POLICY ISSUES [DCI'S ROLE IN WARNING AND CRISIS]

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83B01027R000200050014-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 76
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 3, 2005
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: September 1, 1978
• Content Type: REPORT

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III. Policy Issues
20. In the preceding section five broad organizational structures
were discussed; each represents a different compromise among the policy
issues that await early decision. In the following sections each of
these policy issues is discussed in its own right.
A. Leadership Issues
21. The HPSCI Staff Report noted that there is a need for a leader-
ship focus for warning. In particular the HPSCI recommends, "That the
D CI provide a focus for warning leadership in the community, which may
require appointment of a special assistant for warning." Most observers
share the HPSCI view on the existence of a basic need, but there i.s
room for disagreement about where to lodge the focus function and about
what form it should take. The decisions made will largely determine
the balance that is struck between two sets of competing demands in
the area of warning and crisis management.
-- How to balance the attention given to analysis
against that given to collection. Most ob-
servers agree that current analytic weaknesses
are of more immediate concern from a warning
viewpoint. However, collection involves far
more resources; errors there can be more costly
in terms of routine operations. Further, the
allocation and control of collection assets will
present some of the most contentious decisions
in crisis management.
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-- How to balance the demands on analytic and col-
lection resources that arise from military re-
quirements against those that arise from the
broader needs of the President and his foreign
policy advisers.
22. Leadership can be placed in:
-- 0/DCI
Pro -- Symbolic of importance of warning.
-- Ready access to DCI.
-- Clearly a Community position.
Con -- DCI spread too thin to give it
attention.
-- Could be perceived as subverting
chain of command.
-- O/DDCI
Pro -- Symbolic importance still there.
-- Moderate access to DCI.
Con -- Could be perceived as subverting
chain of command.
-- O/DD/NFA
Pro -- Warning is largely an analytic problem
and here's where the assets are.
Con -- Tendency for Defense to'see this as a
"CIA" position.
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Reduced access to collectors, especially
for planning crisis management preparations.
-- In-house coordination a problem.
0/DD/CT
Pro -- Seen by Defense as more "Community"
than DD/NFA.
-- Here is where control of collection assets
used in crisis management will be exercised.
Con -- Reduced access to analysts who are primary
warning source.
-- In-house coordination a problem.
-- O/DD/RM
Pro -- Short of DCI the Deputy most seen by ob-
servers from outside CIA as "Community."
-- Has expertise to examine programs and
evaluate efforts.
Con -- Has direct control of no analytic or
collection tasking assets.
-- Assignment3of this function would require
broadening charter somewhat.
-- Defense Department
Pro -- Access to elaborate DoD I&W mechanisms.
Con -- Split responsibility to DCI and SecDef.
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-- Lack of access to DCI and political
analysts.
-- Will not be seen as Community.
Or it can be split. One possibility is to split responsi-
bility between DD/NFA and DD/CT. The factors arguing for or
against any such split are:
Pro -- Warning and crisis management cross
existing organizational responsibilities.
So putting focal point under any one
Deputy (except DDCI) will do violence to
the existing chain of command.
Con -- Splitting the function will be seen by
most observers as reducing the importance
attached to fulfilling the warning function.
23. A secondary question is what form the leadership should take.
The choice has been expressed as an individual (and perhaps an assis-
tant), an interagency committee, or an operating organization of up
to 25 people. This turns out not to be a choice, however. Any in-
dividual with staff responsibility under the DCI for warning is going
to need some sort of interagency committee or working group through
which to coordinate Community activities. (On the other hand, it is
general agreement that such a.committee would be managerial and should
not be involved in the substantive process of warning.) Any operating
organization will have to be headed by an individual who serves as
the DCI's "leader" or answers to him. The question then is really
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whether the individual needs to be backed up by such an organization.
Pro -- Such a staff can do independent warning
analysis.
-- Can perform an effective devil's advocacy
role in the Community.
-- Provides locus of responsibility for pro-
ducing the warning message.
Con -- Costly.
-- Problem keeping such a group relevant.
They tend to become isolated and moribund.
-- Competition with line organizations.
24. Closely related to this question is the disposition of the
Strategic Warning Staff:
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25. A final question is the focus of the Community warning effort.
Should it be broadly focused and deal with all major developments
that are of concern to the national level, or should it be confined to
the traditional narrow focus of "strategic warning," military attack
on the US or its allies? Obviously there is a middle ground, e.g.,
matters that might lead to US-Soviet confrontation, and major wars
between third powers. It is also possible to visualize a hybrid sys-
tem in which the differences between broad definition and narrow def-
inition are reflected in different organizational and procedural
treatment.
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26. Provision of the discipline and challenge functions.
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B. Analytic issues
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C. Crisis M gement Issues
XX. As noted above, the warning issues are the primary ones at
this time. But shaping the management structure for warning and for
crisis will be difficult without decisions on two issues: Where you
locate your task force in crisis and whether we should attempt to
resurrect the national task force. The latter question also needs to
be settled before any major crisis hits us.
XX. The task force report went at some length into the location
question and summarized its. analysis in the attached table.
XX. We assume on the basis of experience that you will need a
task force of analysts to prepare briefings, periodic situation re-
ports, and assessments for you and your primary customers. (Under
the new organization, such a task force will, of course, contain col-
lection tasking elements as well.) You can do this in three ways:
-- A truly "national" task force, jointly manned
by the Community agencies and producing a
single periodic situation report for the en-
tire national security establishment.
Pro --
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-- An N~'RC task force with INR & DIA represen-
tation and liaison preparing a DCI situation
report with some interagency participation.
-- An NFAC task force issuing an independent NFAC
situation report.
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D RAFT
31 August 1978
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director of Central Intelligence
THROUGH : Deputy Director of Central Intelligence
FROM . Robert R. Bowie
Deputy Director for National Foreign Assessment
Deputy Director for Collection Tasking
SUBJECT : The DCI's Role in Warning and Crisis
REFERENCES : a. Report on the DCI's Role in Warning and
Crisis, dtd 22 June 1978
b. Memorandum from DCI to DDCI, same subject,
dtd 18 July 1978
Introduction
1. Your memorandum of 18 July remarks inter alia that, although
all the relevant sources and experiences are cited in the Working
Group's report, the report does not lay out "a series of alternatives
between which we can exercise a decision-maker's judgment." You asked
for a statement of the essential elements of warning, some alternative
ways to achieve an adequate warning program, and an evaluation of
previous organizational arrangements for warning.
2. Knowing that you have read the report, we have not attempted
to rewrite it or to review again for you the argumentation and back-
ground. Rather, this memorandum is confined to the questions you raised.
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3. Our approach to providing you the clear alternatives you ask
for is necessarily somewhat complex, reflecting the intractability
and intertwining of the issues. Section I of this discussion lays
out the minimum requirements for a national warning system as a yard-
stick against which to judge alternative approaches. Section II
develops a number of models of national warning systems, past, present,
and possible, and measures them against the yardstick of Section I.
It will be apparent that in deciding among these models, or consider-
ing others not discussed, you will have to make certain fundamental
choices. These are presented in Section III.
4. The Working Group noted that warning and crisis management
probably should be managed together, as related functions involving
many of the same people and organizations, but that substantive oper-
ations should be kept separate, in order that a crisis in progress
not obscure the potential emergence of another. For that reason, we
address crisis management in Section II by judging whether particular
arrangements for Community coordination of warning policy and pro-
cedures are suitable for a parallel coordination of crisis management
matters. For the substantive side of crisis management, the Working
Group did not recommend any change from the approaches you had al-
ready evolved ad hoc. We do not, therefore, review these here, but a
few issues remain to be determined. These are included in Section III.
5. When you are ready to express your tentative preferences on
the issues here presented, we recommend you meet with us for a review
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before finally committing yourself. At that time we should also dis-
cuss how best to engage the rest of the Community.
L* Requirements for a National Warning System
6. The discussions in the Intelligence Community over the past
few years indicate a consensus as to the essential ingredients of a
warning program. The wording varies from one forum to another and
from one warning and crisis study to another, but one can perceive
these essential principles:
-- Warning must be an explicit mission of all
intelligence organizations,
-- There must be a way to converge intelligence
information in order to analyze it for I&W
content,
-- The output must be recognizable as warning,
-- The output must flow up, laterally, and down.
7. The complexity of the warning mission has increased rapidly
in recent years and the indications of impending crises come to us
from a wide variety of geographical and functional specialties within
and without the Intelligence Community. We must assign warning as a
mission for all intelligence organizations because of the many sources
of indications and in the interests of economy. We cannot afford to
duplicate the Intelligence Community with an apparatus devoted solely
to I&W.
8. There is a requirement that intelligence information converge
in order to analyze it for warning." This implies both.a technical
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capability for handling information and a means of focusing organi-
zational activity.
