DRAFT PAPER: 'THE ROLES OF THE DCI . . . (PRM-11 TASK 2)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79M00095A000300020001-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 126
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 10, 2008
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 27, 1977
• Content Type: MF

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Intelligence Common c Staff
?????'
The Director of Central Intelligence
washingt.n. D C. 20505
ICS 77-2146/a
27 April 1977
MEMORANDUM FOR: See Distribution
FROM
Director of Performance Evaluation
and Improvement
SUBJECT Draft Paper: "The Roles of the DCI . ? ? It
TREA has not reviewed. (PRM-11, Task 2)
Processed IAW CIA TREA
arrangement letter dtd
4/11/08. 1. Attached is a complete draft of the subject paper,
sans certain graphics being prepared for later inclusion.
2. Please submit your comments, criticisms, proposed
additions or deletions, etc., by close of business Wednesday,
4 May 1977. Address them to my new quarters: Room 3N07
gray/green. Given probable contusions attending our move,
it would be most desirable to have comments delivered by
courier.
3. It is highly improbable that this paper can be
fully coordinated and agreed. My aim is to correct factual
errors and reflect significant differences of view. Many
comments on this paper could be very useful in preparing
responses to other parts of PRM-11. Please, therefore, give
adequate reasoning for any recommended changes, deletions,
or additions (other than editorial); the reasoning is as
likely to get in as the proposed fix. Unless you instruct
otherwise, I would like to identify the source of such
comments where it would help the intended audience to better
understand the Community.
DIA, OSD, STATE, JCS,
NAVY, USAF reviews
completed
Attachment:
ICS 77-2146
FBI REVIEW COMPLETED NSC REVIEW
COMPLETED, 6/26/2003
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NRO review(s) completed.
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Distribution: ICS 77-2146
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Admiral Stnsfield Turner
E. H. Knoche
Robert R. Bowie
Richard Lehman
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Thomas K. Latimer
Admiral Bobby R. Inman
Harold Saunders
Emerson Brown
Samuel Hoskinson
Col. Robert Rosenberg
Maj. Gen. Harold R. Aaron, USA
Rear Adm. Donald P. Harvey, USN
Maj. Gen. Eugene F. Tighe, Jr., USAF
LTG Lew Allen, D/NSA
LTG Samuel Wilson, D/DIA
J. Foster Collins, Treasury
MG Edward Giller, ERDA
Thomas Leavitt, FBI
OSD (P. Doerr)
JCS (W. Meukow)
State (D. Carpenter)
NSA
DDI k . bteven!
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DDO
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0/Compt
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NFIB Ex.
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STAT
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STAT
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',Nor ICS 77-2146
The Roles of the DCI and
U.S. Intelligence:
An Organizational Analysis
I. Introduction
II. Basic Criteria for Organizational Judgment
III. The Roles of the DCI
A. Principal Advisor to the President and
the NSC on Foreign Intelligence Affairs
B. Producer of National Intelligence
1. National Intelligence Defined
2. National Intelligence Vehicles
3. Performance Evaluation
C. Leader of the Intelligence Community
1. Current Collection Management: The
Requirements and Priorities System
2. Requirements, Planning, Programming
and Budgeting Intelligence for the Future
D. Head of CIA
E. Protector of Intelligence Sources and Methods
F. Participant in U.S. Foreign Counterintelligence
Policies and Activities
G. Guarantor of Propriety
H. Coordinator of Liaison with Foreign Intelligence
Services
I. Spokesman to Congress
J. Public Spokesman
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IV. Summary Assessment
A. Propriety
B. Effectiveness
C. Efficiency
1. Current Collection, Requirements,
Priorities and Tasking
2. Assembling Resources for the Future:
Programming, Budgeting, and Other
Management Powers
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I. Introduction
In PRM/NSC-ll, the President directed a thorough review
of the missions and structure of US intelligence entities with
a view to identifying needed changes. As part of this review,
the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) was directed to
analyze his own role, responsibilities, and authorities. This
report responds to that task.
Intelligence can be thought of as a service industry in
government, a diversity of organizations serving a variety
of customers with varying needs. At the very origins of
post-war US intelligence, Congress and the President responded
to a strongly perceived need to create some degree of unity
amid this diversity. The Office of the DCI, and under him
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), were created to afford
a degree of unity -- as well as some independence from the
policy process -- with respect to information and judgment
on intelligence questions of national importance. In the inter-
vening years, the size and diversity of US intelligence has grown.
But so also have the pressures for unity amid diversity. As the
nation's senior, full-time intelligence functionary, the DCI
has been the focus of these pressures. He is the President's
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principal advisor on foreign intelligence, and national
intelligence of preeminently Presidential concern is produced
under his authority. He has come to preside over Community
mechanisms that decide how to use major technical collection
capabilities on a day-to-day basis. Since the November 1971
directive of President Nixon, he has been increasingly expected
by the President and the Congress to be the guiding authority
with regard to programs and fiscal resources
entities specified as national.
The role of the DCI is anchored
authority from the President and his
of US intelligence
in a direct line of
advisory body, the National
Security Council (NSC), to the DCI and the CIA. This line
originated with the office of the DCI and is unambiguous.
Surrounding this direct line, however, are a host of vital
relationships with other entities of the Executive Branch which
generate and receive intelligence. These other relationships
do as much to shape the role of today's DCI as does his line
command of CIA. For many years CIA has itself been highly
dependent on them. In recent years, they have come to strain
the DCI's relationship with CIA.
Of these other relationships, that with the Department of
Defense (DOD) is the most significant and involved, strongly
influenced by the fact that the Secretary of Defense, by virtue
of his place in the National Command Authority, has a similar
but quite separate direct line of authority from the President.
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Characterizing this relationship with the DOD goes a long way
toward defining the role of today's DCI. It shall be treated
further in following sections. Here, it should be noted that:
a._ The DOD consumes the greatest volume of
intelligence from the Community of agencies
over which the DCI has responsibility. Its needs for
intelligence approach those of the entire government
in scope and variety. Many of its needs arising from
force planning and operational action responsibilities
are large and unique.
b. Much of the raw intelligence on which the
performance of the DCI as intelligence producer depends
is collected and processed by intelligence elements
within the DOD.
c. Defense intelligence production entities, in
addition to supporting DOD consumers, play a major role
in the development of national intelligence judgments
through the National Foreign Intelligence Board (NFIB)
and national estimates. In some areas of analysis,
their contributions are unique.
d.
is with the intelligence authorities of this department
that the DCI and his Community Staff must interact most
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intensely to develop the consolidated NFIP and budget
for which he is responsible.
e. It is in the relationship with DOD that the
interwoven complex of national, departmental, and
tactical intelligence needs and capabilities arises
most sharply to complicate the definition of the
DCI's role.
f. In the event of war, and even in some peace-
time situations, the DCI's role could conflict with
that of the Secretary of Defense.
Although not as ramified, the DCI's relationship with
the Department of State is also vital. Foreign Service reporting
a form of collection ?not formally identified as intelligence --
25:0
makes a major contribution to political and economic intelligence.
State is also a heavy consumer of foreign intelli-
gence, and its Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) both
contributes to national intelligence judgments and produces
unique political analyses.
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'wow
Small in size and specialized in interest, the intelligence
elements of the Treasury Department, Energy Research and
Development Agency (ERDA), and Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) flesh out the formal intelligence relationships of the
DCI's Community. They and the departments they serve have
increased in importance as intelligence has had to diversify
into new areas of international economics, nuclear proliferation,
terrorism, and drug control.
The purpose of this report is essentially to describe and
assess the unifying roles of the DCI, along with other, in
some respects conflicting, roles which he has. Such an assess-
ment of the roles of the DCI is essential to deciding anew the
more basic questions:
a. What degree, extent, and kind of unity should
be sought in the inherent diversity of US intelligence?
b. Who should be responsible for it and with what
powers?
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II. Basic Criteria for Organizational Judgment
In understanding or structuring any management system,
a first task is to establish the functioning spheres of
responsibility and authority, and their limits -- essentially
how the cloth is divided. The second task is to establish
how and to what extent that cloth is sown back together in
order to overcome the negative aspects of necessary divisions
of responsibility and to make the parts function as a whole.
This is a large challenge for US intelligence because of
institutional and functional diversity and the countervailing
necessity that the parts interact as a whole.
One approach frequently used to rationalize Community
structure is to argue distinctions between national, depart-
mental, and tactical intelligence. This tripartite formula
arises largely from the relationship of the DCI and the DOD,
and is reflected as well in the intelligence-related functions
of other departments, e.g.., in the reporting of Foreign Service
Officers or Treasury attaches. This formula has serious
weaknesses and frequently confuses more than it clarifies.
Defining the terms usually obliges use of other terms left
undefined. For example, it is said that national intelligence
is that intelligence needed by the President, the NSC, and
senior US officials to make national policy decisions. But
what are national policy decisions? They are decisions those
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officials want and are able to make; they frequently reach
deep into the affairs of departments and can dictate the
tactics of military and diplomatic actions.
The essence of the organizational problem in intelligence
is that these concepts overlap extensively in meaning, at least
some of the time. The needs of consumers overlap. The
President is always interested in broad assessments of Soviet
foreign and military policy. But, in a crisis at sea, ?he is
likely to be interested in the exact location of specific naval
combatants, a seemingly tactical issue. By the same token, a
field commander or foreign mission chief needs broad strategic
assessments, as well as tactical information. The uses to
which a given intelligence fact or judgment can be put also
overlap in the tripartite formula. An assessment of the hard-
ness of Soviet missile silos, for example, can be of direct
value to the operational planner of strategic strikes, to the
force planner, to strategy and national policy planners, and
to the arms controller; the President is likely to be interested
in all these applications. The organizations and systems that -
collect intelligence data also overlap the categories of
national, departmental, and tactical. This is particularly
true with emergent space-based reconnaissance systems that may
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Thus, the key organizations and systems of US intelligence
can or do play extensively overlapping roles at different times.
Although only imprecisely, ?one can distinguish among primary
and secondary missions of major organizations in terms of the
national, departmental, and tactical formula. But ?this only
resolves the easy cases, leaving a large middle ground for
argument and a poor basis for organizational judgment.
Organization is about management, and management is about
basic purposes and standards of performance. Organizational
judgment must be based on a clear understanding of basic
performance criteria that do or should govern US intelligence.
Three such criteria are propriety, effectiveness, and efficiency.
Propriety demands that US intelligence be conducted in
conformity with the legal and political standards of our country
as interpreted by proper authority. In today's conditions,
propriety may tend to conflict with effectiveness and efficiency
by restricting certain means of collecting or using intelligence
or forbidding the collection or use of certain kinds of intelli-
gence. It tends to conflict with intelligence requirements
for secrecy on which effectiveness and efficiency depend.
Assuring the propriety of US intelligence in appropriate balance
with conflicting considerations is not essentially a matter of
organization, although clear lines of command and management
responsibility ease this task. This is essentially a matter of:
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a. establishing a sound environment of law and
regulations;
b. establishing sound oversight or policing mech-
anisms within and outside intelligence organizations; and
c. cultivating appropriate professional and
management values within intelligence entities.
Establishing the demands of propriety on intelligence and
assuring that they are met is a matter demanding careful
thought and high-level decision. But because few organiza-
tional issues are raised, this subject will not be treated
extensively in this report (see pp. 90 ).
The concept of effectiveness in intelligence management
is output or product oriented. It is, therefore, preoccupied
with consumers and with how well they are being served --
with who the consumers are, what they need, when they need
it, and why they need it. As already indicated, US intelli-
gence serves a great variety of consumers with a great
diversity of needs. Within the Executive Branch, they can
be arrayed in terms of the following rough hierarchy:
a. the President, the NSC, ?and Cabinet-level
decisionmakers; those who decide the policies of the
Administration on foreign, military, arms control, and
foreign economic matters, and on crisis management.
b. policy and strategy planners; option developers;
force posture, major program, and budget developers;
planners of negotiations; those who present the Presidential
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and NSC level with structured choices on broad policy
issues and crisis options.
c. central implementers of policy and operational
planners in foreign, military, and foreign economic areas.
d. field and tactical decisionmakers; policy or plan
implementers, e.g., diplomats and military commanders.
These kinds of intelligence consumers are found, of course,
in the main departments of the US national security establishment:
the Executive Office of the President and the NSC Staff, State,
Defense, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), and, to
a lesser extent, in most other departments and several regulatory
agencies. One must also count Congress as a substantial consumer
of intelligence, and, to a degree, the public, which receives a
substantial amount of its information about events overseas, at
least about the Communist world, indirectly from US intelligence.
Finally, because it must store ?up information and analysis to
meet future or unexpected needs, intelligence is itself a major
consumer of intelligence end products.
But service to the policymaking entities of the Executive
Branch is the measure of effectiveness in intelligence. Their
needs for intelligence are without limit in principle and
constantly growing in practice. They touch upon all areas of
the globe and embrace most fields of human knowledge. It should
also be noted that very few consumers of intelligence have any
direct responsibility for or even contact with the management
or allocation of intelligence resources. For most consumers at
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all levels, intelligence service appears as a "free good,"
however satisfactory or unsatisfactory the supply.
