THE DCI'S ROLE IN WARNING AND CRISIS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83B01027R000200080003-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 69
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 27, 2004
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: June 18, 1978
• Content Type: MF

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MEMORANDUM FOR: DDCI
DD/NFA
DD/CT
SUBJECT The DCI's Role in Warning and Crisis
1. In response to various requests by the DCI and DDCI,
a working group of officers from NFAC and NITC has produced
the attached study. At the working group level, the two
organizations concur in the study and its recommendations.
These are called inter alia for the DCI to appoint the
DDCI as his senior overseer for warning and crisis for
the Community, supported by an interagency committee and
a full-time "Senior Warning officer."
2. We believe the basic elements of overseer, com-
mittee, and senior warning officer are required to support
the DCI. While we recommend that the DDCI head this struc-
ture, it could equally well be headed by the DCI himself.
A decision on who is to head it can only be made by the
principals themselves, after which the appropriate level
and location of committee and warning officer can be
sorted out. The next step, therefore, sould be for the
addressees of this memorandum to consult among themselves
on the basis of our study as to what recommendation should
be made to the DCI.
3. A list of working group members is attached.
Richard Lehman
AD/NFAC/SS
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I j3 .4%~I'?~ Y97B
THE ROLE OF THE DCI IN WARNING AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT
I. INTRODUCTION
1. In 1947, Congress established the office of
Director of Central Intelligence and the Central Intelli-
gence Agency. A primary motive was to ensure that the
United States was never again surprised as it had been at
Pearl Harbor. Thus, from the beginning, the final responsi-
bility of the DCI has been to provide "strategic warning."
Over time, Community organizations for providing warning
have varied; none of the arrangements have been totally
satisfactory (see Annex). Many elements of intelligence
regard warning as part of their job. For example, the
NIO's regard themselves as responsible in general terms
for alerting policymakers to new developments in their
areas. At present, however, the only national elements
clearly designated as responsible for warning are the
Special Assistant to the DCI for Strategic Warning, a job
now vacant and, answering to him, the jointly-manned
Strategic Warning Staff.
2. The evolution of crisis management arrangements
for the President and the NSC has defined an appropriate
role for the DCI, and arrangements have evolved in CIA for
supporting the DCI which earlier DCI's found effective.
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The series of reorganizations that the Community has under-
gone require a those arrangements.
3. Several recent developments have converged to re-
quire a review of warning and "crisis management," two
separate but related functions. ("Crisis management" as
used in this paper refers to intelligence support of the
national authorities in crisis.) Military officers have
expressed in certainty as to the DCI's concept of his role
and the arrangements he endorsed for carrying out his re-
sponsibilities. D/NFAC is concerned about crisis manage-
ment arrangements and the risk of inadequate intelligence
response in a sudden major crisis. The formation of a Col-
lection Tasking Staff has provided for the first time a
focal point for collection management in crisis and for
warning; its place in the structure needs clear definition.
Also, the House Permanent Select Committee does not seeof
a clear focus for warning under the Director and has re-
quested him to report to it by 1 August on the steps he is
taking to provide one.
4. The DCI and the DDCI directed that NFAC and NITC
come up with recommendations for organization for warning
and for crisis management under the DCI. This is being
donein a joint NFAC/NITC working group which also has
assumed responsibility for the in-house phase of answering
the HPSCI. This study is the working group's initial report.
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In addition to making specific recommendations, it seeks
to provide a conceptual framework those recommendations.
II. BACKGROUND
A. Current Intelligence and Warnin : Definitions
5. Current Intelligence is the reporting of events
.abroad of interest to the US policymaker. It seeks to de-
tail these events, to explain them, to provide background,
to develop their significance for the United States, and
to project in the short term the events likely to follow.
The DCI by long-established practice is responsible for
providing current intelligence to the President and the
NSC.
6. Warning (sometimes called "small-w warning") is a
sub-discipline of current intelligence. Many of the short-
term events projected in current intelligence reporting
represent threats to US interests. Warning is more an
analytic function than a "Paul Revere" alert. (See para-
graphs 36 to 39.) The most important mission of current
intelligence analysis is to warn; given the great range of
US interests, warning is almost synonomous with current
intelligence. Despite this virtual identity, the warning
subdiscipline has characteristics of its own that are dis-
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cussed later in this paper. We warn of a change of govern-
ment in an LDC that will affect US business interests; we
warn of an OPEC price rise; we warn of the threatened out-
break of hostilities. Because the DCI is responsible for
current intelligence for the national authorities, he is
responsible for warning in this generic sense.
7. Strategic Warning (sometimes called "big-W") is
an extremely specialized form of current intelligence. It
is a sub-discipline of warning, but is less easily defined.
The JCS define it narrowly as "a notification that enemy-
initiated hostilities may be imminent." Some defined it
broadly as warning of events that may involve the United
States in a major military or political confrontation with
a Communist state, or even that events are taking place
that might ultimately lead to such a confrontation. Most
would agree that. strategic warning deals with the possi-
bility that the US and/or its allies will be deliberately
attacked by or involved by escalation in hostilities with
a major adversary, usually defined as the USSR, Warsaw Pact,
China, or North Korea.
8. While it is difficult to say when warning becomes
strategic warning, the distinction is useful. If there
are differences between current intelligence and its warning
subdiscipline, there are much greater ones between both of
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these and the subdiscipline strategic warning. The con-
sequences of the events foreseen by strategic warning are
critical to the national interest, the topic carries the
highest priority, and some of the structured techniques
for providing it diverge so far from current intelligence
as to become almost a separate intelligence discipline.
Nonetheless, strategic warning must remain an overriding
responsibility for all line intelligence organizations and
analysts, however little of their time it actually takes,
a fact that makes for great difficulty for management in
translating a "number one" intelligence priority into
isolatable systems and assets.
B. The Defense Interest
9. The DCI's responsibility to provide strategic
warning to the President and the NSC is not exclusive. He
is charged by the Congress and the public with preventing
future Pearl Harbors, but the Secretary of Defense is re-
sponsible by statute for the defense of the country and
thus by implication for not allowing our forces to be
taken by surprise. Moreover, the Department of Defense
has developed and controls most of the collection systems
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most likely to yield the intelligence needed for the
issuance of short-term strategic warning.
10. It is generally agreed that neither the United
States nor the USSR is likely deliberately to attack the
other. More likely is a clash of interests in -a Third
World war which rises by unpredictable steps to confronta-
tion. (We do not disregard the threat of deliberate North
Korean attack the South.) In terms of the definitions
given above, current intelligence should report on the cir-
cumstances leading to the outbreak of minor war and should
warn (small-w) that it was about to break out and might
have certain consequences. At some point, when these con-
sequences begin to suggest that serious US interests are
at stake, Strategic Warning should be issued. The DCI and
SecDef share responsibility for this. The closer to the
outbreak of hostilities, obviously, the greater the Defense
interest in intelligence and the prospects of military action.
But this interest also changes.
11. As the probability of hostilities increases, the
initial Defense need to learn of enemy intentions becomes
subordinated to the need to fight and win. On the other
hand, the DCI must continue to assess the overall situa-
tion for the President and the NSC, including the policies
and actions of adversaries, allies, and the non-committed.
He must provide intelligence to support the entire range
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of Presidential decisions in a crisis, whereas, in
directing US military preparations, the SecDef is re-
sponsible to what is called by the DoD the "National
Command Authority," that includes the President but ex-
cludes the Secretary of State and DCI.
12. In providing for the security of the United States
and its forces, the SecDef must assume the worst and act
accordingly. Thus requirements for intelligence to support
national policies and actions will compete with requirements
for intelligence to support US military plans and operations.
There is a danger that, as the prospects for hostilities
increase, Presidential deliberations may become dominated
by military considerations to the exclusion of non-military
alternatives; the channel for intelligence support to the
President may shift entirely from the DCI to the SecDef.
Avoidance of this is made more difficult by the National
Command Authority concept.
13. A corollary is that the DCI must have full know-
ledge of contemplated and actual US actions, military and
diplomatic, if he is to assess possible and actual reac-
tions. There again the 'NCA concept, as well as the tra-
ditional attitude of the J-3 to the J-2, gets in the way.