.9. The intelligence message must be clearly recognizable as a
w arning. The last thirty years are littered with crises where the
indications are perceived, evaluated, and passed on to military
operators and national decisionmakers; but the warning message was
not effectively communicated. There were several reasons for such
failures. In some cases the intelligence analyst simply failed to
recognize the indications of a crisis. In many more cases, however,
the message lacked a warning label because the sender did not have
an explicit warning responsibility and a concomitant authority to
send a "warning." In other cases, the military operator or national
decisionmaker failed to heed the warning because the sender was not
"the official warning office."
10. There must be an established and readily recognizable means
whereby the output of a national warning system flows up to the Presi-
dent, laterally to other departments, and down to the military oper-
ators. Placing all on the same footing is an obvious responsibility.
It is less obvious that the national warning system is dependent upon
inputs from the same sources to which it owes warning.
11. Just as there is general consensus on the essentials of a
warning system, there appears to be consensus on the functions that
such a system must incorporate. These are:
-- Coordination, across the Community and
across disciplines, of warning management,
policy, procedures and methodologies.
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-- Analysis, the identification, convergence,
and assessment of warning information and the
.formulation of the warning message.
-- Discipline, the means by which Community line
organizations, which have-primary responsi-
bilities other than warning, are kept sensitive
to their warning responsibilities.
-- Challenge, the insurance taken out against
analytic failure.
II. Systems for Warning
12. There are any number of ways in which these functions can be
wired together in a national system. The range is bounded at one
extreme by an integrated collection and analysis system fully dedi-
cated to warning and at the other by no system at all. The first is
unacceptable as enormously expensive and duplicating (warning is an
integral part of all analysis), the second is equally unacceptable
both politically (the DCI's "Pearl Harbor" responsibility) and prac-
tically (central coordination is needed).
13. In this section we analyze both systems used in-the past,
as you requested, and some other approaches, against the set of re-
quirements postulated in Section I.
14. The "Watch Committee" system used from 1951 to 1974 consisted
of .a senior interagency committee, usually chaired by the DDCI, that
prepared weekly and occasional special Watch Reports, and a 24-hour
jointly manned National Indications Center under a CIA Director.
The Committee submitted its reports to USIB (now NFIB) and the DCI
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issued them after USIB discussion as it.is still done with estimates.
The NIC was linked to the working levels in each intelligence agency
through a network of staff officers who acted as warning referents.
15. This arrangement provided all the functions needed for a
system. The Watch Committee,.assisted:by the NIC and staff arrange-
ments throughout the Community, handled both the coordination of
policy and operations and the analytic function; the DCI had a central
focus for warning. The Community-wide review that was required to
prepare for the weekly Committee meetings provided the discipline
necessary. The Committee and the NIC, in theory at least, performed
the challenge function from a position partially independent of the
current intelligence apparatus.
16. This system eventually failed, not because it was ill-conceived,
but because the world in which it functioned changed and it did not.
-- The intense national concern with surprise
Soviet attack which had caused its creation
gradually decreased. This led Community
managers to give a lower priority to the
assignment of good people to the warning
apparatus. In time, the NIC became a turkey farm.
-- As a consequence, the NIC was no longer
capable of performing a challenge function
and could not command the respect of line
organizations in this role.
-- The Watch Committee/NIC missions became
confused with the current intelligence
mission. The result was both to diffuse
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the warning effort and to place it in com-
petition with current intelligence.
-- The intelligence business matured mightily in
the two decades after 1951. Whereas the NIC was
the only thing of its kind at the beginning of
the period, it had been badly overtaken by the
agency operations centers at the end of it in
terms of facilities, communications, and access.
If it was to play a role in the '70s, it would
need an extremely expensive modernization that
would unnecessarily duplicate existing facili-
ties. It was, in effect, a fossil of the '50s.
--.Handling substance through a committee system,
both at the Watch Committee and the USIB (NFIB)
level, was barely workable in the '50s but was
never the most effective way of developing a clear
warning message. By the '70s, it had degenerated
into haggling over the wording of current intel-
ligence and was clearly ineffective.
17. The reorganization of 1974 abolished the Watch Committee and
the NIC. The Deputy Director for Production, DIA was designated by
the DCI as his Special Assistant for Strategic Warning. Under him, a
jointly-staffed Strategic Warning Staff was established with a CIA
Director. "Strategic Warning" was more precisely defined to deal only
with military attack by Communist powers on the US and its allies.
(This is the definition referred to below as the "narrow" warning
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mission.) The SWS was to be a challenge mechanism and to conduct
research in the indications and warning field. The Special Assistant,
on the advice of the Director, SWS, was to be responsible for recom-
mending to the DCI the issuance of Strategic Warning Notices. (None
has ever been issued.)
18. The strong points of this arrangement were that it gave full
recognition to the DoD role in strategic warning and that it provided
a direct and uncluttered channel for the warning message. But if the
Watch Committee system had been ponderously bureaucratic and stultified,
its replacement went too far to the other extreme.. In eliminating
outmoded organizations and mediocre personnel, we also eliminated the
critical underpinnings of a national warning system. The terms of
the essential functions noted above:
-- The Special Assistant -- a senior DIA officer was supposed to combine, under the DCI, the
coordination of policy and operations and the
analytic mission. In fact, in his anomalous
position -- with secondary duties assigned by
an authority whose interests often are different
from those of the authority for whom he performs
his primary ones -- he could not play a central
coordinating role. The arrangement was widely
seen as a retreat by a besieged DCI (Colby)
from his warning responsibilities. The Special
Assistant has exercised his authority only within
the DoD chain of command.
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-- The SWS has no formal links to the rest of the
Community and there is no Community-wide warn-
ing organization or routine. Warning outside
DoD is entirely a current reporting responsi-
bility. Thus the SWS is unable to serve as an
energizing force for warning matters and the
warning discipline that might sensitize the
Community is lacking.
-- Without structured links to the Community the
SWS is ineffective in its challenge role. Many
analysts are unaware of its existence. Moreover,
although it did not inherit the personnel.or
practices of the NIC, it suffers from the same
manning problems.
-- The narrowed scope of the strategic warning
mission omits a wide range of the warning
spectrum. (Referred to below as the "broad"
warning mission.)
19. New Models. Current pressures for structure and order, e.19.,
from HPSCI, are a recognition of these weaknesses. Some relatively
feasible and inexpensive ways of repairing them are as follows:
A. Fix the present system. This. would require stronger
links between the Special Assistant and the DCI on the one
hand and the SWS and Community analysts on the other. It
could be done by:
-- Creating a DCI Committee on Warning chaired
by.the Special Assistant, and charged with
the coordinating of warning policy and
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charged with the coordinating of warning
policy and operations for the Community
(but not the analytic mission).
-- Reaffirming and publicizing the Special
Assistant's responsibility to the DCI for
warning analysis.
-- Broadening the strategic warning mission
to include warning of any situation that
might lead to US-Soviet confrontation. (A
compromise between the narrow and broad
missions.)
-- Reaffirming the challenge mission of the SWS
and requiring the Community to upgrade its
personnel.
-- Providing discipline by charging the SWS with
conducting a weekly review to sensitize the
Community to warning matters; designating
referents in each agency through which the
full analytic resources of the Community
participate in these reviews.
Strengths
-- Simple and inexpensive.
-- Least disruption of present arrangements.
-- Recognized DoD role in strategic warning.
Weaknesses
-- DCI is carrying out his most important
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single responsibility through an officer
not subordinate to him.
-- Focus of coordinating committee in DoD
incompatible with DCI's crisis management
responsibilities to President and NSC.
-- The more mission is broadened to include
warning of the politico-military and economic
events. that are realistically most likely to
matter to the US in the next few years, the
less appropriate lodging this mission in a
DIA office becomes and the less capable of
dealing with them in a small SWS.
-- Conversely, the more narrowly the mission is
defined, the larger that slice of the spectrum
not covered by any structural warninq system.
-- A SWS charged with warning of events that
are intrisically unlikely will issue warning
very rarely. Either, like the NIC, it will
atrophy and fail to warn when it should, or
it will go looking for another mission and
confuse Community functions and chains of
command.
-- Manning the SWS will be no easier than before.
-- There is no clear role for NFAC, the DCI's
own analytic organization, in the warning
chain.
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-- The responsibilities that the Special
Assistant will have in the collection field
may conflict with those of DD/CT.
B. An NFAC Warning Center. This model would emphasize
the, importance of the analytic process in warning.
-- Scrap the present system.
-- Designate a senior NFAC officer as the
DCI's warning and crisis management officer.
-- Make him chairman of a DCI Committee charged
with coordination of policy and operations.
-- Create under him a "Warning Center" in NFAC
.staffed with perhaps 25 professionals drawn
largely from NFAC but with at least some
Community participants. It would incor-
porate, but not control, the NITO for
Strategic Warning and his staff. The Center
would be responsible for all analytic as-
pects of warning under a broad definition.
-- Provide a Community-wide discipline by
requiring the rest of NFAC and other Com-
munity agencies to conduct regular warning
reviews and provide the results of the
Center.
-- Encourage challenge and debate among the
Center, NIOs, and line organizations.
Strengths
-- Recognizes importance of analytic process
in warning.
