COMMENTS ON PROPOSED PAPER ON DDI RESEARCH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: NGA Records (Formerly NIMA)
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78B05703A000100020015-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 28, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 10, 2003
• Sequence Number: 15
• Publication Date: May 12, 1970
• Content Type: MF

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NPIC/D-155-70
12 Jpy1970
I URANIXJM FOR: Chief, DDI Special Research Staff
SUBJECT : Comments on Proposed Paper on DDT Research
when it was established several sgnths ago. however,
I think you have done a fine job in trying to throw a lariat around
this elusive subject. I believe you are on the right track in the
three categories of research that you have defined.
As you know, IPIC was oxeuted from the DDT research inventory
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Direc or
Executive
National Photographic Interpretation Center
Distribution:
Original & 1 - Addressee
2 - NPIC/ODIR
NPIC/ODIR (11 May 70)
Declass Review by
NIMA/DOD
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Use previous editions
FORM NO, 237
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UNCLASSIFIED FIDENTIAL XX SECRET
OFFICIAL ROUTING SLIP
TO
NAME AND ADDRESS
DATE
INITIALS
I
D/NPIC
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3
4
5
6
ACTION
DIRECT REPLY
PREPARE REPLY
APPROVAL
DISPATCH
RECOMMENDATION
COMMENT
FILE
RETURN
CONCURRENCE
INFORMATION
SIGNATURE
Remarks :
Review and Comment, COB, 13 May 1970.
FOLD HERE TO RETURN TO SENDER
FROM: NAME. ADDRESS AND PHONE NO.
DATE
CH/DDI/SRS
May 70
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4 May 1970
SUBJECT Review and Comment on Attached
Draft (Research in the Directorate
What It Is and How to Think About
It)
1. The DD/I has asked that the attached memo-
randum be reviewed and commented upon from the point
of view of reaching an agreed approach to handling
the periodic inventories of DD/I Research. Paragraphs
7 and 8 of the draft memorandum are directed'specifi-
cally to that point.
2. May I have your comments and suggestions by
COB, 13 May 1970.
Chief, DD /I Special Research 8taff
Attachment: As stated above
Distribution:
1 - D/OCI/7F24/Hdqts.
1 - D/OER/4Fl8/Hdqts.
1 - D/OSR/3F30/Hdqts.
1 - D/CRS/2E60/Hdqts.
1 - Ch/ES/ONE/7E62/Hdqts.
1 - O/DDI/Mr? E44/Hdqts.
1 - DDI/Planning a Hdgts.
1 - D/OBGI/1005 Mag. Bldg.
1 - D/FBIS/1013C/Key Bldg.-
VT - D/NPIC/6N212
1 - D/IAS/3N12l
2 - DDI/SRS
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20 April 1970
MEMORANDUM FOR: Deputy Director for Intelligence
SUBJECT Research in the Directorate --
What It Is and How to Think About It
1. Some will be more amused than others to learn that
the Latin.root of the word "research", circare, translated
literally means, "to go round in a circle". It is apt. The
more one researches research the more intense the vertigo,
until truth dawns -- research is in the eye of the beholder.
2. The wide range of meanings which can be, and are,
applied to the term "research", bracket' almost any activity
or product involving the use of information, the thought pro-
cess, and a pencil and paper. Research is divisible by the
kinds of sources used, the things researched, the methods
used, the purposes envisaged, time expended, and detail of
inquiry, to enumerate a few. Within the wide array of criteria,
one finds some constants associated with the research concept--
systemic, careful, unbiased, trained scientific investigation,
collecting, organizing and evaluating data, and making'deduc-
tions and concl,usio-;s. The task is to reduce the concept to
proportions meaningful and appropriate to the work of the
Directorate,
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3. Clearly, the Directorate, as an organization charged
with the production of finished intelligence in. support of
national security policy, will look at research in a certain
way. It often will see the research product as finished
intelligence, but more frequently and more specifically as
research in direct support of the production of finished
intelligence. It will see research as encompassing wide areas
of subject matter and source materials, because of the sub-
stantive breadth of the Direct'orate's mission and of its data
base. And the Directorate will regard research as an integral
part of its total activity and production because virtually
every professional in the Directorate dealing with substance
is engaged in research to some extent. Even a one paragraph
.item in the CIB reporting a political event is subjected to
the research process to evaluate its accuracy and importance.
It is, therefore, in some part a research product. Other
Directorate publications may be a year in the making, of book
length, and conceived entirely as research products.
4. Confusion in some quarters regarding the state of
research in the Directorate may stem from a tendency to regard
analysis and research as not only different processes, which
they are, but as unrelated processes independent of one another,
which they are not. The (continued on Page 3)
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fact is that research and analysis both pervade the Directorate,
co-mingle in it, and produce hybrid issue in which it is
;often impractical to sort the one from the other in either
the process or the product.
5. All this being said, there is difference in degree,
significant at the extremes of the scale, between an intelli-
gence product that is primarily analytical or interpretive
but has involved substantial research, and a product that is
primarily research but has involved substantial analysis and
interpretation. Publications that fall between the two
extremes, and there are many of them,can be assigned to one
category or the other only by an act of judgment in some degree
arbitrary. Nevertheless, a meaningful inventory of the research
being done in the Directorate, it seems, will have to be
divided along such.imprecise lines into categories. Publica-
tions and projects should be omitted from the research inven-
tory if they are primarily. reportorial or analytical, if they
require a relatively small amount of new investigation, drawing
primarily upon a repository of data, facts, and ideas (products
of research and analysis) already in being. A number of items
on the most recent Inventory, it seems to me, could be dropped,
using such criteria.'
6. Numerous Direct-orate activities and publications do
not fit the above categories but are clearly research. Such
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activities have a common purpose, to support or to improve
research and analysis capabilities; they may be methodologi-
cal, experimental, or compilations for reference purposes.
Examples are economic model building, ADP support activities
and experimental programs, the FBIS themes series, and the
CRS reference aids.
7. I. suggest, therefore, that research in the Directorate
might be divided into three categories for purposes of evalu-
ation and coordination. They would be:
Category A: Research In Depth. Research in
this category would involve review and re-evaluation
of large amounts of information and data and the
testing of facts and interpretations previously accepted
or unexplored. Category A research would tend to take
a long run perspective; it would usually take a con-
siderable length of time and be focused on a complex,
continuing, chronic. intelligence problems. Research
in this Category would seek to tell a relatively com-
plete story. It would aim at "what", "how", "why",
and "so what", in more or less that order.
Category B, Interpretative Research. Research
in this category would tend to begin from a point
nearer the top of the available data. Analysis and
interpretation h on the one hand, and research on the
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other might be in relatively equal balance and
the product and process a. combination of the two
in terms of data sifted, the scope and complexity
of the study and the time allocated. Research in
Category-B would be primarily interpretative; it
would aim first at "why" and "so what", and only
secondarily at "what" and ""how".
Category C: Experimental and Support Research.
This. category of research would include all research
activities and publications intended to improve or
to support research, analysis or reporting capabili-
ties in the Directorate.
8. I also suggest that Directorate research inventories,
if drawn up along the lines suggested above, continue to be
divided also into regional areas, and that each regional
listing include a two or three paragraph overall statement
evaluating or describing research in process on that region..
Chief, DD/I Special ResearchStaff
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