IS OUR INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM RELIABLE? BY GEORGE FIELDING ELIOT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-04718A000600100004-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 18, 2000
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: June 1, 1952
• Content Type: OPEN

IS OUR INTELLIGENCE
SYSTEM RELIABLE?
by
George Fielding Eliot
invent No. ---- = --------
);0 Change In 4iass.
Dj Declass fed
Class. changed To: TS S C
Guth.: HR 10-2
9161
A reprint from
U.S.A., the Magazine of World Affairs, June 1952
Permission has been given CIA for the reproduction
and distribution to employees of the following piece.
 NOTHER INTELLIGENCE BLUN- which proved beyond all argument
A DER!" That was the instant ac- that CIA had warned the policy-
cusation hurled by a pack of fright- makers well in advance of the
ened congressmen in June, 1950, North Korean troop concentrations
upon hearing that the Korean above the 38th parallel, and had
bombshell had burst. For three made what proved a very shrewd
years they had put up with the new estimate of the Red numbers, or-
Central Intelligence Agency and its ganization, and armament-and
growing pains. Now the CIA had their offensive intentions.
failed to warn Congress of a major The Senators sat for a moment
military threat. in stunned silence when Hillen-
There was, of course, an investi- koetter had finished. Then one
gation. Facing a semicircle of anx- Senator spoke his mind: ':.
ious, angry Senators, CIA's direc- "But, Admiral," he cried, "why
tor, Rear Admiral Roscoe H. Hil- didn't you see that something was
lenkoetter, calmly produced piece done about this information?"
by piece the documentary evidence "Senator," said Hillenkoetter,
"the duty of an intelligence agency
Major Eliot is a noted commentator on is to present facts, not to make
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 is
our
intelligence system
reliable?
American Intelligence is coming of
age fast. The big problem is to read
the meaning of facts with accuracyl
He did not say what must have
been painfully apparent-that the
facts had been presented, but had
not been acted upon because the
policy-makers did not want to be-
lieve them.
To put it bluntly, a junior rear
admiral did not have the weight of
authority himself-and his new-
born agency had not acquired an
accumulated weight of its own-
sufficient to compel Secretaries of
State and Defense and Chiefs of
Staff to accept unpleasant facts
which ran contrary to their own
expressed and intrenched beliefs.
This question of authority had
been hamstringing American intel- ea..,, & Ewino
ll+i~~,genc}e,,a}ctiviti}}es for years. Back in General Walter Bedell Smith brings to CIA
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Operations once explained how de-
partmental preconceptions and in-
terests and the personal "bugs" of
secretaries and military chiefs were
coloring the assumptions drawn
from the intelligence agencies of
the State, War, and Navy Depart-
ments. There was little or no co-
ordination of intelligence. There-
fore there existed no sifted, agreed
body of fact on which a national
policy could be based.
That same year, a congressional
committee refused the Director of
Naval Intelligence-who came per-
sonally to beg for it-a modest ap-
propriation of $15,000 to buy
mimeograph machines and paper
so that he could. distribute intelli-
gence reports and summaries to
fleet and naval district command-
ers. He was rebuked for having sug-
gested the spending of public
money to disseminate "Navy prop-
aganda." There was even a mutter
of "gumshoe business," of "trying
to set up a Gestapo." There
seemed something vaguely un-
American about the very words "in-
telligence service." And being de-
tailed to intelligence did no offi-
cer's career-Army or Navy-any
good. It was regarded as being a
little on the fancy side, even as sug-
gesting incompetence for com-
mand duties. General of the Army
Omar N. Bradley remarks on this
point: "I recall how scrupulously I
avoided the branding that came
with an intelligence assignment in
my own career."
Then came 1941 and Pearl Har-
bor, blasting us into belated reali-
zation of the dangers of trying to
get along without an organized na-
tional intelligence service. Many of
the same congressmen who had
denied money for simple needs
now loudly denounced the "failure
of our intelligence." In fact, even
though starved for money and
manpower, the intelligence services
had dredged up enough morsels of
information which could have en-
abled the U.S. to foresee and fore-
stall the Japanese attack-had there
been any means by which these
morsels could have been co-ordi-
nated and evaluated, and their re-
sult brought forcefully to the no-
tice of those in the seats of de-
cision. There wasn't.