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C. The DCI in Crisis
14. As noted, crisis management in intelligence terms
(and as used in this paper) means those special arrange-
ments taken by the Community in a crisis, i.e. a rapidly
moving situation abroad which engages the extraordinary
attention of senior US policy officers. The discussion of
warning and strategic warning above, makes clear that
there is a continuum stretching from the most routine cur-
rent intelligence to the most urgent strategic warning in-
volving an increasingly immediate linkage between collec-
tion and analysis as one moves along the scale. At some
point on this scale, and certainly no later than the
issuance of strategic warning, the national authorities
will see themselves as in a crisis. The precise point
will be subjectively determined: the policy priorities of
US leadership; its perceptions of Soviet (or other) activi-
ties; domestic political considerations; its assessment of
the threat to US interests. Since the present Administra-
tion has not confrontedAa major crisis, we cannot be cer-
tain what it will expect of the DCI. Nevertheless, if ex-
perience holds, at whatever point it sees the United
States as seriously threatened, it will look to the DCI
for:
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-- Participation and advice in NSC and SCC deliber-
ations.
-- Direction or coordination of the Community re-
sponse, as appropriate, including:
- Provision of assessments and data re-
quested by the NSC/SCC.
- Periodic situation reporting.
- Adjustment of collection to meet crisis
requirements.
-- Conduct of paramilitary and political action oper-
ations.
15. These tasks, which constitute Crisis management
for the DCI, are quite distinct from warning or strategic
warning, but engage the services of the same current in-
telligence-related organizations and resources. Once
adequate warning is given the Community must posture it-
self for crisis; at the same time, it must not relax its
vigilance against other threats. This argues that the sys-
tems for warning and for crisis management must not be con-
fused; on the other hand they must be efficiently linked.
D. Collection Tasking in Crisis and Warning
16. Clearly, the weight of DCI responsibility in
warning and in crisis is on the provision of information
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and assessment; our experience with past crises bears this
observation out. He also has important responsibilities
for collection management, and is now explicitly respon-
sible under E.O. 12036 for collection tasking. Again, as
one goes up the scale from current reporting through
warning to strategic warning and crisis; the need for col-
lection adjustment also rises. Little distinction can be
made, however, between those steps required as a result of
warning and those that reflect the recognition of crisis.
A series. of discrete and gradually escalating measures are
taken, often requiring extensive staffing in the Community.
But the DCI's production responsibilities are continuous
and intense, whereas these decisions, on changing collection
tactics, however important, are ad hoc and sporadic.
17. There will be a problem, however, when the issue
of transfer of tasking authority finally arises. As sug-
gested above (Paras 10-12), there are good reasons for
keeping tasking authority in the hands of the DCI as long
as possible, but broad assessment of political factors as
well as military should not be totally subordinated to tac-
tical concerns in anticipation of war-fighting. This trans-
fer should be recognized now as an extraordinarily difficult
decision to ask the President to make.
18. Each crisis is unique. It is not possible to
anticipate in normal times the specific information require-
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ments for warning or policy formulation in the full range
or situations that might take the United States rapidly to
crisis. The sheer number of scenarios would become an un-
manageable burden on the system. For certain kinds of
strategic warning, however, it is possible to develop a
limited number of scenarios, and hence "indicators," de-
noting the things the other side has to do, or ought to
do, prior to hostilities, e.g., Warsaw Pact mobilization
in Europe, sending SSBN's to sea, attack, or evacuation of
cities. If subject is important enough, it is also
possible to develop collection plans against these indi-
cators and deploy collection resources to carry them out,
e.g., WISP.* Such activity is continuous in periods of
normalcy. Managing these collection operations, and the
resultant routine analysis, is a DCI responsibility within
his overall responsibility for strategic warning, but is
of a different order from his fluid collection tasking in
crisis. (As noted above, however, a system for reviewing
indications of hostilities is no only a partial answer to
the strategic warning problem, and they tend to become
less useful as enemy readiness increases. (Paragraphs 36
WI?P: Warning Improvement Study and Plan; project initiated by ASD
(C I) and DIA with Intelligence Community participation. Objective
is to improve I&W collection and information processing through the
use of all-source collection strategies and the application of
statistical sampling theories.
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to 39). Many believe the most reliable warning will come
from an assessment of political tensions and objectives,
topics which are less yielding to a structured approach.)
E. Criteria for a Warning and Crisis System
19. The problem is to design a system by which the
DCI can meet his responsibilities for warning and in
crisis. In our experience, no two crises or warning situa-
tions are alike. Warning may come from any collection sys-
tem or any analytic desk. Each developing crisis requires
the mobilization of a unique combination of analytic re-
sources and the focus of a unique combination of collection
assets. US national interests vary over time and region,
as do the range of US policy options and the kind of ques-
tions that are asked of intelligence. Thus the first re-
quirement for such a system is that it be flexible.
20. The HPSCI says the Community lacks a clear focus
for warning. It is correct. The Community also needs clear
lines of accountability. Almost all the necessary elements
for crisis and for warning now exist. What is lacking is
a generally understood and agreed structure for the system,
and explicit statements of responsibility.
21. A third requirement is that the system be com-
prehensive. The DCI must oversee the continuous and struc-
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tured arrangements for warning, the immediate and ad hoc
(but not improvised) arrangements for crisis the coordina-
tion of collection with production the range of current
intelligence warning, and crisis reporting the Community
and CIA.
22. Within limited resources, it might appear that
the high priority of the warning function requires that
resources be taken from other intelligence activities to
support it. This need not be if we recognize that warning
is a primary mission of those activities too (see para-
graph 8), and it cannot be without damaging other intelli-
gence activities. There is thus a requirement of economy,
for reliance on existing organizations, and resources per-
forming in a dual mode. For this and other reasons dis-
cussed below, we should continue to depend on line responsi-
bility for warning and crisis management in the Community.
A corollary of this is that officers and organizations of
the Community should have the same general functions in
their crisis or emergency mode that they have in their
normal mode, however different their procedures.
23. Fifth is the requirement that the system seek to
accommodate the needs of the Secretary of Defense and his
military commanders, as well as those of the DCI. It is
apparent from earlier discussion that, in both warning and
crisis terms, the.SecDef's concern rises with the level of
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national interest and the level of tension. Obviously,
fundamental conflicts of interest can arise. No system
can avoid these altogether, but mechanisms can be devised
for preventing minor differences from becoming major, or
triggering Presidential decision before it is essential
that the President bite the bullet on whether or not he is
going to war.
24. Finally, in recognition that responsibilities
and resources are shared with the SecDef, the DCI needs a
support apparatus, largely analytic, fully responsive to
him if he is to be confident of meeting his
responsibilities. This means designing arrangements that
permit free access to and primary reliance on NFAC.
III. DISCUSSION
25. This section the outlines a warning and crisis
system under the DCI, using existing elements to the maxi-
mum. Although all parts of such a system must interlock,
they are treated here, for convenience, in five separate
categories: permanent management arrangements; mechanisms
for warning; special mechanisms for strategic warning;
arrangements for support of the DCI in crisis; and col-
lection tasking arrangements in support of all of the
above.
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26. There is no better presentation of the theme of
this section than the language of the HPSCI, which is here
quoted:
"The Committee finds that effective warning
at the national level required drawing on the
full resources of the Intelligence Community to
produce its best judgment on a situation that
may require decision. That judgment must be pre-
sented in a sufficiently authoritative form to
be heard clearly, without suppressing views into
a bland consensus. The Committee has encountered
-concern--particularly in those elements of the
Intelligence Community involved in indications
and warning--over the absence of a point of
accountability for warning. The Committee con-
siders these concerns well founded. The DCI
must establish a clearer focus for warning. It
is recommended this be accomplished by creating
a full-time position wit to following responsi-
bilities.
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(1) Provide the DCI with the judgments
of all the Intelligence Community's organiza-
tions on a situation that any one of them
judges to be serious enough to receive the
attention of top decision makers.
(2) Ensure timely formation of inter-
agency working groups to monitor emerging
situations and form interagency crisis
management groups as necessary;
(3) Oersee the Strategic Warning Staff
and enable it to play a less detached role.
(4) Promote essential exchange of in-
formation between intelligence and operations
or policy elements, and manage the selection
and adoption of interagency conferencing
systems and alerting procedures.