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-- Provides lively challenge function.
-- Center large enough and stimulating
enough to avoid stultification, will be
much easier to man.
-- Center fully. able to absorb and analyze
warning information.
-- Provides a clear focus for the warning
-information flow Community-wide.
Weaknesses
-- Expensive.
-- Minimizes attention to management and
.collection aspects, especially in crisis
management.
-- Conflicts with responsibilities of DD/CT.
-- Community equities given short shrift.
-- Overlap of analytic missions will lead
to unnecessary bureaucratic frictions, even
paralysis.
-- Danger of consumer receiving contradictory
interpretations because two analytic channels
exist.
Community participation likely to be pro
forma.
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C. Split the Function
-- Scrap the present system.
-- Place responsibility for coordination of
warning and crisis management policy and
operations on the DD/CT with staff respon-
sibility assigned to the NITO for Warning and
Crisis Management based in the Pentagon.
-- Place responsibility for analytic and pro-
duction aspects on the DD/NFA (NFAC), and
establish an NIO for Warning on his Staff.
-- Define warning broadly.
-- Assign the challenge function jointly to the
NIO and NITO for Warning, each approaching
the problem from the perspective of his par-
ticular disciplines.
-- Provide a network of warning referents in each
agency through which the NIO and NITO for Warning
can sensitize the Community in their respective
areas of cognizance.
Strengths
-- Consistent with DCI's reorganization of functions
among his deputies.
Gives major attention to collection and inter-
agency coordination aspects.
-- Basing coordination element (DD/CT) at Pentagon
accommodates DoD equities; facilitates DCI
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"shift of flag" to maintain leadership in
military-related crises.
-- Meets HPSC(I) strictures to integrate and
use existing DoD capabilities.
-- Least expensive.
Weaknesses
-- Warning system focus is split organizationally
(HPSC(I) called for a single point of focus)
between CT and NFA and locationally between the
Pentagon and Langley; split could cause dis-
connects, e.g., between collection and production.
-- Community equities not fully recognized on the
analytic side;
-- NIO for Warning has neither bureaucratic position
or analytic backup to perform effectively, par-
ticularly if warning is broadly defined.
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D. A hierarchial system. This is the solution recom-
mended in the Working Group study. It attempts to reconcile
the diffuse and unpredictable requirements of warning as
broadly defined with the critical and often highly specialized
requirements of strategic warning as narrowly defined. It
would:
-- Scrap the present system (but see below).
-- Create a unified system with the DCI or
DDCI at the apex, acting through a Senior
Warning (staff) Officer who would also be
responsible for crisis management. (The
latter might--be a DoD officer on detail
to the Office of the DCI.)
-- Retain the SWS under the SWO, but improve
quality of manning.
-- Coordinate Community policy and operations
through a senior interagency steering group
chaired by DDCI or a DCI Committee chaired
by the SWO.
-- Handle analytic aspects of warning (broadly
defined) through the NIOs acting for the
Community, with the SWO having an additional
challenge responsibility ("ombudsman for
warning"). Provide a Community discipline by
requiring each NIO to convene analysts
periodically for discussion of future contin-
gencies; each NIO to report results to SWO.
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-- Handle analytic aspects as narrowly de-
fined through the SWS in consultation with
certain NIOs. Provide a Community dis-
cipline through reestablishment of referent
network, with pen iodic strategic warning
reviews provided to SWS. SWS retains its
present challenge function.
Strengths
-- Demonstrates importance DCI gives to critical
mission.
-- Places unified responsibility at DDCI level
where collection and production threads come
together, keeping management lines clear.
-- Recognizes most Community equities.
-- Places primary challenge function on officers
best equipped to perform it (NIOs).
-- Encourages through NIOs broadest Community
sensitization to warning matters.
-- Accommodates both broad and narrow warning
functions.
Weaknesses
-- More complicated than other models.
-- Would require a few more people than present
system.
-- Uncertain whether SWS can be made effective.
-- May not go far enough toward Community.
E. A varient to D. You have expressed some skepticism
as to the usefulness of SWS. It would be possible to eliminate
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it from Model D, but it would remove a key element from the
system. The SWS is the instrument by which Community disc
pline with regard to the narrow warning mission would be
.conducted, and an important node at which strategic warning
information would be converged. It:could be replaced by:
-- Placing an additional burden on the NIO/SP,
NIO/CF, and NIO USSR-EE; or
-- Creating an NIO for Strategic Warning; or
-- Providing the SWO With a staff.
There are difficulties in all these, but the NIO/SW is the
most attractive.
As compared with Model D, Model E with the NIO/SW
-- Be less expensive, as SWS positions could be
used to provide the staff positions called
for in the agencies and under the DCI.
-- Provide somewhat less attention to the narrow
strategic warning mission.
-- Have slightly less "Community" flavor.
-- Be somewhat simpler in structure and function.
III. Policy Issues
20. In the preceding section five broad organizational structures
were discussed representing different compromises among the policy
issues that await decision. In the following sections each of these
policy issues is discussed in its own right. These issues fall into
two categories. First, basic organizational and doctrinal issues
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that should be decided initially in order to get the show on the road.
Second, important issues of substance and administration that can be
addressed as well or better after the basic organizational structure
is fixed.
21.. Leadership Issues. The HPSCI:Staff Report noted that there
is a need for a leadership focus for warning. In particular the
HPSCI recommends, "That the DCI provide a focus for warning leadership
in the community, which may require appointment of a special assistant
for warning." (See HPSCI Staff Report, pg. 106ff, for complete state-
ment.) Most observers share the HPSCI view on the existence of a basic
need, but there is room for disagreement about where to lodge the focus
function and about what form it should take. The decisions made will
largely determine the balance that is struck between two sets of
competing demands in the area of warning and crisis management.
-- How to balance the attention given to analysis
against that given to collection. Most ob-
servers agree that current analytic weaknesses
are of more immediate concern from a warning
viewpoint.. However, collection involves far
more resources so that errors there can be more
costly in terms of routine operations. Further
during crises the allocation and control of
collection assets will present some of the most
contentious decisions in crisis management.
-- How to balance the demands on analytic and col-
lection resources that arise from military re-
quirements against those that arise from the
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the broader needs of the President and his
foreign policy advisers.
22. Where to lodge the leadership function. There are a number
of possibilities. None is without fault. Each has advantages.
These are listed succinctly below.
0/DCI
Pro -- Symbolic of importance of warning.
-- Ready access to DCI.
-- Clearly a Community position.
Con -- DCI spread too thin to give it
attention.
Could be perceived as subverting
chain of command.
O/DDCI
Pro -- Symbolic importance still there.
- -Moderate access to DCI.
Con -- Could be perceived as subverting
chain of command.
0/DD/N FA
Pro -- Warning is largely an analytic problem
and here's where the assets are.
Con -- Tendency for Defense to see this as a
"CIA" position.
-- Reduced access to collectors, especially
for planning crisis management preparations.
-- In-house coordination a problem.
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0/DD/CT
Pro -- Seen by Defense as more "Community"
than DD/NFA.
-- Here is where control of collection assets
used in crisis management will be exercised.
Con -- Reduced access to analysts who are primary
warning source.
-- In-house coordination a problem.
O/DD/RM
Pro -- Short of DCI the Deputy most seen by ob-
servers from outside CIA as "Community."
-- Has expertise to examine programs and
evaluate efforts.
Con -- Has direct control of no analytic or
collection tasking assets.
-- Assignment of this function would require
broadening charter somewhat.
Defense Department
Pro -- Access to elaborate DoD I&W mechanisms.
Con -- Split responsibility to DCI and SecDef.
-- Lack of access to DCI and political
analysts.
-- Will not be seen as Community.
Split. There are a number of splits possible. One listed
among the broad organizational choices is to split responsi-
bility between DD/NFA and DD/CT. The factors arguing for or
against any such split are:
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Pro -- Warning and crisis management cross
existing organizational responsibilities.
So putting focal point under any one
Deputy (except DDCI) will do violence to
the existing chain of command.
Con -- Splitting the function will be seen by
most observers as reducing the importance
attached to fulfilling the warning function.
23. Form of the Leadership Focus. The choices seem to be among
a person, a committee, an organization and some combination of these
three.
-- A person with, say, one assistant and 1-2 clerical
helpers.
Pro -- This is enough to tweak extant systems
and to stir the pot, but is not so much
as to duplicate management functions of
the line organizations.
-- It is an inexpensive step to take.
Con -- He will be spread pretty thin on the broad
warning mission.
-- A committee representing all of the agencies of the
Intelligence Community.
Pro -- Decisions made by a group in which each
agency has a voice are more likely to stick
than decisions made by an independent in-
dividual or group..
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-- A committee of fairly senior officials
will provide greater assurance of some
management attention to warning in each
agency than other alternatives.
-- Any officer serving as "focal point"
will need a mechanism (a committee or
working group) to coordinate Community
actions.
Con -- Committees in general tend to arrive at con-
sensus rather than to take an initiative.
-- An organization of one or two dozen people.
