COMMENT ON NSA 102 (E) "DISSEMINATION"

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83-01034R000400120019-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 18, 2013
• Sequence Number: 19
• Publication Date: November 17, 1955
• Content Type: MISC

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ANNa
COMMENT ON NSA 102 (e) "DISSEMINATION"
(Notes This comment was discussed on November 171 1955, with
L. R. Houston, CIA General Counsel, who considered it a reasonable
brief statement of the case.)
The National Security Act of 1947 put a positive duty On
CIA to disseminate to appropriate agencies within the Government
correlated and evaluated intelligence relating to the national
security. This is specific and positive and is the direct result
of the Pearl Harbor investigation which showed that failure to
diaSeminate intelligence was Among the causes of the disaster.
Related to this duty is the clause (section 102 (e)) allowing for
inspection of the intelligence agencies by the DCI; plus the pro-.
vision (d-4) that CIA shall perform "services of common concern".
In order to direct a system under which there would be a
-minimum possibility of non-dissemination such as occurred at Pearl
Harbors the DCI would need to take full advantage of the "inspection"
clause because otherwise he would have no way of knowing whether or
not material requiring dissemination had been received in am given
department. He would also need whatelier authority might be granted
by the NSC to assure that such material would be disseminated to
all appropriate officials. On the other hand, to provide for dis-
semination of intelligence as a "service of common concern", he
would need only to construct machinery, within the central agency,
adequate for the purpose of routing information.
The ideal of centrally assurred dissemination is in conflict
with certain realities of intelligence. Information classifiable
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as intelligence by general standards, may be deeMed unavailable for
intelligence purposes by n department of the puvertueent in which
intelligence is only a aupportin3 function for broader purposes.
Thus the business of the Department of Lefense is to prosecute end ?
be prepared for warp while that of the Department of State is to
fOrmulats and execute foreign policy. Information directly related
to these purposes may constitute intelli7ence under given definitions
of the term but is not so Considered by these departments witch will,
therefore, not free it for distribution in intelligence channels.
If this principle were disturbed through insistence upon a prescribed
distribution of such meter/ale, the implication* for the operating
departments would be most difficult.
Perhaps in consequence of theee facts, the adoption of a
central dissemination eystem such as nay have been intended by Congress
under the terms of the National Cecurity Att has never been found
feasible. Instead, the actual responsibility for dissemination has
devolved upon the intelligence blvisory Council (subject of course
to the OC) where Ultimate decisions as to diseemination are made.
A "service of common concern" with respect to dissemination
became a function of the Office of Collection end Dissemination of
C/A which served both es a distribution center within CIA and a
central clearing house for the routing of intelligence within the
government.
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