business. The Director of Training
is not going to risk the taxpayers' money on that sort of thing any longer.
Now, there is a point there--and, again, I will have to digress--I mentioned
to you the fact that there was no force in law in this membership in the
Career Staff. In other words, there are no Articles of War which CIA has
created or proposes to create. The only reason an officer of the Armed
Forces can't say, "Well, I'm tired. I'm going back to Binghamton, New York" -
or wherever he happens to live--the only reason he can't say that is because
if he does he is subject to court-martial, otherwise "x" number of them would
do it. Now the right of the Armed Forces to court-martial is established by
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law, and the mechanism by which court-martials are carried out and held is
contained in the Articles of War, or Army Regulations, or whatever their
particular terms are at the moment, but traditionally called the Articles
of War. Such a system has never been devised anywhere--and I am talking
not only about America but all free countries--with respect to civilians.
It may be behind the Iron Curtain, in places there may be the concept of
purges and Articles of War, forced employment, slave labor, etc., behind the
Iron Curtain, but this side of the Iron Curtain there is no such thing. Con-
sequently, even though there is a system such as the Foreign Service of the
United States, that part which conducts the diplomacy of the United States,
and the Coast and Geodetic Service, and the Public Health Service, there is
no civilian who can't, at the drop of a hat, whenever he decides, turn in
his resignation and leave that Service. CIA does not propose to do anything
contrary to that concept. There will never be, as far as I can see--CIA has
adopted this policy at the very highest point--there will never be even the
thought that an individual could be prevented from resigning from CIA or
leaving CIA. There is no mechanism to do it. How would you do it? Do you
throw him in a jail? What law has he violated by saying, "I don't wish to
work for CIA any longer"? There is no law, there never could be such a law,
and therefore, when I say the Director of Training is taking these steps to
help prevent persons from resigning who have gained great benefit from ex-
ternal training, it is more of a psychological measure than it is a factual
one, because there isn't anybody that can ever prevent any one of us from
saying, "I quit now, period." And there isn't anything that anybody can ever
do about it. So as long as we are a civilian organization, and you will
remember I referred to that at the very beginning, that the basic concept
approved by the Joint Chiefs and approved by the highest echelons of the
Government, at the very beginning of the Central Intelligence concept, the
very basic concept was that if we are to have an intelligence system in a
free and democratic America, we have to do it on a civilian basis, and there-
fore there will never be any thought, even, of passing or attempting to pass
any law which will prevent a member of that Service from resigning, the same
way as a Foreign Service officer can resign.
. 10 Minute Recess . . .
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. . . The first portion of
25X1A
recess was not on the tape recording, so the following is a continuation
(Continuing): Is it based on State Department or the
Armed Forces, or what? The answer was it is not based on any one but it
is based on all of the best principles that pertained, in all we could
locate and that have a bearing and have application to CIA. In other words,
it is based on our needs, drawing on the experience of other people to the
greatest extent possible.
Related to that was that in the Armed Forces the Career
Services, namely, the regulars versus the reserves, in effect bring about a
kind of discrimination in training opportunities and assignments between
regulars and reserves. So what do we do about that? Well, my answer to that
is it is presumed and hoped that everybody in CIA who is eligible and who
qualifies, and who has the intent of making a career with CIA, becomes a
member of the Career Staff. That is the reason for, let's say, the "nega-
tive approach", to conduct a screening-out process rather than to conduct a
screening-in. We are not selecting in. I don't know whether I dare say this,
because you remember the problems that Secretary Wilson got into over his
"hound dog" joke in Detroit, but I will use this illustration, because it is
an old homily and I don't think anybody minds being called an "apple" for
purposes of comparison. I know it's not very complimentary to call anybody
a fruit or a lemon, but an "apple", let's say--let's presume we have a barrel
of apples. I grew up, when I was a kid, where there was an orchard, so I
know it was necessary periodically to go through the barrel of apples to
take out any which had unsound spots because they would contaminate the
rest. Well, that is pretty much the principle this is going through. We
presume we have a damn good barrel of apples in CIA, but we want to be sure
there are no contaminating spots. So that is the screening-out type of
process that goes on, and the screening out is a very small percentage but
it is an important percentage. That is the answer to that one. It may
not be a very well put answer, but I give it with good will and good intent.
I'm not calling people names.
Now, another question was, just how does this flow chart.
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work and just what does it mean? Let me go through that briefly. The No.
1 on the left--"initiate". You see that the paper is initiated by the
Career Service Staff in Personnel, and it flows to the employee through
his Career Service, and through the supervisor. The individual has the
option of applying for membership or declining to apply for membership.
After he does that it goes to his supervisor, who recommends to the Career
Service, who forwards and recommends, back to the Career Service Staff. Line
No. 4 is "process". Now you see there are a couple of sort of swirls over
there to the right under PUD, PRD, ESD, Training, Medical and Security.
