INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION HANDLING IN THE COMMUNITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01495R000600100018-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: January 4, 2017
• Document Release Date: July 11, 2005
• Sequence Number: 18
• Publication Date: February 20, 1974
• Content Type: MF

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20 February 1974
MEMORANDUM FOR: Assistant Deputy Director for Intelligence
SUBJECT Intelligence Information Handling in the
Community
REFERENCE D/DCI/IC memo to DCI dtd 8 Feb 74, same
subject
1. The referent defining information handling as
the dissemination and display of collected and processed
data assumes that the Community has a gigantic problem
in this area. The problem, if left alone, will result
in unacceptable costs, confusion, and inadequate systems.
To prevent such a catastrophe, the D/DCI/IC recommends
the DCI halt all development or expansion of existing
or planned systems and that the DCI establish an Intelligence
Information Project Officer and a full-time interagency
steering group and utilize a contractor to:
a. Analyze Community-wide information flows,
b. Build a single "coherent" information system
utilizing parts of existing systems developments
now underway,
c. Create a management structure to implement
this single intelligence system, and
d. Develop an overall plan for "coping" with
the information handling problem.
2. The Community's information handling history is
filled with the corpses of grandiose plans of action similar
to the one proposed--ACSIMATIC (ACSI), 438L (AFCIN), Project
CHIVE (CIA), DoD's Worldwide Automated Biographic System,
and UNIFILE (DIA) to name a few. The recommendation to
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study and analyze the Community-wide information flow
is analogous to the ill-fated SCIPS (Survey of Community
Information Processing Systems) venture (1960-1964) that
involved manpower from all parts of the Community to study
information flow and processing. These efforts were doomed
from the start because their scope was too broad and their
project managers, participants, and contractors became
enamoured with "the ideal" and failed to perceive the
"today" requirements within manpower and budgetary limita-
tions. If individual agency efforts failed in the past,
a comprehensive Community effort would almost certainly
fail. The DCI should be told that such a plan will not meet
the Community's information handling requirements and
could result in many more confusions and delays than those
alluded to by his D/DCI/IC. A large scale Community/contrac-
tor design team, no matter how successful the DCI is in
indoctrinating "DCI and the Community spirit", will not
succeed. Its tasks are not product-oriented like those
of NRO, NSA or DDS&T cited as being success ul.
3. If we learned anything at all from these other
ventures, it was to start small; involve the users; build
system modules or pieces that could be tested, discarded
(if not technically successful and cost effective) and
expanded after demonstrated successes; and utilize "state
of the art" in software and off-the-shelf hardware. This
"bite size", stairstep, module approach minimizes costs,
ensures a more responsive system, and enables management
to become more attuned to the system as it is developing
rather than waiting for a "customized package." The DDI's
Project SAFE is based on this premise. The DDI should
alert the DCI about this project, the minimum risks when
compared to previous unsuccessful comprehensive projects,
and the eventual goals of such an undertaking if it is
successful. Even a small effort such as SAFE has experienced
critical testing and developmental delays resulting from
the merger of the CRS computer operations with OJCS. These
would be compounded a thousandfold if such a project were
to be developed for all agencies of the Intelligence Com-
munity and military commands.
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SUBJECT: Intelligence Information Handling in the Community
4. The D/DCI/IC proposal is not only too large to
be effective, it could eventually lead, if adopted, to
the development of a community "F-111"--a system designed
to satisfy everybody's requirements and not meeting anyone's.
Like the F-111, this system would require technology not
yet proven and electronics with only laboratory existence,
and because of size and complexity the effort would be
a budgetary monster. From another point of view, this
rather undefined, open-ended project would dwarf the SAGE
project.
5. The information handling needs of the DDO are
different than those of NSA's in data reduction or of
the DoD's in presenting military, naval, and air order
of battle. Numerous smaller interagency efforts to stan-
dardize document number systems, microfiche, indexing
language, data elements, content control codes, responsi-
bility allocations, requirements registries, etc., have
had mixed success. Those that succeeded were implemented
when a specific interagency need was addressed and met.