Effective service to intelligence consumers dictates a
number of organizational principles:
a. The service or output end of intelligence must
be highly diversified and relatively specialized to
meet the diverse special needs of consumers. This
demands specialized intelligence production support to
departments, agencies, subcomponents, commands, etc.
size, scope, and level depending on the case. The
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), INR, the
and ERDA's intel-
ligence element are examples of the varying levels of
support necessary to meet the specialized needs of
departments.
b. The President, the NSC, and, for that matter,
all other major consumers need some source of intelligence
that is independent of policy institutions and broadly
competent. This principle justifies CIA's role as a
producer of finished intelligence.
c. To the extent practicable and consistent with
security, the system must fully share information within
itself. All production entities in a given subject area
should share the same data and analysis.
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d. The Community must have the means to come
together to render a collective judgment or disciplined
disagreement on vital intelligence issues. This is
essentially what national estimates and other interagency
products have been intended to do.
Of course, effective intelligence support to consumers depends
on a great many considerations other than organizational
structure. But the structure for producing intelligence within
the US Government must reflect the above principles to be
effective at all.
The criterion of efficiency in US intelligence is concerned
with resources, the processes whereby they are employed, and
their impact on production. After two decades of "organic
growth" during the Cold War, concern for efficiency in Community-
wide resource management is a comparatively recent phenomenon,
accompanying a general skepticism about national security
spending and a downturn over the last half-dozen years in real
outlays on intelligence. Critical scrutiny of intelligence
behavior by government and the public has intensified the concern
with efficiency in the last three years. In the 1970s, two
Presidential initiatives relating to Community authority structure,
in 1971 and 1976, were both wholely or partly directed at
improving the efficiency of Community resource management.
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Efficient management of intelligence resources proceeds
in two connected dimensions. Existing resources must be
optimally deployed and operated to meet existing intelligence
needs according to a priority scheme that managers can base
predictions on but that is still flexible. At the same time
and largely by the same set of managers, decisions must be made
as to what magnitude and mix of resources should be mobilized
for the future. How these two kinds of decisions are reached
in the Intelligence Community will be discussed in the next
section (see pp. 39 ). Again, however, some attempt to state
first principles can help one to understand and judge present
arrangements.
Intelligence resource management is largely a matter of
managing collection and processing resources, because that
is where most of the money and manpower are. Many collection
assets are developed to gain broad access (e.g., a broad
area imaging system) or potential access (e.g., an agent
with a promising future or a regional clandestine posture).
Broad access systems require extensive selection and processing
for useful data, all of which can rarely be captured.
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Potential access capabilities may or may not yield as
anticipated. Moreover, intelligence is a form of conflict.
Those managing intelligence resources are in reality doing
battle with others in the world whose main aim in life is
to frustrate the formers' efforts. These conditions challenge
the quest for efficiency, but should induce a certain modesty
in one's goals.
In terms of structure, efficient management of current
resources against current needs means giving control to the
party with the incentive to seek and the capability to
approximate the optimal allocation. To the extent intelli-
gence collection and processing resources are expensive and
scarce, relative to perceived needs there is a tendency
to centralize control. But other factors limit such centrali-
zation of control. Control may need to be contingent on
changing conditions in the case of capabilities with varied
application. Thus arises the question of shifting control of
certain national collection assets from the DCI in peace to
military authorities in war. Some collection capabilities, such
as tactical reconnaissance organic to combat forces, are justified
solely for the contingency of war support to those forces and
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must be controlled and subordinated accordingly. Some degree
of decentralization is reasonable in intelligence processing
(e.g" photo interpretation, signals analysis, document trans-
lation) to achieve focus and promptness in the service of
analytic users.
Assigning responsibility for programming future intelli-
gence resources for efficient satisfaction of future needs is
essentially a matter of deciding what should be traded off
against what, to maximize what value. What should a given
program element compete against in order to justify itself?
And for what goals? Desirable multipurpose capabilities
may have to compete simultaneously in several trade-off
and value markets. This logic would insist that the DCI and
the main departmental custodian of intelligence assets, DOD,
should be running materially different resource trade-off
markets. The DCI should be expected, in the main, to trade
off intelligence resources against other intelligence resources;
the DOD, on the other hand, should generally be expected to
trade off intelligence resources against military forces and
support programs.
Here it should also be noted that the care and incentives
applied to the trade-off of interest may vary with the size of
the intelligence package relative to the money market in which
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it competes. The DCI market place is 100 percent intelligence.
The DOD market place is less than 5 percent intelligence.
Any system for allocating intelligence resources must
balance contending claims from many users of intermediate and
final intelligence products with a central authority capable
of resolving disputes in a rational manner. It must also
balance rigorous assessment of costly initiatives with enough
flexibility or permissiveness to permit initiatives to be
pursued in the face of uncertainty.
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III. The Roles of the DCI
The only responsibility specifically assigned to the
DCI by statute is the charge ?in the National Security Act of
1947 that he "shall be responsible for protecting intelligence
sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure." But the
Act also designates the DCI as the head of the CIA, so the
duties that the Act gives to the CIA are, ?in practice, DCI
responsibilities. The DCI's roles are an assemblage of
responsibilities, powers, policies, actions, and implementing
institutions which have evolved over the past three decades.
This section examines ten key roles of today's DCI. They are:
a. Principal advisor to the President and
the National Security Council (NSC) on foreign
intelligence affairs;
b. Producer of national intelligence;
c. Leader of the Intelligence Community;
d. Head of CIA;
e. Protector of the security of intelligence
sources and methods;
f. Participant in US counterintelligence
policies and activities;
g. Guarantor of the propriety of foreign
intelligence activities;
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h. Coordinator of liaison with foreign '
intelligence services;
i. Spokesman to the Congress on foreign
intelligence;
j. Spokesman to the public on foreign
intelligence.
In discussing each role, an attempt will be made to identify
its basis in law and executive order; explain what the role
consists of and what organs are involved; describe its
problems, shortfalls, and tensions; and explore, where
relevant, its implications for Community structure.
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III. A. Principal Advisor to the President and the NSC on
Foreign Intelligence Affairs
This role derives from Section 102 of the National Security
Act of 1947 which defines the duties of CIA and, thereby, those
of the DCI to the NSC and the President:
"(d) For the purpose of coordinating the intelligence
activities of the several Government departments and agencies
in the interest of national security, it shall be the duty
of the Agency, under the direction of the National Security
Council --
(1) to advise the National Security Council
in matters concerningsuch intelligence activities
of the Government departments and agencies as
relate to national security;
(2) to make recommendations to the National
Security Council for the coordination of such
intelligence activities of the departments and
agencies of the Government as relate to the
national security;
(3) to correlate and evaluate intelligence
relating to the national security, and provide
for the appropriate dissemination of such intelli-
gence within the Government using where appropriate
existing agencies and facilities."
? In NSCID 1, President Truman made the DCI his principal
foreign intelligence advisor, and Executive Order 11905
reaffirms that the DCI shall "act as the President's primary
advisor on foreign intelligence . . ." [Section 3(d)(iv)]
The role of the principal advisor includes:
a. Presentation and discussion of intelligence
in meetings of the NSC and its committees, now the
Policy Review Committee (PRC) and the Special Coordination
Committee (SCC), and with the President directly;
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b. Advising on sensitive intelligence operations
in the SCC and with the President directly; and
c. Advising on intelligence policy and resources
generally in the NSC arena.
As an advisor to the NSC, rather than a statutory member,
and by the traditions of intelligence, the DCI is not a formal
participant in formulating and deciding US national security
policy. But the distinction between intelligence advice and
policy counsel in small, high-level debates can become blurred,
especially during crisis situations. Some DCl/s have been
relatively direct participants in the policy process at the
NSC level, others more distant in their advisory role. The
way this role is played depends in large measure on the
personal relationship of the DCI with the President and other
senior members of his Administration.
As an advisor on substantive intelligence, the DCI draws
his main support at present from his staff of National
Intelligence Officers (NI0s) and the Intelligence Directorate
of CIA. But other analytical components of the Intelligence
Community may be the source of information on the subject at
hand. Non-CIA elements of the Community fear to some extent
that the DCI's personal intelligence input to high-level
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policy deliberations is too much a monopoly of CIA by virtue
of the DCI's line relationship with CIA. At the same time,
State and Defense elements of the Community can have a direct
influence in this arena by informing the views of the
Secretaries of State and Defense ?and the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Especially as it is linked with a responsibility for
substantive intelligence production, the DCI's role as
principal advisor has important implications for Community
structure. It makes him the senior, full-time functionary
of the Executive Branch in the area of foreign intelligence.
It places an officer with executive responsibility over a
key intelligence agency and substantive responsibility for
any intelligence issue of top-level interest in direct
contact with the President, not reporting through a Cabinet
member. To the extent there is perceived a need for someone
to organize and manage the intelligence affairs of the US
government as a whole, there is a natural tendency to look
to the DCI. This tendency has been manifest in the President's
November 1971 directive, Executive Order 11905 of 1976, and
Congressional sentiment.
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III. B. Producer of National Intelligence
The DCI's role as producer of national intelligence origi-
nates with the duty given the CIA in the National Security Act
of 1947 to "correlate and evaluate intelligence relating to the
national security" [Section 102(d)(3)]. NSCID 1, effective
17 February 1972, lists as one of the four major responsibilities
of the DCI: "Producing national intelligence required by the
President and other national consumers" [Para 3. a. (2)].
Executive Order 11905 states that the DCI shall "provide him
(the President) and other officials in the Executive Branch
with foreign intelligence, including National Intelligence
Estimates," and shall "supervise production and dissemination
of national intelligence" [Section 3(d)(1)(iv)].
1. National Intelligence Defined
Defining this DCI role often becomes mired in a fruitless
effort to define national intelligence as distinct from other
forms such as departmental or tactical. In principle,
national intelligence is not distinct from these other forms
but a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. Its
hallmarks are that it:
a. Addresses the needs of the President, the
NSC, and other high-level decisionmakers.
b. Incorporates relevant information from all
sources available to the government;
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c. Represents the best analysis and judgment
available to the government.
d. Provides for a disciplined expression of
agreement and dissent among participating members
of the Intelligence Community, thereby permitting
departmental perspectives on national intelligence
issues.
National intelligence overlaps extensively with intelli-
gence that serves departmental and tactical needs, in terms
of sources, content, and intended audience or use. It draws
upon inputs from departmental elements of the Community. It
contributes to meeting departmental needs; NIEs, for example,
are supposed to provide the basis for DIA's Defense Intelligence
Projections for Planning.
In any case, national intelligence has the two principal
missions of providing to top-level US decisionmakers authori-
tative intelligence information and judgment relating to
national security policy and to provide warning of impending
developments affecting US national security. A corrolary of
the second mission is to provide intelligence support during
crisis or conflict situations to the President and his
immediate advisors.
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2. National Intelligence Vehicles
National Estimative Products: NIEs are the most formal
vehicles for developing and conveying national intelligence.
In fact, national estimative products flow via the varied
means of:
a. Major national estimates, which may, as in
the case of those on Soviet strategic forces, be of
large scope and volume;
b. Special NIEs on selected topics; and
c. Interagency papers aiming for collective
judgment but less than full consideration by the
National Foreign Intelligence Board (NFIB).
Such products may be requested by users or initiated by the
DCI or a member of the NFIB. Their preparation is organized
and supervised by members of the DCI's NIO staff, but the
burden of analysis and drafting lies mainly with Community
production elements and with several DCI committees organized
around subject areas. Final products are reviewed and approved
by the NFIB, where significant dissents are incorporated.
The main judgments of an NIE, however, are the DCI's, and
he has, in principle, considerable latitude in determining
how an estimate is to be prepared, what it says, and what
disputes are germane to the final product.
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NIEs attempt to pull information together from and to
serve all quarters. As a result, critics frequently find them
insufficiently focused and clear in judgment; collective judg-
ment is frequently charged to be waffled consensus. Moreover,
major NIEs are very labor-intensive efforts; much of the
typically scarce analytic talent available in the Community
on a specific topic is tied up in negotiating over draft
language. Sometimes this clarifies understanding, but often
it confuses or dodges issues. As a major estimate marches
forward to NFIB consideration, analytic experts become sup-
planted by agency representatives -- whose talents and
instructions may vary a good deal -- in the task of determining
what the estimate says.
The process of preparing estimates today is substantially
more ecumenical than it used to be. NIOs make a deliberate
effort to involve agencies other than CIA in major drafting
responsibility. Nevertheless, proximity of crucial talent
obliges the NIOs to lean heavily on CIA analysts. This
produces two problems: complaint from other intelligence
agencies, especially in Defense, that CIA continues to dominate
the estimative process; and complaint by the line managers of
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CIA's analysts, notably the DDI, that NIOs are in fact directly
tasking their people -- something they claim the NIOs cannot do.
National Current Intelligence: Under E. 0. 11905, the
responsibility for producing national current intelligence
as distinct from estimates -- is given to CIA. The function
of current intelligence is to communicate a running account
of events abroad, what is happening, who is involved, what is
likely to happen next. Its major vehicles are the President's
Daily Brief, a product of extremely limited circulation, and
the National Intelligence Daily, aimed at a larger audience
from the Assistant Secretary level on up. CIA, DIA, and the
National Security Agency (NSA) also produce a large variety
of current intelligence products that distribute the "news" to
much larger audiences. National current intelligence items
are coordinated among interested agencies as time and subject
permit.
Although cutbacks have been made in CIA's manpower for
current intelligence, it is still an expensive business at CIA
and elsewhere. Again, the effort to supply a good informa-
tion service to many varied consumers comes in for criticism.