The Committee recognizes that the necessary focus
for warning cannot be achieved entirely by organizational
means; equally important is the attitude displayed toward
warning by intelligence management and analysts as well
as by the user.
"Certain of the proposed functions outlined are
now performed, but on an informal or ad hoc basis.
The Committee asks that the DCI establish a clear
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focus of responsibility for warning and report to
this Committee by 1 August 1978 on what actions have
been taken." [Emphases added.]
27. As noted by the HPSCI, there is no point of focus
at the national level. The only existing channel is through
the "Special Assistant to the DCI for Strategic Warning."
This is an awkward arrangement, regardless of the cooperation
and effectiveness of the incumbent. I the absence of a
command structure, departmental efforts in the warning field
are going forward without full integration into a coherent
national effort. There is no link between the DCI and NFIB
and the various Community efforts. More important, there
is no manifest indicaton (outside the Department of Defense)
that Community or CIA management takes seriously their speci-
fic responsibility for warning and communicates it downwards
to the troops.
The Problem of Accountability
28. HPSCI calls for creation of a full-time officer
with certain duties, who-is to be by implication "a point
of accountability" for warning. We see no objection to
creation of a position with duties roughly corresponding
to those suggested by the Committee--and indeed recommend
one below (paragraphs 33 to 34)--but we disagree that a
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staff officer with tese duties can be "accountable" for
warning. As we emphasize throughout, warning is an in-
tegral and primary responsibility of all intelligence
organizations, whether engaged in collection or production,
and hence of all analysts and collection officers and of
managers at all echelons. Accountability for warning can-
not somehow be divorced from accountability for assessment
and estimating, from research and file-building, from cur-
rent analysis and reporting. NOr should any officer in
the Community be permitted the luxury of believing that he
is free from this reponsibility. Pearl Harbor remains the
alpha and potential omega for American intelligence.
29. How then to provide accountability, to bring the
threads of line responsibility in the Community and Agency
together? They obviously center in the DCI, but the problem
is to support him, to find a point of focus under him.
Within the Community, this involves all the major agencies;
within the Director's own domain it involves NFAC and CTS
as major players, and other organizations as well.
30. We believe the DCI needs a clearly defined and
specialized structure leading down from him to the Com-
munity and Agency, using as much as possible existing
organizations and preserving line responsibility. We be-
lieve these threads should be brought together in the DDCI.
Under the DCI, only the DDCI is at the point where they
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naturally converge and thus can preserve the true chain of
accountability, both for Community and Agency. Moreover,
his appointment by the DCI as his overseer for warning and
crisis would reaffirm the importance attached to this func-
tion, however much of it tends to be subordinated under
more pressing day-to-day concerns. (There is ample prece-
dent for this in the appointments of DDCI's Cabell, Carter,
Taylor, and Cushman to the chairmanship of the Watch Com-
mittee.)
31. The DDCI would thus have new and important respon-
sibilities. It is unrealistic, however, to believe that
he can or should devote a major part of his time to these
responsibilities, or exercise day-to-day operational control.
Rather, his designation would symbolize the DCI's recog-
nition of a critical responsibility and at the same time
ease some difficult management problems. We propose in
subsequent paragraphs a substructure designed to free him
of necessity for daily involvement, while preserving his
ability to oversee and to intervene.
An Interagency Committee
32. The now missing linkage between the DCI and Com-
munity warning and crisis activities should be provided by
a permanent committee constituted to balance theDoD and
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DCI interests and to coordinate collection and production.
It should be chaired by the DDCI and include DD/NFA,
DD/CT, DD/RM, D/DIA, D/NSA, D/INR, and an OSD representa-
tive. Committees at this level always need working groups
to do their business; we assume this one will need one or
more as well.
33. Our reference to the Watch Committee does not
mean that this new Committee should have substantive re-
sponsibilities. Rather we see it as the chairman's
mechanism for exercising supervision over Community arrange-
ments and procedures for crisis and warning, for management
of the Community's "steady-state" warning operations, for
assuring that the transition to emergency and crisis takes
place smoothly, and for seeking improvements in all. It
will oversee such enterprises as WISP and direct studies
of promising new sources of warning. It could serve as a
court of appeal for agencies that feel critical situations
have not been given adequate emphasis. In these cases it
would trespass on the substantive, but only ad hoc; it
would not be in the intelligence production business as
the Watch Committee was.
Staff Support
34. HPSCI has recommended the DCI appoint a full-time
officer responsible for warning matters.
20
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We think this makes sense. A Senior Warning office, answer-
ing to the DDCI and with direct access to the DCI, would
serve as executive secretary of the committee, as the DCI's
and DDCI's eyes and ears in the warning and crisis community,
and as the Community's "conscience" for warning. Certain
other of his functions will emerge from the discussions of
warning and crisis arrangements below, but are listed here
for completeness. Acting for the DDCI, he would:
-- Serve as a focal point for Community problems,
suggestions, and complaints concerning the DCI's
role in the field of indications and warning/crisis
management. He would use the various existing
Community organizations and mechanisms unless
these are patently lacking.
-- Instill and promote "second look" philosophy on
part of Community analysts, through command chan-
nels (see paras 35-41). Provide occasional forums
for discussions of indications and warning/crisis
management issues, ideas, and idea exchange.
-- Maintain contact with NIOs, and NITOS on alerting
Memoranda and-during periods of impending and
actual crisis and assist the the in analyzing
crisis experience.
-- Act as Community and Agency "ombudsman" for
warning.
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-- Encourage and promote better warning and crisis
procedures and technology aimed at better inte-
gration and utilization of Community-wide
warning and crisis facilities, including inter-
agency conference systems.
-- Oversee the operation of the Strategic Warning
Staff in lieu of the Special Assistant
for Warning.
-- Serve as Executive Secretary to the committee
on warning and crisis, and share its working
group should one be formed.
35. This officer might come either from CIA or DoD,
while his deputy, should he need one, should be drawn
from DoD if he is from CIA, and vice versa. Beyond this the
Senior warning office should be expected to rely on existing
Community institutions for his support. We do not en-
vision the emergence of yet another major staff element.
B. Mechanisms for Warning
36. Throughout this paper, we speak of the spectrum
running from current intelligence to strategic warning and
crisis. This concept is important to an understanding of
the warning problem. Characteristically, warning gradually
emerges from current intelligence analysis, rather than
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from any single "Paul Revere" message or report. Warning
of Soviet and Cuban intervention in the Horn was developed
initially from analytic consideration of the likely con-
sequences of Somali action expulsion of the Sovets. These
judgments set the stage for the accumlation of evidence
that the intervention was underway--high level visits, com-
munications links, airlift, ship movements, etc.
37. In 1962, in the most serious military confrontation
between the US and USSR that has arisen; the Soviets at-
tempted to create a strategic attack capability in Cuba
and bring it to readiness before the US discovered it.
Despite extreme security measures and considerable hindrance
from the weather, the operation was discovered. Under these
circumstances, the first photography of the missile sites
might qualify as a Paul Revere's ride, but even here the
successful reconnaissance flight had been targeted as a
result of analyst concern over the scale of the Soviet
operation, the large-scale deployment of SA-2s, and initial
reports of missiles that did not fit the description of
SA-2s.
38. Many other examples could be sited, but they
virtually all add up to the gradual emergence of a pattern
of events in current reporting which ultimately leads to
crisis. A common sequence is:
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1) An issue arises concerning major national interests
of two countries.
2) Political tension develops between them.
3) Some military forces are alerted on one side and
the other reciprocates.
4) Minor military incidents occur as a result of
trigger-happiness, generating a higher level of
readiness on both sides.
5) After efforts at diplomatic intervention fail,
one-side makes a decision to play the military
card.
39. In warning terms, analytic identification of the
potential problem will usually appear in current reporting
about at Step 2, and this warning can be made much more ex-
plicit as Steps 3 and 4 are passed. After Step 4, however,
it is rarely possible to give further warning based on mili-
tary indicators becaue both sides have by then done all
they could do to prepare in the absence of a final decision
to attack. That decision, Step 5, is likely to be made at
the last minute and to be detected only by the movement of
forces across the border. Thus the intelligence officer
will usually have given his strongest and most useful warn-
ing by Step 4, but that warning can only point to the strong
possibility of hostilities. After that point the situation
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is in effect frozen pending decision. A statement that
hostilities are probable depends on anlytic assessment of
the interplay of political factors and personalities, and
intellectual honesty will require that it be hedged; it
may not help the policy consumer. The final warning that
forces are moving an hour or so before they strike is even
less useful. The Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in
1968 is a classic example, the only departure from this
pattern being the Czechs' prudence in not alerting their
forces.
