ANNUAL REPORT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL ON THE STATUS OF THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE PROGRAM (AS OF 30 JUNE 1958)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79R00961A000400010005-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 7, 2000
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: September 2, 1958
• Content Type: REPORT

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ANNUAL REPORT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
ON THE
STATUS OF THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE PROGRAM
(as of 30 June 1958)
Submitted by
Intelligence Advisory Committee
September 1958
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ANNUAL REPORT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
ON THE
STATUS OF THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE PROGRAM
A. Organization, Integration and Coordination
A thorough review and revision of the National Security Council
Intelligence Directives was completed. The responsibilities pre-
viously discharged by the Intelligence Advisory Committee (IAC) and
the United States Communications Intelligence Board (USCIB) are now
to be vested in a single United States Intelligence Board. Other specific
actions were designed to promote integration, reduce duplication and
improve coordination within the intelligence community. Special
emphasis was also directed toward improving the quantity and
quality of our intelligence in certain vital areas, including those con-
sidered particularly important by the President's Board of Consultants
on Foreign Intelligence Activities.
B. Evaluation of U. S. Capabilities to Provide Warring of Attack
With respect to the "early warning" problem generally, we
continue to face increasing difficulties in being able to provide prior
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intelligence warning of a Soviet attack on the U. S. and U. S. forces,
as the USSR's growing strength in advanced weapons sytems improves
its capabilities for surprise attack. This problem will be compounded
when the USSR achieves a substantial delivery capability with inter-
mediate and long range ballistic missiles in position.
During the past year we made some progress in increasing our
existing early warning capabilities. A new "General Indicators" list
was developed. Specific action was taken to improve the means of
transmitting critical intelligence to the highest authorities. Require-
ments were established for critical intelligence and a "Critic" system,
using existing communication facilities, went into operation in July 1958
as the first step toward attaining more rapid transmission goals.
NSCID 7 was specially designed to cope with the over-all problem of
getting critical intelligence to Washington within 10 minutes to one hour.
Further steps were also taken to implement development of a
C. Evaluation and Estimates
The intelligence community again produced a large number of
coordinated national intelligence estimates directed at various phases
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of Sino-Soviet Bloc or Free World activities of interest to policy-
makers. The extensive production of basic intelligence on a world-
wide basis continued. Substantial improvement also was made in the
processes of producing and. coordinating current intelligence related
to the national security.
Sino-Soviet Bloc
With respect to political intelligence on the Soviet Bloc, we
continue to benefit from the relatively more open atmosphere in the
post-Stalin USSR and the greater accessibility of Soviet personalities
at all levels. These developments provide us with a. broader basis for
inference as to the course of events and elements of change within the
Bloc, though generally speaking we still lack the type of hard intelli-
gence which would permit more confident prediction of specific events,
Also, Soviet stress on ideological conformity throughout the Bloc and
attacks on revisionism have tended to limit our opportunities to acquire
intelligence on official attitudes and actions. As in the past, political
intelligence on Communist China remains a major problem.
In the field of military intelligence, we obtained additional infor -
oration on Soviet military research and development, especially in the
guided missile field. Our military intelligence information on the Sino-
Soviet Bloc continues to be adequate to support broad assessments of
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the current capabilities of the Armed Forces of those countries and
to discern general trends in their development. Nevertheless, the
available information in some critical fields is inadequate to furnish
a solid intelligence basis for U. S. military plans, operations and re-
search and development. Moreover, security measures and the
rapidity of change in military technology continue to increase our diffi-
culties in projecting Soviet military capabilities, particularly with
respect to new weapons systems.
Our intelligence on economic developments within the Sino-Soviet
Bloc continued to improve during the year, largely due to increased
availability of data published by the Bloc and better methods of analysis.
However, increasing experimentation with economic policies and insti-
tutions, especially in the Soviet Union and Poland., introduced new
elements of uncertainty in our intelligence forecasting. We also have
serious gaps in our information on questions such as the size, composi-
tion and costs of Soviet military programs.