This means that the case--not the actual paper, the actual application does
not go to them--the name goes to Placement and Utilization Division who is
responsible for PRD and ESD coordinating and collating that information in
the Personnel Office and returning it to the Career Service Staff. That is
what Personnel does, in fact, in this 4-office survey or review which is
made; and Training, Medical and Security do the same thing--they receive
this name from our Staff, review it against their files, and return it. So
these reviews then come back to the Career Service Staff, which is responsible
for the processing. After processing it then goes down to line 6, where it
is "scheduled". That is the setting up of this lead time, with a list of
100 people, and assembling the correct Panel of Examiners, getting the right
composition so the Agency's interests are best served, and so on. And after
scheduling it then goes to the Panel of Examiners--which is next to the last
column, under "selection". Up to this time it is all processing. The
selection process takes place only in the Panel of Examiners and Selection
Board--the Panel of Examiners, let's say, being the working arm of the
Selection Board. So the Panel of Examiners "recommends", then--line 7--and
forwards to the Selection Board where the decision is made as to whether a
person is or is not a member of the Career Staff. After the decision is
made it comes back to the Career Service Staff where it is recorded, and we
go into a rather complex routine there of having it punched into the machine
record cards. None of that has actually been done but it is just about to
start. The individual is notified of his acceptance and the effective date--
where the arrow ends up back under the employee--line 9--"recorded and
notified". That is, generally speaking, the flow of the application, in its
essential principles.
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Q. If an application is turned down, is he or she notified of that and
is the reason given?
25X1A A. I'd like to read that part of the Regulation to you, be-
cause that process is already being carried out. This is Regulation
25X1A says this:
"If an individual applies for membership in the Career
Staff and'is not accepted, he will be informed of the
reasons for the rejection and he will be given assistance
and guidance in order to correct or eliminate'the causes
of his rejection and to have an opportunity to demonstrate
his suitability for future application and selection into
the Career Staff."
25X1A
25X1 A A.
Actually, this means that a person is never finally turned down, from
a technical point of view. He may apply 50 times, and he may be turned
.down 50 times, but once turned down he is then told why, and he is told
that he can apply again whenever he feels he can "make the grade."
I have a question in respect to the Panels of Examiners and the Selection
Board. Is the Selection Board in possession of any information which
would either sustain or nullify the findings of the Panels of Examiners;
and, if not, why could not the Panels of Examiners be empowered with
authority to make the final selection?
Well, it's set up this way, that the Selection Board--these
nine senior persons, each of whom occupies the equivalent of an assistant
director position--is responsible not only for the policy but for making
these critical decisions. Now the Panel of Examiners--we have an
occupational term, a piece of jargon which we use--the Panel of Exam-
iners very often "surfaces" a problem, but it is not making decisions,
it is making recommendations only; and so it acquaints the Selection
Board with the details and the Selection Board then makes the decision.
Do you see what I mean? The Panel of Examiners is responsible for
making the recommendation, not the decision, and it makes the recom-
mendation in terms of the problems that have been encountered. Does that
answer the question?
Yes. I was wondering whether the Selection Board had any additional
information upon which they could weigh the case?
You must remember that Security, Medical, Training,
Personnel--the Heads of those Offices, or their Deputies, as in the
case of Security, because Sheff Edwards is not a member but
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25X1A
25X1 A A.
is an alternate--they themselves sit on the Selection Board; whereas
the Panel of Examiners is composed of 50 or more individuals who
have been appointed to do this job of reviewing for the Board because
the Board couldn't possibly review all these details. And that is
where Category A, B, and C comes in. If nobody, in this whole process,
has been able to find, and I use that word advisedly, not because we
are looking for trouble, but because we are looking for smoke, let's
say, and if nobody has been able to find any smoke, obviously there
isn't any fire. And therefore--again, a piece of jargon--this "mass
finding" which contains 95 "A" cases on which there is no evidence or
suspicion of any reason why these individuals are unsuitable--the
Selection Board so far, and I don't say it always will, but so far it
has passed those without further review. And then it gets down to the
serious business, and the Selection Board spends a lot of time itself
on the "B" and "C" cases, which are problem cases, with a view, again,
to ensuring that no injustice or inequity is done to the individual,
but that the Agency's interests are also conserved and carried out. In
other words, again, the Selection Board takes this action on behalf of
the Director--it's really the Director who is saying this, you see,
because the action is taken on behalf of the Director. The application
says: ". . . membership in the Career Staff of the Central Intelligence
Agency approved to take effect--whatever the date is--For the Director
of Central Intelligence." Now the point is that you can delegate right
down to the supervisor, if you want to, but the Agency has adopted the
principle that this decision will be delegated no further than it
absolutely has to be; in other words, it has been delegated only down
to the Selection Board, consisting of nine senior people--the point of
decision. Otherwise, if you delegate it to the Panel of Examiners then
the next question is: Why bother with the Panel of Examiners? Why
not take the supervisor's decision? It's a question of degree of level
to which the delegation of this authority is made.
you covered the area where persons in a Class "C" category
are not acceptable for Career Service. I don't know whether you did
go on to Class "D" cases, where deferment would be necessary-
Well, deferment isn't due to unsatisfactory performance,
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because if the performance is technically unsatisfactory then the
person isn't even eligible. In other words, any person who has
been denied a periodic step increase is not eligible to apply until
that has been removed, and that comes about through the Regulation,
which says: Those persons on whom an action is pending which may lead
to separation, are ineligible--or words to that effect. It's in the
Regulation.