Warning and Current Intelligence: The Need for Challenge
Mechanisms
40. Dealing with this topic requires confronting the
question whether warning is a distinct intelligence disci-
pline or is not. The answer is not easy. There are, as
noted above, measurable "indicators," and there is a recogniz-
able discipline required for their assessment. Indicators
often provide the first suggestion of actions under way,
but such suggestions tend to be ambiguous. In our view
making these indicators meaningful to the national author-
ities means putting them in the context of the larger play
of international relations, a task that requires more judg-
ment and less quantifiable comparison. The review of indi-
cators is also a useful technique against which to check
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broader judgments, in some ways more useful as reassurance
that war is not going to break out than as a tripwire to
tell us that it is.
41. The concept that warning is a totally separate
profession from that of current intelligence, as some argue,
would obviously lead to overwhelming costs, both in money
and in bureaucratic wear and tear between competing systems.
NJoreover, no organization can maintain its integrity if it
demonstrates lack of faith in its.line organizations by
diluting their responsibility for their most important single
function. It has repeatedly been demonstrated, however,
that there are intrinsic weaknesses in total reliance on
the line. Most current intelligence analysts unavoidably
have a built-in bias toward the analytic framework they
have conceived to explain the course of events in the area
of their responsibility. To guard against surprise requires
an ability to stand aside from, if not to discard, this
framework. But the current analyst is forced to be
conservative; to elaborate every possible interpretation
of every event would be unmanageable. He therefores tends
to fit each event into a tested framework. Thus is created
a built-in obstacle to his recognizing the one event in a
hundred that will not fit the framework and forces him to
consider whether it should be modified or discarded. Ana
lysts not similarly burdened with day-to-day responsibility
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for convent reporting and with a greater depth in their
specialty, can be quicker to pick up deviations from normal
patterns.
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42. The current analyst also tends to emphasize in
his reporting the probable course of events as he sees them.
This means that he tends to de-emphasize the less probabl
outcome, sometimes even when that outcome would be quite
important; this is precisely where the warning function is
the most critical. In October 1973, virtually all analysts
felt that an Egyptian attack was a possibility to be
reckoned with; virtually none felt that it was a probability.
43. There is an obvious requirement for insurance
against these tendencies. If primary responsibility is to
be on the line organizations as it must, there must be "rec-
ord book"or challenge mechanisms alert to the less probable
outcome and to the traps of conventional wisdom. A number
of Community. elements now play or are capable of playing
such a role:
-- The various operations centers (for the DCI, the CIA
Operations Center) have a dual function. If
the line analyst bears primary responsibility
for warning within his field when he is on
duty, he delegates this to his supporting 24-hour
watch apparatus when he is not. When he is on
duty, moreover, his operations center is scanning
the same traffic as he--from a less sophisticated
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viewpoint but also from one less committed to a
particular interpretation of events. The Operations
Center is responsible not only to alert him, but
to alert his superiors.
-- It has always been, and remains, the responsi-
bility of the these superiors--the analyst's
branch, division, and office chiefs--to worry
whether he is locked into a particular analysis
and to challenge his thinking. They often respond
to operations center alerting by challenging lines
of analysis.
-- The interplay between agencies, giving institu-
tionally different responses to sources and
situations, can provide an additional check on
analytic conservatism.
44. However effective all these measures can be,
the record shows that they are less than perfect. Opera-
tions Center personnel tend to be junior and inexperienced;
they can wave pieces of paper, but they cannot stand up
to experienced analysts.- Moreover, their lack of experi-
ence tends to make them more, rather than less, comfort-
able with conventional wisdom. Managers have a clear
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responsibility to challenge, but they usually are overwhelmed
with the responsibilities of managing. They have to give
primary attention to the need to keep the desk manned by a
first-rate analyst; once he is there, their attention goes
to replacing the second-rate analyst at the next desk rather
than second-quessing the analysts they respect. Finally,
intelligence agencies do compete, but they usually share
the same information and tend to assess it in parallel ways.
It is more typical for them to share the same basic judgments
with differing reservations, or come to the same judgment
a few days apart,
than to differ fundamentally. In the latter case, of course,
one can stimulate the other.
45. Current intelligence, backed by these mechanisms,
will warn adequately of the bulk of events that matter a
little and the majority of those that matter a lot. But
there will be, as in the past, some spectacular failures
when it matters most. We will never be perfect, but we
have not done all we could reasonably and efficiently do
to avoid surprise. In sort, the challenge function must
be strengthened and explicitly recognized.
46. An additional problem is that of ensuring that
the policy officer knows he is being warned, if the for-
seen event is of enough importance to justify special steps.
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The flow of current intelligence is broad and rapid and
the sentence or paragraph of warning floating on its surface
is often past the reader's eye before he focuses on it.
He is prone after the event to adumberate an "intelligence
failure," and no citing of obscure paragraphs will dissuade
him.
Criteria for a Warning System
47. So-called small-w warning is so broad and so
amorphous that complicated arrangements would be exclusive
and musclebound. Even a decision as to topics on which
the national authorities should be warned will not be the
same from one day to the next. Therefore, the DCI needs
simple, flexible, inexpensive and self-policing, mechanisms
that will give him some confidence that analyst judgment
on issues that matter is being regularly and systematically
challenged and that the results of this challenge are avail-
able for him to review.
48. Four things are needed. First, analysts must be
regularly sensitized to their warning responsibilities.
Second, consensus views must be systematically challenged.
Third, in certain circumstances the DCI must have a special
device for conveying warning so as to focus attention on
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the fact that he is doing so. Fourth, ways must be found
to ensure that maverick views are fully considered.
49. The NIOs should be charged with the first three
of these tasks. Each has his own sub-Community of substan-
tive officers, drawn from all appropriate member agencies,
with which he works. He should convene them periodically,
at least monthly, for the express purpose of worrying about
possible future events that would be seriously damaging to
US interests, and of challenging the conventional analysis.
(The NIO/SP, NIO/CF, NIO/USSR-EE and sometimes NIO/EA and
NIO/CH have additional responsibilities for strategic warn-
ing See below paragraph 58.) If the system is working
properly, these meetings would not often generate warning
themselves; the system would already have generated it in
the normal course of events. Rather, they would serve to
maintain the sensitivity of analysts and their managers to
the need for warning and foster an awareness of the dangers
of conventional thinking. The NIO would report his findings
to the DCI, DDCI and Senior Warning Officer. (They might
also. form the basis for -a different DCI periodical issuances
replacing the CIWR.)
50. The Alert Memorandum, the DCI's special alerting
device, has fallen into disuse. It should be revived.
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The Alert Memorandum is a warning, usually prepared by the
NIO with some Community consultation, and issued by the
DCI to the President and the NSC. (It also serves to alert
officers in the field to Washington's concern and to facili-
tate dialogue between them and Washington analysts.) It
does not predict an event, or analyze it, but points out
that such an event is possible and that its consequences
would be serious. (And it does, of course, contain any
alternate views.) The more serious the potential conse-
quences, the lower the level of probability required to
trigger issuance. It also notes the steps taken by the
Community in reaction.
51. The NIOs have gradually ceased to issue Alert
Memoranda for two reasons. They are aware that the policy
officers with whom they deal know the facts on clearly im-
portant matters already, and they are reluctant to debase
the currency by issuing alert memoranda on any matter that
is not obviously important. The NIO's circle of contacts,
however, is normally an echelon or two below the DCI's
primary consumers. more-over, whether or not the DCI's
audience is alert, the energizing effect on policy and in-
telligence communities of specific DCI warning is clearly
lacking. As to debasement of the currency, the DCI, the
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D/NFA, the particular NIO, and the Senior Warning Officer
are well placed and equipped to judge whether an event will
be seen as critical by the policy community. Nonetheless,
we should be willing to misjudge a few in favor of issuance.
