STUDIES IN INTELLIGENCE

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• Document Page Count: 48
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 2, 2005
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: January 1, 1975
• Content Type: IS

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cTUDIES
IN
INTEL-LIG
ENCE
VOL. 19 No. 2 SUMMER 1975
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
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SECURITY PRECAUTIONS
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19 January 1976
TO All holders of Vol. 19, No. 2, STUDIES IN INTEL-
LIGENCE, Summer 1975
The review of Philip Agee's book, Inside the Com an :
CIA Diary, which appears on pp. 35-38 of titsfie erence
pu lication, should be classified SECRET, rather than un-
classified. 25X1A
Editor, STUDIES IN INTELLIGENCE
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STUDIES IN INTELLIGENCE
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DAVID S. BRANDWEIN LAWRENCE R. HOUSTON
GEORGE A. CARVER, JR. RICHARD LEHMAN
MAURICE C. ERNST WALTER L. PFORZHEIMER
SAYRE STEVENS
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CONTENTS
Page
Secrecy and Intelligence in a Free Society ................ James E. Knott 1
The dilemma of security v. openness. UNCLASSIFIED
The Case for a Holistic Intelligence .................... Lloyd F. Jordan 9
On bringing all of the analytical disciplines to bear. CONFIDENTIAL
More on the Military Estimates ............................ Ross Cowey 21
How accurate were they? SECRET NOFORN
Another View of S&T Analysis ............ . .......... Donald C. Brown 25
Basic tenets of scientific and technical intelligence. SECRET
The LAMS Story .................................... Martin C. Elkes 29
Research, development, and deployment of a navigation system. SECRET
Intelligence in Recent Public Literature ................................. 35
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The following article is the summary of a detailed study prepared for the Center for the Study
of Intelligence of the Office of Training on the recurrent topic of the intelligence dilemmas arising
from security requirements within the framework of a free society. We hope this statement of the
problem will stimulate further thoughts on the subject.
SECRECY AND INTELLIGENCE IN A FREE SOCIETY
James E. Knott
In discussing what I believe to be the major areas of concern that our free society
has evinced regarding secrecy and intelligence, I hope to make it clear that I feel there
are no final answers. They are not problems that can be solved; they are focal points
that will demand continuing attention in pursuit of a balance which must be worked
out between the opposing factors.
The central problem which demands attention does not stem from the question
whether secrecy, intelligence, or even clandestine operations are compatible with a
free society. The central problem is the structure through which that free society
oversees its processes of secrecy determination, intelligence production, and the
conduct of clandestine operations.
This may appear to be a mechanistic conclusion, but I make it because I am
convinced that our free society is in basic agreement as to the kinds of things on which
secrecy is justified. I am also convinced that-if the society knew more about the
subject-there would be a consensus on the criteria which should be applied to
deciding whether or not a foreign clandestine operation was an appropriate activity
for a free society. And, in complement to such agreement, there is the fact that the
virtue and blessing of a free society is that there is a constant and continuing process
which defines and refines the values the society expects to be applied by its
institutions. These values themselves do not change radically-but neither are they
absolute. They adjust to the efforts the society is called upon to undertake, and they
adjust in particular in accordance with the threats the society feels it faces. In other
words, the free society will relinquish some of its freedom if that is necessary, but it
will wish to see readjustment take place once such relinquishment is no longer
necessary.
The inherent feature of secrecy is the limitation of access to the secrets. The free
society as a whole cannot make the judgment as to whether or not individual matters
are legitimately kept secret. It must place its trust in an oversight body or bodies to
act in its behalf. The smaller the number of people it decides it needs to establish such
a condition of trust, the better it will be for the secrecy system.
The free society must have confidence that its oversight mechanisms have
adequate access to secret material to make judgments, and that this judgmental
process is being exercised independently. There has to be trust that secrecy is not
being used against the best interests of the free society; that the activities which are
being protected by secrecy are being conducted effectively; and that necessary
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readjustment of these activities takes place in conformance with changed domestic
and international circumstances. It is this confidence and this trust in the oversight
mechanisms which has broken down.
In exploring the means by which confidence and trust can be restored, the free
society must bear in mind the fact that its consensus does change. The lessons of the
past must not be ignored, but it would be an error to judge what was formerly
done-or what might be done in the future-by a consensus of the current moment
deprived of historical perspective. It would also be mistaken to concentrate too much
on preventing the abuse of secrecy without also recognizing that there are legitimate
secrets. The free society owes it to those it holds responsible for producing secret
information and conducting secret activities to maintain an oversight process which
protects legitimate secrecy.
What then are some of the suggestions for improvement which should be
considered? I have grouped them under five headings:
Redefinition of Government Secrecy
"National security" alone is an inadequate base for a government secrecy
classification system. Some suggest expanding this to "national defense or foreign
policy." Executive Order 11652 uses "national defense or foreign relations" and then
combines the two into "national security." However, as I have noted, the Freedom of
Information Act not only excludes from its procedures those national defense or
foreign policy secrets which have been "properly classified," but also excludes eight
other areas, such as trade secrets and certain investigatory records. Such matters are
not part of the classification system, but one suspects that a good many of them get
mixed up in the classification system of those agencies dealing with national defense
and foreign relations secrets.
If it could be granted that there is overall confusion about governmental secrecy
in our free society, wouldn't it be better to have a comprehensive system? Or would
formalizing what already exists in practice only compound the already overwhelming
problems of dealing with government paper? Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, discussing
this only in the foreign policy field, comes down in favor of major surgery on the
classification system and relying "on the good sense of bureaucrats to keep
confidential what should be confidential most of the time, without employing bloated
concepts of national security to do so." Perhaps so, but I believe the opposite course
of inclusiveness is worth exploration.
In any case, whether the lesser secrets are dropped out of the currently
overblown "national security"-based classification system into a system of
government-wide applicability, or whether they are dropped to the level of reliance
"on the good sense of bureaucrats," there can be no doubt of the need for drastic
reduction in what has formerly been placed in the national security category. What is
needed is much greater clarity as to what this category should really contain. Better
guidelines would help immensely in the judgmental factor which will always be
involved. At the same time, the numbers of persons entitled to make such judgments
must continue to be reduced. Some such clarifications and further reductions, it
seems to me, will be the inevitable results of current attempts to cope with the major
changes brought about by the Freedom of Information Act and Executive Order
11652.
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Another area that needs clarification has to do with abuse of the classification
system. On the one side, it has been much too easy to overclassify. A Subcommittee
headed by Congressman William S. Moorhead conducted a study in 1971 that found
there had been 2,433 investigations by government agencies of classification system
violations over a four-year period. Of these, only 2 involved cases of overclassification
and "not a single administrative penalty was imposed against overclassification."*
On the other hand, great concern has been expressed about dangerous leakage in the
system-"unauthorized disclosure." No one would deny that there are legitimate
secrets which deserve greater protection. Clearly the current Espionage Act is
inadequate for this purpose. One doubts, however, that it will be improved upon until
secrecy has been reduced to the level the national consensus will feel is justified and
our free society becomes more convinced than it is at present that there are adequate
intra-executive means of airing and reconciling legitimate dissent.
Congressional Oversight
It is, of course, up to the Congress as to how it organizes its oversight role. The
current system has come under a great deal of attack, notably from members of
Congress itself. At least some modification, and possibly even major change, in the
four-subcommittee system appears to be in the offing. Whatever means of rebuilding
trust and confidence are found, there is one primary fact of life about secrets which
must be faced: those who have been made responsible for secrets they feel are
important cannot be expected to continue a system which endangers the secrets.
There must be trust and confidence on both sides of a secrecy-sharing process. In a
free society, the official who feels secrecy has been and will be violated cannot have
and should not have the option of evasion of legislative oversight. His only option is to
point out the consequences of poor security and the fact that the activity must cease if
the secrecy necessary to its continuance cannot be preserved. And, does anyone deny
that the publicity-attracting nature of clandestine operations creates special problems
in establishing mutual trust and confidence?