Some find the lack of analytic depth in current products dis-
satisfying, while relevant national estimates are too infrequent
or long-term in focus to provide a reliable fare of mid-range
analytic commentary. Topical papers from individual agencies
do not seem to fill this gap fully.
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Less Formal Mechanisms: If national intelligence is
defined as that which contributes to national policymaking,
then other, less formal, kinds of products must be included,
such as inputs to Presidential Review Memoranda (PRMs) [formerly
National Security Study Memoranda (NSSMs)] and direct support to
on-going policy processes, such as the SALT and MBFR negotiations.
The process whereby these contributions are made varies a great
deal. In some cases, CIA, with or without involvement by NI0s,
may make an input directly. Departmental intelligence elements
may collaborate with CIA participants, or contribute directly
through departmental channels, In mammoth undertakings, such
as NSSM 246 and the current PRM-10, an effort may be made to
construct a Community-wide effort.
The lack of a formal system for making national intelli-
gence inputs to major policy studies has been troubling. The
risk of shoddy or biased intelligence inputs to important
studies exists. Yet in fairness, it should be stated that
the intelligence support to these efforts can hardly be
better organized or executed than the main study efforts
themselves, where a somewhat uneven record exists. The key
problem here for the DCI is that intelligence contributions
of substantial importance to national policy are being made
in a manner that precludes his effective oversight and
quality control. Whether or not he has or should have formal
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responsibility for such inevitably informal interactions with
the policy process is an open question. Yet it is very much
in this arena of direct give and take between intelligence
specialists and policy staffers that crucial services are
rendered and, furthermore, consumers decide whether they
think well or poorly of that service.
Net Assessments: "Net Assessment" is another area of
intelligence support to policy where problems and much
semantic confusion have arisen. Particularly as Soviet mili-
tary power has equalled or surpassed that of the US in various
areas, US policymakers have demanded from many sources,
including intelligence, ever more sophisticated comparisons
of US and Soviet power. Because such assessments involve or
imply judgments about US military or other capabilities, some
argue that intelligence should not conduct them.
In one light, net assessment is but a set of tools or
methodologies ?used to answer legitimate intelligence questions:
What are the military capabilities of a foreign power; what
are his most appealing options; how might the military balance
look to him? Using tools of operations research and systems
analysis, these questions can be addressed in terms of duels
between single weapons, force elements, or total military
posture. When looking at Soviet forces or other potential
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opponents of the US, it is reasonable to use realistic data
and assumptions about US force capabilities in doing these
analyses, even though some judgment about US policy and
forces is implied by the outcome of the analysis.
Net assessment in support of intelligence analysis is
a legitimate intelligence function. Components in the
Community appropriate to do such analysis have difficulty,
however, in acquiring enough people with necessary skills
and reliable information on US capabilities to conduct such
analyses on a meaningful scale.
Another problem arises with respect to net assessment
aimed specifically at informing policy choice or the selection
of military force options. Here, most in the Intelligence
Community would agree that intelligence should be limited to
a supporting role, making necessary inputs to what is directly
a form of policy analysis. But even a supporting role requires
that there be something fairly specific and organized to
support. Despite the existence of an office for net assess-
ments in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, largely
concerned with stimulating discrete studies by others, there
has been no focal point for policy-supporting net assessments
in the Executive Branch, Creation of such a focal point would
allow intelligence support to be more effective. It would still
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leave the delicate problem of determining how tightly Community
support to such efforts should be coordinated, if at all.
CIA Intelligence: The DCI is, of course, responsible for
the unique intelligence products of CIA, and E. O. 11905 made
the DCI specifically responsible for promoting the development
by CIA of national-level intelligence products. CIA's products
cover a wide range of subjects, time-horizons, and intended
users.
single
CIA in the Community; e.g.,
Soviet
issued
Some reports are specialized for the demands of a
customer; others report on analytic efforts unique to
or on
defense expenditures. Self-standing reports or serials
by CIA are frequently intended as background informa-
tion for both policymakers and other intelligence analysts
working in the same area. In CIA, as in other producing
entities, there is a need for written product to maintain the
analytic base and memory of the Community.
In addition to finished intelligence, CIA disseminates
a considerable amount of intelligence in less formal ways,
through day-to-day contact between CIA and policymaking
officials. This is a particularly important channel, for
example, in the case of DCI contact with the President, of
contacts by DDO and DDI area and substantive chiefs with
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their counterparts on the policy side? and of ongoing CIA
support for a variety of international undertakings, such as
SALT and the MBFR talks. When they come into play, these
less formal modes of communication can have as much, if not
more, impact on policy as does CIA's finished intelligence
product.
Crisis and Warning Intelligence: The provision of
warning and crisis- or conflict-management support to senior
US policymakers is a major .responsibility of national
intelligence. CIA and the office of the DCI were created
in large part to avert "another Pearl Harbor." It is, of
course, ?the duty of all intelligence collectors and analysts
at every level in every intelligence element to be alert for
any indication of an impending foreign development that would
affect US security interests. Partly for this reason, it has
been difficult for the Community to organize a systematic mecha-
nism that specializes in the warning problem. Such mechanisms
do exist at many levels. The key ones are alert and indications
lists pertinent to specific warning problems (e.g., a Soviet
attack in Europe);
24-hour watch and operations centers in the
main intelligence agencies; around-the-clock communications
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among the several operations centers and with the White House;
and the Strategic Warning Staff located in DIA, jointly manned,
and headed by DIA's Vice Director for Production, who is also the
Special Assistant to the DCI for Strategic Warning (this staff is
limited to warning of Soviet, Chinese, or North Korean events and
conducts an ongoing program of analysis and commentary on
these areas.) Some contend that these mechanisms are insuf-
ficient and inadequately tied together in a national warning
system. The DCI probably has sufficient power to build more
integrity into the Community for purposes of warning. The
question is how to do it.
Once a crisis erupts, all elements of the Community apply
appropriate resources to the provision of crisis-management
support to policymakers. Although significant warning failures
have occurred, the record of intelligence support during crisis
is generally praised.
There still have been problems, however, in pulling the
Community together for this task. After several crisis
experiences, the previous Administration instructed the DCI
to create a system for integrating the many crisis situation
reports that flooded up to senior levels from the major
intelligence agencies. This prompted plans for Community
task forces to produce a National Intelligence Situation Report.
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'401,
President Ford also expressed the desire that such ?an
integrated national "sitrep" incorporate whatever information
on US actions and operations would be needed to make it a
comprehensive report of crisis developments. Plans to achieve
such integration have so far been encumbered by reluctance on
the part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and the Department
of State to see intelligence reporting subsume ?their respective
reporting obligations and include sensitive operational or
diplomatic material in intelligence publications. Various
means to compromise on these problems are under consideration.
But the new Administration has yet to state what it wishes in
the way of intelligence support to crisis management. Clearly,
the DCI cannot act unilaterally outside the sphere of
intelligence.
3. Performance Evaluation
The DCI's role as producer of national intelligence is
central to his entire function. How well is that role
performed? The overall quality and worth of national
intelligence has been extensively scrutinized by critics
within the Community, in the Executive Branch, and in the
Congress. E. 0. 11905 prescribed a formal semi-annual review
of the timeliness and quality of intelligence products by the
NSC, to be supported by studies of the Intelligence Community
Staff (ICS). The first such study, issued in December, 1976,
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surveyed numerous intelligence consumers and producers,
covered a broad subject range, and assayed a number of basic
problems afflicting intelligence production in the Community.
The outgoing Ford Administration did not consider this report
(although the NSC met on intelligence in January, 1977), and
it remains to be seriously examined by the NSC.
This study and others like it, while varying in their
catalogue of strengths and weaknesses, tend to come to the
following judgments:
a. The need of policymakers for intelligence
is constantly expanding, as to subject coverage,
and deepening, as to detail and sophistication
required. There is probably no such condition as
full satisfaction. But the practical result is
that Community analytic resources are spread very
thins
b. Given the above, it is extremely important
to develop the best possible understanding of what
intelligence policymakers really need. Unfortunately,
they rarely say and frequently do not know. When
they do know and say, they are frequently at odds.
Formal mechanisms for determining consumer needs
have had little value. In practice, it is left to
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the Intelligence Community itself, at many levels,
to analyze the market. Yet, for a "service
industry," the Community is relatively lax in
cultivating contacts with consumers. Some higher
level managers and staffers maintain steady contact
with customers. But such contacts are not widely
encouraged, and frequently discouraged, for working-
level personnel. For reasons of security and
compartmentation, fears that objectivity may be
threatened, and plain desire to "stay out of
trouble," the Community maintains a degree of
insularity from the rest of the US government that
the Community is not even aware of but which is
striking to knowledgeable observers on the outside.
The result is lack of mutual understanding on both
sides of the consumer-producer interface, except
in such close-support areas as SALT policy. But
this isolation does not prevent the consumer side
from innundating intelligence entities with requests
for ad hoc support.
c. Apart from the volume and value of intelli-
gence data collected and processed for analysis,
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the key variables governing the quality of intelli-
gence product are generally the following:
(1) the quality and number of analytical
personnel in a given area;
(2) the quality and extent of data bases,
data processing, and data retrieval systems
supporting analysis;
(3) the "management environment" for analysis
and production.
The first two items are self-evident. The third refers
to such matters as whether good research and analysis
are properly encouraged and rewarded, protected from
"firefighting" and other staff distractions, etc.
There is a meaningful consensus in the Community that
the quality of intelligence analysis and product could be
substantially improved by achieving improvements in these
key areas. Some ?cite the potential of new analytic methods,
particularly from the social sciences, for improving intelli-
gence analysis. The key question here is what capabilities
the DCI has to achieve improvements in national intelligence
production. The answer lies in part in his relationship to
CIA, where his powers are great, and in his relationship to
the rest of the Community, where they are much more limited.
(See next two subsections.)
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By the interest and expertise he demonstrates in the
substance of intelligence production, the DCI can exert a
great deal of leadership throughout the producing Community.
He has considerable power to focus the content and stream-
line the process of national estimate production, if he
chooses. Moreover, he can create quality control devices
of various kinds to improve ?the analytic value of products
before they are issued, and to assess their impact on the
consumer.
There are important, if not easily measured, limits
on what the DCI can do to extract the maximum product value
from a currently existing body of analytic resources in the
Community. Good analysis depends on good analysts with the
time and motivation to assemble, digest, and synthesize data.
But, because intelligence is a service business, it must
jump when the door bell rings. No matter how enthusiastically
intelligence managers and customers endorse the concept of
carefully developed plans and priorities for intelligence
production, there seems to be no way to avoid the steady
stream of unanticipated events ?and requests for service that
preclude their effective implementation, except at the margin.
Departmental intelligence production entities are, of course,
at the beck and call of their superiors, usually before the
DCI. Even CIA is subject to voluminous ad hoc requests and
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demands that thwart systematic employment of analytic resources.
They are resisted with difficulty at any level. The DCI,
moreover, has a built-in incentive to be responsive and tends
to be sufficiently distant from the actual process of analysis
and production to be relatively insensitive to the strains
placed on it by "can-do" responsiveness to ad hoc demands.
These limits notwithstanding, the Community provides a
mechanism for the production of national intelligence and
places the DCI in recognized charge of it. Moreover, the
overall structure of the mechanism does conform generally
with the principles suggested in Section II as appropriate
for assessing the 'output" end of the intelligence process.
It provides for diversified and specialized support to
departmental needs. It provides a non-departmental source
of intelligence judgment. It allows for sharing of data
and judgments in common. And it provides for collaboration
in agreement or expression of divergent views.
There are certainly weaknesses in all of these areas.
In many cases the DCI has, as the senior national intelligence
production authority, the powers needed to remedy or alleviate
problems. Improvements are frequently more a matter of judg-
ment and management attention than authority; for example,
how to make the national estimate process more expeditious,
or how to encourage more effective producer-consumer relations.
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One major ingredient of the present national intelli-
gence process that Community structure places largely beyond
the DCI's influence is the quality of departmental participation
in that process. While he can enlarge, strengthen, or reorganize
the analytical elements of CIA, he has little power, in practice,
over the major departmental contributors to national intelligence
analysis and production. Although he reviews their budgets
in the NFIP process, and can undertake to evaluate their
performance, he has scant authority to compel measures to
improve that performance.
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III. C. Leader of the Intelligence Community
The law establishing the CIA and the Office of the DCI
recognized and perpetuated the existence of institutional
diversity in US intelligence. Getting the best intelligence
product out of the Intelligence Community is the DCI's oldest
Community role. Aside from production of national intelli-
gence and coordination of especially sensitive matters across
agency lines, the most important and contentious role of the
DCI in the Intelligence Community arises from the need to
manage intelligence resources efficiently, particularly col-
lection resources.
DCI resource management functions in the Community, as
noted in Section II, have two dominant dimensions: First,
the allocation of currently existing collection and processing
resources to meet current and relatively near-term intelli-
gence needs. Second, the development of collection and process-
ing resources to meet intelligence needs in the future. Both
activities are governed by the concept of requirements. In the
current management arena, requirements are statements of infor-
mation need that constitute or can be translated into actionable
instructions to the operators of collection and processing
resources. In the mobilization of resources for the future,
requirements are statements of information need that can be
translated into guidance or specifications for the development
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*Imo. NOSY
of new intelligence capabilities, human or technical.
1. Current Collection Management: The Requirements
and Priorities System
Today, the DCI is the senior and central requirements
officer of the national intelligence community. He is in
charge of the processes whereby the Community decides how
to match current information needs with currently available
collection assets. This role imparts to him considerable
authority, although it is sometimes obscured by the seeming
complexity of the processes involved and by their necessarily
"democratic" nature.