Others failed because (1) the standard did not meet an
in-house requirement, (2) the standard was too expensive
to implement, (3) there was inadequate or inconsistent
policing and (4) programs had to be curtailed because
of manpower and monetary reduction. Such efforts and
failures cannot be dismissed as bureaucratic footdragging
or parochial concern. They probably more often reflect
the differing requirements, priorities, manpower and
budgetary ceilings and uses for intelligence information
within the Community.
6. The information handling problems raised by the
D/DCI/IC are exaggerated. He has grouped a number of
on-going projects under the general heading of information
handling and states that any individual project within
his grouping is a piecemeal approach that cannot be tolera-
ted by the DCI. Warning and crises support system; new
collection systems; incompatible file structures, retrieval
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SUBJECT: Intelligence Information Handling in the Community
languages and file management systems; rudimentary research
techniques; currency of COINS files; dissemination of
decompartmented TKH to military commands; and the informa-
tion needs of military field commands are lumped together
as justification for the creation of his interagency/contrac-
tual study team. Rather than indications of chaos, these
piecemeal solutions are indications of priorities. Warning
and crises support systems warrant a higher priority
than Community COINS-like files or the dissemination
of decompartmented TKH to military commands.
7. It would not be prudent for the DCI to temporarily
halt any further contracts or procurement for existing
Community information handling projects. This standdown
could last two or more years. These projects have been
developed to meet specific requirements--Project SAFE
and the creation of a national operations center, for
example. Delays while a committee or an individual exam-
ine their credibility could halt their momentum and much
of what has been accomplished to date would be lost.
8. Security is dismissed as an obstacle to Community
information flow, without an understanding of the "real"
world. CIA has been characterized as a "bureaucratic
foot dragger" by many of the COINS advocates because
it is unwilling to make its sensitive files available
for general community interrogation. "Need to know"
still remains a fundamental tenet of intelligence. CRS,
for example, is unable to get access to a DDO STAR ter-
minal because the DDO feels there will be a compromise
of their operational data. The number of dissemination
controls on intelligence documents continues to increase
and each control requires different access rules. To
suppose that a Community plan will minimize or eliminate
such access without a complete revision of the "need
to know" principle is ridiculous. Recent actions by
the DDO do not indicate such revision in the near term
nor does the DCI's recent ruling on access to the National
Intelligence Daily.
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SUBJECT: Intelligence Information Handling in the Community
9. An information handling advisor to the DCI (not
unlike the NIO concept in the substantive fields) to
provide technical advice and assistance to the DCI in
the field of Community information processing is probably
the only viable aspect of the D/DCI/IC proposal. The
DCI should utilize the advisor to review existing projects
underway in the Community, to determine their applicability
elsewhere and to effect coordination when necessary.
The DCI could also direct that all future projects of
this type be reviewed by his advisor before money and
manpower are allocated. Such an advisor, working with
individual agency project managers in information handling,
could also assist the DCI in developing a better set
of Community programs if required. A qualified and unbiased
individual, however, will be difficult to find, much
less recruit.
10. In summation, the DDI should recommend that:
a. The D/DCI/IC proposal for creating an In-
telligence Information Project Officer, interagency
steering committee, and a contractor to study infor-
mation handling with the Community be rejected.
The rejection should be based on failures of previous
large-scale Community efforts and the size and com-
plexity of the proposed tasks. The DDI should endorse
the concept of keeping such studies down to a manage-
able size that involve active analyst participation
and the module building approach. CRS's Project
SAFE or MAD should be cited as a model of the "how
to approach" the problem.
b. Continuing projects be allowed to grow "piece-
meal" in response to specific problems and priorities
subject to each agency's manpower and budgetary restric-
tions. The Community budgetary process should force
periodic review of these projects to ensure their
utility and cost effectiveness.
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SUBJECT: Intelligence Information Handling in the Community
c. As an alternative to the D/DCI/IC plan, the
DCI appoint an information handling advisor to provide
technical advice and assistance in evaluating on-
going Community efforts and futuristic programs.
d. The DCI inform PFIAB of his plan to appoint
an information handling advisor and request their
Director, Central Reference Service
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