Pro -- Such a staff can do independent warning
analysis.
-- Can perform an effective devil's advocacy
role in the Community.
-- Provides locus of responsibility for pro-
ducing the warning message.
Con -- Most costly of the three options.
- -Problem keeping such a group relevant.
They tend to become isolated and moribund.
-- Competition with line organizations.
24. How can the discipline function be provided?
This is a generalization of the issue raised in the HPSCI
--Staff Report,
"The management role. of NIOs in warning analyses --
ensuring the right questions are addressed and
that alternative hypotheses are considered --
needs to be emphasized."
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The Staff Report assumes that NIOs should provide the
discipline function, but depending on how the Intelligence
Community is organized for warning in general other options
might be used instead of or in addition to the NI0's roles.
Some options are:
NIO's schedule regular meetings, at least monthly,
attended by representatives of all agencies to
address recent events in their areas from a warn-
ing perspective.
Pro -- Such a group will represent the best
assembly of knowledge on a .particular area
in the Intelligence Community and is the
group most likely to have seen the straws
in the wind that would indicate the need
for warning.
-- This is an appropriate extension of the
NIO function.
Con -- The mechanism is heavily dependent on the
individual skill of the NIO in conducting
meetings.
Warning topics are addressed periodically, by a formal
questionnaire technique in which knowledgeable analysts
are required to respond to the implications of specific
pieces of evidence.
Pro -- This mechanism is neater in terms of
management oversight in that the topics
being covered and responses are more clear
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cut than are likely if only periodic meet-
ings are used.
Con -- The administration of such a system will
require substantially more money and man-
power than simply meeting periodically.
Further, such mechanisms tend to become
inflexible and to continue on when they
have outlived their usefulness.
Systems of indicators can be developed and processed
using computer-based data processing of current intel-
ligence to signal the reaching of certain thresholds.
Pro -- This mechanism is the one that is least
likely to ignore deviant pieces of infor-
mation which do not conform to the con-
ventional wisdom.
Con -- Developing indicators is very costly in
terms of manpower and money. Operating such
a system will require very large investments
to keep indicators current andfeed the
machine systems.
-- Hard to adapt to unstructured (political,
economic) problems.
Combination options can be made up of the three basic
alternatives agove, e.g., one could use meetings to
survey the world in general to nominate topics for
inclusion in or removal from more formal systems of
questionnaries or indicators.
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25. How can the challenge function be provided?
This is a generalization of the issue raised in the HSPCI Staff
Report,
"No mechanism exists that encourages analysts to
address the follow-on questions that are implicit
in their assumptions about a situation...or to
ensure that analysts confront all reasonable al-
ternative hypotheses. Some NIOs [do not] play a
significant role in warning. The SWS...cannot
require analysts through the community to address
the warning implications of current events or to
confront each others' interpretations."
(HPSCI Staff Report, p. 102)
Obviously the answer to the question depends on how the Com-
munity is structured for warning in general.
Task the NIOs to challenge the conventional wisdom.
Pro -- The NIOs have the expertise to see dis-
turbing trends and ask hard'questions in
their areas.
-- The NIOs already have established pro-
fessional networks or subcommunities
within the Intelligence Community into
which challenges may be inserted.
Con -- The NIOs are deeply involved in day to day
intelligence analysis and may be prone to
accept the conventional wisdom.
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Establish a special group to conduct warning analyses. In
effect, this is to retain or reestablish the SWS with the
number of people a variable.
Pro -- It is easier for people who are specif-
ically charged with.warning to "think
ominously" than it is for people who
are caught up in other intelligence
tasks.
Con -- Warning organizations tend to become
isolated and moribund.
Establish a warning specialist in each major Intel-
ligence Community agency to provide the challenge
function in their own agency.
Pro -- The specialist within each agency is
more likely to be supported by the sneior
managers of the agency than is an "out-
side" organization.
Con -- It is difficult to see how the agency
warning specialist can have sufficient
area and substantive expertise to chal-
lenge effectively without becoming an
organization made up of expert indi-
viduals. In this case the numbers of
people required by the Intelligence Com-
munity to perform the warning challenge
function is greater than with other
options.
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Combination options can be made up of the three basic al-
ternatives above, e.g., task the NIOs to perform the chal-
lenge function, but have one or two Community warning special-
ists who periodically challenge the NIOs. Another would be
to task NIOs to handle warning in general while a special
warning group handles warning of impending hostilities be-
tween US and Allied forces and Warsaw Pact or North Korean
forces.
26. How to Convey Warning. The HPSCI Staff Report noted,
"No system of products exists to convey warning
judgments clearly and persuasively to the user...
there is no systematic way for a user to compare
today's intelligence judgment with yesterday's and
to perceive warning in terms of the rate of change
in a situation. Proposals for a coherent family
of warning products-have been made..." (p. 104)
What one can do in response to this depends, in part, on decisions
made with respect to other issues.
-- Revive the Alert Memorandum with a lower threshold
for issuance.
Pro -- It is a reasonably neat, clean state-
ment.
Con -- It does not automatically capture the
nuances of changing judgments.
-- Use a regular Intelligence Community publication
for a presentation of assessments of warning pros-
pects for various problem areas. How to select
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the areas to be treated depends on the overall
warning mechanism selected.
Pro -- Will periodically and clearly show how Com-
munity assessments change.
Con -- Could require a diversion of current intel-
ligence resources.
-- Danger of turning off the reader by repe-
titious and sterotyped reporting.
27. Disposition of the SWS. This is a more general statement of
the issue raised in the HPSCI Staff Report,
"SWS...should at a minimum be ensured or promptly receiving
all warning relevant intelligence, including operational and
policy information. SWS should play a less detached role in
warning community efforts."
While the HPSCI Staff Report assumes that the SWS will continue basically
unaltered,_other options are available and indeed are implied in some of
the options listed under other issues/problems. Broadly stated the
options turn out to be:
Continue the SWS perhaps with minor modifications of coverage,
personnel and organization.
Expand the SWS to allow it to perform broad ranging warning
analyses.
Disperse the SWS to form a system of agency warning specialists
throughout the Intelligence Community. (Option E of the organi-
zational proposals.)
Disband the SWS.
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The pros and cons of each of these options are discussed under the
appropriate issue/problem heading. In addition there are some argu-
ments that pertain to the SWS as an organizational entity.
In favor of continuing the SWS - The SWS is the most sig-
nificant Community structure linking various-agencies,
notably CIA and DoD, in the warning field. It has value
as a symbol of the DCI's commitment to an active role in
helping DoD solve what it sees as its warning problem.
In favor of dismantling the SWS - The SWS, not organizationally
linked to the Community, is widely perceived by analysts as
moribund and irrelevant. It will carry this baggage into
any new program for warning, in effect requiring that it live
down its reputation, something a new organizational structure
would not have to do.
28. Strategic Warning. Clearly warning is not equally important
for all events. Historically two categories have been used. The
boundary between them will be important in defining where components
of any organizational structure will focus. For example, any organi-
zational decision which gives both the NIOs and a special organization
responsibilities for warning will tend to result in the NIOs covering
warning in general (broad definition) and the special organization
covering.Strategic Warning (narrow definition).
The options available appear to be to define Strategic Warning to in-
clude some part of the following list:
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-- Military attacks by the Warsaw Pact or North Korea.
-- Military attacks by the PRC.
-- Military attacks by other powers.
-- Situations that might lead to US-Soviet confrontation.
-- Situations that might lead to confrontation with
North Korea.
The decision to include more of fewer items under the rubric of Strategic
Warning will be based on several considerations:
-- Inclusion as strategic warning will bring more re-
sources and formal procedures to bear on the topic.
-- The more topics included in strategic warning the
more expensive the warning system becomes or the
more thinly the resources wholely dedicated to
warning are spread.
29. Physical Location of DCI's Crisis Management Task Force. Al-
though this question is not of the same generality as the preceding
questions of organization for warning, it has important implications
for the suitability of any organization to support preparations for
crisis management. This is because some organizational choices will
not be compatible with directing the training and preparation work
implicit in some choices of task force location. Thus an incompatible
set of choices would require other organizational arrangements to make
the system work.
The attached table summarizes the arguments for and against
the three major candidate locations in terms of arrows going up to
.-31-
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indicate desirability, horizontal to indicate neutrality and down to
shown undesirability. Additional options can consist of a priority
ordering of these basic locations with a concomitant increase in cost
. of preparations for crisis management as the number of potential task
force locations increases.
30. Deferred Questions. There are a number of other issues and
problems which are not addressed here, but which should be addressed
soon after the broad structure of the future Intelligence Community
warning organization becomes visible. They include:
-- How much should the DCI become involved in DoD IN manage-
ment? For example the HPSCI Staff Report observed,
"Within the DoD Indications System, strong leader-
ship by DIA is necessary.. .to prevent the entire
System's resources from being dominated by the
reporting demands associated with a crisis in one
part of the world..."
