(UNTITLED)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-04718A000100290002-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 21, 1999
• Sequence Number: 2
• Content Type: REPORT

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One of the greatest factors in the strengthening of
our national security has been the enormous growth of
appreciation of intelligence over the past decade. This
Increased appreciation is due in part to a full realization
of our pre-war failures in the field of intelligence. In
Washington, it is heightened by the reduction of our armed
forces EIS they approach their peace-time complement. It is
axiomatic that the more the actual combat forces are reduced,
the greater is the role that must be played by intelligence.
Commanders in all grades have expressed a high regard
for operational intelligence. General Omar Bradley, the
Chief of Staff of the Army, stated in a speech last January
that:
. . . we are heavily dependent on the per-
formance of the Central Intelligence Agency to
keep us adequately informed of progress elsewhere.
We are clearly .are that it is only by trsining
competent men in a lifetime career of intelligence
service that the United States can hope to draw an
the experience, wisdoms and the human resources
necessary to keep us securely informed. We know
it is this factual information that can make the
difference between good juGgment and bad judgment,
between safety and danger.
As General Spaatzs former Chief of Staff of the Air
Force, stated recently in testifying before the President's
Air Policy Commission:
"I think Intelligence must be exploited to the
maximum. We must spend all that is necessary to
get the best Intelligence."
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Pico the experiences of the past decade, an appreciation
of intelligence has spread through the highest ranks and
agencies of our Government.
Public awareness of the role played by intelligence
was heightened immeasurably by the work of the Joint Con-
gressional Committee (1946) whieh investigated the attack
on Pearl Harbor. One should point out the validity of many
of the findinga and conclusions of that Committee concerning
some failures whian went to the very foundation of our intel-
ligence structure; namely, the failure to exploit Obvious
sources, the failure to coordinate the collection and
dissemination of intelligence, and the failure to centralize
intelligence. One point which the Committee mode deserves
particular underlining. That is the statement that "efficient
intelligence services are just as essential in time of peace
as in war."
Our ear experience in the intelligence field, the
conclusions of the Joint Congressional Committee which
investigated the Pearl Harbor attack, and the studies of
many other groups and committees, focused attention an the
need for a centralized intelligence system.
As a result, a National Intelligence Authority was
establithed by President Truman on 22 January 1946, by
Executive Directive. The Central Intelligence Group was
designated as the operating agency of the National Intelli-
gence Authority. With the passage of the National Security
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Act of 1947, the Central intelligence Group ma renamed
the Central Intelligence Agency, with Its previous functions
transferred by law to the new Agency.
The National Security Act of 1947 established -- for
the first time in our history -- a National Security Council,
the function of which is to advise the President an the
Integration of foreign, domestio and military policies
relating to the national security. The Council is to be
presided over by the President himself, or by any member he
may designate. Its nemberthip is composed of the President,
the Secretaries of State, Defense, the Army, the Navy, the
Air Force, and the Chairman of the National Security Resources
Board, together with certain others who mmy be appointed at
the option of the President.
The Central intelligence Agency is established under
this Council, Whist directs the planning, development and
coordination of all Federal foreign intelligence activities.
There is one more point which thould be made concerning
Central Intelligence. During the period in *hid' it operated
under ftecutive Order, and in the debates, both in the press
and in the Congress, which preceded its establishment under
the National Security Act of 1947, the Central intelligence
Agency was the object of some unthinking attacks. Nothing
could be more unfair to the Agency or do more to muddy the
public reaction as to its real duties than the attempts which
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were made by some to label it as an incipient Gestapo.
Therefore, let us ley this ghost once and for all by point-
ing out that the law specifically provides that the Central
Intelligence Agency *shall have no pollee, subpoena, law
enforcement powers or internal security functions.* Internal
security is the function of the FBI. The Mutations of the
Central Intelligence Agency are the foreign intelligence
activities of the Uhited States. Central Intelligenoe does
not have, and does not want any internal domestic functions,
and under the law it cannot assert thee. The history of
Ogpus, or Mins and of Gestapos will show that they can
arise only when the intelligence functions and the police
powers are blended together in one organization. That
cannot happen and will not happen here.