The DCI's authority over intelligence requirements is
based originally on the duty assigned to CIA by the National
Security Act of 1947 to "make recommendations to the
National Security Council for the coordination of such
intelligence activities of the departments and agencies
as relate to the national security." NSCID No. 1, as
Para 3 a (4) lists "Establishing and reconciling intelligence
requirements and priorities within budgetary constraints"
as one of the DCI's four major responsibilities. E.O. 11905
instructs the DCI to "develop national intelligence
requirements and priorities." As much as on formal
authority, the requirements systems of the Community grew
up on the objective need of the Community for a set of
market mechanisms to match collectors with users of data.
The requirements system starts with general statements
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(NOW
of information need. The DCI's Key Intelligence Questions,
for example, are topical and addressed to both producers
and collectors. The major base-line statement of informa-
tion needs and priorities is in DCID 1/2 and its attachment,
which assembles comprehensively and ranks major classes of
intelligence problems. These kinds of guidance allow col-
lection managers to structure their basic effort. In addi-
tion, the system responds at the margin to specific demands
from user elements that refine or depart from the base-line
priorities.
Community collection management varies markedly among
the three basic collection disciplines: imagery, signals
intelligence, and human source collection. These variations
are largely a function of the character of the respective
disciplines, and partly a reflection of organizational
preferences. In each case, the center point of the process
is an interagency committee whose staff forms part of the
Intelligence Community Staff (ICS) and whose chairman reports
to the DCI. What varies is the prescriptive power of these
committee mechanisms over the actual operations of collec-
tors, from very strong in the case of the Committee on
Imagery Requirements and Exploitation (COMIREX), because
of the nature of day-to-day specific camera operations, to
broader and more general in the case of the SIGINT Committee,
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to weak in the case of the Human Resources Committee (HRC).
Guidance by Committee: National imagery collection is
conducted by a small number of photographic satellites (and
occasional aircraft). By its nature, a photo satellite
demands mechanical precision in its instructions. This
dictates that the process of turning statements of informa-
tion need into actionable instructions for a system be
tightly compressed. The importance of the resource involved
dictates that this function be highly placed in the Community
and centralized. This results in the "COMIREX model" of
requirements management, a requirements committee for bringing
statements of need together and adjudicating conflicting
priorities, and a specialized staff competence for turning
statements of need into precise collection instructions.
Overhead imaging systems are operated on comprehensive
standing instructions which are adjusted to changing needs
by the COMIREX mechanism. With film return systems, this is
a largely cyclical activity.
Users interact with the requirements mechanism through a
central computer and remote terminals.
Collected images are general information packages that
are easily disseminated and susceptible to decentralized
exploitation. Hence the mechanical rigor and centralization
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of the imagery requirements process is more relaxed in
the exploitation phase. All overhead imagery is distributed
to facilities among intelligence
agencies and military commands, with the central require-
ments mechanism seeing that priority needs for reading out
information are met and that appropriate data bases are
maintained.
By comparison with imagery, the SIGINT world is more
diverse as to systems and suborganizations involved. SIGINT
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In the area of human resources collection, no consoli-
dated national collection requirements system exists at
this stage. Each HUMINT collection entity within intelli-
gence can take guidance from general requirements statements,
such as Key Intelligence Questions and DCID 1/2. But each
also operates on its own appreciation of national and de-
partmental requirements developed through direct contact
with analysts and customers. Several factors inherent in
the nature and organizational structure of HUMINT account
for this. Clandestine agents obviously cannot be tasked in
the same manner as a satellite or a ground receiver. More-
over, the need for operational security inhibits the exchange
of knowledge about agent capabilities, or even existence,
that can take place in the requirements "market place"
governing technical collectors.
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',war
'Nary
Other Problem Areas: The collection requirements and
management systems of the Intelligence Community are evolv-
ing and growing, largely under the general pressure on
intelligence to achieve and to demonstrate efficiency.
There is still lacking a formal and unified system for
"all-source" requirements development. Such competence
is not absent from the requirements process now. It is
scattered among the existing collection committees, special
agency staffs, the NFIB itself, senior managers of the Com-
munity, and in user-analysts themselves. There are, in
short, people and organizations that can effectively in-
fluence who does what best on an all-source basis. Yet
the need is clearly growing for some institutionalized
system to do this systematically and currently without adding
to the number of middlemen between analysts and collectors.
Except for the problem of organizing non-intelligence
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human source collectors, most of the problems of Intelli-
gence Community requirements management for current col-
lection can be addressed within present structures and
with present DCI authorities. Under any Community struc-
ture, the system must provide for a "democratic" interaction
of needs and capabilities and sufficient central authority
to set the pace and to see the system work.
In the area of current collection management, the most
vexing problem pertinent to Community structure concerns
the control of major national technical collection systems
in time of war when the military-tactical needs which these
systems are increasingly capable of serving become much
more important. This issue generates strong feelings and
pervades the debate about DCI authorities over current col-
lection operations and programming future resources. It
cannot be conclusively resolved in the abstract. It is not
at all clear, for example, whether there would be major
conflicts of priority among military and civilian collection
requirements in a war where these assets could perform
meaningfully; or whether who presides over the process of
adjudication would make a real difference. What is clear
is that provision must be made for the effective operation
of relevant collection assets in many different kinds of
conflict situations. This requires careful prior study,
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the creation of robust control mechanisms, and the exer-
cise of applicable procedures. The peace-war control
issue cannot be resolved at the last minute.
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Despite these agreements, without a Presidential Order
the relative authorities of the DCI and the Secretary of
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Defense in crisis and wartime remain nebulous. Since
they have not been invoked, even in Vietnam, there are
no precedents to provide criteria and procedures to be
followed. Since the definition of war appears to be
elusive and a political rather than legal issue, it is
difficult to define what constitutes an active theater
of war. It is also unclear at what stage of a crisis
control should pass to the military. The problem is also
complicated by CIA assets having become a sophisticated
collection system geared to new technological capabilities
and a far wider range of intelligence interests then ever
before. It is possible, as in Vietnam, for CIA theater assets
to be targeted against national intelligence priorities that
in many cases transcend the intelligence needs of the battle
area. In any case, there is nothing in the agreements or
in statute to modify in any way, during crisis or wartime,
the DCI responsibility to serve as the primary advisor to
the President on foreign intelligence.
The appropriate balance between DCI and DOD control
of intelligence assets must be defined in advance, with
flexibility to meet the exigencies of each case. Also,
clear criteria and procedures need to be developed and
exercised. Any resolution of these,problems must be com-
patible with and reflect the realities of the DCI's role
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in crisis and warfare. But, equally important, it must
assure the DOD that its needs for intelligence at all
levels would be adequately met.
2. Requirements, Planning, Programming, and Budgeting
Intelligence for the Future
Who is in charge of the process of building US national
intelligence capabilities for the future, and what authori-
ties should he or they have? This more than any other
single issue governs the debate over the structure of the
Intelligence Community. At present the DCI has a newly
strengthened but still fragile and difficult role.
Since World War II, a complex Community of organizations
has been created to produce national intelligence. These
organizations are lodged in numerous departments of govern-
ment, most of them in the Defense Department. Since the
late 1960s, all Presidents and, increasingly, the Congress
have looked to the DCI as the nation's senior full-time
intelligence officer to lead and to manage this Community.
Emphasis on the importance of Community resource management
for the future has steadily grown. The President and Congress
expect the DCI to assure that resource allocations are
optimally balanced across intelligence activities for the
best product at the least cost.
Some would maintain that the mounting demand upon the
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DCI to fulfill this role has been unwise from the start
and that departmentally based intelligence resource
management should not be subject to centralized extra-
departmental intelligence authority. But fiscal pressures
created the demand for more and better intelligence resource
management, while the DCI' "centrality" in the system, his
seniority as the nation's substantive intelligence officer,
and his undivided preoccupation with intelligence made him
its natural focus. In the presence of vague or overlapping
definitions of "national," "departmental," and "tactical"
intelligence, some in Congress have sought to press on the
DCI more responsibility for the latter classes of activities.
Defining and empowering this DCI responsibility has
been studied intensely several times in recent years. To
date, each round of decisions has resulted in giving the
DCI Community management mechanisms that have been essen-
tially collegial in nature because of the continuing line
responsibilities of departmental management. That is, DCI
responsibilities and powers overlapped or conflicted with
those of other officers, notably the Secretary of Defense,
requiring a negotiating forum to reach decisions. Presi-
dent Ford's Executive Order 11905 created such a forum for
resource management matters in the Committee on Foreign
Intelligence (CFI), now called the Policy Review Committee
(Intelligence).
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Several of the elements of the Community are primarily
national by charter and mission: CIA, NSA,
Only CIA is directly subordinate
located in the
to the DCI. NSA
Department of Defense, are especially significant in this
context for the volume and importance of the intelligence
data they collect for national, departmental, and poten-
tially, tactical purposes. Routinely, these organizations
respond to operational tasking by Community mechanisms in
which Defense participates heavily and over which the DCI
presides. In debates over programming and budgeting, they
appear at times from the DCI's vantage point to be castled
behind their institutional subordination to the Secretary of
Defense. From the vantage point of senior Defense intelli-
gence managers, however, they seem immunized from clear
Defense control by their obligatory responsiveness to the
DCI. The program manager's vantage point reveals the un-
certainties, ambiguities -- and some flexibilities --
involved in having dual masters.
Other elements, such as DIA, other components of the
General Defense Intelligence Program, State/INR, and the
intelligence elements of Treasury, FBI, and ERDA exist
primarily to serve departmental needs, but also play a
vital role in national intelligence collection and production.
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The ambiguities of dual masters are displayed in their
program management to varying degrees as well.
The DCI's authoritative influence over collection
priorities and requirements is a potentially strong, if
at times, imprecise, influence over the programs and
budgets of NSA,
and other Community
elements he does not directly control. Some believe that
defining requirements and priorities should be the only
basis for his influence on programs.
In the development of future intelligence capabilities,
however, the long lead-times and great uncertainties as to
both potential need and potential capabilities make require-
ments and priorities a very loose means, at best, of con-
trolling actual behavior. There must be wide latitude for
judgment and experimentation. There must be substantial
hedging against unlikely but possible developments. Options,
branch points, and margins for error must be built into
any strategy for the development of future intelligence
capabilities. Balances must be struck among the several
goals of a multi-purpose system. The power to make these
decisions is, in fact, the power to develop the capability.
An important part of the DCI's Community leadership
and resource management role is to stimulate technological
and other initiatives aimed at improving collection and
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production performance. Then he must assure such initiatives
are realistically evaluated against requirements and cost.
This dual obligation creates a challenge for any resource
management system. "Tight" management tends to assure that
only needed innovations are approved. But it may also, over
time, suppress innovation.
The question is whether and how well, via present col-
legial mechanisms, the DCI can accomplish effective resource
management in the Community, especially as regards planning
and programming for the future.
Prior to the issuance of E. 0. 11905, the ability of the
DCI to influence the allocation of Community resources was
limited to his authority over the CIA and his participation
as one of the two members of the Executive Committee (ExCom)
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Even there, where the DCI had direct but shared authority over
reconnaissance programs and activities, some argued that he and
the Department of Defense representative were limited to approval
or disapproval of program manager recommendations. There was no
effective method for the DCI to stimulate activity or to direct
trades between programs.
* NSCID 1, issued in February 1972, charged the DCI to "prepare
and submit each year" through OMB "a consolidated intelligence
program/budget as directed in the Presidential memorandum of
5 November 1971." Beginning with FY 1973 such budgets were
sent to the President by the DCI, but these budgets were little
more than compilations of budgets prepared by the various
program managers.
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ear,
The DCI's voice was also limited prior to E. O. 11905
by the comparative weakness of the mechanisms for making his
views known to the President and the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB). Departments and agencies submitted their budgets
separately to the President through OMB. Issues which devel-
oped during the budget formulation and submission period were
often debated and resolved without direct DCI input. The DCI's
recommendations were provided to the President from FY 1973
onward as a set of program recommendations delivered in mid
to late December. By then, the value of this document was
limited to little more than interesting reading.
The CFI was created in order to extend at least an ExCom
style of management to the entire National Foreign Intelligence
Program (NFIP). The CFI, however now the PRC(I) -- is
chaired by the DCI, and decisions of the Committee may be
reviewed by the full NSC upon appeal by the DCI or any member
of the NSC. Lacking such a forum, the DCI would be relegated
to the pre-E. 0. 11905 situation -- limited to bringing
influence (but no authority) to bear on selected resource
decisions. He would be unable to force the Community to
view entire programs side-by-side and to shift resources
among them.
During the past year, the first fully consolidated
NFIP and budget were developed under the provisions of
E. O. 11905. This was a major accomplishment. But, it
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was accompanied by persistent struggle over allegedly
conflicting authorities and substantive judgments between
the DCI and Department of Defense officials. These
struggles made unnecessarily cumbersome the process of
rationalizing the overall NFIP budget. Progress was made
in achieving decisions on new initiatives and in obtaining
Community positions on issues highlighted by Congress and
OMB interests. Much less was accomplished in examining
fundamental cross-program issues and resource balances
such as implied by "zero-base budgeting." It has been
difficult for departments/agencies having elements in the
NFIP, especially the Department of Defense and the State
Department, to accept the PRC (CFI) decisions as final and
not subject to the ultimate decision authority of the
Secretary or Agency head. Yet they must if the collegial
decision technique embodied in the CFI is to yield a con-
solidated NFIP and budget for which the DCI can fairly be
held responsible. Otherwise, the mechanism is essentially
advisory and the DCI should not be held accountable for
its results.