Another matter to be considered with regard to oversight are the interests of the
men concerned. The primary role of the intelligence community will undoubtedly
remain one dealing with military, security matters. However, other fields have been
increasingly added, notably international economics, narcotics intelligence, and
international terrorism. Further, there is a special need to view the intelligence
community as a whole, and the members of that community relate to quite a variety
of authorization committees. There needs to be a means of promoting greater
Congressional cohesion between these differing jurisdictions.
Other than including people who have the trust of their Congressional
colleagues, whose composition unifies the field of intelligence yet reflects its diversified
content, who can follow methods preserving secrecy, there is the key question of how
much detail the oversight body needs. British intelligence authority John -Bruce
Lockhart's central thesis on this question is : "the operations of Secret Services must
remain secret, but the principles by which Secret Services can best be directed and
controlled should be considered carefully, discussed, and understood by those at
government level who are responsible for controlling Secret Services. "** Not having a
*Rep. W. S. Moorhead, "Operation and Reform of the Classification System in the U.S.," in Frank
and Weisband, ed., Secrecy and Foreign Policy (Oxford University Press, New York, 1974) p. 101.
**John Bruce Lockhart "The Relationship between Secret Services and Government in a Modern
State," RUS!, journal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies, (June 1974) p. 3.
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parliamentary system, we in the United States need to have such consideration,
discussion, and understanding shared by the executive and legislative bodies. It is
extremely important to note that what Lockhart urges be left out of the discussion are
the details of the "operations of Secret Services." The application of such a concept to CIA
is not as radical as it might appear, inasmuch as only a portion of what CIA does is
made up of the "Secret Service" kind of operation-and much that is supposed to
pass as clandestine, really isn't.
Perhaps such exclusion of clandestine operations from examination may not be
found satisfactory, however. Sometimes detail is needed for making evaluations.
Sometimes knowledge of specifics is needed to be able to ask the right general
questions. Does examination of detail need to be seen as an ongoing process, or might
it be seen as temporary-until confidence was restored? Would examination of detail
need to be across the board, or could the need be met by periodic or spot checks?
Could detail be restricted to one type of operation, and the others left alone?
Lastly, when an examination or follow-up probe involves very sensitive material,
does the full committee (or committees) need to be a part of such an examination?
Couldn't one or two members, possibly on a rotating basis, be assigned to the task?
Or, preferably, could such a question be transferred to some such body as the
President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, which would then have the
responsibility of standing behind a reassurance of the oversight group. Or, could such
inquiry be undertaken by a very small number of particularly trusted and reliable
Congressional staffers? And what open record is at all possible on such matters to
help reassure the free society and improve acceptance of appropriate joint
responsibility? Could, for instance, some sort of quarterly listing of general topics
covered by oversight proceedings be made public?
Executive Oversight
Executive oversight is not as critical a matter at the moment as legislative
oversight, but it too merits attention. The primary concern of our free society at this
time does not seem to be whether or not the Executive knows what CIA does, but
whether the Executive will be able to abuse the secret capabilities represented by
CIA. The meeting of the problem of legislative oversight and the functioning of a
much more open Presidency should result in overcoming this fear.
This does not mean that there should be a return to the secrecy which used to
surround the clearance procedures for CIA activity. The channels for executive
approval of CIA activities should be uniform and not competitive or duplicatory, so
that no future charges of CIA selecting the most favorable channel can be made. The
channels should be publicly known, and so should the people in them. Again, it
should be as much a matter of principles rather than details on operations whenever
possible, but obviously when details are required in order to make risk/gain
assessments, they must be readily provided. Clearly, such details will be required very
often. Full knowledge can sometimes provide a better base for cooperation on the
preservation of secrets than a partial knowledge leading to shared speculation
between those partly "in the know." How often an operational activity needs to be
reviewed, and the number of people who need to give their approval, can depend on
the type of operation involved.
The "grey" area between CIA's domestically-based but foreign-related activities
and those of the FBI must be reduced to an absolute minimum. There must be clearly
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understood procedures for an accountable ruling in case of any doubt. Domestic
activities must be governed by the standards and institutional arrangements of the
domestic scene, and it must be clear to the free society that this is the case. There
must be a very minimum of overlap between the decision-making process for domestic
activity and the decision-making process for foreign activity. The two must be judged
by different standards.
Lastly, there is the problem of efficiency and effectiveness. There is a great deal
more of the administrative side of the intelligence organizations which could be open
to Congressional scrutiny. However, the major responsibility obviously rests with the
executive branch, which must continually improve its management practices. More
rigorous, not less rigorous, review by the Office of Management and Budget is
needed. Continued progress must be made on the community-wide framework of
requirements against which evaluations can be made. The techniques of evaluating
programs must also be improved. There must be evaluation in depth on a selective
basis-a requirement, a source, a station, etc.
Reduction of Agency Secrecy
Without the shadow of a doubt, a sort of Gresham's Law operates with regard to
respect for security systems. If an employee is asked to treat worthless material with
the respect due only to worthwhile secrets, the bad practices will drive the good
practices out of circulation. Similarly, if a free society is asked to respect a security
system and then finds that the system has protected "bad" or worthless secrets, it
may well result in damage to the system's ability to protect "good" secrets. From
both the standpoint of the employee's observance of the security structures and the
free society's respect for maintaining security systems, there can be only one
conclusion: the matters which need to be kept secret must be reduced to a minimum.
For a conclusion so obviously correct for a free society, it is hard to see why there
should be any disagreement or serious problems. But it is vastly easier to state such a
conclusion than it is to implement it. It seems to me that the problems of
implementing it for the Agency stem from three main sources. The first of these is an
insufficient differentiation between the security needs of the varied personnel of CIA.
To draw again on the wisdom in this field which John Bruce Lockhart has set forth:
Those in control of Secret Services must have a realistic and disenchanted
understanding of "security." This is not as simple as it sounds, because possibly
more follies have been committed in the name of security than in any other
governmental activity in a modern state. These broad principles must continu-
ally be borne in mind if this area of folly is to be reduced.
In secret operations there are only two degrees of security. One is the suit of
armour, where the man's identity or objective remains a total secret. The other is
the fig leaf, where a facade of respectability is imposed on functions or
individuals whose real purpose is widely known and accepted. Security trouble
arises when it is believed by those who control them that there are degrees of
security in secret operations between the suit of armour and the fig leaf. *
Those who are really operating in secret need the "suit of armor" and need every
help in keeping it impervious. Those who are operating under "fig leaf" conditions
should not be treated the same way as those within armor. It should also be fairly
*Ibid, p. 5.
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unlikely that the "fig leaf" operator would revert to or become a truly clandestine
operator. A great many of the Clandestine Service personnel now have the trappings
which are the due of the "suit of armor" operators but they are in fact engaged in "fig
leaf" operations. The easily identified large-scale operations of Vietnam, Laos, and
Cambodia come most easily to mind. However, this is also true of many of the liaison
arrangements with foreign intelligence services. It may also involve such new missions
as anti-narcotics and anti-terrorism activities conducted in cooperation with local
authorities.
Such "fig leaf" operations may well be fulfilling agreed and necessary functions;
they may well require some clandestine skills; and in some cases they may well be
dangerous. But they do not require the high degree of protection of identity, skills and
movements necessary for the truly clandestine operator. Add to this need to
differentiate between operators requiring "suit of armor" protection and operators
who need only fig leaves, the further differentiation between operators and the rest of
the CIA personnel. Do people who are only handling secrets even need a fig leaf?
This area of difficulty can be compounded by the "one Agency" concept-the
idea of interchangeability of Agency careers. In my personal opinion, this is a mistake
in so far as it presumes a movement from the analytical side into the Clandestine
Service. It has been done, but how often? And how many of those who did make such
a transfer actually become clandestine operators?
Possibly the greatest source of difficulty on this differentiation problem could be
the extent to which there may be an effort to hide the operators within the larger
group of Agency employees. According to Roger Hilsman: "the original idea of CIA
had been to conceal the cloak and dagger activities behind the much larger mass of
`overt' intelligence work-research and estimating, monitoring foreign propaganda
broadcasts, and so on. "* I do not personally know if this was indeed the intent. To the
extent that it may be, such "cover" should be questioned as to its usefulness. At best it
far more resembles a fig leaf than it does a suit of armor. And society would really not
need to blush if this particular fig leaf were dropped.