The Central Intelligence Agency is charged by law with
performing, for the benefit of departmental intelligence
agencies, additional fUnctions of common concern which can
be more efficiently performed centrally. One example is
the continued exploitation of foreign doouments captured
during the mar in all theaters. As this exploitation nears
completion, the Agency will continue to translate and exploit
current magazines, technical works, and so forth, from all
foreign countries.
Another example is the monitoring of foreign radio
broadcasts of news and propaganda and public statements of
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leading figures abroad. This is an increasingly important
source of information. As the Japanese found before Pearl
harbor, a continual study of a country's broadcasts over a
period of time brings much intelligence which can be secured
by no other means.
The Agency is also charged with making recommendations
to the Security Council for the coordination of intelligence
activities of the Government relating to the national security.
This coordination is particularly important in determining
primary fields of intelligence responsibilities of the various
departments and agencies. The Agency is working to prevent
overlapping functions in the fields of collection and
dissemination; to eliminate duplicate roles and missions,
and to eliminate duplicate services In carrying out these
functions.
Another CIA function is the correlation and evaluation
within the Government of intelligence relating to the national
security. This involves the systematic and critical examina-
tion of intelligence information; the synthesis of that
intelligence information with all available related material;
and the determination of the probable significance of evaluated
intelligence.
There is nothing mysterious, no great mumbo-jumbo about
intelligence. Today those engaged in intelligence have
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learned that it isn't Meta Bari and the men with the false
whiskers who produce the results. Instead, the results
come from bard, painstaking work, pouring over newspapers
and magazines which come from abroad, reference works and
similar material, and endlessly putting together feat upon
fact, until the whole outline appears and the details begin
to fill in.
Thus, all intelligence is not sinister, nor is it an
Invidious type of work. Before the Second World War, our
intelligence services bad left largely untapped the great
open sources of information upon which roughly So per sent
of intelligence should normally be based. These sources
include such things as books, megasines, technical and
scientific surveys, photographs, commercial analyses, news-
papers and radio broadcasts, end general information from
people with a knowledge of affairs abroad. Into the United
States there is funnelled so net an amount of readily avail-
able information from so many varied sources that it is
virtually staggering. It encompasses every field of endeavor
-- military, political, economic, oommercial, financial,
agricultural, minerel, labor, scientific, technical an
endless and inexhaustible supply.
The importance of research to CIA becomes olear when
one starts to deal with intelligence on a national as dis-
tinguished from a departmental level. National intelligence
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as such goes beyond the interests of any one department.
It includes political, military and economics information on
all countries and areas abroad.
One of the greatest contributions which a Central
Intelligence Agency makes is in the preparation of national
Intelligence estimates which will not be slanted in the
Interest of any one department. It falls to us to present
this over-all picture in a balanced, national intelligence
estimate, including all pertinent data. Frost this the
President and appropriate officials can draw a well-rounded
picture an which to base their policies. It must be remem-
bered that Central Intelligence does not smks policy.
It might be well to think of our Agency as a battery
of searchlights peering out to sea -- trying to pierce the
fog which surrounds the other countries and areas of the
world. The product which we produce should be considered
as a giant jig-saw puzzle, into which we are oantinuAlly
trying to fit the pieces.
There exists a misconception in the ndnds of some
people regarding the teak intelligence is to perform in
time of peace, as contrasted with its task in time of war.
This misconception is that in wartime intelligence is more
important and more difficult than in time of peace. That
is a fallacy. In the midst of a war, our armed forces, with
their intelligence services, gather vast amounts of strategic
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and tactical information. But these sources are drastically
reduced as our forces return home. Such information, which
can be collected during actual calbat, is largely denied us
In peace-time. In times of peace, we must rely an the pains-
taking study of available material. If we fail to take
advantage of these vast amases of material, we are deliber_
ately exposing the American people to the consequences of
a policy dictated by a lack of information. We must realize
that we are competing with other nations who have been build-
ing up their intelligence systems for centuries to keep their
leaders informed of international intentiona -- to inform
them long before intentions have materialized into action.
In the world today, America's leaders must be the beat
informed on the face of the earth. To neke them so is the
role of intelligence. That is the goal which the Central
Intelligence Agency has set for itself.
ILLEGIB
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