RECOMMENDATIONS OF TEAM B - - SOVIET STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83M00171R001200210010-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 11, 2002
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: January 19, 1977
• Content Type: MF

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WASHINGTON, D. C. 20505
19 January 1977
MEMORANDUM FOR: Chairman
President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board
FROM . George Bush
SUBJECT . Recommendations of Team B -- Soviet Strategic
Objectives
1. I am forwarding to you the attached series of B Team
recommendations on how national intelligence estimates should be
produced, as we agreed in a previous discussion. We must,
obviously, always examine suggestions such as these from
experienced observers of the process with the aim of improving
the process further. Few of this B Team's observations are,
however, entirely new to us, and the problems they address are
under scrutiny. The Team's recommendations appear, moreover,
insensitive to the costs and penalties of implementing them.
2. In considering the attached recommendations, it is
useful for us to remember that the methods for producing
national intelligence estimates have evolved over the past 25
years in response to the changing interests and styles of
administrations, the organizational methods of a number of
Directors of Central Intelligence, and the international situation
itself. At present, national estimates on Soviet strategic
programs and capabilities are produced by a method which
centralizes the supervisory responsibilities in a National
Intelligence Officer on the DC-I's staff, but decentralizes
the analytical and drafting responsibilities to teams of
analysts from the various intelligence agencies. This method
is designed to ensure that significant analyses and judgments
from all elements of the Intelligence Community are reflected
at all stages in the process and that no single staff or agency
determines the results. The process encourages the exposure
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of divergent views. NIO management is charged with ensuring
that significant differences are illuminated and that consensus
judgments due to bureaucratic pressures are avoided.
3. The present production method. is consistent with
certain principles which have guided the preparation of the
NIEs throughout their history, regardless of organizational
adjustments:
a. A national intelligence estimate is the DCI's
responsibility in accordance with his statutory duties.
The main text represents his best judgment.
b. A national estimate involves the participation
of the agencies of the Intelligence Community,, whose
representatives on the National Foreign Intelligence
Board have the right. and duty to introduce into the
estimate abstentions or opinions which diverge
substantially from those expressed in the main text.
c. A national estimate is designed to address major
topics of concern to US planners and policymakers,
and hence its content and its producers cannot be.
isolated from the process it is designed to support;
at the same time, it is not a mechanism for critiquing
or recommending policy.
4. The current method of producing drafts is only one
of a number of methods which could be employed. Any change,
however, should be consistent with the style and needs of a
particular administration and a particular DCI, while preserving
the principles above.
5. Turning to the specific points in the B Team's.
recommendations, I believe a number of observations need to
be recorded:
a. Mirror Imaging. The B Team's charge that
"soft" factors affecting Soviet motivation do not receive
"thorough" analytical attention is simply not true.
What is obviously true is that the B Team's analysis
of these "soft" factors differs from that of at least
some in the Intelligence Community. For example,
along with much evidence of the Soviet drive to acquire
military preponderance, there is voluminous evidence
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that the Soviets have a high respect for the technical
and industrial might behind US mi litary programs. As
for the need to perceive Soviet objectives in terms of
Soviet concepts, an effort has been made to judge Soviet
policy on the basis of a large number of factors and
influences, of which doctrine is one. In this year's
NIE 11-3/8, partly stimulated by the competitive analysis
experiment, a special effort was made to describe Soviet
objectives and military doctrine in Soviet terms so as
not to leave any impression that the USSR had been judged
only in US terms. This practice should be continued,
but not to the extent that every specific estimate need
be prefaced by a long exposition of the Soviets' doctrine
and ultimate objectives.
. b. Net Assessments. I agree that those net assessments
which are the result of a quantitative analytical process
should be so identified. In PIE 11-3/8-76, we have
largely eliminated. net assessments which are not a result
of such a process, partly because new evidence has given
rise to greater uncertainty and partly because the
significance of operational factors was well illustrated
by the B Team on Soviet air defense. The NIE calls
attention to the fact that a full net assessment would
be required to take adequate account of such factors
and that the estimate is not such a net assessment.
i. While accepting the B Team's recommendation,
we would not agree that net judgments can never be
delivered; some judgments in this complex world
remain important and susceptible to experienced
analysis. Most predictive analyses or interpretations
of the policies and expectations of foreign leaders
require an analytical model which includes US
policies and forces among the influences affecting
those leaders. Even estimates of the technical
capabilities of a potential adversary's weapon
systems require an "interaction analysis," one part
of which is the US force which the foreign system
was designed to engage.