In sum, the "one Agency" concept deserves a very hard look in terms of its conse-
quences for personnel security practices. And the degree to which the personnel
security practices of the Clandestine Service are based upon "suit of armor" assump-
tions also needs close examination. Are the justified needs of truly clandestine
operations being endangered by being too widely applied? Shouldn't the truly
clandestine be set apart as urged by another of Lockhart's principles: that the
"operational front of secret operations should be as narrow as possible?"**
The second main source of problems in reducing security practices to a
minimum are what must be regarded as national bureaucratic tendencies inherent in
any organization, but particularly large ones. Bringing about some uniformity in
judgmental matters is extraordinarily difficult and in practice the "lowest common
denominator" is subject to continual decline-particularly if there is no penalty for
"playing it safe." Such penalties should be set up and used. There is no final answer, of
course, but some clearer criteria need to be set up and there must be an improvement
in systems of review-an excellent function to assign to deputy chiefs.
Another major factor to be attacked are practices stemming from tradition and
precedent. Such practices do not necessarily represent accumulated wisdom.
*Hilsman, To Move a Nation, (Doubleday, New York, 1967) p. 79.
**Lockhart, Op. cit., p. 5.
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Sometimes they do, but they can also represent outmoded ways of doing things which
historical circumstances may have once justified-circumstances which subsequently
departed the scene. There are, for instance, "worst case" regulations. These were set
up when a "worst case" did occur or when someone had the imagination to think that
it might. Such "worst case" regulations need to be examined to see what the
probability really is of such an event occurring. All too often such regulations stay on
the books, are not enforced by the authorities, but are available as a basis for
supervisory thunder "just in case." This is dishonest administration, natural as it
may be. Another group of practices undoubtedly stem from a "weakest-link"
concept. At some particular point a given security practice may well have been set up
or reinforced to prevent it from being the "weak-link" in a chain of security practices.
Its chain may no longer exist, or other parts of the chain may have become of a much
weaker gauge. It is absolutely right to view security practices in a systems approach
flow context. But differentiated flow channels are possible and can be treated
differently so that what would be a "weak link" in one wouldn't necessarily be so in
another.
Besides being looked at in a systems approach chain method, security practices
should be examined as a layered concept. Is the secret at the core still a secret? Are
the various layers of protection ("derivative" secrets) still needed or can some of them
be relaxed or dispensed with? How many practices may have come from the re-
quirements of some other body as part of the process of establishing the mutual trust
needed for the exchange of secrets? Are these still needed?
A third main source of problems is the necessity of not disclosing too many clues
as to your intelligence successes-or lack thereof. This is what is involved in the
reluctance to disclose too much information about Agency organization or budgeting.
It is held that such information could show trends which ought to be concealed.
One suspects that.some such trends would be fully evident from open policy documents,
i.e., increased concentration on the Mid-East, decreased attention to Indochina,
increased interest in economic information, etc. Further, even in the open parts of our
system, it is often very difficult to track expenditures from budget year to budget year.
Without denying that some trends merit concealment, one can't help wondering in
how much of the agency this may be a problem, and at what level of budgetary listing
it becomes a problem. Much information is justifiably withheld because it meets the
statutory protection provided in the 1949 Act for intelligence sources and methods.
But isn't there a good deal of such organizational information which would not endanger
sources and methods?
Turning from organizational information, what about making more of the
intelligence end-product available to Congress and the public? If this can be done
without endangering sources and methods, or endangering what I regard as
legitimate executive leadership rights and administrative responsibilities, I feel much
more such information in an appropriately usable form should be made available.
Such sharing is indeed on the increase. The more that it is possible to do this with
central intelligence, the less possible parochial manipulation through partial release
of information becomes. It has been suggested that the Congress should be able to
levy its own estimate requirements on CIA, and this is an idea worth exploring.
Procedures for promoting change
The discipline of the marketplace brings change. Much of what CIA does cannot
be out in the marketplace. Being responsive to a need to change and adjust poses very
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special problems for a closed organization. There is a need not only for CIA to be
much more closely attuned to the consensus of our free society, but also for a
reinforcement of its processes of eliminating the mediocre and the outdated.
CIA has had procedures to promote change, but I believe it is fair to say that they
did not work well enough. Undoubtedly a part of the reason for resistance to change
stems from a humanitarian concern about men whose services might no longer be
required. Another part might stem from a cautious reaction to preventing an over-use
of the Agency such as had marked certain periods in the past-an over-use which can
produce failures not balanced in The public mind with successes. It might have
derived from a realization that it would be much more difficult to operate in a multi-
polar world where the choices were less clear and where the cement of common
assumptions characterizing the Cold War period would be lacking. It may well be
prudent in some cases to keep standby capabilities until you are more certain that you
won't need them. However, much necessary change didn't take place simply because
it didn't have to.
Beyond the need to reinforce external procedures of promoting change, there is a
need to examine CIA's internal methods serving this purpose. Where did
recommended change take place and where did it fail to take place? What was the
record as regards Inspector General surveys? Where was lip service paid to their
recommendations but little actually ended up being changed? There were processes
of feedback and some attempts at evaluation. What happened to these? What is the
record on Management Advisory Groups? What was the upshot of training programs
designed to help challenge assumptions and promote rethinking? There should be a
considerable body of material available for analysis on what must be one of the key
problems of secrecy and intelligence in a free society.
To conclude: free society needs intelligence. It needs secrecy. But there has been
a loss of proportion, a loss of confidence and trust, and a lack of understanding on all
sides. These must be overcome because the free society needs to make wise use of the
capabilities at its command-and I include covert capabilities in this. It is high time
that a mending took place.
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On bringing all of the analytical disciplines to bear
THE CASE FOR A HOLISTIC INTELLIGENCE
Lloyd F. Jordan
The central thesis of this paper is that the increasing complexity of national
security problems requires that the Central Intelligence Agency adopt a new
approach to intelligence analysis. This approach requires that intelligence problems
which have important political, economic, scientific, military, and other salient
dimensions be treated in a manner that will assure from the outset that the interplay of
these various factors is taken fully into account. Since this thesis is based upon a belief
that the separate treatment of each of these factors is inadequate because the problem
as a whole is more than just the sum of its parts, it can be referred to as a holistic
approach. The finished intelligence product of such an approach - would be
qualitatively more than the mere sum of its parts by virtue of an extra dimension
provided by their integration at every stage of research-from the development of the
research design to the completion of the analysis.
The following discussion is focused on: (1) the two dominant characteristics of
the Agency's analytical process which make it deficient in meeting today's national
security requirements; (2) the rationale for and explanation of the proposed new
approach; and (3) the organizational and management implications of adopting such
an approach.
It is not the purpose of this paper to present a summary indictment of the past
and present modes of intelligence analysis; it is rather an attempt to identify the
reasons for their inadequacy and to define a new analytical approach which will
enable the Agency to cope better with the increasing number of complex intelligence
questions confronting it. Whatever is critical of past and present approaches to
intelligence analysis is intended as constructive criticism.
Dominant Characteristics of the Analytical Process
The approach to intelligence analysis within CIA has two dominant
characteristics which impair the Agency's capability to deal most effectively with
complex intelligence problems. First, despite the fact that the political, economic,
scientific, and military aspects of intelligence problems have become increasingly
interwoven, intelligence analysis tends to treat each of these dimensions
independently of the others. Political intelligence is produced as a final product
primarily by political scientists and historians, economic intelligence by economists,
and scientific and weapons intelligence by physical scientists and engineers. Second,
intelligence analysis has been and continues to be carried out largely without the
consideration of additional aspects of intelligence problems which all now agree are
important. For example, many of our major, intelligence problems need to be
analyzed from the perspectives of sociology, social psychology, and cultural
anthropology as well as from more traditional viewpoints. The negative impact of
these two characteristics of Agency analysis can best be discussed in the context of the
phases of the Agency's analytical process.
Intelligence analysis within the Agency can be characterized as a three-stage
process: (1) "building block" research, (2) intermediate-level analysis, and (3)
synthesis, or the production of national intelligence estimates.