52. The Senior Warning officer should be seen through-
out the Community as a sort of "ombudsman for warning."
Those who hold maverick views should have access to him,
and he should.be able to require the system to give ob-
jective consideration to their theses or to seek inde-
pendent assessment. He should also attempt himself to play
devil's advocate in a modest way, to "think ominously" when
he believes it useful. In this we are not inching up on
the idea of a full-time devil's advocate staff, a super-
ficially tempting device. Effective devil's advocacy re-
quires a firm foundation in accepted views. The advocate
must be respected by his peers. As a full-time trade it
leads to make-work and stultification, to endless time-
wasting wrangles, and to excessive human wear and tear.
Finally, people good enough to do it well would rather do
God's work than the Devil's.
C. Special Mechanisms for Strategic Warning
53. The importance of strategic warning, or more
accurately, of those activities at the critically important
34
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end of the warning continuum, has traditionally required
special Community arrangements, and ones in which the DOD
concerns are given due weight. Treatment must be more
focused, intensive, and sustained, but in conceptual terms
the requirements are fundamentally the same as for "small-w
warning: sensitization of the system, second-look, chal-
lenge to the consensus, a vehicle by which the DCI warns.
All but the first of these theoretically exist in the present
Strategic Warning Staff and in the authority of the unappointed
Special Assistant to issue the Strategic Warning Notice, a
specialized form of Alert Memorandum, in the DCI's name.
The Strategic Warning Staff
54. The Strategic Warning Staff is located adjacent
to the National Military Intelligence Center in the Penta-
gon. It is headed by a CIA officer who is by Charter subordi-
nate to the Special Assistant and is de facto subordinate
at present to the DIA's Vice Director for Production. He
has seven analysts, drawn from CIA, DIA, NSA, Army, Air
Force, and Marine Corps.-
55. The SWS is rather narrowly focused on warning of
hostilities between the United States and/or its allies
and the USSR, Warsaw Pact, China, or North Korea. Its mis-
sion is to provide a national focus for strategic warning,
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to provide the second look at events from a warning point
of view, and to conduct, or to arrange for, research on
warning matters. It is not a 24-hour operation, although
augmentation to do this is contemplated in crisis. It re-
lies instead on continuous coverage by Community operations
centers, particularly by the NM IC and DoD's I&W system.
It would be, for instance, a consumer of the WISP product,
with the mission of assessing WISP data against the broader
background of political and economic events.
Changes in the SWS
56. The concept of the SWS as the central node in
the national strategic warning system is a valid one as
inexpensive insurance against future Pearl Harbors. But
it cannot perform this mission adequately in its present.
It needs a clear link to the DCI, it needs a somewhat broader
charter, it needs to be fully manned with personnel of high
quality; it needs greater authority in the Community, and
it needs to be linked more closely day-to-day to Community
analysis. Of these requirements, the first and the last
are the most important measures to meet them and others
proposed in this paper could allow the SWS to function in
its originally conceived role, and thus provide the con-
text for an assessment of its effectiveness and utility.
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57. The link to the DCI can be achieved through the
arrangements suggested in paragraphs 25-30 above. At least
on paper, these would appear to reduce the DoD role, but
this disadvantage can be partially overcome by double-
hatting the Director/SWS as adviser to the VD/DIA on stra-
tegic warning, by the role of Defense in the proposed com-
mittee, and by its location in and close relationship with
the NMIC. The SWS should remain linked to the NMIC, and,
as long as it is located there, it should continue to be
headed by a CIA officer.
58. The SWS charter should be broadened to permit it
to concern itself with broader political confrontations of
US and Soviet interests out of which the threat of hostili-
ties might arise. This does not mean that it should compete
with other intelligence production or follow minor crises
in detail, but only that it should not be hampered in its
clearly established main mission by too restrictive a charter.
59. The SWS should remain at approximately its present
size. This will serve to check duplication of current in-
telligence and to spur it to commission research elsewhere
(but it needs greater authority to do this). It should be
staffed by trained professionals on rotation from the present
agencies, and from State and Navy. The length of tour should
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be set to balance the desirability of fresh blood against
the need for background and expertise. In normal times
24-hour operations are not needed.
The Need for a "Network"
60. If SWS is to be a "central node" it cannot operate
in its present isolation. Its links to Community-analysts
are informal and depend far too much on persuasion and indi-
vidual interest. In short, few in authority in the Community
(except in DIA) are very aware of SWS or believe they have
any responsibility to it. There should be an established
structure linking it to every Community element that can
contribute to the strategic warning problem.
61. Such a structure can be found in the network of
referents that supported the Watch Committee and in the
discipline imposed through them. Each agency had a staff
officer, often full-time, assigned to strategic warning
and Watch Committee support. He in turn was supported by
referents at each echelon down through his agency. Thus
there were channels of communication stretching out from
the Watch Committee and its secretariat down to analyst
level through which system business could be conducted,
and through which analyst concerns could flow upward.
Equally important was the weekly discipline of preparation
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for Watch Committee meetings. Through the referent network
every analyst throughout the Community was required to think
in warning terms once a week, if only for five minutes.
The loss of this discipline is as great a weakness for the
Community as the absence of focus under the DCI.
62. We propose that the network be restored and that
the weekly exercise be revived. Each referent, after a
weekly canvass of his agency, would render a report to the
SWS of those developments and trends that concern his analysts
in the warning sense. The SWS would not, however, issue a
weekly report, which would quickly become stereotyped and
would be widely unread in the absence of serious crisis.
The real benefit of this routine is the repeated sensiti-
zation of the analyst rather than his usually (and rightly)
negative comment. To this end, the referent should also
be responsible for training of analysts in the special re-
sponsibilities of warning.
63. Finally, the special responsibilities of NIO/SP,
NIO/CF1 NIO/USSR, NIO/CH, and NIO/EA for strategic warning
should be recognized. Deports of their monthly interagency
warning meetings should be directed to the Director, SWS
as well as the Senior Assistant. They should be thought
of as a board of directors for the non-crisis work of the
SWS and the body through which warning research is organized
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on a Community basis. Should a warning situation arise,
the concerned NIOs and the Director, SWS should work together
to advise the DCI, Chairman, and Senior Assistant. The
NIO-SWS relationship is a subject that needs further study.
D. Arrangements for Support of the DCI in crisis
64. We have referred (paragraph 14) to several DCI
responsibilities in crisis. To help him meet them in a
major crisis, it is necessary to mobilize a broad range of
Community resources, especially in CIA. In past crises of
this scale, Directors have been well served; the immediate
problem is to see that recent Community reorganizations
have not inadvertently reduced this capability. The present
organization of the Community offers in fact an opportunity
to improve it. Some improvements are suggested below, along
with certain perennial problems that remain far from solution.
b~-
The DCI's primary job is analytic, to provide
the substantive assessments on which US policy is based.
Almost as important, but less continuously demanding, is
his responsibility to adjust collection to the priorities
of the crisis. (Collection is treated in Section E below).
Production requirements are of three kinds:
-- Situation reporting distills from themass of
incoming paper a continuous coherent account of
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the appropriate OCI Division Chief, drawing on the full
range of DDI resources. The Task Force was installed in
and supported by the CIA Operations Center, with suitable
liaison links to DDO and DDS&T. Its chief reported through
the DDI to the DCI. It of course produced situation reports,
but shared the responsibility for assessment with correspond-
ing elements of the Office of National Estimates. We see
no reason to depart from a procedure which worked.
Role of the Task Force
67. No intelligence agency is ever adequately manned
on a particular area or subject to cope with the demands
of a major crisisand it is almost always this in analytic
strength on a minor one. The costs of doing otherwise are
both budgetary and cultural: one must keep people unhappily
to the grindstone on areas which lightning strikes rarely
and indiscriminately. It is therefore necessary to organize,
ad hoc, the skills necessary in a task force that overrides
normal command lines. Major crises, or even minor ones
with a strong US involvement, require 24-hour manning, which
demands that the task forces grow by a factor of 2-3, with
a corresponding demand for managerial personnel. Analytic
organizations are stretched to their limit, and a number
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events which is issued periodically. Its purpose
is to organize and evaluate, not to project or
to seek deeper meaning. If the DCI's consumers
are on the same information base when they meet,
confusion is avoided and policy deliberations
are more effective. (See below for practical
limitations on this goal.)