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ii. As for comprehensive net assessments, we have
all recognized for some time that there is no national
level organization responsible for such assessments
on a regular basis. I hope my successor will encourage
officials of the new administration to identify such
an organization -- perhaps at the NSC staff level --
and pledge the Intelligence Community to cooperate
by providing the intelligence data and insights necessary
for its operation. For my part, I would object to
assigning the.responsibility for such full net
assessments of the US-USSR strategic balance, or the
balance in other situations involving,US and foreign
forces, to the Intelligence Community. Such an
arrangement would give excessive responsibility to
the Intelligence Community and would be unlikely to
promote the cooperation of pol icymaking departments
whose participation would be essential.
c. An Integrated View of Soviet Weapons and Force
Developments. The packaging of national intelligence on
Soviet military forces into several operational categories
resulted initially from consumers' requests in the 1960s
to organize the presentation of intelligence according
to the way the US plans its forces -- F'rategic offensive,
strategic defensive, and general purpose forces. The
US defense planning process continues to require this
type of presentation.
i. In 1974, the separate estimates of Soviet
offensive and defense forces for intercontinental
conflict were combined, with the concurrence of the
Secretary of Defense, into a single estimate in
response to consumer requirements for intelligence
on the strategic nuclear balance -- that is, the
balance as the US measures it.
ii. Our present estimative program acknowledges
the further requirement, suggested by other groups
as well as the B Team, for national intelligence on
overall Soviet military and foreign policy objectives
(as in NIE 11-4) and on overall trends in Soviet
military forces and capabilities (as in an interagency
intelligence memorandum issued in October 1976).
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These integrated assessments could hot be done
without the more detailed assessments of individual
aspects of Soviet power and probably need-not be
done routinely on an annual basis. We will
investigate with key users the advisability of
further integration of NIEs. We would, however,
strongly resist drawing the impractical conclusion
from the B Team`retommendation that one should never
estimate about a part of the Soviet strategic effort
unless one appraises the entire Soviet effort.
d. Policy Pressures and Considerations. I certainly
would not quarrel with minimizing any possible policy
pressure on NIE judgments and preventing the abdication
by the intelligence apparatus of its responsibility to
provide objective answers. I would note, however, that
the estimative process, as carried out by the DCI under
the principles cited at the beginning of these remarks,
is designed to do just that. The NFIB participants
bring to the estimating process differing experiences
and professional backgrounds. If some representatives
have convictions about US policy that correspond closely
to the advocacy of the bureaucracies they represent,
the variety of points of view introduces checks and
balances into the system. The professional integrity
of the participants, moreover, should not be lightly
dismissed. In any case, the DCI, the National Intelligence
Officers who support him in supervising the estimative
process, and the CIA analysts who have a major role in
the drafting process, do not represent any department of
government involved in the policymaking process. Their
independent bureaucratic positions minimize the
susceptibility of the DCI, NIOs, and CIA analysts to
policy pressures and allow them to serve as an important
check on the objectivity of the process.
e. Disciplined Presentation of Conclusions. I
have some. difficulty grasping what Team B. has in mind. I
would not prescribe a format for the conclusions and key
judgments in NIEs so rigorous that we could not adjust
to the nature of the intelligence available and the needs
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of the pol icyii:akers being supported. I would, on the
other hand, agree that consistency is desirable; that we
should accurately convey uncertainty and alternatives;
and that when important changes occur in the judgments of
estimates, the fact of and the reasons for these changes
should be called to the attention of readers. A periodic
track record of key judgments in an NIE has occasionally
been useful. Where and how often one is done should be
a matter for intelligence managers and consumers to decide
on the basis of practical considerations.
f. Procedures. This section contains a curious
discussion of institutional bias. Many people imagine
they understand the nature and sources of State's and
Defense's biases; it would have been interesting if the
report had discussed the nature and sources of the bias
attributed to CIA. In its argument, Team B appears to
adopt the following approach: all past errors are the
fault of CIA, even when everyone else was in agreement;
the reason for this is CIA's major role in the preparation
of estimates; therefore, take the estimates out of CIA's,
and possibly even out of the DCI's, hands.
i. The possibility is raised of a chief estimative
officer and staff within the Executive Office of
the President. If this chief estimative officer were
not the DCI, the arrangement would circumvent the
statutory responsibilities of the DCI. If the officer
the B Team has in mind is, in fact, the DCI, the
question of the location of his estimative function
and staff would have to be considered as part of the
broader question of the role of CIA in the Community.