The achievements of the past year were attended by
growing complaints about the two management roles of the
DCI: head of the Central Intelligence Agency and leader
of the Community. Some have argued, as a consequence,
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that he should be divested of the former so as to be
"neutral" in executing the latter role. Others contend
that this alone would only create a weaker DCI, with no
executive base, or simply place another, weaker authority,
between CIA and the President. To be a strong Community
leader, the DCI needs, not less authority over his only
present operating base, but more over other key Community
elements.
One may reach different conclusions on the present
Community management mechanism. For example:
Conclusion 1:
The present system did not work too badly for the
first year. A learning curve will show improvement,
especially as a full cycle of evaluation, planning, pro-
gramming, and budgeting is implemented. Moreover, what-
ever the cost in bureaucratic struggle, it is essential
that the future programs and budgets of the main national
intelligence entities be thrashed out in a forum where
a diversity of needs and views are authoritatively repre-
sented. A rational, consolidated NFIP can be developed
by collegial mechanisms, but, in the final analysis, the
ultimate authority over the programs and budgets of
departmentally based intelligence programs rests -- and
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must rest -- with the department head. The DCI should
lead by defining requirements and priorities. Those
requirements and priorities can be met with the volun-
tary cooperation of the departments that run the collec-
tion programs.
Conclusion 2:
The first opinion is correct in stressing the achieve-
ments of the past year and the prospects for improvement
as the present system shakes down. It is also correct to
stress the value of collegial mechanisms in expressing the
diversity of demands on intelligence programs that exist
in the real world, no matter what the authority structure,
and that should be reflected in those programs. But stress
on the ultimate authority of the department head over the
Community mechanism chaired by the DCI is bound to make the
system fail -- or at least very awkward. To function, the
system requires direct access to and influence over the
entire programming and budgeting process, including program
execution, of all NFIP programs on the part of the DCI's
Community mechanism and acceptance of collegial CFI, now
PRC(I), decisions as final, but for infrequent cases appealed
explicitly to the National Security Council and the President.
In essence, the system can work if the members are clearly
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instructed that it must.
Conclusion 3:
The present system leaves the DCI with too little
power over entities other than CIA to achieve what is
expected of him, a fundamental rationalization of resource
allocation among the major national intelligence organiza-
tions and activities. He does not have sufficient direct
power, except through the PRC(I), to investigate, call up
well-supported program alternatives on, experiment with
changes to, and, in the face of divergent views, conclu-
sively resolve disputes on the major national intelligence
programs whose integration he is charged to accomplish.
Except via PRC(I) involvement in reprogramming action,
the DCI cannot directly monitor or influence program
execution. In addition, line command of CIA and collegial
leadership of the Community are in a state of tension.
The Community suspects the DCI and his Community officers
of favoring CIA. CIA fears loss to the Community arena
of its senior protagonist and only link to the President.
To be a true Community manager held accountable as such,
the DCI must have more line authority and direct budget
control over NFIP elements other than CIA. At the very
least, the DCI must gain more line and budget control over
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the national elements of the community which he is
responsible for: CIA, NSA,
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III. D. Head of CIA
The National Security Act of 1947 created the Office
of the DCI and the CIA as essentially a single entity. That
entity was to be, on one hand, a centralizing element in a
federated Community, correlating and evaluating all intelli-
gence available to the government, and recommending coordinated
actions by the Community to the NSC. At the same time, it was
to house unique capabilities: i.e., "services of common con-
cern" and those required for "other functions and duties."
It was clearly Congressional intent that CIA become the home
of a US civilian clandestine service arm. Congress created
thereby a modest competence to pull things together in US
intelligence and a substantial potential for unique functions.
Little tension was perceived between these roles, and none
between the DCI's role and CIA's role -- they were to be an
identity.
CIA quickly began to build unique competence as an agency,
and a variety of functions have grown up on the implications of
the National Security Act, out of practical need, and in the
gaps between other elements of the federated Intelligence Com-
munity. These functions were not all spelled out until Execu-
tive Order 11905.
Today CIA contains:
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a. An independent (non-departmental) analytic
capability of broad, but not universal, scope;
b. A home for the Clandestine Service
c. Varied R&D activities
d. Varied technical collection operations;
e. Varied services of common concern, including
national photo interpretation,
and selected data base
maintenance; and
f. Needed support services.
CIA also houses, but does not "own" the DCI's main current
element for national intelligence production on a Community
basis -- the National Intelligence Officer staff. It once
housed his Intelligence Community Staff (ICS) for Community
policy, programming, and evaluation activities; the ICS is
being pressed by Congress and, to some extent, the Community,
to assume an identity completely divorced from CIA.
It should be recognized that CIA is not an omnicompetent,
independent national intelligence agency in the sense that it
can do alone what it is responsible for. Like other Community
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elements, it depends on the whole Community. Its analytic
and production efforts depend heavily on collection activi-
ties performed in defense agencies, i.e., NSA,
Defense Attache System, as well as in
non-intelligence organizations,,e.g.,theForeign Service. Its
analytic capabilities do not cover all the substantive areas
from which inputs to comprehensive national intelligence must
come. For example, agencies in Defense take the lead on most
military order-of-battle development and many weapons technical
analyses on which national production draws. CIA
In other respects, the Agency has not been truly "of the
Community." For many years it was insulated from outside
pressures and scrutiny, enjoyed widespread acceptance of its
basic missions, and a certain elite status among intelligence
elements. This gave CIA unique freedom and flexibility to
pursue its missions effectively. Moreover, it can be said
that CIA was not really one integrated organization throughout
its history, but rather an assembly of relatively independent
units and cultures for analysis, clandestine operations, and
S&T activities. The DCI ran each more or less separately and
emphasized one or the other depending on his interests and
background. In the last year, under bombardment from outside
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and with the DCI turning increasingly to Community matters,
the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (DDCI) has moved
to integrate CIA management at the Directorate level. But
at lower levels, separate cultures persist.
The DCI enjoys line management control over CIA alone in
the Intelligence Community. His powers are strong for the
head of a government agency, especially in areas of organiza-
tion, personnel, and funding. CIA personnel are not part of
the competitive Civil Service; they may be dismissed at the
Director's discretion. (In practice, this dismissal power is
qualified by Constitutional guarantees against arbitrary and
capricious action by government officials.) Over the years,
the DCI has used these powers to develop new intelligence capa-
bilities in CIA, e.g., building the Clandestine Service, creat-
ing the DDS&T, expanding analysis when required.
The controversies of the past several years have placed
obvious strain on the CIA. Investigations and new legislative
requirements and oversight activities have taxed the energies
of staff and management at many levels of CIA as in other
agencies. The legitimacy and effectiveness of the Clandestine
Service have been eroded by attacks, leads, and investigations.
This, in turn, has created morale problems for the DDO and, to
some extent, the Agency as a whole. In a basic sense, the
nation has raised the question: Whether and how to run a
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clandestine foreign intelligence service? Maintaining such
a capability is dependent on many considerations of law,
management, funding, etc. But it bears also on considerations
of Community structure in the sense that, whatever structure
is chosen, it must make provision for the special requirements
of clandestinity.
The above concerns may be obvious from recent events.
Less widely appreciated have been the strains on CIA and its
relationship to its head, the DCI, produced by the augmenta-
tion of the DCI's Community role since 1973 and especially
since early 1976. Many in the Community see the DCI as bound
to favor CIA, his own organization, in any Community delibera-
tion on production, requirements, or resources in which CIA
has an interest. Within CIA, recent trends have been seen in
an entirely different light. The DCI represents CIA's line to
the President and the NSC; he is therefore a crucial part of
CIA's reason for being. To the extent that he devotes less
time to his role as head of CIA to pay greater attention to
Community matters, this link is seen to weaken and CIA's
central and national status diminished. CIA becomes, in fact,
what some others in the Community want it to be, "just another
agency." But without a department secretary or military chain
of command to serve, CIA is not "just another agency" like the
rest of the Community, but an entity somewhat cut adrift.
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With the creation in 1973 of the NIO staff, asserted to
be more Community and less Agency-oriented in its work, CIA's
DDI has felt removed somewhat from the national intelligence
production process that constitutes its reason for being.
This perception arises at management levels largely; analysts
still labor on national intelligence, but more in response to
NIOs and less to their own management structure.
In Community debates over resources, CIA elements perceive
that they have lost their only advocate, because the DCI must
strive not to show favoritism toward CIA in order to maintain
his credibility in the collegial context of Community resource
management. The DDCI, nominally in day-to-day charge of CIA
affairs, is put in the awkward position of having to advocate
CIA interests that may add difficulties to the DCI's Community
role.
Amid this, the newly active layer of Community resource
management and review, added to that of greater scrutiny by
Congress, has encumbered the process of getting approval on
major resource initiatives. CIA managers see this as threatening
the unique flexibility and innovative capacity of CIA, particu-
larly in technical and operational areas. There are, of course,
at least two points of view on this. Others argue that the
"good old days" are gone forever, and CIA must learn to be
more critical of its own initiatives and to do business as
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Noir
others do. But these adjustments have penalties as well
as benefits, and adverse perceptions of them are real
problems for CIA management.
In the long run, CIA's effectiveness cannot withstand
a serious conflict between the DCI's role as head of CIA and
as Community leader. Part of the problem is the imbalance
between the DCI's broad responsibilities and his more limited
decisionmaking powers in the Community arena. This forces
him into a position where he must appear to neglect CIA to
be effective as a negotiator in the Community. Solutions to
this problem all go to the heart of the Community structure.
Some basic alternatives might be:
a. To strengthen DCI authorities over other key
Community elements -- i.e., the "national" elements --
so that they match his authorities over CIA, or combining
CIA with those elements into a single national intelli-
gence agency.
b. To subordinate CIA, or parts of it, directly
to an official other than the DCI (as Community leader)
but who has powers rivaling or exceeding those of the
DCI, e.g., the Assistant to the President for National
Security Affairs.
c. Within roughly the present structure, to
reaffirm the centrality of CIA as both a home for
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?Air,
unique national collection and R&D capabilities under
the DCI, and the staff base for the DCI's national
production and Community resource management roles
(i.e., place NIO and IC Staff functions within CIA).
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III. E. Protector of Intelligence Sources and Methods
The National Security Act makes the DCI "responsible for
protecting intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized
disclosure."* Executive Order 11905 supplements this responsi-
bility.** Notwithstanding the Government-wide nature of this
responsibility, departments and agencies have generally applied
measures for protecting sources and methods on an individual,
departmental basis.
DCI leadership in protecting sources and methods has
heretofore generally been limited to compartmented intelli-
gence and to restrictions on the dissemination and use of
intelligence information. Factors that have tended to serve
as a brake on a wider DCI role in this area are that:
a. Intelligence information must, in large
part, rely for its protection on the total U.S.
Government classification system, established by
an Executive Order for all national security
purposes;
b. Personnel security procedures for other
than compartmented access are governed by Executive
Orders and departmental regulations, which are
again designed to support general national security
purposes.
* Section 102(d)(3)
**Section 3(d)(1)(vii) provides the DCI shall "ensure that appro-
priate programs are developed which properly protect intelligence
sources, methods, and analytical procedures," then adds specific
limitations on the DCI's responsibility within the United States.
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c. There are no Government-wide agreed
definitions for intelligence sources and
methods; and
d. There are no effective laws to deter and
punish the unauthorized public disclosure of sources
and methods information.
The problem of unauthorized disclosures of classified
information involves sources and methods data as much as it
does defense or foreign policy information. Whether the
problem has been aggravated more by loss of credibility of
classifications in general, or by the lack of sanctions
against disclosure, is debatable. In any event, the system
is not working as it should. Those whose concern is to
protect sensitive information tend to overclassify and rely
more than they should on compartmentation to compensate for
perceived weaknesses in the security system. The belief
that classifications and controls are arbitrary is thus
enhanced, further loosening inhibitions against disclosure.
This leads to even more overcontrol and restriction of
dissemination of intelligence to those who need it.
In past approaches to the problem, the DCI has sought
new legislation to prevent future damaging disclosures of
sources and methods information. The Congress has been
uncooperative because of intelligence improprieties and more
general abuse of the "national security" label. Effective
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statutory support for the DCI's responsibility in this area
must still be sought--but in concert with wider initiatives
on official secrecy and other initiatives which he can take
in protecting sources and methods information. Those initia-
tives could include:
a. reinvigorating the classification system
within the Intelligence Community;
b. strengthening supplemental controls and
compartmentation for particularly sensitive information;
c. improving the personnel security system
governing access to intelligence information; and
d. seeking Congressional enactment of a statute
which would effectively protect sources and methods
information and deter, through meaningful punishment,
those who might disclose it.
In any event, compartmentation and dissemination practices
will have to be continually reviewed and probably revised to
afford wider access to many new users of intelligence, partic-
ularly military users of satellite-derived information.
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III. F. Participant in US Foreign Counterintelligence (CI)
Policies and Activities
The size and extent of the human intelligence effort
against the US by Communist countries continues to increase
and to constitute a significant threat to national security.
This hostile intelligence effort includes not only a larger
Soviet official presence in the US, but large numbers of
technical, cultural, and economic visitors to the US; a
large number of Soviet vessels with their crews; and extensive
Soviet efforts to recruit Americans in and from third countries.