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The "building block" phase of research involves the accumulation, sorting, and
organization of the vast amounts of information received which pertain to matters of
intelligence concern. It produces the underlying studies that constitute the basis for
subsequent, broader-gauged analysis intended to answer specific intelligence
questions. Because its focus is on the organization of informational fragments, the
"building block" phase of research lends itself-indeed, requires-a
microscopic approach taken from the point of view of individual aspects
or disciplines if it is to be done efficiently and with sophistication. Such research is an
indispensable continuing intelligence function. The need to perform it, however,
differs in degree in various problem fields and geographical regions. Much of the
crucial information needed for analysis is frequently unavailable to the intelligence
analyst. Therefore, the sifting, weighing, piecing, and structuring of bits and
fragments of available information on a particular problem is indispensable if the
analyst is eventually to have any foundation upon which to make intermediate-level
analysis and intelligence estimates.'
CIA's work over the years in developing "building block" analyses on a country
and problem basis has been and remains impressive. The work, for example, begun in
the 1950s and extending into the early 1960s on the Soviet and East European
economies, political systems, scientific and technical efforts, and weaponry
development attest to this excellent performance. More specifically, the numerous
research aids produced in the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) in the 1950s on
the Soviet Academy of Sciences, its departments, their structure, staff, and research
plans, the status of various fields of Soviet science and engineering were indispensable
first steps in the structuring of a meaningful data base upon which later more
sophisticated assessments of Soviet achievements and prospects for development in
various scientific fields and in weaponry were made. Likewise, the pioneering
"building block" analyses of the quantity, types of specializations, and quality of
Soviet and East European scientific and technical manpower were carried out in OSI
through a number of highly specialized studies. Similarly, the research in the 1950s
and early 1960s on the Soviet Bloc economies provided the foundations for later more
sophisticated economic intelligence analyses. There is, however, somewhat less need
now for such work in many problem areas of the USSR and East European countries
because both raw data and finished intelligence have been built up to substantial
levels, though undoubtedly new problems will continue to arise demanding that such
basic research be undertaken. In contrast, "building block" research will continue to
be indispensable to intelligence analysis on Communist China across a broad
spectrum of problems for several years.
On the intermediate level of analysis, the objective is to aggregate and
synthesize the material developed in various "building block" studies to produce
interpretative and predictive intelligence analyses. The monodisciplinary
microscopic approach that is so important for "building block" research has had, and
continues to have, an unfavorable influence upon the analysis work at the
intermediate level in two major respects. First, multidimensional problems are
approached too narrowly; i.e., they are not considered from all relevant aspects.
Second, too little attention has been given to spelling out exactly how the analysis
undertaken will lead to the answers sought and how underlying assumptions or
uncertainties must qualify the results. A review of prefaces and introductions to
It is in this "building block" phase of research that the analysts in the Central Reference Service
frequently make crucially important but frequently unheralded contributions.
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intermediate-level intelligence analyses-where the writer really owes the reader an
explanation of what it is he is about to do-of a number of different intelligence
problems reveals that studies at this level almost exclusively attack their problems
from a single point of view and without detailing the conceptual basis upon which the
analysis will proceed.
The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) process prior to 1973 was designed to
develop a synthesis of separate finished intelligence studies on a variety of problems to
support U.S. national security policy making. A review of the NIEs, however, reveals
that they, too, reflected the monodisciplinary approach to problems present in the
intermediate-level analyses prepared in the intelligence production offices. This is not
to say that a given NIE, for example, on Soviet military research and development
and others did not frequently incorporate sections on budgets, S&T capabilities,
quality of manpower, etc. The fact is, however, that these particular analyses were, in
large part, produced in different offices by several distinct organizations focused upon
separate specific pieces of the problem. It was really only at the National Estimates
level of analysis that an effort was made to put all the pieces together into some
meaningful whole.' Too often it was done by giving serial consideration to each of the
distinct aspects of the problem. The Office of National Estimates (ONE),
furthermore, was traditionally the preserve of the historians and political scientists,
with only an occasional infusion of expertise in other disciplines in the latter years of
its existence.' Beyond the resolution or accommodation of Agency differences, the
synthesis that occurred at the ONE level was essentially that of a style and format and
to a lesser extent substantive.' ONE's failure to deal in a satisfactory manner with the
interactions of various aspects of the problems it faced cannot legitimately be
attributed exclusively to it as an organization per seas much as to the type of analytical
inputs it received. It is virtually impossible to integrate meaningful discrete pieces of
analysis on different but related facets of a complex intelligence problem after the
research on the various pieces has been completed by analysts using different assump-
tions and sometimes mutually exclusive analytical approaches.
A number of CIA intelligence officers involved in analysis have recognized in
recent years the need to mount a different type of attack on intelligence problems. A
common concern is expressed in their writings about the need for the improved
integration of intelligence analyses relevant to particular multidimensional
problems.' They presented good evidence that the analytical process left much to be
desired in this respect. In his dialogue with Mr. Shryock on the issue of bringing
various schools of thought in Sovietology to bear on intelligence analysis on the Soviet
Union, Mr. Whitman stated that:
The national estimating process contributes even less to the synthesis of
methods and insights for which Mr. Shryock calls.
While the drafters of an NIE may be partial to one or another of Mr.
Shryock's schools, they perform little sustained research on their own and are in
2Ludwell Montague, Studies in Intelligence, XVI/2.
'Individuals with engineering and scientific backgrounds assigned for limited periods to ONE were
John Kerlin, Jim Porter, and Herb Orlins; with economic backgrounds, Edward Proctor, Louis Marengo,
and Penelope Thundberg, and possibly a few others.
'John Whitman, "Better an Office of Sovietology," Studies in Intelligence, VIII/1.
`Richard W. Shryock, "For an Eclectic Sovietology," Studies in Intelligence, VIII/ 1. John Whitman, op.
cit.
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principle eclectic. Their estimate is produced with little participation by the mul-
tifarious units of Sovietologists tucked away in various parts of the community.'
In general, however, these analysts sought mechanisms for introducing additional
viewpoints into the synthesis phase of the analytical process, rather than urging
changes that would ensure that all relevant aspects be taken into account in the
earlier phases of that process.
The present National Intelligence Officers (NIO) structure has potential for
creating an environment that could be conducive to the implementation of holistic
approach to intelligence problems on a geographical or functional basis. Several of the
Key Intelligence Questions (KIQ) strategies implicitly suggest the need for taking into
account the multifarious aspects of the intelligence problems with which they deal.
Inter-office projects or joint studies are mentioned in these papers; they reflect an
effort to synchronize analyses on the various dimensions of a given KIQ. This
approach, however, falls short of providing the type of integrated analytical focus to
be advocated here because, once again, the interactions between the various aspects of
the problem are left to the NIO to recreate late in the game on the basis of separately
prepared inputs.
In addition to the virtual absence over the years of any real integration of all
problem aspects in intelligence analysis, there has been virtually no attention given to
the perspectives of other disciplines such as sociology, social psychology, and cultural
anthropology. It appears that the policy for staffing the analytical components of the
Agency over the years has omitted the hiring of analysts with training or experience in
these three disciplines. This is not to contend that a number of people with such
backgrounds have not been employed by the Agency in various capacities, but it
appears that they were not recruited for the specific purpose of performing
intelligence analysis from the perspectives of their disciplines. The pattern of staffing,
therefore, has restricted significantly the spectrum of disciplines used in the solution
of intelligence problems.
The following case is illustrative. Since the inception of SALT, considerable
interest has been expressed by both analysts and policy makers in Soviet perceptions
of U.S. policies and intentions. The perception problem has also been raised in the
context of the relations among China, Japan, and the USSR. Despite major
contributions to the field of elite perception analysis-mostly by social psychologists
and political scientists-they have been largely neglected in the intelligence analysis
community. For intelligence purposes, there is a need to assess what has been done in
the academic community and to determine if and how such research can be adapted
to intelligence analysis.' Our past failure to incorporate such work has constrained
the Agency's ability to deal with some of its most important current problems.
The Case for a New Approach
To remedy these two deficiencies in the Agency's intelligence analysis sector, it
is necessary to adopt a holistic research approach to intelligence analysis at the
intermediate and estimative levels. This higher plateau of analysis must rest upon the
foundations of polydisciplinary research combined with monodisciplinary studies at
the building-block phase, undertaken from disciplinary perspectives heretofore largely
"Ibid., p. 65.