-- Data refers to the factual material, to be found
in intelligence files or quickly collected by
existing sources, needed as a basis for decision
or for the conduct of operations. The DCI is
expected to and can provide much but by no means
all of this material.
-- Assessment refers to the short-term projection
of events, estimation of the intentions of in-
terested parties, analytic examination of other
powers' capabilities vis-a-vis the crisis, etc.
Such assessments are often best done on a Community
basis. They and data may well be conveyed to
consumers in an attachment to a situation report,
but they are quite different from situation
reporting.
66. Until 1974, it was customary in crisis for a CIA
task force to be formed, usually under the leadership of
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of analysts who have only marginal concern with the situation
at issue, or whose experience is dated, are sucked into
task force operations.
68. The analysts assigned to the task force are moved
from their desks to a central area. This facilitates direc-
tion and exchange, information handling, and dealing with
requests. It provides a single point to which the DCI and
consumers can refer and with which other agencies' task
forces can coordinate intelligence support. Task force
analysts are handicapped by separation from their files,
so these must remain accessible. The task force remains
heavily dependent on its parent organizations. It must
draw continually on the work of related and supporting
analytic organizations. It must receive promptly and ef-
ficiently the full flow of traffic it needs. Finally it
needs the reference, graphics, and printing services and
specialized expertise that its analysts are accustomed to
having available. In a major crisis these connecting links
reach out into most of the parent organizations. The task
force itself is the tip of an iceberg; the unseen part may
include hundreds of professional and clerical personnel.
* We are speaking in this section of full-blown crises.
There are of course a variety of lesser perturbations,
requiring a lesser response.
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69. To illustrate, the minor problem of the Shaba
invasion, with no direct Soviet involvement, drew in from
NFAC: the NIOs for Africa, Europe, Latin America and the
USSR; half the ORPA African Division, reinforced by analysts
seconded by other divisions; the ORPA desks on Cuba, Soviet
foreign policy, France, Belgium, and UN Affairs; the OSR
analysts covering Africa; the OER analysts on Africa and
on commodities (metals); large segiments of the CIA Opera-
tions Center; and elements of the Collection Tasking Staff,
Cartography Division, OGCR and OIA. Each of these officers
in turn relied on the analysts and files of his present
organization.
70. The Task Force is always responsible for periodic
situation reporting and ordinarily organizes the response
to requests for data. It participates in the production
of assessments but, especially when a Community product is
involved, NIO leadership is essential. As a general rule
task force personnel are too pressed to break themselves
loose for objective contemplation of the implications of a
rapidly moving situation. Special arrangements are necessary
to protect the highly qualified officers who can do this
well from being consumed in task force activity.
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Role of the NIO
71. The establishment of the National Intelligence
Officers refined to these arrrangements. The NIOs inherited
ONE's responsibility for Community assessments, and in addition
became the DCI's senior staff officers for the full range
of crisis activities. The NIO accompanied the DCI to NSC
and WSAG meetings. He knew what was going on and what was
wanted. He was able to pass the DCI's tasks on to producers
and collectors. He was able to shape assessments accurately
to meet policy needs. He became, in short, a vital link
in the communications chain.
The Situation Report Problem
72. The DCI's task force has in the past produced
situation reports of high quality, generally accepted as
the most comprehensive available. It has been standard
practice, however, for the Departments of State and Defense
to produce situation reports of their own, partly to report
for their own departmental intelligence needs and partly
to report for their operations to the White House. These,
as well as all the limited periodic reports issued by mis-
sions and commands overseas and all the raw reports of what-
ever description issued by any arm of the US Government,
45
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flood in on the national authorities in crisis. In 1975
General Scowcroft ordered the DCI to bring order out of
this chaos by producing in crisis a single "national situa-
tion report," encompassing both intelligence and operations
material.
73. Mr. Colby responded by negotiating with the Com-
munity an agreement for the DCI in a crisis to designate
one agency as Executive Agent for formation of a "National
Intelligence Task Force" that would produce such a situation
report. The negotiators informally agreed by that normally
CIA would be Executive Agent.
* DIA in its "after action report" to the DCI stated that:
"Involvement of military operators was limited.
No operators were assigned to serve with the Task
Group. Ground rules of the Task Group excluded
publication of military plans or options being
considered. Perhaps even more important, the
information which had originally been expected
of the operators, i.e., eyes only planning data for
the Task Group but not for publication, never ma-
terialized. Getting information from the NMCC
Crisis Action Team was physically difficult.
The working level officers had obviously not been
briefed on the existence of the NISR Task Group
or its function, and therefore felt no obligation
to provide it data. We should note that improve-
ment was made, however; during the latter few
days of the operation, J-3 assigned points of
contact to work with the Task Force. These offi-
cers were cooperative and helpful."
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74. In the only test of this arrangement, however,
Mr. Bush designated DIA as Executive Agent. The occasion
was the Korean tree-cutting episode, hardly a crisis by,
say, 1973 standards. The experiment failed. Agencies re-
sisted to giving up their qualified analysts because they
needed them for their own purposes. They also argued that
detached analysts, cut off from their files and interdis-
ciplinary support, could not function effectively. (See
paragraphs 62-65.) Situation reports were bland and delayed
by cumbersome coordination processes and DIA clearances.
The JCS refused to furnish advance sensitive operational
information, even to DIA.* All those involved were left
with a bad taste in their mouths. There is now in fact a
notable distaste for characterizing a crisis organization
as an intelligence "task force" lest this agreement be again
invoked, as in the case of NFAC's recent "Zaire Working
Group."
75. The experiment should be quietly buried. It is
unrealistic to think that any of the three major agencies
involved will give up its analysts when it needs them most,
or abstain from pouring its material into the White House
through a wide-mouth funnel, as long as the White House
does not refuse to receive it. And it is just as unrealis-
tic to visualize any White House officer rejecting a flow
of information. 47
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76. There are good reasons for this. Even if information
were totally shared (almost all is but some important frag-
ments are not), there remain differences in time of receipt
of particular pieces and in analyst judgment as to what is
worth reporting. Agency A, simply in picking illustrative
detail to support a conclusion, may select a different report
than Agency B. Although A and B share the conclusion, the
difference may strike Consumer C as somehow significant.
Overall there is the very human tendency to be Johnny-at-
rathole. It is a rare senior officer who can resist
treasuring a unique nugget to be deposited proudly on the
White House Situation Room conference table. And in any
case, one officer will always receive the last minute re-
port before the others do.
A National Crisis Reporting Structure
77. Scowcroft's problem is still here and, for the
reasons stated above, has no easy solution. The need for
orderly intelligence support in crisis must be balanced
against timeliness and bureaucratic realities. Such a balance
can produce a system with some of the benefits of "national
status"and without the pitfalls just described.
78. The DCI's responsibility in a major crisis is to
provide the most comprehensive and concise description of
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the situation that all intelligence sources can provide.
He can and should, to the extent he can, report on Allied
operations, and if he is asked to include reporting on US
operations he should try to do so, but he should recognize
that he cannot do this on a complete or timely basis. None-
theless, his intelligence reporting should be informed
reporting; his task force needs to know what the US is doing
or planning. The proposals of this study are not going to
alter dramatically the reluctance of State and Defense to
tell their plans to intelligence officers. It is worth
noting, however, that both State and Defense are, on their
track record, more willing to reveal sensitive operational
matters to the DCI than to each other, i.e., NODIS. Con-
ceptually, and oversimplified, the national crisis report-
ing struction is shown on chart
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79. Sensitive operational information of the kind
the DCI needs will never flow to him routinely. He will
learn some of it through his participation in the NSC and
SCC. Beyond that, he must designate officers of appro-
priate rank to be his accredited personal representatives
to State and the JCS in crisis. The latter is particularly
important.
80. In this Administration, there was at the outset
a tendency to view the most concerned department as the
center for crisis management of minor crises. This has
not held up under such tests as their have been (paragraph
90), and major crisis in our experience has been run from
any place but the WHSR since it was created in 1961. Thus
we believe the DCI must be prepared to furnish national
intelligence situation reporting on call. And even if a
policy agency takes the lead, his responsibility to the
President is to provide an independent intelligence as-
sessment.