"Personnel management issues...clearly have a major
bearing on analytical performance... Although it is
widely held that DIA's analytical capacities suffer
as a result of personnel management problems, the
difficult issues involved... balancing the need for
fresh operational perspectives against the desira-
bility of experienced intelligence personnel...is not
adequately addressed."
-32-
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 {'~~ij, t
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*Use of E013 assumes presence of NFAC liaison officers In the EO9 office.
 Approved For Rise 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027po 200050014-6
"...The Secretary of Defense and the Services
[should] provide for the implementation of a
comprehensive upgrade of the DIA-managed World-
wide Indications & Warning System."
-- Relationship of the DCI to the NCA.
-- Arrangements for the relocation and support of the DCI
in extreme crisis.
-- The DCI's responsibilities to the Unified and Specified
Commanders.
-- The DCI's role in war.
-- The wartime status of NPIC.
-- The Command Relationships Agreement.
-- General communications support of I&W and Crisis Manage-
ment. In this connection the HPSCI Staff Report noted,
"...serious communications deficiencies are still
among the major weaknesses of the warning community...
The deficiencies include:
-- Serious backlogs and delay in receipt
and dissemination of vital intelligence
during crises
-- Lack of jam-resistant communications
-- Lack of secure voice connections with
most Defense Attaches
-- Lack of a secure voice conferencing
capability among I&W centers outside
of the Washington area" (p. 100)
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-- How should warning judgments be presented?
-- Should one use standard terminology or quasi-
quantitative techniques?
-- Should periodic presentations be qualitative
or quantitative (at the extreme one could use
highly structured presentations, such as are
used to present assessments on the Sino-Soviet
situation).
-- How should the DCI's Warning Mechanism mesh with the hier-
archical system of Warning documents in use or under con-
sideration in DoD?
-- How formal and systematic should warning analysis be and
how should the basic policy be implemented? The HPSCI
Staff Report noted,
"Methodology, training and analytic support ef-
forts are still in. their infancy. Most analysis
is performed entirely by intuitive, historical
means. Although such means.. .ought always to
play a major part...studies...have repeatedly
recommended. building in techniques and procedures
to overcome biases and to challenge widely held
views..." (p. 103)
.The options which will eventually be considered with respect to the
basic formality of warning analysis will include:
-- Reject the argument that formal analytic procedures are
cost-effective means of coping with warning problems.
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-- Use formal structured procedures for Strategic Warning,
but use informal techniques for other warning problems.
-- Institute a broad program of.formal warning analysis
throughout the Community with gradations of increasingly
complex methodology applied to warning of more serious
The organizational structure to implement any such decision will follow
largely from the overall structure previously selected. Then, the
decision will be basically between having each agency independently
execute the policy with respect to warning methodology or to have the
Intelligence Community focal point take supervisory responsibility for
analytical training and methodology development.
-- How should the problem of preparing National SITREPs be
resolved for future crises?
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DRAFT
25 August 1978
RLehman:mak
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director of Central Intelligence
THROUGH : Deputy Director of Central Intelligence
FROM : Robert R. Bowie
Deputy Director for National Foreign Assessment
Deputy Director for Collection Tasking
SUBJECT : The DCI's Role in Warning and Crisis
REFERENCES : a. Report on the DCI's Role in Warning
and Crisis, dtd 22 June 1978
19
b. Memorandum from DCI to DDCI, same
subject, dtd 18 July 1978
Introduction
1. Your memorandum of 18 July remarks inter alia that, although
all the relevant sources and experiences are cited in the Working
Group's report.(Reference A), the report does not lay out "a series of
alternatives between which we can exercise a decision-maker's judgment."
You asked for a statement of the essential elements of warning, some
alternative ways to achieve~an adequate warning program, and an evalua-
tion of previous organizational arrangements for warning.
2. Knowing that you have read the report, we have not attempted to
rewrite it or to review again for you the argumentation and background.
Rather, this memorandum is confined to the questions you raised. Once
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you have indicated your preferences, the report can be revised for use
in negotiating Community participation in the warning and crisis
management system.
3. Our approach to providing you the clear alternatives you ask
for is necessarily somewhat complex, reflecting the intractability and
inter-twining of the issues. Section I of this discussion lays out what
appear to be the minimum requirements for a national warning system as a
yardstick against which to judge alternative approaches. Section II
develops a number of models of national warning systems, past, present,
and possible, and measures them against the yardstick of Section I. It
will be apparent that in deciding among these models, or considering
others not discussed, you will have to face certain fundamental issues.
These are presented in Section III, with the arguments on each side.
4. The Working Group noted that warning and crisis management
probably should be managed together, as related functions involving many
of the same people and organizations, but that substantive operations
should be kept separate, in order that one crisis in being not obscure
the potential emergence of another. For that reason, we address crisis
management in Section II by judging whether particular arrangements for
Community coordination of warning policy and procedures are suitable for
a parallel coordination of crisis management matters. For the substantive
side of crisis management, the Working Group did not recommend any
change from the approaches you had already evolved ad hoc. We do not,
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therefore, review these here, but a few issues remain to be determined.
These are included in Section III.
5. When you are ready to express your tentative preferences on
the issues here presented, we recommend you meet with us for a review
before finally committing yourself. At that time we should also
discuss how best to engage the rest of the Community.
I. Requirements for a National Warning System
6. The discussions in the Intelligence Community over the past
few years indicate a consensus of a few essential ingredients of a
warning program. The wording varies from one forum to another and
from one warning and crisis study to another, but one can perceive
these essential principles:
-- Warning must be an explicit mission of all intelligence
organizations,
-- There must be a way to converge intelligence information
in order to analyze it for I&W content,
-- The output must be recognizable as warning,
-- The output must flow up, laterally, and down.
7. The complexity of the warning mission has increased rapidly
in recent years and the indications of impending crises come to us
from a wide variety of geographical and functional specialities within
and without the Intelligence Community. This is discussed in paragraphs
5-8 and 36-39 of the 22 June report. We must assign warning as a
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mission for all intelligence organizations because of the many sources
of indications and in the interests of economy. We cannot afford to
duplicate the Intelligence Community with an apparatus devoted solely
to I&W.
8. There is a requirement to converge intelligence information in
order to analyze it for warning. This implies both a technical
capability and a means of focusing organizational activity. Some
aspects of these requirements are discussed in paragraphs 26-27 and
34-40, of the report.
9. The intelligence message must be clearly recogr[izable as a
warning. The last thirty years are littered with crises where the
indications are perceived, evaluated, and passed on to military operators
and national decision makers but the message was not labeled "warning."
There was several reasons for the omissions. In some cases the intel-
ligence analyst simply failed to recognize the indications of a crisis.
In many more cases, however, the message lacked a warning label because
the sender did not have an explicit warning responsibility and a concomitant
authority to send a "warning." In other cases, the military operator or
national decision maker failed to heed the warning because the sender
was not "the official warning office."
10. The output of a national warning system must flow up to the
President, laterally to Defense et al, and down to the military operators.
This is an obvious responsibility. It is less obvious that the national
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.warning system is dependent upon inputs from the same sources to whom
it owes warning.
11.. Just as there is general consensus on principles governing
a warning system, there appears to be consensus on the functions that
such a system must incorporate. These are:
-- Coordination, across the Community and across disciplines,
of warning management, policy, procedures and methodologies.
-- Analysis, the identification, convergence, and assessment
of warning information and the formulation of the warning
-- Discipline, the means by which Community line organiza-
tions, which have primary responsibilities other than
warning, are kept sensitive to their warning responsibilities.
-- Challenge, the insurance taken out against analytic
failure.
II. Systems for Warning
12. There are any number of ways in which these functions can be
wired together in a national system. The range is bonded it on extreme
by an integrated collection and analysis system fully dedicated to
warning and at the other by no system at all. The first is unacceptable
as enormously expensive and duplicating (warning is an integral part
of all analysis), the second is equally unacceptable both politically
.(the DCI's "Pearl Harbor" responsibility) and practically (Central
Coordination is needed).
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13. In this section we analyze both systems used in the past, as
you requested, and some other approaches, against the set of require-
. 3nents postulated in Section I.
14.' The "Watch Committee" system used from 1951 to 1974 consisted
of a senior interagency committee, usually chaired by the DDCI, that
prepared weekly and occasional special watch reports, and a 24-hour
jointly manned National Indications Center under a CIA Director. The
Committee submitted its reports to USIB (now NFIB) and the DCI issued
them after NFIB discussion as is done with estimates. The NIC was
linked to the working levels in each intelligence agency through a
network of staff officers who acted as warning referents.
15. This arrangement provided all the functions needed for a
system. The Watch Committee, assisted by the NIC and staff arrangements
throughout the Community, handled both the coordination of policy and
operations and the analytic function; the DCI had a central focus for
warning. The Community-wide review that was required to prepare for the
weekly Committee meetings provided the discipline necessary. The
Committee and the NIC in theory at least performed the challenge function
from a position partially independent of the current intelligence
apparatus.
16. This system eventually failed, not because it was ill-conceived,
but because the world in which it functioned changed.
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-- The intense national concern with surprise Soviet
attack which had caused its creation gradually decreased.