Now, there are other kinds of inadequate performance besides
technically unsatisfactory performance, and therefore, if a person
at this particular point in time, and let's say space, also, because
he happens to be working in a particular office, although last year he
was in another and next year he may be in another, but at this particu-
lar point in time and space if his performance is less than satisfactory
but not technically unsatisfactory, if it's inadequate performance,, if
his attitude with respect to his fulfilling the obligations of career
service--and that could cover any one of a multitude of things, which
are referred to but not limited to by the criteria, if he abuses leave
privileges, and so on, the Panel of Examiners can say, "Action on this
person's application is deferred for six months" - or for a year, as
the case may be, and there have been none for longer than a year--and
during this period it is the supervisor's responsibility to observe
and report on and give guidance to the individual, if necessary, or
to clear up or provide additional information, or to come up with a new
Fitness Report, because, strange as it may seem--and I don't know what
percentage it is--there is always a file which we run onto, even in
the small number that have been processed, with no Fitness Report,
no evaluation, no nothing. So how are you going to judge this thing?
And instead of deferring it for let's say six months, this case may
be deferred until a supervisor comes up with an evaluation. Because
if there is no evaluation how can the Panel of Examiners or how can
the Selection Board make an intelligent decision? Those are the sorts
of things which cause deferment. A deferment has to be resolved within
a specified period of time, either "yes" or "no". Do you see what I
mean?
Q. In other words, when we're writing recommendations for deferment, we
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put down a specified period of time?
25X1A A. The Panel is really in a better position to do it. If
there is no time limit the Panel will always set a time limit within
which this application must be reviewed again. And the Selection
Board presumably will approve that. That means that by 30 June or
31 December or 2 April, or whatever happens to be appropriate under
the circumstances, somebody has to come up with an answer, and that
means nobody is left hanging on a skyhook indefinitely. There is
always an end to this process. And at that point another deferment
could be recommended, but it is more likely to be resolved either
"yes" or "no" at that point.
Q. In the event of a deferment would you notify the individual?
25X1A
They are notified in a different way. They are not
notified that their application has been deferred. They are notified
in this way: A copy of the finding, which is an EYES ONLY, privileged
document to the Selection Board and to the Head of the Career Service,
a copy of that finding goes to him, attached to a memorandum from
Mr. Reynolds as Chairman of the Selection Board. Mr. Reynolds trans-
mits, therefore, to let's say Mr. Saunders or Gordon Stewart or Red
White, or whoever is the Head of the Career Service of this individual,
a copy of the finding, requests the Head of that Career Service to
inform the individual of the reasons for the deferment. The finding,
as such, may not be shown to the individual, but the reasons have
to be discussed. Now the reason for that, and I'm not going into it
more, there are certain technical things--technical procedures,
names of individuals, and so on--contained in the finding, and it is
undesirable and inappropriate for all of that to be spread on the
record, let's say. So it is the responsibility of the Head of the
Career Service to translate that finding into positive counsel to the
individual, tell him exactly why, and that copy of the finding has
to be returned intact to the Selection Board for destruction. And
as long as the individual's case is deferred, nothing goes into his
Personnel Folder, because it is presumed and hoped that the case
will be resolved positively eventually, in which case the only thing
that goes into the individual's Folder is that he has been accepted
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as a member of the Career Staff. Do you see what I mean? This
protects the individual who, for maybe no fault of his own, has
gotten involved in some situation which can't be resolved today but
has to be resolved two months from now. You can just let your mind
wander all around the possibilities in this sort of thing. In a
case like that the individual is protected because nothing goes into
his Folder until he is accepted; but if he is turned down, which
could happen--but I say deliberately that most cases will be resolved
positively, but some probably won't--when it is turned down then the
case is documented in the Official Personnel Folder and the individual
is given a copy of it; and, furthermore, the individual is asked to
acknowledge by his signature the fact that he has been notified. He
is shown a copy but since it is classified he may not retain it, and
that copy with his acknowledgment goes in his Folder, you see. This
provides, to the extent that the Agency has been able to devise, it
provides the greatest protection to the individual and to his reputa-
tion and to his circumstances, but in the last analysis it finally
lays it on the line: You either are or are not a member of the Career
Staff. In both cases that is in your Folder, but as long as it is
pending nothing is in your Folder, for the protection of the individual.
G. What discretion does an Office Board have in delaying action?
25X1A A. It has absolutely none. That is rather a flat state-
25X1 A A.
ment.
For example, if you have a person who was reassigned to your Board
with a change in service designation, and a month later the Career
Staff application came up, you would not have had sufficient time
to arrive at a recommendation as to which type, so you would say it
would probably be placed in Type "B", with the statement that you
would like say six more months to decide.