1'he Office of Political Research recently initiated a literature assessment on approaches to perception
analysis in the Analytical Support Center.
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untried in the CIA.' This approach can only be achieved by assigning analysts to a
given intelligence problem with disciplinary expertise relevant to its various facets in a
multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary research mode. More specifically, such an
approach would require that groups of analysts jointly embodying the capabilities
required to deal professionally with all the significant aspects of an intelligence
problem would work together as a team toward its solution. Communication between
team members and their mutual approach to the problem would have to be such that
a full understanding of the interactions between its economic, political, technical,
strategic, cultural, and sociological factors can be understood and delineated in a
form suitable to guide their analysis. So elaborate an approach to all tasks is obviously
not appropriate, but it is becoming essential in order to cope with the growing
number of very complex intelligence problems that are key to the making of policy
decisions. Such an analytical approach will provide the Agency with a finished in-
telligence product that can best be termed holistic.
What are the specific advantages of the polydisciplinary approach to intelligence
analysis? First, this approach will make more explicit than is now the case the
interrelationships of the various dimensions of complex intelligence problems which
are now treated in a fragmentary form or individually as discrete problems. Second,
possibly the most important objective of intelligence analysis is to identify the range of
possible outcomes of a given situation and to attach some ranking or likelihood to
each of them. A polydisciplinary research approach to intelligence problems offers
high promise in efforts to achieve this objective. Research to date on polydisciplinary
research has shown that:
The interaction among scientists of different disciplines will result in
new combinations of ideas that will not occur in the absence of intense team
interaction. This interaction will lead to the asking of questions that would
never be asked from a monodisciplinary perspective. And, finally, these new
combinations of ideas and the asking of new questions will generate a
greater range of proposed solutions to the team problem.'
The history of the development of the physical and natural sciences and
technology clearly shows that the majority of significant advances were the result of a
polydisciplinary research approach. This is no less true in the social sciences where
the movement to higher and more sophisticated levels of analysis has been made
'The following terms and definitions will be used throughout the remainder of this paper. They arc
adopted from the work of Michael Anbar and Bernard Cohen. See Michael Anbar, "The `Bridge Scientist'
and His Role," Research and Development, July 1973.
monodisciplinary approach-the analysis approach to a problem from the perspective of one
discipline,
polydisciplinary approach-the analytical approach to a problem from the perspective of several
disciplines.
The terms multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary refer to two modes of conducting
polydisciplinary research.
multidisciplinary mode-a monodisciplinary team leadership formulates the plan of the project and
specifies the contribution of each of the participants.
interdisciplinary mode--each of the disciplines represented on the team interacts on an equal footing
to formulate the plan of action and to specify the contributions of each of the participants.
'Michael Anbar, Op. cit.
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possible almost exclusively by the integration of concepts and approaches from
several disciplines. Such an integrative process has produced the landmark de-
velopments in the social sciences such as David Bidney's Theoretical Anthropology, the
first work providing a general theoretical framework for cultural anthropology, based
on work in anthropology, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and history;
Morgenstern and von Neuman's work on game theory which drew upon
mathematics, philosophy, and economics; Kurt Lewin's Field Theory in the Social
Sciences which was based upon psychology, mathematics, and sociology; and finally
Parsons and Shils' Toward a General Theory of Action which was built upon the adaption
of concepts and approaches from psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology, and
political science. This latter work provided a truly significant theoretical framework
for the social sciences in general.
It may be correctly contended that almost all the analytical offices of the
Agency are staffed, in varying degrees, with people who have training in various
disciplines. The presence, however, of such a staff does not mean that truly
polydisciplinary research in under way. Neither does the presence of an inter-office
research project task force mean that a polydisciplinary research design for the
project has been conceived and is being carried out. Inter-office projects frequently
result in the participating offices preparing their contributions for such a study
according to their respective missions and special expertise; these submissions are
then collated, edited, and organized to make a coherent presentation. Such products,
however, do not reflect the influence of a sustained dialogue among a polydisciplinary
group of analysts who work together within established conceptual frameworks of
analysis which explicitly relate the many aspects of the problems they are addressing.
In such an environment, each analyst has an opportunity to acquire a much broader
appreciation of a problem as a result of his exposure to the various ways that
individuals with different professional backgrounds may approach it.
Such efforts in the Agency have been few and far between but not non-existent.
Indeed, a considerable amount of the work performed by the Analysis Division of the
Office of Economic Reports (OER-then ORR) in the 1950s and early 1960s on the
Soviet and East European economies was based to some extent on a polydisciplinary
approach. This Division utilized the narrowly-scoped specialized studies prepared by
the engineering, technical, and economic specialists of the other components in the
Office in broader analyses considering various facets of the Soviet and East European
economies. In the Office of Scientific Intelligence, an attempt was made in the early
1960s to approach the analysis of the Soviet space program on a polydisciplinary
basis."' The problem was defined and specific pieces of it were assigned to various
analysts with the requisite disciplinary backgrounds to deal with them. This
analytical program encompassed the research contributions of intelligence officers
with backgrounds in the physical, engineering, natural, and social sciences. In this
effort, however, there was insufficient interaction among those involved in the project
to generate an analytical approach sufficiently sophisticated to encompass the many
interactions among the various factors of the problem they addressed. Such attempts
as these unfortunately remain exceptions to the overall pattern of intelligence research
at the intermediate-analysis level within the Agency.
There is also certainly a need for monodisciplinary intelligence analyses, but
such studies need to be conceived within more rigorously developed research designs
The Soviet Space Research Program Monograph If, Objectives CIA/SI 32-59 29 August 1959.
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which make explicit how the analysis will proceed and on what assumptions it will
rest. The spelling out of these "theoretical underpinnings" should include the clear
delineation of the conceptual view or model of the system (i.e., the state, the party, the
bloc, the weapon system, etc.) being studied, the assumptions that the acceptance of
that view imposes, any hypotheses to be investigated, the tests to be employed in
establishing their validity, the methods to be used in manipulating the information
involved, and a characterization of the data themselves. Unless a study proceeds with
some awareness of such considerations, it is unlikely to get beyond the descriptive
stage. Because these conceptual foundations are so important, they must be accessible
to the reader in explicit form. If a monodisciplinary study is to contribute to
polydisciplinary research, its underpinnings must be so well revealed and
understood that new and broader concepts for integrating a number of problem
factors can be developed. Thus a holistic approach to intelligence analysis will put
new demands even upon those studies produced with a single focus.
There are two major reasons for such work. First, there is a need to incorporate
into intelligence research additional discipline perspectives, primarily in the
behavioral sciences, to deal with the increasing number of questions wherein these
disciplines are relevant. As noted above, such disciplines heretofore have not been
used to any great extent in CIA analysis. Second, the conduct of monodisciplinary
studies from the standpoint of these disciplines would eventually help pave the way
for the integration of the contributions that they have to make to the analysis of
complex intelligence questions on a polydisciplinary basis.
There has always been, and there remains, a high level of U.S. intelligence
interest in various foreign governmental and private institutions and their
contributions to the governmental policy-making decision process. Different
disciplines provide considerably different analytical perspectives and, therefore,
different insights into the roles and internal dynamics of institutions. A sociologist, for
example, looks at political parties, political leadership, and bureaucracies in general
with significantly different considerations in mind than does a political scientist,
historian, or physical scientist. The result is that he conceptually models the problem
with which he is working in different ways."
Two recent books, Jean-Claude Thoenig's L'Ere des Technocrates, and Jacques-A.
Kosciusko-Morizet's La "Mafia" Polylechnicienne, are illustrative of the potential utility
of a particular type of sociological analysis to intelligence. Thoenig is a sociologist
specialized in the sociology of organizations and Kosciusko-Morizet is a scientist-
engineer steeped in the literature of the sociology of organizations.