This led Community managers to give a lower priority
to the assignment of good people to the warning apparatus.
In time, the NIC became a turkey farm.
-- As a consequence, the NIC was no longer capable of perform-
ing a challenge function and could not command the respect
of line organizations in this role.
-- The Watch Committee/NIC missions became confused with
the current intelligence mission. The result was both
to diffuse the warning effort and to place it in com-
petition with current intelligence.
-- The intelligence business matured mightily in the two
decades after 1951. Whereas the NIC was the only thing
of its kind at the beginning of the period, it had been
badly overtaken by the agency operations centers at the
end of it in terms of facilities, communications, and
access. If it was to play a role in the 70's, it would
need an extremely expensive modernization that would
unnecessarily duplicate existing facilities. It was,
in effect, a fossil of the 50s.
-- Handling substance through a committee system, both at
the Watch Committee and the NFIB level, was barely
workable in the 50s but was never the most effective way
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of developing a clear warning message. By the 70s, it
had degenerated into haggling over the wording of current
intelligence and was clearly ineffective.
-- The unwillingness of DCI Helms to name DDCI Walters
Chairman of the Watch Committee (leaving the Director of
Current Intelligence Acting Chairman) was seen by the
Community as a deemphasis of the warning mission, although
Helms' private motivewas precisely the reverse.
17. The reorganization of 1974 abolished the Watch Committee and
the NIC. The Deputy Director for Production, DIA was designated by the
DCI as his Special Assistant for Strategic Warning. UnAer him, a
jointly-staffed Strategic Warning Staff was established with a CIA
Director. "Strategic Warning" was more precisely defined to deal only
with military attack by Communist powers on the US and its allies. (This
is the definition referred to below as the "narrow" warning mission.)
The SWS was to be a challenge mechanism and to conduct research in the
indications and warning field. The Special Assistant, on the advice of
the Director, SWS, would on occasion recommend to the DCI the issuance
of Strategic Warning Notices. (None have ever been issued.)
18. The strong points of this arrangement were that it gave full
recognition to the DoD role in strategic warning and that it provided a
direct and uncluttered channel for the warning message. But if the
Watch-Committee system had been ponderously bureaucratic and stullified;
its replacement went too far to the other extreme. In eliminating out-
moded organizations and mediocre personnel, we also eliminated the
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critical underpinnings of a national warning system. The terms of the
essential functions noted above:
-- The Special Assistant was supposed to combine, under the
DCI, the coordination of policy and operations and the
analytic mission. In fact, in his anomalous position--
with secondary duties assigned by an authority whose
interests often are different from those of the authority
for whom he performs his primary ones--he could not play
a central coordinating role. The arrangement was widely
seen as a retreat by a weakened DCI (Coley) from his
warning responsibilities. The Special Assistant has
exercised his authority only within the DoD chain of
command.
-- The SWS has no formal links to the rest of the Community
and there is no Community-wide warning organization or
routine. Warning outside DoD is entirely a current
reporting responsibility. Thus the SWS is unable to
serve as an energizing force for warning matters and the
warning discipline that might sensitize the Community is
lacking.
-- Without structured links to the Community the SWS is
ineffective in its challenge role. Many analysts are
unaware of its existence. Moreover, although it did not
inherit the personnel or practices of the NIC, it suffers
from the same manning problems.
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-- The narrowed scope of the strategic warning mission omits
a wide range of the warning spectrum. (Referred to below
as the "broad" warning mission.)
19. New Models. Current pressures for structure and order, e.g.
from HPSCI, are a recognition of these weaknesses. Some relatively
feasible and inexpensive ways of repairing them are as follows:
A. Fix the present system. This would require stronger links
between the Special Assistant and the DCI on the one hand and the
SWS and Community analysts on the other. It could be done by:
-- Creating a DCI Committee on Warning chaired by the
Special Assistant, and charged with the coordinating of
warning policy and operations for the Community (but not
substantive assessment).
-- Reaffirm and publicize the Special Assistant's responsi-
bility to the DCI for the substantive aspects of warning.
-- Broaden the strategic warning mission to include warning
of any situation that might lead to US-Soviet confrontation.
(A compromise between the narrow and broad missions.)
-- Reaffirm the challenge mission of the SWS and require the
Community to upgrade its personnel.
-- Charge the SWS with conducting a weekly review to sensi-
tize the Community to warning matters; designate referents
in each agency through which the full analytic resources
of the Community participate in these reviews.
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Strengths
-- Simple and inexpensive.
-- Least disruption of present arrangements.
-- Recognizes DoD role in strategic warning.
Weaknesses
-- DCI is carrying out his most important single responsi-
bility through an officer not subordinate to him.
-- Focus of "management" Committee in DoD incompatible with
DCI's crisis management responsibilities to President
-- The more the mission is broadened to include warning of
politico-military and economic events that are realis-
tically most likely to matter to the US in the next few
years, the less appropriate lodging this mission in a DIA
office becomes and the less capable of dealing with them
is a small SWS.
-- Conversely, the more narrowly the mission is defined, the
larger that slice of the spectrum not covered by any
structural warning system.
-- An SWS charged with warning of events that are intrin-
sically unlikely will issue warning very rarely. Either,
like the NIC, it will atrophy and fail to warn when it
should, or it will go looking for another mission and
confuse Community functions and chains of command.
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-- Manning the SWS will be no easier than before.
-- There is no clear role for NFAC, the DCI's own analytic
organization, in the warning chain.
-- The responsibilities that the Special Assistant will have
in the collection field may conflict with those of'DD/CT.
B. An NFAC Warning Center. This model would emphasize the
importance of the analytic process in warning.
-- Scrap the present system.
-- Designate a senior NFAC staff officer as the DCI's
warning and crisis management officer.
f
-- Make him chairman of a DCI Committee charged with policy
and operations.
-- Create under him a "Warning Center" in NFAC staffed with
perhaps 25 professionals drawn largely from NFAC but with
at least some Community participants. It would incorporate,
but not control, the NITO for Strategic Warning and his
staff. The Center would be responsible for all analytic
aspects of warning under a broad definition.
-- Provide a Community-wide discipline by requiring the rest
of NFAC and other Community agencies to conduct regular
warning reviews and provide the results to the Center.
---Encourage challenge and debate among the Center, NIO's,
and line organizations.
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Strengths
-- Recognizes importance of analytic process in warning.
-- Provides lively challenge function.
-- Center large enough and stimulating enough to avoid
stultification, will be much easier to man.
-- Center fully able to absorb and analyze warning informa-
tion.
-- Provides a clear focus for the warning information flow
Community wide.
Weaknesses
-- Most expensive.
-- Minimizes attention to management and collection aspects,
especially in crisis management.
-- Conflicts with responsibilities of DD/CT.
-- Community equities given short shrift.
-- Overlap of analytic missions will lead to unnecessary
bureaucratic frictions, even paralysis.
-- Danger of consumer receiving contradictory interpre-
tations because two analytic channels exist.
Community participation likely to be pro forma.
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C. Split the function
-- Scrap the present system.
-- Place responsibility for coordination of warning and
crisis management policy and operations on the DD/CT,
with staff responsibility assigned to the NITO for
strategic warning.
-- Place responsibility for analytic aspects on the DD/NFA,
and establish an NIO for Warning on his staff.
-- Define warning broadly.
-- Assign the challenge function to the NIO,for Warning.
-- Provide a network of warning referents in each agency
through which the NIO for Warning can sensitize the
Community.
Strengths
-- Consistent with DCI's reorganization of functions among
his deputies.
-- Gives major attention to collection aspects.
-- Least expensive.
Weaknesses
-- No single focus for national warning systems; DCI could
be criticized for downgrading importance of warning
mission.
~-- Coordination of warning and collection response more
difficult.
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-- Community equities not fully recognized, especially on
analytic side.
-- NIO for warning has neither bureaucratic position nor
analytic back-up to perform effectively, particularly if
warning is broadly defined. System as a whole is funda-
mentally weak.
D. A hierarchical system. This is the solution recommended
in the Working Group study. It attempts to reconcile the diffuse
and unpredictable requirements of warning as broadly defined with
the critical and often highly specialized requirements of strategic
warning as narrowly defined. It would:
-- Scrap the present system (but see below).
-- Create a unified system with the DCI or DDCI at the apex,
acting through a Senior Warning (staff) Officer who would
also be responsible for crisis management. (The latter
might be a DoD officer.)
-- Retain the SWS under the SWO, but improve quality of
manning.
-- Coordinate Community policy and operations through a
senior interagency steering group chaired by DDCI or a
DCI Committee chaired by the SWO.
-- Handle analytic aspects of warning (broadly defined)
through the NIO's acting for the Community, and through
the SWO. Both have a challenge responsibility. Provide
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a Community discipline by requiring each NIO to convene
analysts periodically for discussion of future contin-
gencies; each NIO to report results to SWO.
-- Handle analytic aspects as narrowly defined through the
SWS in consultation with certain NI0's. Provide a
Community discipline through reestablishment of referent
network, with periodic strategic warning reviews provided
to SWS.