I think the Panel of Examiners would say, "Well, we
will go to the other Career Board which does know about this guy, and
resolve this" - because why should this case be delayed because
somebody can't make up their minds yet? In other words, we are
talking about the Agency, not about a particular part of the Agency,
and there ought to be, and this is my personal view, very few of
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these cases have come up, and none have been officially ruled on
yet by the Selection Board--there ought to be a mechanism available,
and to the extent that I have anything to do with it, we will create
it, so that these cases can be resolved quickly, because the longer
these cases are delayed, the more unsatisfactory it is for everybody
concerned, and mostly me because I will have to carry it as a suspense
item, and I have too many already.
25X1A Q? you mentioned under 9 that in the Career Service Staff
these things are being punched, card-indexed, and so on. Does that
mean that none of these have come back yet?
25X1A A. It means that the Board has acted--and I hate to tell
you this, but after the Selection Board finished its business on 21
January--you see--and here's a 2nd degree digression--the cases don't
go to the Board necessarily the way they come from the Career Service,
because additional information becoming available, the Panel has the
right and does sometimes make a recommendation different from the
recommendation of the Career Service. Now I can't give you the
figures, only because I don't remember them, but I think it was about
nine cases went to the Board with a recommendation different from the
Career Service, and the Board approved, I believe, seven of those,
and reversed the decision of the Panels on the others, so that the
Board didn't agree with the Panel but did agree with the Career Service.
That is a part of the answer to your question. The Board really looks
at these things. It is not a rubber stamp process.
Q. What about the "C" cases?
25X1 A A.
I am not making a distinction between "C" and "B" cases,
although I can, because one of the cases which came from the Career
Service was a Type B case and the Panel rose in its wrath over a
particular problem and said, "This should be a Type C case." And the
Board, on whom the Head of that particular Career Service also sat,
agreed wholeheartedly with the Panel, and it was a Type C case. Here
was a case of a man who was a Head of a Career Service and also a
member of the Board, who had to wear two hats, for one reason or
another. He recommended that it be a "B" case, but when it was
completely staffed out he agreed with the Board that it should be a
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"C" case, and the decision was unanimous. So here was a case of a
Type C which came in as a Type B, was made Type C by the Panel, and
was upheld by the Board. Other cases came in as Type A and were made
Type B by the Panel. Two cases came in as Type B and were made Type A
by the Panel. Those were upheld by the Board, with the exception of
two in which the Panels were more severe than the Board thought they
should be, and so they were originally A, were made B by the Panel--
these two cases--and returned to A by the Board.
Q. Do all cases, then, go to the Selection Board?
25X1A A. Every case. The only place this decision can be made is
at a full meeting of the Selection Board.
Now, to get back to the numbers and your question about the
punched cards. After the meeting of the Selection Board and I knew
how many cases were on the agenda but I didn't know how many were
acted on, because there was a slight difference, I added them up and
it came to 400, and I said: There couldn't be a worse number if we
picked it out of a hat, because the 400 means that this must be the
"elite corps"! So until the Selection Board meets again, there are
exactly 400 members of the Career Staff, and when the Selection Board
meets again and passes its next workload, which will be 25 February,
it will have another 500 cases, approximately, to work on, and presum-
ably there will be, when we get through, approximately 900 members of
the Career Staff.
Our next most important problem is to work out a complete flow
of this into PRD for recording into the Personnel Folders, and into
Machine Records Division, through PAS, for recording the date of
membership in the Career Staff. That will be done, presumably, by
using three columns on the machine records cards to punch the date,
and the date means membership as of that date. You see what I mean?
That means that in a fairly short time rosters can be prepared,
whenever it is desired, of members of the Career Staff and the dates
of their membership; and that fact can also be incorporated into any
other kind of a roster when it is desired that it should be on that
roster.
This is a hypothetical case, but suppose an individual was, shall we
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say, let go by the Agency, and this individual by some means gets
himself back into the Agency and is one of these people upon whom
some testimony, at one time or another has been made to the effect
that the Selection Board considers him one of the bad apples in the
barrel, and therefore denies his membership, and gives him a Class C
categorization. At that time what happens to this person? He has a
chance to get back into the Career Staff, does he not? In other
words, what does this decision really do to affect this man's career?
25X1A A. Well, he has a chance. Yes, he can apply. He can sign
an application once a day, but that doesn't mean it's going to be
acted on positively, because it is entirely within the power of
decision of the Selection Board. There is absolutely nothing, until
Congress revokes Public Law 110, which deprives the Director of this
right to decide who is going to be a member of the Career Staff and
who is not, and he has delegated that power exclusively to the
Selection Board.
I mean beyond that point.
25X1A A. There is no point beyond that.
Q. Well, say the individual is, shall we say, out of the picture. He
is Category C. And he has made five applications. And after that
5th application he is, shall we say, still with the Agency, and it
is the desire of the Agency to get rid of him. In other words, my
point is what affect does this decision have in putting him in
Class C, have upon him?
25X1A A. Upon him? It has none outside the Agency. It is
classified and will never be revealed outside of the Agency, because--
and this is very important--each person's individual membership is
a classified matter. That means that when this man's Folder--let's
say he is employed by some other agency--when his Folder is sent
to that agency it will be "stripped", I believe that is the technical
term, of classified material, so there will be nothing in the Folder
to show whether he was or was not, or what happened with respect to
the Career Staff.