81. In either case, he must rely on the analysts under
his own control to do this. Defense and State understandably
have their own priorities in crisis. Still it is possible
to make the DCI's situation reporting more "national" than
it has been in the past. Qualified liaison officers from
other agencies are easier to find than analysts, and secure
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10 SECR
conferencing techniques are now available. It should be
possible to canvass the Community for late information, to
incorporate unique contributions of other agency task forces--
there is ample work to go around--and to coordinate certain
important judgments, without allowing cumbersome interagency
procedures to delay publication. The primary requirement
is timeliness, and this must not be sacrificed to bureau-
cratic neatness.
Miscellaneous
82. The now established role of the NIO as the channel
of communication among the SCC, the DCI, the Task Force,
the Community, and other elements of CIA need not be changed.
He and his assistants should be the people who know every-
thing that is going on. The creation of the Collection
Tasking Staff and the NITC adds a new dimension, however.
We do not mean that the NIO should serve the DCI, or ac-
company him to the SCC, to the exclusion of his correspond-
ing NITO, or the corresponding DDO officer if DDO action
is contemplated. Rather we see these three officers as a
consortium with the NIO as first among equals keeping each
other informed and working each in his own field to keep
CIA and the Community responding effectively to crisis re-
quirements.
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83. For the assessment side of crisis production,
the NIO should continue to call upon the Task Force, his
own sub-Community, and CIA elements peripherally involved.
These requirements are ad hoc and unpredictable, and new
or special arrangements are not required.
84. Other than noting the potential need for employ-
ment in crisis, political and paramilitary action is out-
side the scope of this paper. It lies in the line of
authority from the SCC to the DCI to the DDO.
85. The role of the Senior Warning Officer is to monitor
Community performance. If the NIO believes he or the task
force is not being properly supported, he should turn to
the Senior Assistant in the first instance. The latter
should, however, stay out of substantive matters as long
as the machinery is functioning satisfactorily. His job
is to see that it does.
E. DCI Arrangements for Collection Tasking in Warning
and in Crisis
86. Observations about this subject are necessarily
tentative, given the nascent state of the Collection Tasking
Staff. For this reason, we will not attempt here to suggest
detailed procedures. For the same reasons we have chosen to
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deal with them together, across the range of warning and
crisis, rather than under the separate headings used above.
87. If a crisis comes suddenly on the heels of warning,
the effect on collection is the same as on production. In
general, however, the effects are different. The more specific
warning becomes, the higher the probability of the event,
and the greater its importance to the United States, the
more collection must depart from normal coverage to concen-
trate on the potential crisis. Before and after this break
point, however, there will be a gradual shift of collection
resources, accompanied by planning for and debate over
shifts until finally, in the full press of a major crisis,
almost all Community assets that can help are focused on
the immediate issues. (The "almost" is used because the
need to hedge against additional bad news is still present.)
88. In small-w or generic warning the key figure is
the NITO directly involved. Given the breadth of the problem,
his job should primarily be one of planning and anticipation.
He should be in close liaison with the NIO and attend his
periodic warning meetings. On the basis of what he learns
he should survey available collection resources, suggest
changes to sharpen warning, and prepare schema in anticipa-
tion of a higher degree of alert or of ensuing crisis.
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84. The NITO for I&W is primarily responsible for
strategic warning. In particular he participates in planning
structured indications collection systems such as WISP.
In addition, while the NITOs concentrate on small-w warn-
ing, they all share responsibility with the NITO for I&W
for strategic warning. Together they plan for responses
to serious military confrontation.
90. In crisis, the responsible NITO works directly
with the NIO in support of the DCI. He is closely linked
with the NITO for I&W at the Pentagon, to whom he is able
to pass the DCI's immediate tasking requirements. Further-
more he is the staff officer responsible for negotiating
the unpredictable ad hoc arrangements for crisis coverage:
redirection of intercept, redeployment of ground and air
assets, etc. He must also obtain from the Task Force a
continual evaluation of the returns and adjust coverage in
response. In essence, he serves as the NIO's agent for
tasking and coordinating Community collection operations,
resolving tasking disputes, and providing reports on the
status of collection activities. In addition to tasking
NFIB collection organizations and systems, the
NITO develops tasking of nonNFIB departments and agencies
with collection capabilities through the CCF and similar
organizations.
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The Knotty Problem of Location
91. As stated above, we are confident that any crisis
that commands the attention of the President and NSC, and
hence of the DCI, will be run from the White House Situa-
tion Room. The DCI's day will be built around attendance
at meetings there, often more than once a day, on prepara-
tions for them, and on tasks arising out of them. Moreover,
we are confident that the bulk of these preparations and
tasks will involve information and assessment. The DCI
must "soak himself in substance." The geographic arrange-
ments for support of the DCI must balance his need to
maintain close contact with his supporting analysts and
collection tasking officers and his need to be readily
available to the President and NSC.
92. We believe the DCI's substantive support must
come from his NFAC task force, and that it must remain at
Langley. The DCI has raised the question whether, if he
were operating from the Pentagon, an NFAC team could be
installed there or alternatively he could draw his support
from DIA. For the reasons stated in paragraphs 61-65 above,
we believe an NFAC team orphaned from its base of analysis
and support would be ineffective; the real work would still
have to be done at Langley. We also doubt the practicality
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of DIA support for the DCI. In our experience DIA, torn
among the demands of OSD, JCS, and the U and S Commands,
has been unable to serve any of them very well. It is hard
to see, even if the question of authority did not arise,
how DIA could meet the extensive requirements of the DCI
as well. The DCI would be isolated from the extensive pro-
fessional apparatus designed for his support, including
many other elements as well as analysis, and dependent in-
stead on an analytic organization unaccustomed to his style.
When the DCI is in the Pentagon, we would suggest instead
that he be linked to the task force at Langley and his other
staffs by secure voice circuits, facsimile, and teleprinter.
These facilities can and should be installed; they would
provide service less flexible than the DCI's presence at
Langley would permit, but they would make it feasible for
him to operate from the Pentagon. (They can be operated
in a conference mode.)
93. For the same reasons, operation from the DCI's
EOB offices or the Community Headquarters Building would
require similar communications in place. The advantage
of these locations is, of course, ease of access to the
WHSR., but against this must be weighed the total absence
of relevant supporting apparatus.
94. To summarize, in crisis the DCI needs:
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-- Immediate access to the President and WHSR.
-- Close and continuous contact with his NFAC task
force at Langley.
-- Close contact with NITC, at Langley with a
crisis offshoot in the'NMIC.
-- The ability to draw on and receive advice from
SWS, also in NMIC.
-- Operational information originating in State and
in the NMCC. (His presence in the Pentagon would
greatly facilitate the latter.)
He has four potential locations: Langley, the Pentagon,
EOB, and CHB. None satisfies all the desiderata, but we
urge the establishment of Langley as the primary. one, with
secure communications installed to his Pentagon office (in
the NITC unit or SWS?) and to one of the downtown locations.
Langley's advantages, the presence of NFAC and NITC and
their supporting elements greatly outweigh those of the
Pentagon: SWS, the NITO for I and W, and--for a DCI--
proximity to the NMCC. Langley's greatest disadvantage,
its relative distance from the White House, might be to
some extent overcome by a standing arrangement for dedi-
cated helicopter service, especially in bad traffic hours.
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The Pattern So Far
95. The recent hostilities between Ethiopia and Somalia,
and the Soviet-Cuban intervention therein, may have set a
pattern for crisis activities in this administration and
for the DCI's role. While by no means a major crisis by
standards.of the past, these events shoed that this Admin-
istration would handle rapidly-moving problem situations
much as did its predecessors, and would have similar--and
insatiable--needs for analytic product. It introduced a
new wrinkle, however, in a "Horn of Africa Working Group,"
an interagency subcommittee of the SCC. The DCI evidently
found himself comfortable with the support arrangements
that were devised. The NIO for Africa served as his prin-
cipal staff officer, as his representative on the SCC Working
Group, and as his link to the Horn working group or task
force set up by NFAC. The NITC, while in its infancy, handled
the necessary staffing of collection arrangements.
IV. RECOMMENDATIONS
96. The package of recommendations below, we believe,
are a sensible and inexpensive response to a pressing need.