Strengths:
-- Demonstrates importance DCI gives to cripical mission.
-- Places unified responsibility at DDCI level where col-
lection and production threads come together, keeping
management lines clear.
-- Recognizes most Community equities.
-- Places primary challenge function on officers best
equipped to perform it (NIO's).
-- Encourages through NIO's broadest Community sensitization
to warning matters.
-- Accommodates both broad and narrow warning functions.
Weaknesses:
-- More complicated than other models.
-- Would require a few more people than present system.
--- Uncertain whether SWS can be made effective.
-- May not go far enough toward Community.
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E. A variant to D. You have expressed some skepticism as to
the usefulness of SWS. It would be possible to eliminate it from
Model D, but it would remove a key element from the system. The
SWS is the instrument by which periodic sensitization of the
Community to the narrow warning mission would be conducted, and an
important node at which strategic warning information would be
converged. It could be replaced by:
-- Placing an additional burden on the NIO/SP, NIO/CF, and
NI0/USSREE; or
-- Creating an NIO for Strategic Warning; o~
-- Providing the SWO with additional staff.
There are difficulties in all these, but the best solution would appear
to be an NIO/SW.
As compared with Model D, Model E would:
-- Be less expensive, as SWS positions could be used to
provide the staff positions called for in the agencies
and under the DCI.
-- Provide somewhat less attention to the narrow strategic
warning mission.
-- Fulfill three of the four functions equally well, but
would be less effective in providing a warning discipline.
Be somewhat simpler in structure and function.
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Policy Issues
20. In the preceding sections five broad organizational structures
were discussed representing different compromises among the policy .
issues that await decision. In the following sections each of these
policy issues is discussed in its own right. These issues fall into two
categories. First, basic organizational and doctrinal issues that
should be decided initially in order to get the show on the road.
Second, important issues of substance and administration that can be
addressed as well or better after the basic organizational structure is
fixed.
21. Leadership Issues. The HPSCI Staff Report noted that there is
a need for a leadership focus for warning. In particular the HPSCI
recommends, "That the DCI provide a focus for warning leadership in the
community, which may require appointment of a special assistant for
warning." (See HPSCI Staff Report, pg. 106ff, for complete statement.L
Most observers share the HPSCI view on the existence of a basic need,
but there is room for disagreement about where to lodge the focus function
and about what form it should take. The decisions made will largely
determine the balance that is struck between two sets pf competing
demands in the area of warning and crisis management.
-How to balance the attention given to analysis against
that given to collection. Most observers agree that current
analytic weaknesses are of more immediate concern from a
warning viewpoint. However, collection involves for more
resources so that errors there can be. more. costly j'n terms
of routine operations. Further during crises the allocation
and control of collection assets will present some of the
most difficult decisions in crisis management.
-How to balance-the demands on analytic and collection
resources that arise from military requirements. against
those that arise. from the broader needs of the. President
and his foreign policy advisers.
22. Where to lodge the Leadership Function. There-Are a number of
possibilities. None is without fault. Each has advantages. These are
listed succinctly below.
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0/DCI
-Pro - Symbolic of importance of warning.
- Ready access to DCI.
- Clearly a Community position.
-.Con - DCI spread too thin to give it attention.
- Tend to subvert chain of command?
0/DDCI
-Pro - Symbolic importance still there.
Moderate access to DCI.
-Con - Tend to subvert chain of command?
0/DD/NFA
-Pro - Warning is largely an analytic problem so here's where
the assets are.
-Con - Tendency for Defense to see this as a "CIA" position.
- Reduced access to collectors, especially for planning
crisis management preparations.
0/DD/CT
-Pro - Seen by Defense as more "Community" than DD/NFA.
- Here is where control of assets used in crisis management
will be exercised.
-Con - Reduced access to analysts who are primary warning
source.
0/DD/RM
-Pro - Short of DCI the Deputy most seen by observers from
outside. CIA as "Community",
- Has expertise to examine. programs_ and evaluate
efforts.
-Con - Has direct control of no analytic or collection
assets.
- Assignment of this function would require broadening
charter somewhat.
Defense Department
-Pro - Access to elaborate DoD I&W .chant ms:.
-Con - Split responsibility.
- Lack-of access to DCJ and eoltttcal analysts.
- Will not be seen as Community,
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Split. There are a number of splits possible. One listed among
the broad organizational choices is to split responsibility between
DD/NFA and DD/CT. The factors arguing for or against any such
split are.
Pro - Warning & crisis management cross existing
organizational responsibilities. So making any one
official a focal point will do violence to the
existing chain of command.
Con - Splitting the function will be seen by most observers
as reducing the importance attached to fulfilling the
warning function.
23. Form of the Leadership Focus. The choices seem to be among a
person, a committee, an organization and some combination of these
three. -
-A person with, say,one assistant and 1-2 clerical helpers.
Pro - This is enough to tweak extant systems and to
stir the pot, but is not so much 4,s to duplicate
management functions of the line organizations,
-It is an inexpensive step to take.
Con - This is not enough to do any independent warning
analysis.
-A committee representing all of the agencies of the.
Intelligence Community.
Pro - Decisions made by a group in which each.. agency
has a voice are more likely to stick than decisions
made by an independent individual or ggroup.
-A committee of fairly senior officials
will provide greater assurance of some
management attention to warning in each
agency than other alternatives,
Con - Committees in general tend to arrive. at consensus
rather than to take an initiattve,
-An organization of one or two dozen people would in effect
perpetuate or recreate the Strategit- Warning staff.
Pro Such. a staff can do independent darning analysts.
- Can perform an effective. devtlIs advocacy, role
in the. Community.
Con - Most costly of the three options;.
Problem keeping such a group relevant, They
tend to become isolated and moribund.
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This is a generalization of the issue raised in the HPSCI Staff Report,
"The management role of NIOs in warning analyses--ensuring
the right questions are addressed and that alternative hypotheses
are considered--needs to be emphasized."
The Staff Report assumes that NIOs should provide the discipline function,
but depending on how the Intelligence Community is organized for warning
in general other options might be used instead of or in addition to the
NIO's roles. Some options are:
NIO's schedule regular meetings, at least monthly, attended by
representatives of all agencies to address recent events to tftetr
areas from a warning perspective.
Pro - Such a group will represent the best assembly of
knowledge on a particular area in the fintell.tgence
Community and is the group most likely to have. seen
the straws in the wind that would indicate the need
for warning.
Con - The mechanism is heavily dependent on the individual
skill of the NIO in conducting meetings.
Warning topics are addressed periodically, by a formal questionnaire
technique in which knowledgeable analysts. are required to respond
to the implications of specific pieces of evidence,
Pro - This mechanism is neater in terms of management
oversight in that the topics being covered and responses
are more clear cut than are likely if only periodic
meetings are used.
Con - The administration of such a system will require,
substantially more money and manpower than s.tmply,
meeting periodically. further such mechanisms tend
to become inflexible and to continue on when they
have outlived their usefulness.
Systems of indicators can be developed and processed using
computer-based data processing of current intelligence to
signal the reaching of certain thresholds,,
Pro - This mechanism is the one that is least likely to
ignore deviant pieces of information which. do not
conform to the conventional wisdom.
Con - Developing indicators is very costly in terms of
manpower and money. Operating sucli.a system will
require further large. investments..
Combination options can be made up of the three basic alternatiyes
above, e.g. one could use meetings to survey the.. world in general
to nominate topics for inclusion in or removal from more formal
systems of questionnaries or indicators.
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' ow cane challenge function be provid
This is a generalization of the issue raised in the HSPCI Staff Report,
"No mechanism exists that encourages analysts to address the
follow-on questions that are implicit in their assumptions
about a situation...or to ensure that analysts confront all
:reasonable alternative hypotheses. Some NIOs Ido not] play a
significant role in warning. The SWS...cannot require analysts.
through the community to address the warning implications of
current events or to. confront each others' interpretations."
(HPSCI Staff Report, p. 1021,
Obviously the answer to the question depends on how the.Communtty is
structured for warning in general.
Task the NIOs to challenge the conventional wisdom.
Pro - The NIOs have the . expertise. to see disturbing trends
and ask hard questions in their areas.
- The NIOs already have established professional networks
or subcommunities within the Intell.tgence.Communtty into
which challenges may be inserted.
Con - The NIOs are deeply involved In day to day intelligence
analysis and so are prone to accept the conventional
wisdom.
Establish a special group to conduct warning analys.erk. In effect
this is to retain or reestablish the SECS with the number of people
a variable.
Pro - It is easier for people who are specifically charged
with warning to "think ominously" than it is for
people who are caught up in other intel l.igence. tasks.
Con - Vtarning organizations tend to become isolated and
moribund.
Establish.a warning specialist in each_maJor Titelligence.
Community agency to provide. the challenge functtpn in their
own agency.
Pro - The specialist within each- agency is more. likely to
be supported by the. senior managers of the. ,agency than
is an "outsi;de" organization.