Any other questions? CNo response.)
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Thank you very much for the stimulating questions
which I have had, and please wish the Career Service Staff luck in
handling this gigantic problem.
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SLUE
CAREER SERVICE
by
at Personnel Lecture Series
February 1955
I wish I could really decide what you would like
to have discussed because there are an awful lot of things which have a
.bearing on this whole problem of the career system, Career Staff membership,
and so on. I couldn't possibly cover them all, even if I started telegraph-
ic journalise.
25X1A
There are a couple of things--do you mind if I mention a
couple of things first? I'd like to mention very briefly something which
was in my abstract: The Significance to CIA of an Organized System. Why do
we do all this? Why do we go through this? As you all know there is a lot
of paper work connected with it. It isn't because we like to write papers,
this proliferation of paper. I can say quite sincerely, because I have been
at the focus of this from its very beginning, the reason for all these papers
is to make sure that everybody gets a fair, open deal on it. In other words,
it would be very easy to say: "You are a member of the Career Staff." We
are not doing it that way. That is part of the reason for all the paper
work. The significance to CIA of an organized system is that in an emergency
CIA can count on a hard corps of people to carry out its mission. Now when
I say "hard corps" I don't mean an "elite corps", unless you will go along
with me and say that CIA is an elite organization, and we are talking about
the whole Organization. I'm not talking about a clique when I say "elite",
I am talking about the eliteness of CIA, as such, the total eliteness of CIA.
I am proud to be working with CIA because I feel there isn't any other outfit
in the Government to which I could attach so much pride as I do. In other
words, I feel that CIA itself is elite. I'm not afraid to use the word
"elite" because that is the way I use it. I'm not talking about a clique
of people within CIA, I'm talking about the totalness of CIA, which is elite.
Now, apropos of that, with respect to this numbers business
which is implied here, I'd like to read from Notice - Without going 25X1A
into the background of the reason why this was brought out--maybe some of you
will remember back in October the terrific flap that occurred when somebody
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said married women couldn't belong to the Career Staff, and I'll touch on
that if anybody wants me to, and discuss that, but I do want to read this.
1?r. Dulles has personally signed this. This text was forwarded to him. by
the Career Council which met in a crash, emergency session for the sole
purpose of setting at rest this concept of intention to make a career with
CIA: "As I stated in the Career Service Conference on 3 August 1954, all
employees who personally desire and intend to make a career with CIA can make
application for membership in the Career Staff in good conscience." "Person-
al desire" and "intention" is all important. In other words, you want'to be
a member of the Career Staff of CIA. It's a voluntary kind of action that
you take. There are contained in the application for membership in the
Career Staff, which I will discuss at greater length when I cover the criteria
and mechanics of it next week, there are contained in this application eleven
extremely important principles which are, you might say, hallmarks of the
Career Staff in CIA. The first is implied--I grant you it's not actually
contained in it--the trial period, your eligibility for membership in the
Career Staff. You have to be on duty for three years before you are eligible
for membership.
Now it is very interesting, and I don't know whether we should
puff up our chests, because that is not a very admirable thing to do, but I
can't help at least considering the possibility on this 3-year business, be-
cause you will notice that recently the Civil Service Commission has adopted
the same 3-year concept. The 3 years was not just arbitrarily picked out of
the air. This trial period, this concept of 3-years' staff employee or staff
agent duty with CIA, was arrived at quite deliberately and only after long
study. Some of the factors were, since even our regulations are secret--and
every regulation, you will remember, is classified--it is not possible, techni-
cally at least, to discuss with a new employee or a prospective employee all
the conditions that will face him when he enters on duty, a new employee
doesn't know what he is getting into. Now, to a greater or lesser extent,
depending on who talks to him and depending on how it is done, some people
know more about what they are going to do when they come to CIA than others.
Basically, however, since these things are classified, and if we interpret
the rules of classification--and this applies throughout the Government, this
is not just a CIA concept--a new employee knows darn little about what goes
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on in CIA. Therefore it is extremely, you might say "stupid", to ask a new
employee if he wants to make a career with CIA when he doesn't know what he
is getting into. He can't possibly arrive at a sound intellectual decision,
and this is an intellectual decision the individual has to make. If you
haven't given him the material out of which to make a sound decision, how
can you expect him to make it? Therefore, until a person is on duty and
has had experience with CIA he can't be expected to perform a proper and
adequate and deliberate decision as to whether he wants to be a career menfoer
of CIA.
The second point, and equally important, is that the experience
of intelligence officers of World War II has been pretty much exploited by
not only CIA but other parts of the Government; in other words, there are
not very many potential recruits for CIA who have had intelligence experience,
and therefore the new employee of CIA, while he may be an expert personnel
officer somewhere else, or he may be a top-notch communications man, or he
may be an economist or political scientist, or what not, we are talking about
the profession of intelligence, not the profession of personnel, not the
profession of communications or political science or atomic energy, or what
have you. Our Career Staff is composed of professional intelligence officers,
and by that I mean personnel people who are intelligence officers. We are
not just personnel people, we are intelligence officers who are implementing,
supporting the intelligence functions through our expertise in personnel, be-
cause you can't find experienced intelligence officers outside of CIA, and
you can't be sure that the personnel many the communications man, the poli-
tical economist is going to turn into an intelligence officer until he has
had the opportunity to try to become an intelligence officer, until he has
had the opportunity to operate in that frame of reference, and until CIA--
this aluminum and plastic monster that we call CIA, that is always "doing"
things--the people in CIA we are talking about--has had an opportunity to
observe this guy or this gal under operating conditions, because until you
have observed him all you can do is speculate as to whether he is going to
be able to adapt to the special requirements and characteristics of operat-
ing the intelligence business in CIA.