My judgment is that physical and institutional
separation of the DCI from CIA would sharply limit
his ability to reach responsible judgments because
it would cut him off from his independent analytical
base.
ii. This organizational recommendation fails to
take into account the checks and balances built into
the system. The preparation of the NIE 11-3/8
estimates, for example, involves a program of
production by analysts within the military services,
CIA, and DIA, their various contractors, DCI Committees,
and analytical teams drawn from the several agencies.
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This specific recommendation reveals naivete about
the interactions of policy and intelligence that,
in my opinion, tends to undercut the credibility of
other observations.
i i i . The recommendation i s silent on all the
big questions -- how would the NIEs be drafted; how
would the draft contributions be pulled into a single
document; how would coordination be achieved; hoar
would the rules of dissent and. alternative statement
be enforced; and how Would final power of approval
of the text be exercised? Would the B Team have us
reintroduce a monopoly on the drafting of estimative
intelligence, one of the weaknesses perceived in
the former ONE staff system? And would not the
location of the estimative process in the Executive
Office of the President in fact subject that process
to additional policy pressures without the checks
and balances of the current national intelligence
production mechanism?
iv. The B Team recommendation concerning the use
of a panel of outside specialists to review NIEs is
sensible. Such panels have been used at various
times ;n the past. Some months ago, I approved in
principle a plan to establish an Estimates Advisory
Panel that would include a broad range of outside
experts with a variety of viewpoints. Because of the
impending change of administrations, however, I
delayed the formation of this panel, but commend it
to my successor.
v. The recommendation that adversarial procedures
similar to the B Team experiment be continued, perhaps
every other year, is one I oppose. It is not that
the experiment was a total failure; to the contrary, the
B Team on low altitude air defense made a particular
contribution. Rather., it is that, when one sets out
to establish an adversarial B Team, one sets in motion
a process that lends itself to manipulation for
purposes other than estimative accuracy. I am already,
incidentally, getting recommendations that, should
the process every he repeated, a C Team of a persuasion
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opposed to the B Texans should be established to rev i
the estimate at the same time. I would prefer to
convene panels of experts with a mix of views. Indeed,
I would expect that my successor might very well wish
to do so. Individual agencies and DCI Committees
should also continue the practice of using panels of
experts such as those convened by the CIA and the OSD
to review technical analysis of Backfire performance
and the panel of US experts in the field of directed
energy convened by the DCI's Scientific and Technical
Intelligence Committee to review evidence of Soviet
research applicable to particle beam weapons.
6. The essence of national intelligence production is that
it marshals the full resources of the Intelligence Community
to address the most important analytical and estimative problems,
that it provides the base which allows the DCI to fulfill his
mandate as an independent advisor to the President, and that
it displays for policymakers such differing analyses as exist
on important issues. The challenge is to produce these results;
doing so depends first of all on the quantity and quality of the
resources and talent devoted to it. Equally critical at this
highest level of need is the willingness of policymakers to
help the intelligence Community concentrate ?:n the issues of
most concern and, then, to support the Community when it
accomplishes its mission. Both these factors are far more
important for the production of national intelligence than the
changeable procedures that may be used.
George--Bush
Attachment:
As stated
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MEMORANDUM FOR: Chairman, PFIAB
FROM : George Bush
SUBJECT : Recommendations of Team B -- Soviet Strategic
Objectives
I
Original - Addressee
1 - Executive Registry 1 - Acting DCI
1 - NIO/SP
1 - NIO/USSR
- D/DCI/NI
1 - EO/DCI/NI
I - A/EO/DCI/NI
1 - File: Competitive Analysis and PFIAB
1 - RI
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am (19 Jan 88")
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MEMORANDUM FOR: Chairman, President's Foreign Intelligence
Advisory Board
THROUGH Director of Central Intelligence
SUBJECT . Recommendations of Team "B" - Soviet
Strategic Objectives
In our critique of current and previous National Intelligence
Estimates, we made a concerted effort to identify those aspects of
methodology, procedure and institutional structure which we believe
have contributed to unsound estimative judgments. In the attached
paper we proffer our recommendations to PFIAB concerning improve-
ments in methodology, procedure and structure aimed at correcting
the perceived deficiencies. Evidence for our conclusion that the
cited shortcomings do, in fact, exist in the NIEs is to be found
in the main body of our report.