Pearl Harbor made that need
clear-but Pearl Harbor also landed
us in the midst of the biggest war
we have ever fought. The attempt
to meet the need for organized in-
telligence through the creation of
the Office of Strategic Services
in June, 1942, was under military
control and directed (naturally
enough) toward the immediate
end of victory. The moment the
war was over, OSS (which had ac-
cumulated its share of jealousies
and frictions) was dissolved and its
functions distributed to the State
and War Departments, amid a bar-
rage of lurid tales which tended to
obscure its very real service.;
The need for centralized intelli-
gence remained. It was given lip
service by the creation of the Na-
tional Intelligence Authority in
January, 1946, under a presidential
directive to "coordinate" the in-
telligence procured by the' Army,
Navy, State Department and other
government agencies. It limped
along as best it could while the bit-
ter unification struggle raged in the
Pentagon and most Americans
thought wistfully of a world of
peace and justice under the benev-
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IS OUR INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM RELIABLE?
olent aegis of the United Nations. National Security Council as to all
But it soon became clear that intelligence activities relating to
makeshift policy and pious hopes the national security and make ap-
would not do in the face of the propriate recommendations for the
Soviet power bloc. We had not for- coordination of such activities.
gotten Pearl Harbor. There was a CIA was not given direct authority
rising demand for effective policy- to coordinate; but, considering that
making machinery, for effective de- the members of the NSC are the
fense organization. And it followed President of the United States as
as the night the day that we could chairman, the Vice President, the
have neither unless we began with Secretary of State, the Secretary of
a fact-finding agency to provide the Defense, and the chairman of. the
body of knowledge on which to National Security Resources Board,
base policies and military plans. a statute-backed right to advise and
The National Security Act of recommend to such a body ac-
1947-largely the result of the pa- quires a formidable character.
tient, tireless efforts of the late Finally, CIA was empowered to
James Forrestal-tried to provide "perform, for the benefit of the ex-
answers to these problems. It estab- isting intelligence agencies, such
lished our first top planning additional services of common con-
agency, the National Security cern as the National Security
Council, and it gave the NSC as Council determines can be more
its fact-finder the Central Intelli- efficiently accomplished centrally,"
gence Agency. When that act be- and "which other functions and
came law in July, 1947, the United duties related to intelligence affect-
States for the first time acquired a ing the national security as the Na-
national intelligence service with a tional Security Council may from
statutory foundation. time to time direct." In other
Chiefly, the new organization, words, CIA was not to be merely a
under the terms of the act, was to coordinator; it could operate on its
provide the much-needed clearing- own if there were gaps to be filled.
house for the information obtained But ancient suspicions and jealous-
by others: by the far-flung net of ies die hard, and the law as drawn
State Department activities, by the was amended by Congress in two
Army's G-2, by the Office of Naval respects: first, to deny specifically
Intelligence, by the Air Force In- to CIA any internal security or po-
telligence, and by other govern- lice powers; and, second, to pre-
ment departments. CIA was sup- serve to the several departments
posed to "correlate" and "evaluate" their existing intelligence processes.
this mass of information-that is, On the whole, it was a good law
to sift out fact from conjecture, -a great step forward. But, like
reconcile contradictions, eliminate every other law that has ever been
duplication, produce an end prod- printed on paper, it did not pro-
uct which policy-makers could rely duce miracles immediately. The
upon, and see that this product was first need of the new agency was
distributed to those who needed it. for capable, experienced men and
CIA was also required to advise the women. This was a need not easily
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filled, as the newly appointed di-
rector, Rear Admiral Hillenkoetter,
quickly discovered. A few good
people had been inherited from
OSS. But where were the others to
come from? The body of experi-
ence was not great, since intelli-
gence on a national scale was a
-new thing in America. Career offi-
cers of the services were still shy of
the "intelligence" brand. Capable
civilians of standing and merit were
reluctant to give: up established ca-
reers for the uncertainty of this
new venture-and Hillenkoetter's
attempts to found a career intelli-
gence service by enlisting young
people straight out of college met
with the same reluctance. "Can
you promise me: a secure future?"
was the question which Hillenkoet-
ter could not yet answer honestly
in the affirmative. CIA represented
a new idea on trial. It had yet to
come of age, to establish itself as a
permanent governmental unit.