Another point on which we leaned and which was used as guid-
ance is that has a 3-year probationary
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period. Another very important point is the completion of an overseas tour
of duty prior to this important decision being made, in the case of the
Clandestine Services. All of those things had a bearing on the adoption
of 3 years as the provisional period prior to this all important, one-shot
decision being made in the case of each one of us: Will we or will we not
become members of the Career Staff?
Let me go on as fast as I can. I hope I don't get involved
and digress too much.
The second important point of these eleven, which I started
to give to you, is the fact that it is voluntary. In other words, you are
making application for membership after you have been told you are eligible.
The application signifies and epitomizes the fact that you are saying you
want to be a member of the Career Staff, and nobody is telling you, "You are
now a member of the Career Staff."
The third point is that it is Agency wide. It is addressed
to the Director. It is not addressed to your supervisor and not addressed to
the Assistant Director who is responsible for this Office, or any part of
CIA. It is addressed to the DCI. And that is why the application is addressed
to him, to remind everybody that what is happening, what is underway is his
membership in the CIA Career Staff, not the Personnel Career Service, not
the Commo Career Service, the FI Career Service, or what have you.
Then, to run over them very briefly, in the first part of
the application is the definition of the Career Staff so that everybody who
is signing this application has before him at the time he is taking this
action, a reminder of the fact that he is carefully selected, that he will
be trained, that he has an obligation to carry out the mission of the Agency,
and that he has the intention of doing this for the foreseeable future--in
other words, :.caking a career of CIA. Then, to match the obligation that
the individual takes to become a member of the Career Staff and carry out
these responsibilities, the Agency--again, our plastic and aluminum monster
that sounds off soundlessly every once in awhile--gives the individual
assurances. And, apropos of that, when I say the "Agency" gives the assur-
ances, I am speaking principally about nine people in the Agency, that we
call "the Agency"--the DCI, Mr. Dulles, the DDCI, General Cabell, and the
members of the Career Council, who are the heads of the six major components
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of the Agency, and the Inspector General. Those nine people are the ones
who are giving you and me an assurance that these things will be carried out,
because each one of them has personally and individually and deliberately
taken upon himself the responsibility, individually and collectively, to
see that these are done. There are three principal assurances: of con-
sideration of personal circumstances, capabilities and interests; of atten-
tion to your progress--that is the formal language for talking about your de-
velopment, the development of all of your potentialities so that you have
the greatest opportunity to serve, and, also, so that the Agency can gain
the greatest benefit out of all of your talents; and the third assurance is
the assurance of reassignment on the successful completion of a previous
assignment. That has a very important bearing, as I'm sure you will recog-
nize, on this question of tenure, on the question of job security and job
continuity, because in this application you are guaranteed, within the limits
of the Agency's availability of funds and need for particular activities--
and obviously that goes for anybody, anytime, anywhere. Nobody ever has a
contract to do thus and so for the rest of his life. It may look as though
that were true, perhaps, in some fancy Hollywood contracts, but we all know
that it isn't true. Therefore, always within the limits of availability of
funds and availability and continuity of the Agency's mission, each person
is guaranteed, within that limitation, the opportunity of reassignment, again
according to his interests and desires.
And lastly, the 11th point, which is important, is one which
I have already discussed, that is, the status through this recognition of
tenure and membership in the Career Staff.
It is now 5:30. If anybody has to leave to make their trans-
portation arrangements, please don't hesitate to do so.
Now I have been talking about this for a long time, and I
would much rather try to answer any questions. I believe you had a question?
In the event of a reduction in force in the Agency, what value would
the Career Service have?
In the first place--I can indulge in a little numbers
game with you--it is not believed that there ever could be more than
^ of the total strength of the Agency who are members of the Career
Staff, because these are projections on a planning, actuarial type
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of basis--will not have served long enough to be members of the
Career Staff. In other words, when you become a member of the Career
Staff you are confirmed in a certain kind of seniority. Do you see
what I mean? That would mean, then--and I am trying to outguess or
foresee how a reduction in force might work--that the most recent
employees who were not members of the Career Staff would obviously be
the ones to go, and those who are members of the Career Staff would be
retained. This would put a premium, then, as we believe it should, and
is only fair, on long service and experience. That is a partial answer
to your question.