Thoenig's work deals with the role of the corps of engineers for bridges and roads
in French public administration and in the broader context of French society. More
specifically, he focuses on the evolution of this elite group in French public
administration since the 18th century, the recruitment of its members, their
educational and social backgrounds and geographical origins; their discipline and
cohesiveness; the infrastructure of their own administration; and finally an analysis of
the significance of all these variables for the position they occupy in the French
government. This position is one that gives them a monopoly of authority over
For illustrative purposes see: David E. Apter, "A Comparative Method for the Study of Politics," The
American journal of Sociology, Vol. LXIV, No. 3, 1958, pp. 221-237; Leonard Reissman, "A Study of Role
Conceptions in Bureaucracy," Social Forces, Vol. 27, 1949, pp. 305-310; and Michel Crozier, The Bureaucratic
Phenomenon, The University of Chicago Press, 1967.
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highways, ports, canals, and airports throughout France and, therefore, over the bulk
of the French technical civil service at the national, departmental, and local levels.
Thoenig assesses the implications of this type of institution and elite for both French
public administration and society in general.
Kosciusko-Morizet's book, La "Mafia " Polytechnicienne, is a companion volume, in
it sense, to Thoenig's work. The author deals with the position of L'Ecole
Polytechnique as an institution in France,. its history, the role of its graduates in
French government administration, its role in the process of elite formation, the
place of this elite in the structure of French society, and the implications of their
position for the French political system and society in general.
The analytical frameworks of these studies emphasize the systemic and dynamic
aspects of institutional behavior; the emphasis is on the how rather than the why of
behavior; and both history and environment are examined to provide insight into the
ongoing process of institutional change rather than an explanation of the results of
change. 'Z This analytical emphasis has especially important implications for
intelligence in that it offers much potential for charting and understanding in advance
certain processes of change that are likely to produce particular types of institutional
behavior.
Despite the problems of data availability that obtain in much intelligence
analysis, especially on the closed societies, the approach employed in these two
studies suggests an excellent analytical framework for the analysis of the roles of
particular elites in various foreign institutions or social sectors. Indeed, though
retrospective or historical analysis is something of a luxury in CIA, it might prove
useful to undertake a number of such studies of institutions and programs of
longstanding intelligence interest. These studies should help improve the analyst's
basic understanding of how various foreign institutions function and change." This
type of an approach should, over time, move the analysis of foreign organizations and
programs away from its predominantly descriptive and why orientation to a more
analytical and predictive focus that would be valuable for both intelligence analysis
and clandestine operations.
It may be argued that the intelligence analyst does not have access to enough
data to undertake the types of analyses suggested above. It is a fact, nevertheless, that
studies of various institutions and programs are undertaken in CIA; the contention
here is simply that better defined research designs going beyond traditional
approaches will improve the analysts' capability to make the most of the available
data.
I )o such approaches or experiments properly belong only in the domain of the
academic investigators? The answer must be "no" if the Agency hopes to be prepared
to deal effectively with the increasing complexity of national security questions. As
For elaboration on this point see: Michel Crozier, "The Relationships Between Micro and
Macrosociology," Human Relations, No. 3, Vol. 25, pp. 239-251.
Che admonition of the distinguished cultural anthropologist, E. Evans-Pritchard, is apropos on this
point. He stated that the claim that one can understand the functioning of institutions at a certain point in
time without knowing how they have come to be what they are ..seems to me an absurdity." E. Evans-
Pritchard, "Social Anthropology: Past and Present," Man L, No. 198 (1950). The Marett Lecture,
1950, p. 123.
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long ago as 1958, R. A. Random, made the following observation which is most
relevant to the argument above:
To suggest that it is redundant and impractical to erect a science of
intelligence is not to reject the application of scientific methodology to
intelligence, and specifically the acknowledgement and use of the principles
of the social sciences applicable to the phenomena of intelligence. Such a
rejection would reject rationality and scientific principle as a basis for
practice, and substitute intuitive guesses and unanalyzed conjectures. While
irrational conduct of intelligence practice, like non-principled behavior
generally, may become skillful and may be successful to the extent of
attaining particular ends desired, as a rule it can be recommended only as a
kind of short cut in simple situations. When the situation is complicated and
the actor is confronted with multiple choices of action, reliance on non-
principled behavior introduces an unacceptably high level of probable error.
The propositions advanced above-that it is not profitable to develop
intelligence as a separate science because the phenomena with which it
deals are covered by the social sciences, and that the only sound practice of
intelligence is that based on the scientific method as specifically applied in
the social sciences-have important practical implications. The main one of
these is that we must build up within the intelligence community a
knowledge of scientific method and the techniques and principles of the
policy sciences and must study their application to intelligence problems.
We must do this because it is the only way to effect any fundamental
improvement in professional intelligence practice."
It may be contended that, in general, the level of theory and method in the
various social sciences is so primitive that they offer little aid to the intelligence
analyst. The rejoinder to this argument must be at least twofold. First, the accuracy of
this argument remains largely to be verified empirically in the Agency's intelligence
analysis process through experimentation with various theories and methods. Second,
granted that social science theory and method are primitive relative to those of the
physical and natural sciences, significant progress has been made in developing new
approaches to identifying and understanding the immensely complex interrelations
that occur among the actors within a given social system.
Although our ability to define mathematically how the effects of a perturbing
event will be passed from one element of the system to another is grossly limited, these
approaches at least better enable us to understand what is happening. Since
particular disciplines (e.g., economics, political science, etc.) tend to limit their
attention to only selected types of events and actors in a social system, it is important
that we include a number of different disciplinary perspectives and that they be as
rigorously defined as the state of the art will allow. Thus, the use of theory and highly
structured designs derived from the perspective of different disciplines should expand
the spectrum of hypotheses about a given intelligence problem.
There is no intention here to suggest that more attention to theory and research
designs in either polydisciplinary or monodisciplinary approaches to intelligence will
lead to the methodological rigor that obtains in the physical and natural sciences. On
the contrary, it is imperative that those engaged in both the management as well as
the conduct of intelligence analysis be alert to the pitfalls of slavish attempts to impose
R.A. Random, "Intelligence as a Science," Studies in Intelligence, 11/2.
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upon the analysis of social science phenomena the methodological rigor that is
productive in the physical sciences. Even to entertain such an expectation is to fall
victim to scientism."
The Implications of Adopting the Holistic Approach
It is not enough to advocate a major change in a function as important as
intelligence analysis without at least identifying some of its salient implications. It
must suffice here to outline only those that would seem to be most important if a
holistic approach were adopted.
Formulation of Intelligence Questions-A decision to take such a step would impact
significantly on the types of questions the intelligence community regularly addresses
at the three levels of analysis discussed earlier. For example, many of the discrete
questions now treated at the intermediate and, to some extent, at the synthesis levels
of analysis about such matters as particular aspects of foreign institutions, manpower
levels and costs of various economic and scientific research programs, and the perfor-
mance characteristics of weapon systems would be shifted backward to the "building
block" phase of analysis. Clearly, these types of questions are basic and indispen-
sable. With a holistic approach, however, such questions would become the underpin-
nings for the subsequent investigation of broader questions. The effect of this develop-
ment would be a redefinition of building block studies as a result of the
polydisciplinary consideration of more broadly posed intelligence questions.
Requirements and Collection-The adoption of a holistic approach to intelligence
analysis would have a significant impact upon that extremely important but
frequently neglected relationship between the analysts and the collectors of
information. First, the broader focus would result in the examination of problems
from different points of view which would in turn generate a different type of
intelligence requirement from that which generally has been asked by analysts
working predominantly within the framework of a single discipline. Increased
emphasis, for example, would be placed upon the interaction and relationships among
the variables of a given problem. In essence, the questions would deal more with the
way in which various systems operate internally than with the discrete external
features. Second, the use of more explicit and theoretically based research designs
should result in the better structuring and definition of data requirements to meet the
specific needs of the project by highlighting the key categories of data required. Third,
the requirements to support a broader analytical approach would require a
substantial understanding of the research designs for particular intelligence projects
by the collectors of information. All three of these factors would undoubtedly affect
the nature of intelligence collection operations and place new demands upon those
involved in them.
V or example, polydisciplinary intelligence analysis would probably require, over
time, innovation in approaches to clandestine intelligence collection. "Thus, efforts to
collect information about a particular foreign elite's perceptions on important
political, economic, or strategic issues might necessitate the use of indirect or
clandestine opinion survey research in the target country.