We made important advances in almost every category of scientific
intelligence on the Sino-Soviet Bloc. New information received, for
example, provides a more valid basis for estimating the status of
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Soviet atomic energy activities. However, key gaps remain in our
knowledge of matters such as Soviet fissionable materials production,
the nuclear propulsion field and certain aspects of their weapons
development. We acquired significant new information on nearly all
aspects of the Soviet guided missile and space vehicle programs. Never-
theless, critical gaps still exist and the intelligence community is in-
creasing its emphasis in this field, especially through the development
of new technical collection techniques, We also improved our intelli-
gence on Soviet biological and chemical warfare programs, and on
their electronics capabilities.
Non-Bloc Areas
The comparatively large flow of political intelligence on Free World
countries continued. Somewhat greater emphasis was placed on re-
porting trends in public opinion and their impact on the attitudes and
policies of Free World governments, Intelligence on Soviet Bloc
activities in Latin America is improving gradually but must be developed
further, as must our knowledge of activities of the local military and of
labor and student organizations. Our political intelligence on the
Middle East continued to provide a satisfactory basis for the assessment
of longer range trends and to serve as a framework for current
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reporting. However, the fluidity and complexity of local political
developments, as well as the many external factors affecting the
volatile Middle East situation, appear likely to place increasing de-
mands for intelligence information and analyses on this area. In
Africa, extension of our foreign service representation should enlarge
the volume of the steadily increasing but not yet adequate flow of
political and sociological intelligence. ' Political intelligence on non-
Bloc countries in the Far East generally met requirements, although
there were certain deficiencies such as in intelligence on rural areas
which are becoming increasingly significant politically.
Reports of military information on Western Europe continued at a
generally satisfactory level. Our basic data on nor -Communist military
forces in the Far East was also generally adequate to meet normal re-
quirements. However, military intelligence coverage of the Middle
East became increasingly difficult in some areas. Reporting of military
information on Africa needs to be broadened, especially in the light of
the rapid emergence of nationalist movements which are subject to
exploitation by the USSR.
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D. Collection
We again revised our list of Priority National Intelligence Objectives,
which continued to emphasize Sino-Soviet strategy, intentions and plans
related to the initiation of hostilities. The highest priority was also
assigned to Soviet capabilities for nuclear attack; defense against
nuclear attack by aircraft or missiles; and capabilities, intentions and
plans relating to the utilization and control of space. The new Critical
Collection Problems Committee was established to facilitate closer
coordination of the intelligence community on critical collection targets.
As its first assignment, the CCPC examined our total collection effort on
Soviet guided missile activities.
We took advantage of collection opportunities which arose (both in
the overt and clandestine fields) as a result of our increased representa-
tion in certain areas, further relaxation of travel and other counterin-
.telligence controls by the USSR and Satellites, intensified East-West
exchange activities, greater availability of certain types of Bloc publi-
cations.
Significant gains also resulted from
our improved technical collection techniques and the intensified efforts
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Nevertheless, there are important deficiencies in our collection
capabilities, particularly with respect to obtaining certain critical
types of intelligence on the Sino-Soviet Bloc. We continue to be hampered
by severe security restrictions in most.Bloc areas; high-level penetra-
tions of Bloc governments remain extremely difficult; and much urgently
needed technical data on matters such as new weapons systems probably
can be obtained only through further development of highly specialized
collection techniques. Recurring crisis situations in different areas of
the world will probably continue to place increasing demands for im-
provement in the quantity and quality of our political and economic
intelligence. In addition, we need to develop new technical collection
methods and expand our clandestine efforts to make significant progress
toward closing many important gaps in our military and scientific and
technical information. Moreover, in order to realize the maximum
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intelligence in important areas; however, we cannot predict with
confidence a significant reduction in many of our most critical intelli-
gence deficiencies by an early date.
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