Now I said - as an approximate estimation, will be members of
the Career Staff. Roughly ^ will not yet have achieved Career status,
so they are potential members but not yet members. That leaves us with
What are the M There are three groups, I believe, that compose
that ^ The first small group are those who come to CIA open and above
board and say, "I am available for two years. I have a leave of absence
from my university position, my law firm, my industrial firm" or what
not. "I am here for two years." It is quite obvious that that indi-
vidual does not intend to make a career of CIA. There is nothing to be
ashamed about. He is coming and doing his best, and his best is in that
frame of reference, for the Government, but he is not and never intended
to be a career employee. He is honored for the contribution that he
will make, and he is not penalized by not being a member of the Career
Staff, because he didn't intend to be and nobody expected him to be a
member. So there is a small group of those who have what you might call
"legitimate reasons" for not becoming members of the Career Staff.
There is another group who have said they don't want to be members
of the Career Staff but they haven't really got good reasons for it. In
other words, they are--and this would be a very small group but we al-
ready have had enough experience to know that will happen, as we fore-
cast it might--people who don't want to sign up simply because they
don't want to commit themselves. Well, a person who doesn't want to
commit himself is not yet entitled to all of the opportunities and pre-
rogatives, and various things, because he hasn't yet committed himself
so why should he be a member? Okay, there's nothing wrong with that.
It's his choice, it's not the Agency's choice. He has said he doesn't
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want to be a member, so that is it.
And the last of the three groups which compose this very small
number who will not be members of the Career Staff, aside from eligibil-
ity on the three year basis, are those whom--I use the term "have been
ruled off the course." In other words, they have applied but they are
found deficient, they are found wanting, they don't measure up to the
standards that CIA sets for Career Staff membership. There is no
technical or legal basis on which they can be thrown out of employment.
There is no drive to discharge a man. He has been told that he is not
a member of the Career Staff because his application has been denied by
the Selection Board, and next week I will go into a lot more about that.
But remember that he will be told what he has to do in order to qualify,
because that is part of the regulation, and as soon as a man who has been
"ruled off the course" does qualify and does measure up to those standards,
then he will be welcomed into the Career Staff, but it is up to him to
put himself in a posture, in a position so that he does qualify.
Now that was a rather long answer to your question, but I think it
does have a bearing on the fact that a reduction in force that goes
25X1A beyond . of the agency is such a cataclysmic thing that you couldn't
plan for it. You see what I mean?
Q. Does he have a right of appeal?
25X1A A. No, he does not, in this sense: he doesn't have a right
of appeal on the basis of the conditions by which he was denied member-
ship, but he is told what those reasons were and he is told how he can
overcome them, and it is his chain of command's responsibility to help
him overcome it.
. . . Inaudible . . .
25X1A A. That is quite a long story and I don't think we really
have time to go into that, but I will show you how all kinds of safe-
guards have been built into this so that one roan's opinion does not
control. There is an orderly and extensive process, and that accounts
for this tremendous volume of paper that I talked about, which has been
deliberately built in, in spite of the fact that it makes for all this
paper, to make sure that everybody gets a fair deal.
Q. Inaudible . . .
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I'm going to have to refer that to the experts. I
couldn't tell you. I don't know how that would work.
Do the Veterans Preference rights definitely enter into this?
The Veterans Preference applies to CIA, there is not
the slightest question about it. In other words, if two individuals
who, let's say, are competing for the same job under a reduction in
force, are members of the Career Staff, one of whom is a veteran and
one of whom is not, then I think the veteran would probably win out
because the Veterans Preference Act applies, and other things are
equal. Do you see what I mean?
. Inaudible . . .
I'm not sure but I don't think that is a factor under
the Veterans Preference Act.
The only way this Career Service applies, then, is if everything is
equal except being a member or not being a member?
That is the principal way in which it will apply. But
remember, both of these individuals, one of whom is a veteran and one
of whom is not a veteran, have both been declared desirable on an
equal basis, let's say, for membership in the Career Staff, by this
system. And, therefore, you only have left, to choose between the
two, the fact that one has veterans preference and the other has not,
but other things are equal and they are both desirable. Please don't
ask me too many questions on this, because I'm sure--
One of the hallmarks of the usual career system is that you bring
them in at the bottom and you screen them out as you go toward the
top--a selection out system--and the pyramid gets narrower as you get
to the top. That doesn't appear anywhere in the Agency's system, and
I wondered if it had been ruled out for any particular reason. It
seems to me that is part of what makes the selective system in the
Navy--you are selected out if you don't get promoted after a certain
length of time, and the theory is that only the good remain, that the
cream rises to the top. That is the theory.
That was considered.
Q. This is not competitive after you are in, in that sense. I mean, if
a man has to be bad enough to be fired out of the Agency--
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25X1A A. No, he does not.
Q. It's a unique one.
25X1A A. Not quite. Let me explain. This is the commission of the
Coast and Geodetic Survey which is established by law, and a career
member of the Coast and Geodetic Survey is appointed by the President
by and with the advice and consent of the Senate--"This commission to
continue in force during the pleasure of the President of the United
States." Now every Career Service which is formally established in
effect has the provision that you serve at the pleasure of the boss man.