The US effort to counter this threat is carried on by
five separate agencies -- the FBI, CIA, US Army Intelligence
Agency, Naval Investigative Service, and Air Force Office of
Special Investigations. But there is no national foreign
counterintelligence policy or structure.* Coordination is
inadequate. The CIA coordinates CI operations abroad; the
FBI, within the US. There is no centralized operational
coordination in the Department of Defense. In terms of
resource purview, the CI components of the FBI and CIA are
now within the National Foreign Intelligence Program, but the
military CI agencies are not. There is no overall coordinative
body or official.
*The E.O. 11905 definition of foreign CI applies. The
emphasis is on the foreign relationship; the locus may be either
within the US or abroad. Substantively, it does not include
protective security functions but does include foreign CI
collection, investigations for operational leads, operations,
related information processing, and production.
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This situation adversely affects the US ability to deter
the hostile foreign intelligence activities. The FBI has
most of the resources devoted to the national foreign CI
effort. The FBI, however, is still experiencing practical
difficulties in building
adequate for the threat.
operations abroad, where
a career CI corps with resources
CIA, which is
most of the CI
still rebuilding its CI program to make
responsible for CI
threat originates is
up for past problems.
Foreign CI sooner or later involves Americans. Legal
?
and public concerns about the protection of constitutional
and statutory rights sometimes slow individual agency foreign
CI efforts and impede their effectiveness. A basic problem
is how to strengthen the national foreign CI program while
insuring that the constitutional and statutory rights of
Americans and others entitled to these rights are protected.
The deficiencies in the foreign CI program are widely
recognized. The Church Committee recommended the creation
of a new NSC CI Committee with the Attorney General (AG) as
Chairman and a classified review of current CI issues, which
would lead to a classified Presidential statement on national
CI policy and objectives. The President's Foreign Intelli-
gence Advisory Board has recommended
AG, in consultation with the DCI, of
directive and the establishment of a
mechanism responsible to the DCI and
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a national CI policy
senior CI coordinating
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gaw
As a result of these recommendations, the Intelligence
Community Staff drafted and circulated for Community comment
a proposed unclassified Executive Order to establish an AG-
chaired, NSC-level National CI Policy Committee with a
subordinate working body. The Departments of State and
Defense, the FBI, and the CIA have all supported the proposal
in principle. An approach to the Attorney General is planned
as a next step to securing his agreement to head such a group.
In any case, there would appear to be no real alternative to
the establishment of a national foreign CI policymaking and
coordinating structure.
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'MOO
III. G. Guarantor of Propriety
The National Security Act of 1947 and the Central
Intelligence Agency Act of 1949 are silent on the issue of
DCI responsibility for insuring the propriety of intelligence
activities within the Intelligence Community. As the head of
CIA, the DCI is provided with an Inspector General and the
normal mechanisms for discovering and investigating impro-
priety within CIA. As a senior public official, the DCI is
sworn to uphold the Constitution and to execute all of his
duties in a responsible manner.
Executive Order 11905 does make the DCI responsible for
"establishing procedures to insure the propriety of requests
and responses from the White House staff or other executive
departments and agencies of the Intelligence Community." But
the Executive Order does not provide any authorities or
mechanisms for exercising these responsibilities on a
Community basis.
The Executive Order also directs the DCI to "insure the
existence of strong inspector general capabilities in all
elements of the Intelligence Community." The Order further
directs the DCI to insure that each inspector general submits
a quarterly report to the Intelligence Oversight Board setting
forth any questionable activities. The DCI has no current means
of "insuring" compliance with either of these directives. Several
of the Inspectors General involved are actually not assigned to
an entity within the Intelligence Community.
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Despite the absence of formal authorities or mechanisms
for insuring the propriety of activities of the Intelligence
Community, the DCI is seen by the public, Congress, and
others as the responsible government official. But the gap
between the DCI's perceived and actual authority in this
area is large.
Precisely defining what type of intelligence activities
are proper and improper in the first place is a difficult
task. Executive Order 11905 lists a series of collection and
other activities that are prohibited. The Intelligence
Community, however, and the DCI as its leader, often are
taken to task for engaging in
list or included in any other
activities. Given the nature
activities that are not on the
formal definition of improper
of intelligence, there is
strong possibility that such nonexcluded activities may
a
cause
a public or Congressional reaction, because pursuing them is
seen as insensitive to the current climate of opinion about
intelligence, because they are poorly conceived, or because
they are only partially understood by their critics. Although
not on the "list" of restricted activities, the public,
Congress, and even the Executive may judge them as improper
and hold the DCI responsible.
Executive Order 11905 established the Intelligence
Oversight Board (I0B) and directed the various inspectors
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general of the intelligence agencies to report to the Board
any questionable activities involving legality or propriety.
The IGs were required to provide quarterly reports to the I0B,
to provide any information requested by the Board, and to
develop procedures for discovering and reporting questionable
activities.
The DCI has no Community inspector general nor is he the
channel through which inspectors general report improprieties.
In fact, inspectors general of the various intelligence
organizations have indicated they would not provide these
reports to the DCI and that such a reporting procedure might
itself be illegal.
Although the inspectors general of the various agencies
do not report to or through the DCI, he does have a variety
of means for monitoring intelligence activities. Clandestine
operations conducted by the DOD must be coordinated with the
DCI, and sensitive intelligence operations (technical and
human) are examined by the DCI at both the departmental and
the Special Coordinating Committee level. The DCI is in no
position, however, to dig down into the activities of an
agency, other than CIA, and discover improprieties in its
activities.
Under the current structure of the Intelligence Community,
there is serious question as to whether the DCI should be
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provided with direct authority over the inspectors general
of the independent agencies. An increase in his authority
would result in a decrease in the role of individual inspectors
general. Although the DCI might provide some greater uni-
formity in the criteria for determining propriety and in the
standards and procedures for reporting questionable activities,
this increased authority would impinge directly on the
responsibilities of the heads of departments and independent
agencies.
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III. H. Coordinator of Liaison with Foreign Intelligence
Services
No comprehensive national policy has been issued to
govern the conduct of US official relationships with foreign
intelligence and security services. Several aspects of
foreign liaison are, however, addressed in NSCIDs 2, 5, and
6 and related DCI Directives. Some ambiguity results from
this piecemeal approach, especially as pertains to the
respective responsibilities of the DCI, the Director, NSA,
and Chiefs of US Missions abroad. Relationships with foreign
intelligence and security organizations are maintained by
several departments and agencies within and outside of the
Intelligence Community to exchange intelligence, counter-
intelligence, and related information for mutual benefit.
The totality of US-foreign liaison relationships and infor-
mation exchanges (intelligence or otherwise) is not now under
the cognizance, control, or management of any single
individual or organization in the government. A national
policy issuance which assigned specific responsibilities and
oversight for foreign liaison in support of national
intelligence objectives would be both desirable and timely.
The responsibilities of the DCI for coordination of
US foreign intelligence activities as described in NSCIDs 1
and 2 need to be more clearly defined in relation to State
and Defense responsibilities set out in NSCID 2.
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NSCID 1 provides that the DCI "shall coordinate the
foreign intelligence activities of the United States in
accordance with existing law and applicable directive," and
that "The DCI shall formulate, as appropriate, policies with
respect to arrangements with foreign governments on intelli-
gence matters." NSCID 2 provides that "The DCI shall ensure
that the planning for utilization of collecting and reporting
capabilities.. .avoids unnecessary duplication and uncoordinated
overlap."
NSCID 2, on the other hand, provides that "The Department
of State shall have primary responsibility for, and shall
perform as a service of common concern, the collection abroad...
of political, sociological, economic, scientific, and technical
information." NSCID 2 gives the Department of Defense
responsibility for collection of military intelligence infor-
mation. NSCID 2 also provides that "The Senior US representative.
shall coordinate in his area the collection activities not
covered by other National Security Council Directives."
The responsibilities given to State, Defense and the
Senior Representative in NSCID 2 presumably are intended to
include collection through foreign liaison. The DCI's authority
to coordinate US foreign intelligence activities appears to
apply to collection via overt as well as covert foreign liaison
arrangements but generally speaking is exercised only in the
latter case.
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The DCI exercises a predominant foreign liaison
coordinating role in clandestine intelligence and CI matters.
NSCID 5 provides that the DCI shall coordinate liaison that
"concerns clandestine activities or that involves foreign
clandestine services...," and that CIA shall conduct liaison
with foreign clandestine services as a service of common
concern. The directive also permits "other departments and
agencies with commands or installations located outside the
U.S." to conduct such liaison, provided it is coordinated
with the DCI. There is no problem with this part of NSCID 5.
Since NSCID 5 is limited to clandestine matters, it
does not address the DCI's role in the extensive non-
clandestine foreign liaison intelligence exchange activities
carried out by Defense Department elements and other federal
agencies under various intelligence and security-related
programs. In addition to clandestine charters, many foreign
intelligence services have criminal investigation and overt
collection as well as analysis and production responsibilities,
with the result that various US Government intelligence elements
need to conduct liaison with them. This has caused occasional
coordination problems at the field level, primarily in areas
where major US military commands are located, when DCI
representatives (CIA Chiefs of Station) and military intelli-
gence representatives have disagreed on the extent of the DCI
representatives' control over information exchanges between
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the US military and host country intelligence components.
Such conflicts appear to stem from an inadequate understanding
of the DCI's authority and responsibilities on such matters
rather than from a need for new policies or directives.
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=too
III. I. Spokesman to Congress
Executive Order 11905 names the DCI as the principal
spokesman to Congress for the Intelligence Community and
instructs him to facilitate the use of intelligence products
by Congress. In addition, the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974
requires that the President certify each of CIA's covert
action programs and to notify the Congress of such certifi-
cation. The responsibility for notifying Congress has been
delegated to the DCI. Over the past few years, the DCI has
presented the NFIP to Congress after its approval by the
President. Congressional committees tend to look to the DCI
as the principal, though not the only, spokesman on the NFIP.
The DCI's role as spokesman is not without its pitfalls.
Traditionally, if not by law, the primary role of the DCI
has been to serve the President and the national security
structure of the Executive Branch. If the DCI is also to
become a principal supplier of intelligence information and
analysis to the Congress, he may be placed in the awkward
position of attempting to serve two masters who, by Consti-
tutional design, are frequently on different sides of foreign
policy issues. In these circumstances, the objectivity which
is the DCI's most precious attribute may be challenged by both
sides. At a maximum, the Director may lose the confidence
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"41111,
of other elements of the Executive Branch, particularly DOD
and State, on which he depends for critically important
feedback on foreign policy planning and other sensitive
information which these elements glean in the course of their
work. Accordingly, one of the foremost problems in the years
ahead may be to find a way in which the Director can respond
to the proper demands of Congress without jeopardizing his
relations with the Executive.
The manner in which the Intelligence Community is
organized probably will not significantly change the DCI's
role as spokesman to Congress. Were his Community powers
enhanced, the DCI would be in a position to better insure
that intelligence elements speak with a single voice. But
the DCI probably would not wish to place restrictions on
program managers, nor would Congress be likely to acquiesce
in the application of such restrictions. Program managers
are obviously in the best position to provide the details on
the objectives and funding of their particular activities.
The DCI is responsible for the production of national
intelligence and as such he has a special role in providing
Congress with substantive judgments on key intelligence
issues. Unless the DCI were to lose his substantive role,
organizational changes in the Intelligence Community would not
seriously change the DCI's responsibility in this regard or
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alter his authorities as the spokesman to Congress. Whatever
his management responsibilities under any organizational
realignment, the DCI would be under considerable pressure to
provide the full range of differing views that exists within
the Intelligence Community to the Congress, even though he
would also be asked to provide the "best" judgment of the
Community as well.
Neither would organizational changes in the Community
be likely to affect the DCI's primary role as the spokesman
to Congress on intelligence operations, particularly covert
action programs. The DCI currently is viewed as the responsible
authority in this area, and it is unlikely that even a more
definite split between the Director of CIA and the DCI would
relieve the DCI of ultimate responsibility in this area of
intelligence activity.
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Now
III. J. Public Spokesman
There is no formal statutory basis for the DCI to be a
public spokesman for the Intelligence Community. Executive
Order 11905 and the NSCIDs are silent on this subject. As
the senior intelligence officer and intelligence advisor to
the President, however, the DCI is viewed by those inside
as well as outside the government as the principal spokesman
on intelligence issues. The public tends to view it this way
because most of the issues that surface publicly are associated
with CIA and the DCI as its head.
The DCI is increasingly called upon as the public spokes-
man to comment on the involvement of intelligence elements in
a particular activity, to rebut charges of impropriety, or to
comment on substantive issues. DCIs have been forced to go
public during periods of controversy and in response to
pressure from the press. To relieve public concerns about
the propriety of secret intelligence activities, it probably
will be necessary for the Intelligence Community to release
increasingly larger amounts of its substantive output on an
unclassified basis. As Congressional oversight has become more
intense and formalized, it has been necessary for the Community
leaders to appear before a widening number of Congressional
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bodies. There probably will be greater emphasis on open
sessions to the extent that they do not seriously affect the
necessarily classified aspects of intelligence activities.