Staffing of Analysis components-Clearly, the polydisciplinary approach requires an
examination of past and present personnel requirements and recruitment policies of
.For an excellent discussion of this problem see F. A. von Hayek, "Scientism and the Study of
Society," Economica, Netv Series 9 (1942), pp. 267-91; 10 (1943), pp. 34-63; and 11 (1944), pp. 27-39.
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the Agency's analysis offices. To approach intelligence analysis on such a basis
requires disciplines that are not present in the Agency's analytical staff. The narrow
professionalism that has permeated staffing philosophy within the Agency's analysis
components must give way to the acceptance of the fact that the ever-increasing
interplay among scientific, economic, political, cultural, and strategic variables and
the relationship between domestic and external affairs must be viewed at every level of
the intelligence analysis process. This view must prevail if the final intelligence
product is to be the most useful and relevant that can be provided the policy makers.
Management of analysis-The implementation of a holistic approach to intelligence
analysis would be a difficult undertaking. It would present major challenges to both
the managerial and working levels of both the analytical and collection components.
Not the least of these challenges would be the immensely difficult task of reorienting
several sectors of a large bureaucracy away from well-established practices to
significantly new ways of doing business. For example, it would be necessary for each
analyst involved in a polydisciplinary-based project to become very familiar with
facets of a given problem other than those in which he or she is a specialist.
A number of significant alterations in the present structure and management of
analysis would be required over time as a result of the adoption of a polydisciplinary
approach. It would be necessary to develop an organizational approach that would
allow the assignment of analysts now working in separate organizational elements to
a single analytical task. While organizational changes may contribute to the creation
of an environment conducive to polydisciplinary intelligence research, they alone are
not adequate for its successful realization. Perhaps more important than
organizational change is the philosophical outlook held by the managers and analysts
and their commitment to its implementation.
An additional important consideration in any effort to implement
polydisciplinary research is that experience elsewhere has revealed that different
managerial problems obtain in the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary
approaches to research and that different managerial qualities are needed. There is,
for example, a "bridging" role to be carried out by research managers. The need for
fulfilling this function helps to identify certain characteristics that managers of
polydisciplinary research should possess.
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In the preceding issue of Studies, Jack H. Taylor matched the results of NIEs on Soviet
weaponry against the thesis of Professor Albert Wohlstetter that the Pentagon track record-public
opinion notwithstanding-has been to underestimate rather than overestimate Soviet strategic
forces. Taylor found for Wohlstetter's thesis. In the following article Ross Cowey demonstrates that
the estimates fared much better in their non-quantitative judgments.
MORE ON THE MILITARY ESTIMATES
Ross Cowey
Having worked closely with Jack Taylor in drafting some of the National
Intelligence Estimates which he surveyed in his article in the February Review of
National Intelligence,* I read his piece on Soviet military estimates with great interest. I
found myself in agreement with most of his findings, but disappointed by his failure to
go farther with some of his analysis.
Taylor's summary of the Estimates reminded me of an observation which Abbot
Smith made in an article in the Fall, 1969 issue of Studies in Intelligence (X11114): "One
could easily make up a list of projections (from the military estimates) which were too
low, another of those which were too high, another of those which were substantially
correct, and a final one-very short-of those which, thanks more to luck than
wisdom, were precisely correct." Taylor certainly proves the point.
Admittedly, Taylor focused on the quantitative underestimates referred to by
Professor Albert Wohlstetter. ** What his article does not show, therefore, is that the
estimates were right with respect to a number of important, non-quantitative
judgments made over the years about Soviet forces. Perhaps the most significant of
these was the repeated judgment through the Sixties that the Soviets could not expect
to achieve strategic capabilities which would make rational the deliberate initiation of
general war.
Any review of the Estimates written since about 1962-i.e., since the advent of
improved collection systems-would also show that the intelligence community has
been able to provide warning of the introduction of every major Soviet strategic
weapon system well before its initial operational capability. We have not always been
able to agree among ourselves on the specific mission of each new system (e.g., the
SA-5 missile and the Backfire bomber) or-as Taylor shows-about the pace or
extent of its deployment. But we have been able to provide the planner with
knowledge sufficient for general guidance, if not for detailed planning.
I would agree with Taylor that part of the reason for our repeated
underestimates in the mid-Sixties of the impending growth in Soviet ICBM forces was
an over-reaction by the community to the gross overestimates on this subject in the late
Fifties. Over-reaction to past mistakes-at least to past overestimates-seems to be a
recurring pattern in the estimative process. Our overestimates in the mid-to-late
*See also Studies in Intelligence, XIX11.
**"Is There a Strategic Arms Race," Foreign Policy, Summer 1974.
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Fifties of Soviet missile, bomber, and fighter strengths were followed by
underestimates for each of those forces during the Sixties.
Another analytical syndrome working against us-one which may be even more
controlling-is our tendency to overestimate future force levels in the absence of firm
evidence, and to underestimate with the advantage of such evidence. During the late
Fifties, we were groping in the dark for information on what the Soviets were doing as
they translated the new technology of the space age into new military hardware. With
the introduction of more sophisticated intelligence collection methods in the Sixties,
we gained a much better appreciation of Soviet capabilities to make use of the new
technology. But this more complete base of information led to more conservative
analysis, and to consistent underestimating. The less information we had, the more we
overestimated; the more information we had, the more we underestimated. We hedged
against uncertainty, but felt constrained by evidence. This is not to say we would have
been better off with less information. What it does say is that we should guard against
this tendency to overestimate in the absence of hard evidence, and to underestimate in
its presence. Another phenomenon to which we seem to fall prey is the one to which
Wohlstetter refers in his article, and which Taylor cites: the intrinsic uncertainty of
predicting the size and mixture of a deployment program, because decisions on size or
mix can be reversed between the time of our prediction and the time of actual
deployment. In 1958, for example, we overestimated the strength of Soviet fighter
forces for the early Sixties, but this resulted mainly from Khrushchev's unanticipated
decision in the interim to cut back Soviet general purpose forces in favor of missiles.
Indeed, our estimates-right or wrong-can in themselves have an impact on
force-level decisions, in both the U.S. and the USSR. The infamous "missile gap"
gave strong impetus to U.S. strategic weapon programs, which contributed at least
indirectly to Khrushchev's decision to put strategic missiles into Cuba. Soviet
embarrassment in Cuba in turn gave impetus to the USSR's strategic weapon
programs. The ensuing underestimates of the growth in Soviet ICBM forces resulted
at least partly from our failure to take full account of this action-reaction
phenomenon. The full effect of such interactions is so unpredictable, however, as to
make complete accounting difficult if not impossible-even in retrospect.
In the submarine force estimates, we ran into a different problem: mirror-
imaging-the tendency to use American experience as the means to measure likely
Soviet goals. In the early Sixties, we estimated (without any direct evidence) that the
USSR would follow the U.S. lead and build a sizable force of ballistic missile
submarines. What we did not recognize at the time was that the Soviets saw a need for
more cruise missile submarines-to defend themselves against U.S. aircraft
carriers-and that the Russians were having difficulty developing an acceptable
ballistic missile submarine system. The result was that full-scale production of
modern ballistic missile submarines did not start in the USSR until the mid-Sixties,
which put our estimates of the early Sixties way over the mark. I would like to think
that the later and correct five-year estimates of 1968 and 1969 resulted from my
having written them, but in reality they resulted merely from straight line projections
of identifiable production rates-on up to the "mirror-imaged" and now
demonstrably low estimate of as many as 50 modern ballistic missile submarines. a
figure we then believed to be the ultimate Soviet goal.
The list of quantitative errors, then, is a long one. But this, perhaps, is not so
surprising, considering the number of specific estimates made and the limited amount
of information available to us at the time they were made-at least in the early part of
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the period. The future is not likely to be any brighter. We will not be wanting for
sophisticated intelligence collection systems, but difficult-to-observe qualitative
improvements in the weapons already deployed will be as important to us in the
future as changes in the observable number of delivery vehicles have been in the past.