By linking together existing institutions through new pro-
cedures, they provide the missing skeleton to the DCI's
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warning structure. They establish a clear chain of com-
munication and command from him down to analyst level
throughout the Community for this critical function. For
crisis they provide arrangements modeled on those evolved
to support the DCI on the Horn of Africa. And they lay
the foundation for future improvements in the Community's
substantive performance.
A. Management
1. Designate the-DDCI as overseer of warning for
the Community and the Agency, under the DCI.
2. Create a permanent committee for warning and
crisis, chaired by the DDCI and including D/NFA,
D/CT, D/RM, D/INR, D/DIA, D/NSA, and a repre-
sentative of SecDef.
3. Designate a qualified officer as fulltime Senior
Warning Officer and Executive Secretary of the
committee recommended in A2, to serve as the DCI's
focal point for these matters in the Community.
He should have ready access to the DCI, and be
readily available to substantive officers at all
levels in the Community.
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B. Warning
1. Confirm, as a matter of policy, that line analytic
organizations, line managers, and their supporting
operations centers, have primary responsibility
for warning, including strategic warning.
2. Assign to each NIO of explicit responsibility
for second-look warning within his field. (Certain
NIOs will in fact be dealing with strategic warning.)
3. In fulfillment of B2, direct each NIO to conduct,
at least monthly, a Community review of potential
problem areas.
4. Revive the Alert Memorandum, with the NIOs having
primary responsibility for recommending issuance.
5. Designate the Senior Assistant as "ombudsman for
warning."
C. Strategic Warning
1. (See B1)
2. (See B2)
3. Assign the functions of the Special Assistant
for Strategic Warning to the senior Assistant
and eliminate the Special Assistant arrangement.
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4. Resubordinate the Strategic Warning Staff from
the Special Assistant to the Senior Assistant;
assign the Director/SWS the additional duty of
Adviser on Strategic Warning to the VD/DIA.
5. Defer decision on the long-term future of the
Strategic Warning Staff, or a replacement for
it, for a test period of 18 months from date of
approval of these recommendations.
6. In order to assess the SWS at that time, take
the following steps now:
a. Extend the SWS charter to include any
confrontation, that could lead to major US
involvement, especially with the USSR.
b. Constitute the NIO/SP, NIO/CF, and NIO/
USSR-EE as an advisory board for the SWS.
(NIO/SA and NIO/SC should participate as
appropriate.) In normal times they should
advise on its work program; in abnormal,
they should participate in its findings.
c. Provide Slate and Navy representation in
the SWS. Upgrade representation from other
agencies and establish standards for length
of tour.
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7. Reestablish the "warning referent" network
throughout the Community, with the SWS and the
Senior Warning Officer as its center.
8. Use the network in C7 above to provide weekly
reviews of strategic warning matters to the SWS.
D. Crisis Arrangments
1. Confirm that the DCI will operate in crisis from
Langley, EOB, or the Pentagon, in that order of
likelihood but excluding none.
2. Provide secure communications and conference fa-
cilities, including at least voice, teleprinter,
and facsimile, between Langley and the other two
sites.
3. Establish at Langley of an NFAC task force to
support the DCI and use it to issue a DCI Situa-
tion Report series.
4. Provide liaison officers from State and Defense,
with secure communications, to link the task force
with their departments, and provide Community
consultation and contributions (but not full co-
ordination).
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6. Designate the NIO as the DCI's principal task
officer in crisis, with the assistance of the
NITO.
E. Collection Tasking
1. Designation of the NITO as the DCI's and NIO's
focal point for collection tasking during a
crisis. The National Intelligence Tasking Of-
ficer would:
-- Ensure that national foreign intelligence
requirements are translated into specific
collection tasks.
-- Provide tasking to collection organizations
and systems.
-- Resolve conflicts in tasking.
-- Prepare daily reports on the status of
7 collection systems for the DCI and for
inclusion in the National Situation Report
if needed.
-- Develop tasking of non-NFIB departments and
agencies which have information collection
capabilities through existing instrumental-
ities.
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-- Provide timely support to the task force
concerning the status, capabilities, tasking,
and yield of collection resources during
the crisis.
2. Conduct a program of training exercises, including
transfer of tasking authority to SecDef, as called
for in E.O. 12036.
97. Once the DCI has set up the arrangements recommended
in 90A above, he is in position to inform the HPSCI that
he has accepted its suggestions, and he should do so. He
should then charge DDCI and the new committee with adjusting
and effecting the remainder of the recommendations, but it
will need his authority and backing to do so.
98. There are several topics related to crisis and
warning that are not treated here and have gone too long
unexamined. The new management machinery should be asked
to take them on. Among them are:
-- Relationship of the DCI to the NCA.
-- Arrangements for relocation and support of the
DCI in extreme crisis.
-- Means for making the DCI's sitrep more compre-
hensive and more "national" without sacrificing
timeliness.
64
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-- Integration of the effects of NIO/SP, NIO/CF,
and NIO/USSR with SWS.
-- The long-term future of SWS.
-- The DCI's responsibilities to the U and S Com-
mands.
-- The DCI role in wartime.
-- The Command Relationships Agreement.
-- The wartime status of NPIC.
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ANNEX
HISTORY OF WARNING IN COMMUNITY
1. The Watch Committee of the US Intelligence Board
was formed in January 1951 following the Chinese interven-
tion in the Korean war. Its mission was to provide USIB
with the earliest possible warning of Soviet, Warsaw Pact,
or Chinese intentions to initiate military action or to
provide military support to any other nation to an extent
that US security interests were affected. The highest pri-
ority was assigned to warning of Soviet nuclear attack on
the United States, US forces or bases overseas, or US allies.
The chairman of the Watch Committee throughout most of its
existence was the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence.
The committee was composed of two members each from CIA,
DIA, NSA and State, and one each from the FBI and the Atomic
Energy Commission.
2. The Watch Committee was supported by an interagency
staff called the National Indications Center. The NIC,
established in 1954 and located in the Pentagon, had a staff
of approximately 30, including 12 analysts and ten people
who manned a 24-hour Watch Center. The principal functions
of the NIC analysis staff were to review all-source indica-
tions intelligence and to draft weekly Watch Reports. These
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Middle East, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. In treating this
wide range of subjects, the Watch Committee became increas-
ingly preoccupied with tactical details and its ability to
perform its original mission was impaired. Procedures had
grown increasingly ponderous and the coordination process
was delayed by lengthy debates over minor textual points
and semantics. The value of the Watch Reports to senior
policymakers was diluted by the need to negotiate bland
compromise language which often blurred the clarity of
judgments. Divergent agency evaluations were not ade-
quately reflected, and the provision for recording clearly
defined dissenting views was seldom used.
5. USIB decided in early 1975 to replace the Watch
Committee and the NIC with a Special Assistant to the DCI
for Strategic Warning and a Strategic Warning Staff. The
DCI appointed the Special Assistant in consultation with
the Director, DIA. The first Special Assistant was Air
Force Major General Lincoln D. Faurer, DIA's Vice Director
for Production. The SWS was directed by a CIA officer ap-
pointed by the DCI. The SWS director is responsible to
the Special Assistant and serves as his deputy for stra-
tegic warning.
6. In contrast to the expanding scope of subjects
and areas covered by the Watch Committee, the mission of
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the Special Assistant and the SWS was narrowed to providing
the earliest possible warning that the Soviet Union, the
Warsaw Pact, China, or North Korea is considering using
military capabilities beyond its borders in ways that might
threaten military confrontations with the United States.
In contrast to the deliberations and time-consuming nego-
tiations on compromise language which impaired the effect-
iveness of the Watch Committee, the SWS was to concentrate
on in-depth analysis and the preparation of clearly articu-
lated warning judgments. The SWS was intended to provide
a devil's advocate and second-look function, and to prod
NFIB production offices into addressing specific develop-
ments of potential warning significance. It was not to
duplicate the work of operations centers and current in-
telligence offices.
7. DCID 1/5 authorized the Special Assistant and the
SWS to take the lead in initiating and, when appropriate,
drafting strategic warning notices to the DCI who, at his
discretion, would notify the President and the NSC. The
Special Assistant and the SWS were also directed to submit
to the DCI and NFIB principals studies and recommendations
for improving the community's strategic warning capa-
bilities.
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