Con.-'It is difficult to see. how the agency warning specialttt
can have sufficient area and substantive. expe.rtise.to
challenge effectively without becoming an organization
made up of expert individuals. In thin case then numbers
of people required by the Intelligence Community to
perform the warning challenge function tl~ greater than
with other options.
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Combination options can be made up of the three basic alternatives
above, e.g. task the NIOs to perform the challenge function, but have-
one or two Community warning specialists who periodically challenge the.
NIOs. Another would be to task NIOs to handle warning in general while
a special warning group handles warning of impending hostilities between
US and Allied forces and Warsaw Pact or North Korean forces,
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26. How to Convey Warning. The HPSCI Staff Report noted,
"No system of products exists to convey warning judgments
clearly and persuasively to the user...there is no
systematic way for a user to compare today's intelligence
judgment with yesterday's and to perceive warning in
terms of the rate of change in a situation. Proposals
for a coherent family of warning products...have been
made..." (p. 104)
What one can do in response to this depends, in part, on decisions made
with respect to other issues.
-Revive the Alert Memorandum with a lower threshold for issuance.
-Pro - It is a reasonably neat clean statement.
-Con - It does not automatically capture the nuances of
changing judgments.
-Use a regular Intelligence Community publication for a
presentation of assessments of warning prospects for.
various problem areas. How to select the areas to be treated
depends on the overall warning mechanism selected.
-Pro - Will periodically and clearly show how Community
assessments change.
-Con - Will require a significant diversion of current
intelligence resources.
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27. Disposition of the SWS. This is a more general statement of
the issue raised in the HPSCI Staff Report,
"SWS...should at a minimum be ensured of promptly receiving all
warning relevant intelligence, including operational and policy
information. SWS should play a less detached role in warning
community efforts."
While the HPSCI Staff Report assumes that the SWS will continue basically
unaltered other options are available and indeed are implied in some of
the options listed under other issues/problems. Broadly stated the
options turn out to be:
Continue the SWS perhaps with minor modifications of coverage,
personnel and organization.
Expand the SWS to allow it to perform broad ranging warning analyses.
Disperse the SWS to form a system of agency warning specialists
throughout the Intelligence Community.
Disband the SWS. (Option E of the organizational proposals.1
The pros and cons of each of these options are discussed under the
appropriate issue/problem heading. In addition there are some arguments
that pertain to the SWS as an organizational entity.
In favor of continuing the SWS - The SWS is the most significant
Community structure linking various agencies, notably CIA and DoD,
in the warning field. It has value as a symbol of the DCI's
commitment to an active role in helping DoD solve what it sees as
its warning problem.
In favor of dismantling the SWS - The SWS is widely perceived by
analysts as moribund and irrelevant. It will carry this baggage
into any new program for warning, in effect requiring that it
live down its reputation, something a new organizational structure
would not have to do.
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28. Strategic Warning. Clearly warning is not equally important
for all events. Historically two categories have been used. The boundary
between them will be important in defining where components of any
organizational structure will focus. For example, any organizational
decision which gives both the NIOs and a special organization responsibilities
for warning will tend to result in the NIOs covering warning in General
and the special organization covering Strategic Warning.
The options available appear to be to define Strategic Warning to
include some part of the following list:
-Military attacks by the Warsaw Pact or North Korea.
-Military attacks by the PRC.
-Military attacks by other powers.
-Situations that might lead to US-Soviet confrontation.
-Situations that might lead to confrontation with North
Korea.
The decision to include more or fewer items under the rubric of Strategic
Warning will be based on several considerations:
-Inclusion as strategic warning will bring more resources
and formal procedures to bear on the topics
-The more topics included in strategic warning the more
expensive the warning system becomes or the more thinly
the resources wholely dedicated to warning are spread.
29. Physical Location of DCI's Crisis Management Task Force.
Although this question is not of the same generality as the preceding
questions of organization for warning, it has important implications for
the suitability of any organization to support preparations for crisis
management. This is because some organizational choices will not be
compatible with directing the training and preparation work implicit in
some choices of task force location. Thus an incompatible set of choices
would require other organizational arrangements to make the system work..
The attached table summarizes the arguments for and against
the three major candidate locations in terms of arrows going up to
indicate desirability, horizontal to indicate neutrality and down to
shown undesirability. Additional options can consist of a priority
ordering of these basic locations with a concomitant increase in cost of
preparations for cirsis management as the number of potential task force
locations increases.
SECRET
Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200050014-6
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President & NSC
146 {n-place talent
 Approved For Rose 200~~q ~IA-RDP83BOl027P*200050014-6
30. Deferred Questions. There are a number of other issues and
problems which are not addressed here, but which should be addressed
soon after the broad structure of the future Intelligence Community
warning organization becomes visible. They include:
-How much should the DCI become involved in DoD I&W management?
For example the HPSCI Staff Report observed,
"Within the DoD Indications System, strong leadership by
DIA is necessary... to prevent the entire System's resources
from being dominated by the reporting demands associated
with a crisis in one part of the world..."
"Personnel management issues.. clearly have a major bearing
on analytical performance... Although it is widely held that
DIA's analytical capacities suffer as a result of personnel
management problems, the difficult issues involved... balancing
the need for fresh operational perspectives against the
desirability of experienced intelligence personnel ... is not
adequately addressed."
"...The Secretary of Defense and the Services [should] provide
for the implementation of a comprehensive upgrade of the
DIA-managed'World-wide Indications & Warning System."
-Relationship of the DCI to the NCA.
-Arrangements for the relocation and support of the DCI in
extreme crisis.
-The DCI's responsibilities to the Unified and Specified Commanders.
-The DCA's role in war.
-The wartime status of NPIC.
-The Command Relationships Agreement.
-General communications support of I&W and Crisis Management.
In this connection the HPSCI Staff Report noted,
"...serious communciations deficiencies are still among the
major weaknesses of the warning comnunity...The. deficiencies
include:
-serious backlogs and delay in receipt and di,sseminatlon
of vital intelligence during crises
-lack of jam-resistant communications
-lack of secure voice connections with most Defense
Attaches
-lack. of a secure voice conferencing capability among
I&$ centers outside of the Washington area"
(p. 100.2
SECRET
Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA=RDP83B01027R000200050014-6
 Approved For Rose 2005/01 RET RDP83B01027P*200050014-6
-How should warning judgments be presented?
-Should one use standard terminology or quasi-quantitative
techniques?
-Should periodic presentations be qualitative or quantitative
(at the extreme one could use highly structured presentations,
such as are used to present assessments on the Sino-Soviet
situation)?
-How should the DCI's Warning Mechanism mesh with the hierarchical
system of Warning documents in use or under consideration in
DoD?
-How formal and systematic should warning analysis be and how
should the basic policy be implemented? The HPSCI Staff Report
noted,
"Methodology, training and analytic support efforts
are still in their infancy. Most analysis is performed
entirely by intuitive, historical means. Although such
means.. .ought always to play a major part... studies...
have repeatedly recommended building in techniques and
procedures to overcome biases and to challenge widely
held views..." (p. 103)
The options which will eventually be considered with respect to the
basic formality of warning analysis will include:
-Reject the argument that formal analytic procedures are cost-
effective means of coping with warning problems.
-Use formal structured procedures for Strategic Warning, but
use informal techniques for other warning problems.
-Institute a broad program of formal warning analysis throughout
the Community with gradations of increasingly complex
methodology applied to warning of more serious situations.
The organizational structure to implement any such decision will follow
largely from the overall structure previously selected. Then, the
decision will be basically between having each agency independently
execute the policy with respect to warning methodology or to have. the
Intelligence Community focal point take supervisory responsibility for
analytical training and methodology development.
- How should the problem of preparing National SITREPs be resolved for
future crises?
SECRET
- Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200050014-6
 _CR~~
Issue SECRET
Tinker or do
surgery?
Where to Lodge Leadership
Function?
Forms of the Leadership
Focus
System
C
Options for Discipline
& Challenge Functions
Line
Line
Line
Line
Line
+
+
+
+
NIOs
NIOs
NIOs
NIOs
NIOs
+
+
+
+
SWS
Staff
silo
SWS
SWO
SWO
------------------------------
Loci of Structured Warning
------------
SWS
---
------------
Staff
----
-----------
NIO/SW
----
------------
NIO/SW
---
------------
SWS
---
------------
NIO/SW
-
Efforts in Narrow Warning
+
+
+
+
+
+
Field
NMIC
NMIC
NMIC
NMIC
NMIC
NMIC
-------------------------------
Primary Responsibility for
-------------
Not defined
-----
-------------
DD/NFA
-----
-------------
DD/NFA
-----
-------------
DD/CT
-----
-------------
SWO
-----
--------------
SWO
-
Crisis Management Mechanisms
A
prove
For Release 200
10110
: CIA-RDP83BOl
27R0
0200050014-6
C - Committee
I - Individual Supported
by Committee
0 - Organization headed
by Individual Supported
by Committee
------------------------------------ ----------------
Not analyzed
further (NAF)
but much like
System A