Now that is true of ours, too. In other words, a member of the Foreign
Service, of the Coast and Geodetic Service, the Public Health Service,
serves at the pleasure of the President of the United States, who
appoints him. You serve as a member of the Career Staff of CIA at the
pleasure of the Director, who appoints you. Now the Director has the
mechanism of the Selection Board--and I'm just going to have to talk
about this one, although it will take a few minutes--he has the mechanism
of the Selection Board to handle this on his behalf. The Selection
Board has not been delegated, but by direction of the Director takes
these actions on his behalf. Your application for membership, when it
is signed and approved, says--I want to read just that one point, at
the bottom of the application--"Membership in the Career Staff of the
Central Intelligence Agency approved to take effect" on a certain date.
"For the Director of Central Intelligence." In other words, this is
done in the name of the Director, just as this commission is signed in
the name of the President by the Secretary of State or by the Secretary
of Health, Education and Welfare, and so on.
Now the point which you raised is how do you get people out? For
any reason that the Selection Board deems sufficient and fair, a
person's membership in the Career Staff can be terminated. In other
words, it's going to be somewhat easier to get out of the Career Staff
than it is to get in. Now that revocation or cancellation of member-
ship in the Career Staff is not necessarily in the legal terms that
would be required to discharge or fire a man, but for failing to measure
up. Supposing I am an acceptable member of the Career Staff now, and
the Selection Board says, "Yes,- you are in." And then I
start getting sloppy. I don't do this, that, or so on. Thy performance
25X1A
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slides off. rdell, the Selection Board can review my case at the re-
quest of the Personnel Career Board. My case would be referred to the
Selection Board by the Personnel Career service, who would say, "We
don't think that should be a member of the Career Staff any-
more." The Selection Board holds a hearing and cancels my membership.
Now the thing that was deliberately avoided in setting up our
Career Staff was this forced promotion or out, because too often that
very factor, subconsciously or in an intangible way, forces a board or
a group to promote a guy in order to prevent him from being thrown out
or eliminated. We did not want in CIA a system whereby you had to
keep on moving until you became the DCI, because we know darn well
that it is extremely unlikely that anybody in this room will ever be
the DCI. Therefore ire don't have the concept of having to continually
move forward, because we recognize that I or you may right now have
reached our plateau at which we can effectively operate from now on,
but that we don't have either the capacity, the drive, the capability
or what not, to go to the next grade. We don't want to be in a posi-
tion where somehow we will be trapped by a regulation or a rule which
says, - if you don't get promoted within the next 10"days you
are going to have to be fired." They want to keep me because, presum-
ably, I can operate at this level, and at this level I am doing a use-
ful job for the Agency. So there is no concept of promotion up or
out in our career setup. And in that we are different from the Foreign
Service, which has
the Armed Forces.
. . . Inaudible . . .
Agency.
CONFIDENTIAL
no longer mandatory in the
It's not as mandatory but it is in actual effect. I
mean, it is not only the intent--because in the first place that is
contained in the policy statement in the promotion regulation, that
that is the intent--but it is becoming, to a very large extent, a fact
that recruitment, lateral entry into CIA has slowed down almost to a
walk, and most of the recruitment is at the lower levels. We don't
want ever to stop lateral entry because lateral entry is the way
whereby we, at an effective executive level, infuse new blood, new
ideas, new concepts into the Agency. We don't want to get so inbred
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that we don't get new ideas coming in. So a certain amount of later-
al entry is highly desirable, otherwise we have lost a certain dynamic
quality. Now those things are matters by which the Career Council,
let's say, will establish the rates and degrees. They haven't yet
because the system is too young, but it is quite within the bounds of
possibility that the Career Council at sometime should say, "For the
next year we will take in no more than so many at a higher level be-
cause it is undesirable to take in more and it is undesirable to take
in less." It is quite within the bounds of possibility that they could
establish such a policy.
Is the effective date of membership retroactive to the date of eli-
gibility?
25X1A A. It is, and the reason for that is there is such a teriffic
backlog and workload it will take a solid year of working all out to
finish it, that it would be unfair to the individual because it would
be just the luck of the draw. So since membership in the Career Staff
does not have any legal force outside of CIA, we have no reason to be
at all hesitant about making it retroactive. In other words, there is
no legal aspect to membership in the Career Staff; therefore it does
become retroactive, except for cause, and there are some cases where
it would not be retroactive to the original date of eligibility. That
means that the great majority of people now and for almost a generation,
the number of persons whose eligibility dates from 1 July 1954 will out-
number all others until a whole generation has passed, for all practi-
cal purposes.
Q. Would loss of membership in the Career Service mean an immediate
change of assignment?
25X1A A. No, but anybody who loses his membership--he might as
well face the fact that, whether it's his fault or not, he is on
the skids, because he IS on the skids.
Q. Well, would he be around?
25X1A A. He won't be around for very long, because he has lost
status, he has lost face, and he has become a second-class citizen.
Do you see what I mean?
Q. He has Civil Service rights?
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25X1A A.
He has all Civil Service rights, but there are a lot
25X1A
of intangible aspects. We haven't even touched on all of those prob-
It is now ten minutes to 6:00. I would be delighted
to go on as long as anybody has any questions. However, if anybody does
have any questions I am available as long as there is any interest.
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