Regardless of the organizational configuration of the
Intelligence Community, the DCI almost certainly will be
expected
accept a
There is
to continue the
continuing role
trend toward greater openness and to
as public spokesman for the Community.
little likelihood that he will be able to go back to
the "no comment" stance of several years ago. As the DCI
gains greater visibility in this role, there likely will be
increased criticism that he is stifling disagreement and
intelligence judgments that run contrary to the "agreed"
position. Coordinated intelligence will draw the fire of those
who claim that dissenting views are being suppressed.
In any case, it is neither likely nor desirable that the
DCI's voice be the only one heard in the public arena. The
DOD can and should continue to present its views on intelligence
matters. A primary role of the DCI in this case will be to
ensure that the protection of sources and methods is maintained,
and it may be necessary to lay down some specific guidelines
for the release of information to the public on intelligence
matters. But the development of such procedures will not rest
on organizational change in the Community.
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',?07
IV. Summary Assessment
Section II of this report advanced three basic criteria
for assessing the adequacy of intelligence management and
authority structures:
a. Propriety of intelligence activities with
respect to legal and political standards.
b. Effectiveness in the provision of needed
intelligence to all government users.
C. Efficiency in the use and mobilization of
intelligence resources, particularly the expensive
collection and processing resources.
This section attempts to summarize and assess the problems
of the Community in meeting these criteria, to determine how
DCI responsibilities respecting them compare to his powers
and Community structure, to identify causes of problems that
may not involve Community structure and authority, and to
suggest possible avenues along which improvements could be
sought. Specific options for changing Community structure
and other innovations are treated in other portions of the
response to PRM/NSC-ll.
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IV. A. Propriety
The intelligence agencies of the US government operate
in conformity with the law of the land, the stipulations of
Executive Order 11905, special restrictions laid down by
the Attorney General in 1976, and other internal regulations
and restrictions pertaining to propriety. Mechanisms for
assuring proper behavior on the part of intelligence agencies
are in place and operative.
But the situation is far from satisfactory. Many segments
of US society external to the Intelligence Community entertain
doubts as to the propriety of intelligence activities and
the general trustworthiness of intelligence agencies. Internal
to intelligence, many professionals suffer in some degree from
an atmosphere deficient in confidence, trust, and respect for
their chosen vocation. Managers and operators must, moreover,
contend with uncertainties and conflicts that the new "ground
rules" relating to propriety have presented to intelligence.
The DCI's ability to protect the security of intelli-
gence sources and methods is severely limited by the lack
of appropriate laws defining and protecting official secrecy
in general. But such laws will certainly not be forthcoming
unless the laws and regulations assuring the propriety of
intelligence activities generate widespread confidence.
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J 1.1%. o .4.S.1.3
NW'
Alone, the DCI has little power to shape this larger
environment. Much depends on the leadership of the President
and other key officials of the Executive Branch, and on the
reactions of the Congress, the press, and the public at large.
The DCI has it within his power, however, to take constructive
initiatives that could contribute to an environment in which
the propriety of intelligence activities is assured, believed,
and consistent with effective intelligence operations. He
can take measures to rationalize and make more defensible
the security and classification policies applied within
intelligence. He can lead in the development and promulgation
of professional standards relating to propriety applicable to
the Community as a whole. With line command of CIA, he can
assure that its activities are proper.
Assuring the propriety of intelligence activities is
not essentially or even primarily a matter of Community
structure or the powers of its leadership. It is rather
a matter of political standards, law and regulations,
oversight, and professional ethics. But the DCI cannot
be held directly responsible for actions of agencies other
than those he directly commands.
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Or.A.AZI
IV. B. Effectiveness
Assessment of effectiveness in meeting the intelligence
needs of all government users applies basically to production
of intelligence in the broad sense, that is, the production
of intelligence reports and analyses, briefings, contri-
butions to policy studies, and other forms of information
support. This criterion also embraces warning and crisis
support. (Assessment of support to tactical-level military
decisionmakers is treated in the next subsection.)
Is US intelligence effective in meeting the needs
of its customers? Are those elements for which the DCI is
responsible effective in meeting those needs? There are,
unfortunately, no absolute or simple measures by which to
answer these questions. Policymakers dealing with an
uncertain world cannot offer any comprehensive or fixed
standard of intelligence "sufficiency." Their needs for
information and judgment are limited only by their capacity
to absorb. US intelligence organizations do fairly well
at supplying current news and quick information support.
In other areas, customers complain of deficiencies. Those
who manage and evaluate US intelligence performance are
obliged, therefore, to hear complaints, assess problem areas,
and seek to improve where improvement seems feasible and
important.
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Nowijr"
This brief treatment cannot explore all the problem
areas identified by recent assessments of Community effective-
ness in intelligence production, e.g., the recent NSC Semiannual
Review. A summary list of major criticisms and self-criticisms
of intelligence production activity is instructive, however:
a. Intelligence organizations at all levels
do not understand consumer needs well and have poor
tools for improving their understanding. Consumers,
by the same token, only poorly appreciate the capa-
bilities and limitations of intelligence. Producers
and consumers are more isolated from each other than
they should or need be.
b. Mid- and long-range analysis and estimating
is weak, unsophisticated, and generally under-emphasized.
Major national estimates are frequently too unfocused,
not directly pertinent to policy, and insufficiently
sharp in judgment. Producers are not adept at inte-
grating political, military, economic, and technical
perspectives on problems that demand such integration.
c. Intelligence conduct of and support of net
assessment efforts are inadequate.
d. Users who want fairly voluminous and detailed
treatment of problems find many intelligence products
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dominated by summary judgments without supporting
evidence, explicit reasoning, and uncertainty
estimates. Users who want summary judgments find
many products too voluminous with little judgment
in them.
e. The Community is short of expert analytical
personnel in some new areas of intelligence interest,
e.g., political and economic aspects of nuclear
proliferation. It also suffers from shortages of
trained specialists in traditional areas, e.g.,
expert Russian linguists and area specialists.
f. ADP and other information support services
are falling behind the explosion of information.
Analysts do not operate in an environment that gives
assurance they have or can get all data available
to the US government pertinent to their problem.
g. Analytical organizations resist sustained
efforts on the challenge of foreign concealment,
camouflage, deception, and disinformation.
h. Warning and crisis support responsibilities
are insufficiently netted together to constitute
a reliable and efficient system.
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i. All production organizations are beset by
fire-fighting demands that inhibit quality analysis
on new problems. Much time is spent repackaging
old material for new users and changed situations.
j. Too little attention is paid to seemingly
mundane, but vital and difficult "bread and butter"
analysis, e.g., maintaining and scrutinizing order-
of-battle files, studying detailed aspects of the
Soviet economy.
k. All analytic organizations are spread too
thin. The situation is clearly critical in DIA,
where vital national and departmental needs are
inadequately met because DIA has too many masters,
too broad and unstructured a mission, and too little
management flexibility to assemble the quantity and
quality of people needed for its job.
1. As a producing organization, CIA is insuf-
ficiently attentive to the needs of DOD in general.
There is no "right" judgment as to what complaints
ought to be on this list or as to the degree of their
validity. The important points are that:
a. these complaints are sincerely voiced
and valid to some degree, and
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b. they impinge on the entire environment
of intelligence analysis and production.
Tackling these problems and improving the overall
effectiveness of intelligence production, including the
kind for which the DCI is uniquely responsible, does not
rest mainly upon structural change ?or redistribution of
management authority. Improvement requires problem recogni-
tion and steady management effort at all levels, in all
producing agencies. As noted in the previous section, the
basic structure of the intelligence production community is
appropriate to the provision of effective support to policy-
makers. It permits departmental and non-departmental
production; it permits the sharing of data and judgments;
it permits interagency agreement or disagreement as required.
Efforts to improve intelligence production do, however,
have some implications for Community structure, and changes
in Community structure sought for other reasons could affect
the quality of intelligence production. The following
points bear on this issue:
a. The basic structure of the Intelligence
Community must afford as close an interaction
between analytical activity and collection activity
as reasonable security concerns will allow. The
efficiency of both activities depends on it.
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Present Community structure permits this, and the
DCI can encourage it. Alternative structures
might or might not be as conducive.
b. The Intelligence Community should have
more integrated means of executing its warning
and crisis support responsibilities.
C. Some institutional framework or process
outside intelligence is required to permit effective
intelligence support of national net assessment
activities.
d. Unless mooted by restructuring decisions,
it would be desirable to resolve the apparent
tension between the national intelligence responsi-
bilities of the DCI's NIO mechanism and those of
his DDI within CIA.
e. To the extent that the DCI's performance
as a national intelligence producer depends upon
the performance of departmental production entities,
the DCI should have and use some authority over the
resource and management factors that influence that
performance.
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f. It is probably correct, but also probably
unprovable, that a significant increase in total
Community resources given to analysis and production,
at modest cost to collection and processing, would
yield visible benefits. Such shifts probably require
stronger central authority over Community resources
to achieve.
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IV. C. Efficiency
Achieving the most cost-effective allocation of intelli-
gence resources is mainly a matter of managing the most
costly resources--those for collection and processing.
Management proceeds in two time dimensions: the use of
existing assets to meet current and near-term needs; and
the development of capabilities for the future. In both
dimensions the challenge is to provide necessary coverage
of target problems and adequate service to consumers, while
avoiding unnecessary, particularly duplicative, effort.
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IV. C. 1. Current Collection', Requirements, Priorities,
and Tasking
Formal, centralized mechanisms for the guidance of major
technical collection operations exist at the national level,
under the DCI. These mechanisms -- at the center of which
are the DCI's committees, COMIREX for imagery satellites and
the SIGINT Committee
are, structured largely to fit the systems they
guide. Their basic task is to broker the needs of informa-
tion users with the capabilities of collection entities.
Problems and frictions arise in the course of their business.
But these are manageable in the current structure of the
Community. These collection guidance mechanisms are the
middlemen of the intelligence process. Their function is
not always understood by analysts or users, collectors, or
outside critics. One needed improvement is to give the
process more visibility.
Human source collection lacks a formal centralized sys-
tem of requirement and priority definition. The large and
varied array of human source collectors who reside outside
intelligence entities and provide a major portion of US
foreign reporting resist inclusion in such a system. But
some reliable means, even if voluntary, of tying them into
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the intelligence process must be achieved if other human
assets, particularly clandestine resources, are to be used
efficiently. The DCI and his subordinates can cajole and
lobby for improvements on this front, but must depend on
cooperation outside intelligence for real progress.
The Community lacks a centralized mechanism for "tuning"
collection requirements on an all-source basis. Such
competence does exist in the collection management, ana-
lytical, and operational elements of the Community. Moreover,
once one moves beyond the general guidance contained in such
instruments as Key Intelligence Questions and DCID 1/2,
current requirements management must be done in terms of the
specific collection disciplines against specific problems.
This does not necessarily lead to undesirable duplication
because, while many assets may be targeted against the same
problem, they yield different kinds of data on it and thereby
produce the all-source picture needed by national intelligence.
It would still be desirable, however, to develop a some-
what more explicit communications network among the major
entities of current collection management to give assurance
that effective all-source allocation is taking place. Such
a network could also provide the basis for developing cur-
rent or near-term collection strategies against new
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collection problems. This entity should not be an additional
layer of requirements management between analysts and col-
lectors, but rather a horizontal connective tissue that
would allow the DCI, NFIB, NI0s, etc., to know and influence
what the total collection community is doing on a given
problem.
Difficulties here do not arise so much from lack of DCI
authority or from failings of Community structure, although
the fragmented structure of the ColLUL mnity has helped to
instill in each collection discipline a disposition to want
to manage its own affairs with only general guidance. The
main difficulties are defining problems and designing
workable improvement mechanisms.
One problem of current collection management that has
so far defied adequate definition is that of transition
from a peacetime to a wartime posture in which major
national collection systems, particularly overhead imagery
and the total national SIGINT capability, must support
military decisionmaking from the President down to the
field commander. This problem has become more prominent
as reconnaissance satellites have become more able to
supply the intelligence needs of military commanders.
It vexes debates over Community structure while one school
of thought argues that the DCI should control for reasons
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of rational resource allocation, another argues that the
Defense Department must control to provide reliable support
to the command hierarchy.
As long as intelligence collection systems not organic
to combat forces can provide such support, satisfactory
definition and resolution of this problem will not arise from
a priori principles. Careful and detailed study, planning,
and exercising are required. A major difficulty is that we
have not had meaningful practical experience with the presently
available array of collection assets in a major military crisis
or large-scale conflict involving US military forces. Some
general observations could help structure the problem and
perhaps avoid errors:
a. Whoever runs or controls the national
collection posture of the US in time of war will
have to use it not only to serve the needs of
military decisionmaking, but also those of top-level
political decisionmaking and the conduct of diplomacy.
Military needs will likely dominate, but not to the
exclusion of other needs.
b. For support of both military and non-military
users of intelligence, the problem of collection
management in war will be the same as in peace:
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marshalling many different collection systems to
serve many different users. The major difference
will be the volume and time-urgency of demands
placed on these systems.
c. The primacy of military demands for intelli-
gence support is not likely to be challenged in
wartime by any collection management system. Most
difficulties for any managing authority will arise
from conflicts among different levels and kinds of
military needs. Managing these conflicts will
require system-oriented methods. For example,
battlefield coverage by a low-altitude imaging sys-
tem will impinge on a narrow slice of its daily
operations within which priorities among local
targets will have to be set on a time-urgent basis.
Outside the battle area, priority conflicts are
likely to be more relaxed.
the job of prioritizing among the feasible
requirements of military users will be a more crucial
consideration than the question of who controls
the systems physically and who presides over the
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process that injects non-military requirements into
the total set of requirements and passes them to
the collector.