In an arms control environment, where most of the developments prohibited by a
treaty will be those which are relatively easy to monitor, we will not only have to
watch for violations of the agreements themselves but will have to try to follow the
variety of more difficult-to-observe improvements in Soviet weapon systems which
will be permitted and which are likely to proliferate under such agreements. More
than ever, the task for intelligence will be to observe the unobservable-and as the
Soviets become more cognizant of our intelligence sources and methods, more things
are likely to become less observable.
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For the preceding issue, Robert M. Clark provided a layman's guide to the birth,
developments, and some of the basic tenets of Scientific and Technical Intelligence, possibly with a
somewhat jaundiced eye and with tongue rather firmly in cheek. In the interest of balance, we provide
the answer he provoked from fellow S&Tman Donald C. Brown.
The Editor
ANOTHER VIEW OF S&T ANALYSIS
It was with a feeling akin to deja vu that I read Dr. Clark's article. What he
describes is very familiar, but it just isn't the S&T intelligence that I know.
With the large variety of individuals, government agencies, quasi-official bodies,
segments of private industry, and an assortment of fans involved in some way with
scientific and technical intelligence, it is not surprising that there are so many views
on what this area of the intelligence art is. Perhaps Dr. Clark's article can serve as a
starting point for a more rigorous development of the philosophy of what technical
intelligence ought to be. Studies, as the professional journal of Intelligence, would fill a
real need by opening its pages to such a continuing dialogue. I shall return to this
point later with some suggestions.
Although I think I agree with many of the things Bob Clark says, I profoundly
disagree with others, and all in all I must conclude that he and I are viewing S&T
Intelligence darkly through different glasses. His view appears to me in part to be too
simplistic, in part to dwell on peripheral issues at the expense of the central point, and
in part to be just plain wrong. A cynicism which I believe to be unwarranted crops up
here and there against the intelligence "outsider," also.
A few of Clark's specific points bear discussion.
To Describe a Weapon is to Know All
Early on in the article, we come upon the surprising statement, "Once you know
the characteristics of an enemy weapon system then his tactics and strategy for using
the weapon system follow naturally" (!). It would be useful to know more clearly what
the author means by tactics and strategy, but this statement does little justice to the
complex distinctions between capabilities and intentions. The example the author
uses, of the ICBM accuracy needed to disable Minuteman missile silos, appears
plausible at first glance, but one need only follow the debate generated during the
past year by Dr. Schlesinger's public musings on the proper use of this country's very
accurate missiles to recognize that strategy and tactics are not wholly determined by a
weapon's technical characteristics.
I would agree that it should be a goal of S&T Intelligence to describe weapon
system characteristics, but there is much more to assessing the meaning of the system
than sheer mechanical description.
Proving A Negative is a Fool's Errand
Under "Case #2" ("we develop weapons-they don't develop weapons"), the
author cites several examples of estimates made in the absence of real evidence, then
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complains about the difficulties of refuting such assertions. I suppose all of us analysts
have complained at some point in our careers about this problem. The issue in my
view, however, is not, how do we suppress the asserters?, but, how can S&T
intelligence improve its capability to deal with important questions? Certainly, if we
concern ourselves only with questions on which we have "adequate" information we
will be in danger of propagating a distorted picture. There is much that we can do in
the way of identifying the information needed to answer important questions, and
much that we can do to collect it, but there will always be inadequate information.
Someone needs to give some deep thought to a better way of usefully illuminating the
issues for which hard intelligence information does not exist.
We Tend to Ignore Developments That Don't Mirror Our Own
In "Case #3" ("we don't develop weapons-they develop weapons"), Clark
oversimplifies the history of U.S. intelligence interest in anti-ship cruise missiles by
confusing the missile with the system. It is true that the threat posed to U.S. naval
forces is better appreciated today than it was in the early 1960s, but that is because
the threat is greater, not necessarily because the intelligence community was slow on
the uptake. It takes more than a missile to threaten a ship: the missile must first be
placed within firing range of the ship and provided with a knowledge of where it
should go to hit the ship. In truth, the Soviet anti-ship missile forces did not pose a
serious threat to the U.S. surface fleet 15 years ago. The fact that they do today is
attributable to the tremendous growth and expansion of deployment of the Soviet
navy and the consequent growth of total cruise missile system capabilities-launch
platforms, targeting systems, and communications, as well as missiles.
There is nevertheless a lesson in this example. S&T Intelligence can and must do
a better job of anticipating problems and putting itself in a position to cope with them
when they become real.
Phantoms in the Night
I'm not sure what point Clark is trying to make in his discussion of "Case 14"
("we don't develop weapons-they don't develop weapons"), but I gather that he
feels frustrated answering the "what if . . . ?" questions such as the one on SAM
upgrade.
On the contrary, I feel that CIA's S&T Intelligence took a large step toward
maturity as an analytic discipline during the SAM Upgrade Era of the late 1960s. It
was certainly an unconventional issue in its time and one not without its frustrations.
(One of my favorite memories is of a non-senior CIA official summing up his
exasperation before an august review panel with the not-quite-technical argument,
"What I don't understand is how the U.S. can't build an effective ABM system after
spending ten years and billions of dollars, and you think the Soviets can do it with a
bunch of tin cans.") But those of us who were intimately involved in the issue are a
little proud that we were pushed by our management into wading into an argument
that went against our intuition (a "stupid" hypothesis), and treating it from a strictly
analytical viewpoint. It was a tough problem, and the stakes were potentially high,
but isn't that exactly the sort of thing S&T Intelligence should be doing-reducing
the uncertainties in the information used by policy makers.
The lesson I carried away from the SAM Upgrade Blues is that S&T Intelligence
must be more open to unconventional approaches, and we must always be prepared
to make our case on hard-headed technical analysis and not on emotion. Steps have
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already been taken within the DDS&T to examine such "wild" schemes ourselves
rather than waiting to be surprised by outsiders.
The Truth Shall Make You Free
Clark says, "The objective of any intelligence analysis is the truth ...." That's a
pretty highfalutin notion of our calling, especially since I think most people would be
hard pressed to say what the truth might be in most of the issues on which we work. I
certainly don't want to see the experiments which demonstrate the truth about the
accuracy of Soviet ICBMs against the U.S. or the number of Minuteman reentry
vehicles the Moscow ABM system can intercept.
I would prefer to see S&T Intelligence aim for something a little more
attainable-and understandable. Part of that objective might be to describe and
analyze foreign weapon systems and technologies in a way that is of most use to U.S.
policy makers. How to meet this goal should be the subject of prolonged discussion,
but I think a central feature of any attempt should be to erect a rigorous logical
framework for each analysis so that the user can clearly understand its underlying
assumptions and the limits to its utility. I am reasonably sure of one thing: We can
only reduce the value of our efforts by any pretense that we are revealing abstract
truth.
Inexpert Experts
On the subject of experts, Clark seems to miss the forest for the trees. By his
definition, I gather, the expert is the tradition of someone from out of town who
carries a briefcase. He should be more selective. The test of expertise is not hard to
apply, and experts in and out of the official intelligence community have contributed
in every facet of our work.
The tale of the ABM radar used to illustrate the caution about experts seems to
me to have most of the characteristics of a shaggy dog story. All intelligence problems
include different and often contradictory hypotheses at first (else, would they be
problems)? As evidence accumulates (in the case of the ABM radar, as construction
progressed), we hope we can narrow the bounds on the uncertainty. But what is the
point of the tale? I contend that in the intelligence trade it is of little value to be right if
your reasoning is not persuasive, and apparently, in Clark's example, those who
eventually proved correct about the radar were unable to establish their case
persuasively. Even guessers can be correct, but we are not in the business of guessing.
Those Perfidious Contractors
The section on contractors illustrates the ancient maxim: All generalizations are
wrong, including this one. It is not hard to understand, when one is exposed to a
philosophy as cynical as this, why Clark has had little success with contractors.
Of course a contractor is in the business for the money, much as Clark and I
always cash our pay checks. If you can clearly define a problem which you can't solve
yourself, if you can make a contractor understand your problem, if you have
investigated the contractor's capabilities thoroughly enough to convince yourself that
he can solve the problem, and if you supply him with the needed information, then
you will probably be satisfied with the results. If you can't do those things, then you
have no right to expect good results.
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