In those early days, there were
not lacking voices prophesying
CIA's early demise, voices saying-
"That outfit won't last through the
next Congress, or certainly not af-
ter the first stupid blunder that's
sure to come." A new agency al-
ways has trouble, as Hanson Bald-
win remarks, "in establishing itself
in politically jealous, power-con-
scious Washington." This was a
heavy burden to lay on the shoul-
ders of a young rear admiral of less
than a year's seniority in grade. The
older intelligence agencies fought
tooth and nail against any "inva-
sion" of their prerogatives. Army
G-2 quarrelled with CIA over who
was to do what abroad; the State
Department worried for months
over the question of whether its
Ambassadors and Ministers should
have authority over CIA personnel
in various countries; the FBI took
a dim view of CIA's taking over
certain activities in Latin America
which FBI had been performing.
But the big trouble was-and re-
mains-the old, old problem of de-
partmental interpretation.
CIA was there to get at the facts,
rock-bottom facts, impartially de-
termined in the light of the best
available evidence, and filled in by
educated guesses and careful de-
duction only where absolutely es-
sential and with guess and deduc-
tion duly labelled as such. It is
natural that each departmental in-
telligence service will look at the
facts from the point of view of its
own interests. In any over-all sur-
vey of Soviet military strength, for
example, one would expect Naval
Intelligence to lay chief emphasis
on Soviet submarine activities, the
Air Force to give first priority to
Soviet air power, and the Army to
present the mass of Soviet divisions
as the chief menace. But when it
comes to presenting the final con-
solidated report, it isn't always easy
to get agreement as to how this re-
port should be weighted. Cries of
"Kill the umpire!"-or their equiv-
alent-are not unknown in CIA
conference rooms.
Yet somehow the CIA took form
and functioned amid all these
growing pains. The numerous criti-
cisms-some well-founded, others
far less so-brought about, in the
Summer of 1948 the appointment
of a committee of distinguished
civilians with wartime intelligence
-experience (Allen W. Dulles, Wil-
liam H. Jackson and Mathias F.
Correa) to make recommendations
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IS OUR INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM RELIABLE?
for improvements and necessary credit, and it came well out of the
changes. The committee did a later uproar over the Chinese inter-
helpful job. But much credit is due vention in North Korea, again well
to the courage, good temper and able to prove that whatever had
quiet self-effacement with which gone wrong, CIA had been there
Rear Admiral Hillenkoetter strug- with the information. Its prestige
gled along, eliminating chair-warm- as an impartial, reliable source of
ers and "empire builders," bring- vital knowledge was established.
ing in a trickle of new personnel Not easily would its warnings be
when he could get good people, do- set aside again.
ing the best he could with second- Now Smith could start building
raters when he had to, and on occa- a permanent structure with some
sion jeopardizing his own naval ca- assurance for the future. The basic
reer by remaining impartial in the truth upon which CIA was found-
face of some naval preconception. ed at last had been accepted as
Hillenkoetter was scheduled to established gospel: that national in-
return to the Navy, however, and telligence was a task far beyond the
was longing for sea duty. So he scope of any single agency.
went to command a cruiser division Not only is the field of its re-
in Korean waters, and in October, search world-wide from the geo-
1950, CIA had a new director, graphical viewpoint, but today it
Lieutenant General (now Gen- must produce far more than a mere
eral) Walter Bedell Smith, USA. list of regiments or air wings or
Smith brought to CIA his great fortified places. The sources of na-
gifts of command and of persua- tional power cover the whole range
sion, his three years of experience of human activity-military, politi-
in the Moscow embassy and as a cal, economic, and psychological.
participant in every international As a young officer, the writer
conference during that period, and was told: "Military intelligence is
the prestige of high rank and of riot the sun illumining the world,
distinguished war service as Eisen- but a searchlight poking into dark
hower's Chief of Staff. corners." But today, with one-
He came to CIA, moreover, at a fourth of the whole land surface of
time when the Korean war was the globe deliberately blacked out
stepping up appropriations and to the rest of mankind, with all
when men of substance could be normal sources of information de-
called upon for service with some nied and the most elaborate pre-
assurance of favorable reactions. cautions taken to preserve secrecy
It is no injustice to Hillenkoetter as to every detail, something more
to say that with the appointment than an intermittent searchlight
of Bedell Smith CIA came of age. survey is required.