It may be possible to select among three distinguishable
philosophies for managing this problem centrally:
a. In wartime, the Secretary of Defense should
manage the collection requirements systems for all
assets that can support military operations.
b. The DCI should manage those systems as a
service to the military command hierarchy, taking
his requirements from the latter.
c. Management of some critical assets should
be transferred to defense, depending on the system
and the conflict scenario.
Any of these approaches could work, but it is unlikely
that any of them would work well until we know in greater
detail what national intelligence collection management really
means in a wartime context and build working mechanisms
appropriate to that understanding.
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IV. C. 2. Assembling Resources for the Future: Programming,
Budgeting, and Other Management Powers
A foremost challenge of US intelligence management is
to develop the best overall mix of capabilities needed to
perform effectively at reasonable cost. This challenge is
met in the year-to-year process of funding the major
intelligence programs of the Community. How and how well
this is done is central to the issues of DCI authority and
Community structure.
It should be understood, however, that efficient resource
management is more than a matter of structure and authority.
The most fundamental problem of intelligence resource manage-
ment is one that is common to other functional programs in
government: there is no management science or comprehensive
and orderly set of procedures which may be applied to allo-
cation of intelligence resources. We do not have a rigorous
set of measures or procedures for assessing the value of intel-
ligence outputs and the relative contribution of inputs in
terms that find general agreement and lead to confident
decisions. This problem emerges from the very nature of the
intelligence business:
a. There are no agreed objective measures of
output value, since the limits of the needs of
intelligence consumers cannot be defined, and there
are no ways to quantify marginal satisfaction.
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b. Except in discrete technical areas, the
relative contribution of the many elements of the
intelligence process cannot be quantified. These
contributions are made through highly disaggregated
and usually subjective processes within the heads
of analysts and evaluators.
c. There is no explicit and comprehensive way
to measure the value of, or loss implicit in,
unsuccessful effort, i.e., experiments that fail,
collection efforts that yield less than desired,
analytic labors that do not produce. Consequently,
activities that do not appear to result in a product
become suspect in a world whose thinking is strongly
influenced by cost-effectiveness criteria. And by
its nature, intelligence necessitates much effort that
is unsuccessful.
These shortcomings of value measurement do not preclude
reasoned judgment on what intelligence resources to assemble
and how to use them. Such judgments are made all the time.
In some aspects of intelligence management, they rest on
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quantifiable or explicit rational analysis, albeit with
incomplete information. But more often they require
successive aggregations of subjective judgment, experience,
intuition, institutional preference, and a large measure of
arbitrary decision.
In short, resource decisions are the domain of people
exercising judgment. Considering the high level of human
intervention involved, we ought not be surprised that the
decisionmaking process leads to concern about organization
and authority structure. For, lacking a science of intelli-
gence resource management that all parties practice in
harmony, organizational structure is the most straightforward
way to establish the incentives and interests that more or less
integrate all the disaggregated decisions that make up
resource management from top to bottom. Those responsible
for such decisions at the top or center want great authority
to structure incentives, give guidance and instruction, and
review or correct lower echelon decisions. Those lower in
the system typically want maximum independence. Those on
the periphery or outside, but dependent on the system, want
influence over the parts that interest them. This produces the
familiar tension between centralizing and decentralizing forces
Historically, US intelligence resource management has
been largely decentralized, boUlin the Community as a whole
and in the Department of Defense where most resources resided.
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But pressures to centralize the process of managing those
resources labeled national have been increasing for several
years. Going beyond mere instruction, in 1976, E.O. 11905
initiated a relatively centralized process, but one still
based on a federated institutional structure and collegial
decisionmaking below the President.
The record established in one year of operation under
E.O. 11905 is mixed. A consolidated NFIP and Budget were
produced. Through unprecedentedly extensive interactions
among the members of the CFI, their staffs, and the NFIP
program elements, issues were defined, studied, and in some
cases resolved, in others deferred. Such issues were
initially identified by the program managers, the Intelligence
Community Staff (functioning as the CFI staff), OMB, and
Congress. Valuable experience was gained at the staff and
principal levels in working with this process. A major step
forward was taken in forcing programmatic decisions into a
process wherein it is possible to justify program inputs in
terms of intelligence value across the Community.
But this record was achieved only through a difficult
struggle over procedure and substance. At bottom, key
players, notably in the IC Staff and the Defense Department,
were at odds over the basic goals, the wisdom, and even the
legitimacy of this process. E.O. 11905 strengthened the
incentives of the DCI's IC Staff to give critical scrutiny
to, and to influence the specific contents of, intelligence
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programs. At the same time, it enhanced DOD's incentive,
growing for some years, to place one central authority,
DDI/ASD(I), astride all DOD intelligence equities. These
authorities inevitably came into conflict as the former
attempted to deal directly with program managers and the
latter resisted such attempts.
Although issues examined and decisions made were dealt
with in terms of cross-program implications where they could
be identified, the 1976 experience did not include a major
new effort to accomplish cross-program trade-offs of the most
basic sort. The process did not and probably could not come
to grips with major shifts of funds among programs and across
the elements of the intelligence process, i.e., collection,
processing, and production. The CFI did not attempt to
redefine the proper contents and scope of the NFIP -- notably,
what Defense intelligence program elements should be included
and which excluded, according to a systematic examination of
each element. It elected merely to accept the NFIP as it
found it and to begin making resource decisions from there.
Although opinions differ as to how this record should be
read, it is clear that the system worked to a considerable
degree and has potential for improvement as more able and
experienced staffing of the process is achieved. It is also
clear, however, that this system will occasion continued
tension and struggle between the participants, especially
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the IC Staff and the DOD, unless the rules of the process are
better defined.
Certainly, refinement of the programming and budgeting
process created in E.O. 11905 is one option for enhancing
the integrity of national intelligence resource management
in the future. It has the significant virtue of an evolu-
tionary approach that builds on existing organizations and
accumulated experience.
As it presently stands, however, the system gives the
DCI responsibilities that extend beyond his pure management
authority to fulfill. It obliges him to proceed on most matters
by persuasion and negotiation. This means that to a great
extent, initiative in the process lies with program elements
and with outside critics. As a by-product, this structure
places significant strain on the DCI in discharging his
dual roles as head of CIA and as Community leader.
Deciding on options for Community structure that will
satisfy the criterion of efficient resource management
requires that certain key issues be addressed:
a. How much emphasis should be placed on resource
management efficiency in structuring US
intelligence?
Many would assert management efficiency to be an
obviously essential goal. But, it is not obvious that
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satisfactory intelligence performance can be achieved at
lower than present costs through better allocation of
resources. One could argue that declining resources have
already put intelligence overall in an inefficiently austere
condition, where needed initiatives and improvements are too
hard to justify and, hence, are not taken. But the fact that
we cannot reasonably show whether particular intelligence
efforts are essentially "efficient" should not deter pursuit of
a resource allocation regime that emphasizes efficiency.
Failure to display a workable system that strives for efficiency
and shows results is likely to produce unwise, arbitrary
decrements. Moreover, there are numerous specific areas
where a rigorous regime can be expected to identify needless
duplication and possible savings.
b. What is the promise of better analytical
methods, or management science, for improving
the efficiency of intelligence resource
management?
It is highly doubtful that better analysis on resource
issues can substitute for management authority in achieving
more efficient intelligence allocations. Improvements can be
reasonably expected from better, more consistent data on
intelligence activities at all levels, from staffing the
resource allocation processes of intelligence more expertly,
and from applying more rigorous methods. But in the end, the
results will depend on the incentives of the players to
cooperate; this depends on the authority structure.
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c. What is the appropriate scope of the intelligence
activities of the US government that ought to be
brought under an intelligence management system?
In part,
this question is: What should be
NFIP? But because intelligence is a shaded
of activities, some of which probably cannot be
included in
continuum
managed as
intelligence per se, it is probably necessary to distinguish
several kinds of intelligence for resource management pur-
poses, and to accept some arbitrary dividing lines. Different
management regimes should probably apply to each. For example,
CIA, NSA,
programs
clearly represent a set of assets that are primarily national
in nature. Consequently, they ought to be justified in
relationship to each other and managed as national assets,
despite their contingent value for tactical support roles.
Other elements, such as departmental analytical organizations
and many collection entities within the GDIP, could be justified
primarily in departmental terms, but subject to review, criticism,
and stimulation from the national, or DCI, arena because of
their value or the extent of their contribution to the national
effort. On the other hand, given the rather coarse measures
available, distinguishing departmental from national needs
is probably not useful in delineating authority and responsi-
bility. Whatever is of departmental interest is also of national
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interest. Yet a third set would seem essentially tactical in
character, e.g., assets organic to military combat units. Here
the main interest of the national intelligence manager would
be to gain the benefit of their existence in ways consistent
with their mission but to assume no responsibility for their
management.
d. How much centralizing authority is required
for efficient resource management in the national
intelligence structure?
Three kinds or levels of authority can readily be
distinguished, each level capturing the previous one, except
where explicitly compromised by the rules of the chosen
management process:
1) defining requirements and priorities;
2) controlling programming and budgeting; and
3) line management, including authority over
personnel and operational control of assets.
Given future uncertainties and long lead times, the DCI's
power to define requirements and priorities that apply to
future intelligence capabilities is a weak means of controlling
resource allocations. Direct influence over programs and
budgets is required to effect such control, either by unitary
or collegial decisionmaking methods. But even then it may be
argued that the uncertainties and inevitable disputes that
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must attend intelligence resource allocations for the
future demand, in some cases, the authority necessary to
direct subordinate organizations, to make their members
willing supporters of the goals of the center. The question,
therefore, is: Should the national intelligence resource
manager have total line authority over a set of organizations
that, from a resource point of view, make up a national whole
or are departmental interests in these national components
sufficient to require departmental line authority as the only
means of insuring continued protection of those interests?
e. Should responsibility for intelligence resource
management be combined with or separated from
responsibility for national intelligence production?
Separation of resource management and intelligence production
responsibilities might make it easier for the production manager to
justify his resources and to concentrate on improving analytic
performance. On the other hand, combination of these respon-
sibilities is required if large expenditures on intelligence
collection and processing are to be rationalized in terms of
their ultimate contribution to intelligence output. If
efficient allocation of intelligence resources means anything,
it must mean an orderly relationship between inputs and outputs.
Separation of analysis and collection management responsibility
would make this difficult if not impossible.
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f. If there is to be a national intelligence
manager, with special emphasis on and responsi-
bility for resource management, who should he
be and who should he report to? Over what
elements should he have line authority, collegial
influence, or some advisory responsibility?
This, of course, is the bottom-line issue. It ranges
beyond the instructed scope of this report. The relevant
options and arguments will be addressed in other responses
to PRM/NSC-ll.
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9 May 1977
A Reaction to: Draft Paper, "The Role of
the DCI... "(PRM-11, Task 2)
An organizational analysis of the roles of the DCI which contains a
total of six passing references in 116 pages to the National Foreign
Intelligence Board can be read as betraying a basic ignorance of the
nature of the intelligence community which the DCI is intended to lead
and a lack of understanding of the role of the community in assisting
the DCI in the performance of his primary responsibility, the production
of national intelligence.
A non-organizational analysis, which would properly regard no
institution as enduring, should concentrate on the DCI's major responsi-
bilities and the authorities he needs to carry out his responsibilities.
If he is to be the President's principal foreign intelligence advisor,
he is, above all, responsible for the production of national intelligence.
He must have the authority to direct the intelligence community's
activities in the production of national intelligence with corollary
authority to set collection requirements in priority order and to allocate
resources as required.
The DCI controls the production of national intelligence with
the advice of the intelligence community; the structure of the advisory
body is a proper subject for an organizational analysis.
The DCI controls the allocation of resources aimed at supporting
the production of national intelligence through an existing structure,
which is also subject to organizational analysis.
What needs most careful consideration is the strengthening of the
DCI's role by giving him the authority to ensure that what is put in by
way of resources is determined by the need to put out national intelligence.
In an organizational analysis, whatever the final result, a re-
affirmation of the need for PRC (Intelligence) requires that attention
also be paid to the NFIB. Otherwise, an existing flaw will be preserved.
Resource allocation cannot remain independent of the DCI's responsibility
for substantive national intelligence. The strongest structure would
link the two. The DCI could then delegate his authority, but never his
responsibility.
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25X1
25X1
Approved For Release 2008/06/10: CIA-RDP79M00095A000300020001-9
Approved For Release 2008/06/10: CIA-RDP79M00095A000300020001-9
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*ANDER WILL CHECK CLAW DATHOM i *Jr "MY, irs?? ? ? ?.? '' ? ?
? 1 4UVLASSIFIED 'CiSNFIDENTIAL J SECRET
OFFICIAL ROUTING SLIP
TO
NAME AND ADDRESS
DATE
INITIALS
1
D/OPEI
3
4
5
ACTION
DIRECT REPLY
PREPARE REPLY
APPROVAL
DISPATCH
RECOMMENDATION
COMMENT
FILE
RETURN
CONCURRENCE
INFORMATION
SIGNATURE
Remarks:
FOLD HERE TO RETURN TO SENDER
FROM: NAME. ADDRESS AND PHONE NO.
DATE
Exec Sec, NFIB
5/9/77
SECRET
UM.. ASSII IED
F-C-ONFIDENTIAL
Approved For Release 2008/06/10: CIA-RDP79M00095A0O6300020001-9