It acquired a chief who could not It isn't easy for Americans to un-
be disregarded by anyone in the derstand the grave difficulties im-
Government, however high in au- posed by this handicap. It isn't
thority. It had won through its pe- only the police precautions which
riod of growing pains. It had prevent or restrict all entry and
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iet domain. It is the drying up of in the middle of some of the blank
every source of information such as spaces. They have to be set aside
is freely available about our own
and other free countries-the usual
channels of news, trade and credit
information, production figures,
the exchange of scientific and edu-
cational data, maps, books, maga-
zines, all the means by which facts
and thoughts flow freely across na-
tional boundaries. At least half of
the fact-items in the Soviet esti-
mates prepared by CIA with pain-
ful, piece-meal effort could be
culled as to our own country from
the World Almanac, the Census
Bureau's "Statistical Abstract of
the United States," a set of con-
toured maps, and a file of any good
daily newspaper.
These "national estimates" are
the final end product of CIA's la-
bors. There's one for every develop-
ingsituation-it's as important to
understand an ally as to penetrate
an enemy's secrets-but the Soviet
estimate has No. 1 priority. The
estimates are never static. As soon
as one is completed, revision be-
gins. They are the result of day-by-
day effort which never ceases. CIA
can't afford rest periods.
The process of putting a national
estimate together has been com-
pared to solving a jig-saw puzzle.
You might imagine a huge incom-
plete jig-saw puzzle-with many
pieces missing and large irregular
blank spaces all. through it-laid
out on the floor of a room. Every
day come men from Army, Navy,
Air Force, State and other activi-
ties, each bringing a new piece or
perhaps a handful of pieces. It is
immediately clear where some of
the new pieces fit. Others don't
seem to fit at all. They may belong
until other pieces which match
them are obtained. Or some pieces
already fitted in may now seem not
to fit quite precisely-one of the
new pieces fits more evenly. A
whole section of the puzzle thus
may have to be readjusted. The
picture disclosed may be wholly
altered in character by this change.
There will be lively argument be-
tween those who were proud of the
original arrangement and those
who insist that the change is more
nearly -accurate. Finally the time
will come when the picture is as
nearly complete as seems likely for
the time being. Then the blank
spaces have to be filled in by guess
and deduction from the general
color and form of the picture as
shown by the pieces already assem-
bled. The result is a national esti-
mate, as of right then. The search
for new pieces and the replacement
of old pieces continue.
What CIA strives to produce in
these national estimates is a firm
guide upon which policy-makers
and planners can rely. When each
estimate (or rather each edition of
each estimate) appreaches comple-
tion, there is a meeting of the In-
telligence Advisory Committee,
presided over by the director of
Central Intelligence, and including
intelligence representatives of the
military services, the joint Chiefs
of Staff, the State Department, the
Atomic Energy Commission, and
the Federal Bureau of Investiga-
tion (which handles domestic as-
pects of intelligence work), There
is usually a brisk discussion on
points as to which full agreement
has not yet been reached. Here, as
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already observed, the director of intelligence corps. It is better able
Central Intelligence must be the to do so today because it can now
impartial umpire. say to young men and women: "In-
Not the least of General Smith's telligence is a serious and honor-
contributions to CIA is his suc- able profession which offers you a
cess in this delicate and trouble- lifetime job in the service of your
some task. He never consents to country." Plans are well advanced
"compromise for the sake of com- for the start of such a career serv-
promise." He will not permit an ice for CIA personnel.
estimate to be watered down. The big difficulty-the closed
Political influence has never suc- mind in high places-is still here.
ceeded-so far, anyway, but keep It is not as dangerous as it was,
your fingers crossed-in filtering largely due to the vigor of some of
into the CIA. Facts, as Dulles re- General Smith's presentations and
marks, are neither Republican nor the fact that CIA generally has
Democratic: which itself is a fact turned out a lot nearer right than
that may arise to haunt some can- any who have questioned its find-
didates in the current election. ings. But since General Smith will
Presidential candidates might well not always be director of CIA, it is
reflect soberly on the embarrass- of vital importance that the agency
ment of being elected on the basis itself should acquire, as it is acquir-
of vigorous assertions which-when ing, the confidence and prestige
the candidate becomes President which in the future will give the
and is duly briefed by the CIA- country the assurance that facts,
may turn out to be all hogwash. however unpleasant or distasteful,
While-as already observed- will be looked squarely in the eye
CIA's growing prestige plus the by those who must make the de-
Korean crisis have enabled General cisions of policy or of action.
Smith to obtain the services of We are building a good intelli-
many distinguished civilians with gence service for the first time in
special competence for intelligence our history. When we have learned
work, this is only a stop-gap. The to use it, we can all breathe more
agency must develop its own career easily.
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