Professor Richard Pipes, Team Leader
Professor William R. Van Cleave, Team Member
General Daniel 0. Graham, Team Member
The Honorable Paul Nitze, Advisor
Ambassador Seymour Weiss, Advisor
Dr. Paul Wolfowitz, Advisor
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Team "[3" Recommendations
1. Concerning methodology
A. Mirror Imagjncj. To overcome the bias toward viewing Soviet
motives and intentions in U.S. terms, it is urged that:
1) In dealing with Soviet intentions, the NIEs should
integrate observed and projected Soviet weapons' programs
and force deployments derived from the "hard" physical data
with more thorough analysis of historical, political,
institutional, and other "soft" factors shaping Soviet
motives and intentions. The search should be fora consistent
elucidation of both sets of factors and their interaction.
In this connection considerably more attention should be paid
to relevant open and clandestinely acquired Soviet pronounce-
ments and writings (especially those directed to internal
audiences) than has been the case in the past. In this regard
it should be understood that expert analysis of the open
material can reveal a great deal, insofar as the Soviet
political system often compels the Party to issue to its cadres
authoritative guidance on policy matters through;unclassified
sources;
2) Soviet ob; actives should be perceived in terms of
Soviet concepts: this rule applies especially to the treat-
ment of concepts like "strategy", "strategic threat" and
"strategic objectives", all of which should be understood
in the Soviet context of "grand strategy." When, for reasons
of convenience to U.S. consumers, the NIEs address Soviet
military programs in the U.S. rather than the Soviet strategic
context, this fact should be made clearly evident to the reader.
B. Net assessing.* Whatever their intentions, the drafters of
the NIEs do engage in implicit net assessments of sorts, particularly
when advancing major judgments in the executive summaries. These
* What we mean by net assessment in this context is a judgment on
the balance between U.S. and Soviet military capabilities based
on the relevant static indicators extant or projected, or based
on a dynamic analysis of the balance assuming that those
capabilities actually are to be called into use. The latter type
of net assessment assumes a scenario, but may or may not assume
actual warfare.
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assessments are usually so rough, so poorly documented, and essentially
so speculative that they invite -- indeed, cannot be immune from -- the
injection of the authors' general biases. Where NI-E judgments demand
net assessment, the netting should be done explicitly, analytically,
and thoroughly, not implicitly or perfunctorily. The interface between
NIE judgment and net assessment should be identifiable.
C. An inte rated view of Soviet weapons and force developments.
The NIEs tend to an excessive extent to analyze each Soviet weapon system
in isolation from the totality of the Soviet military effort (and indeed
from other relevant non-military factors as well), with the result that
the overall Soviet military effort appears as less significant than it
actually is. Team "B" urges that in the future weapons systems
and force developments be examined in a more integrated manner to yield
"combined evaluations" more indicative of Soviet total military
capabilities and overall intentions.
D. Policy pressures and considerations. In the opinion of Team "B",
total avoidance of policy pressure on the intelligence estimating process
is an impossible goal. The normal and proper function of policy makers
in raising questions which are to be addressed by the intelligence
estimators in and of itself influences the answers the latter provide.
Some awareness on the part of the estimator of the impact of intelligence
judgments in support of or in opposition to policy is unavoidable.
Nonetheless, improved methods and procedures adopted for the preparation
of the NIEs should be able to minimize the policy pressure on judgments
and prevent the abdication by the intelligence apparatus of its responsi-
bility to provide objective answers.
E. Disciplined presentation of conclusions. Key judgments of NIEs
are presented in various styles and formats. This on the one hand
permits statements to be made with a certainty that is not warranted by
the available evidence, and on the other hand permits statements, better
supported by the evidence, to be degraded in the reader's mind through
the insertion of a clause or sentence that have the effect of dismissing
their impact. A more disciplined (though not necessarily rigid) format
for NIE key judgments, summaries, and conclusions should be constructed.
The format and style should ensure that the various reasonable interpre-
tations of the available evidence are laid out without semantic embellish-
ment; that the pros and cons of evidence supporting each are discussed
briefly; that the likelihood of occurrence of each is assessed; and that
the requirements for additional data to resolve remaining uncertainties
are identified. Further, each major intelligence estimate should contain
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as an annex.. a review of the past. 2 to 10 years' "track record" of
U.S. estimates on the major aspects of the relevant subject matter.
Such an annex would be best prepared by a body of analysts not
responsible for the estimates critiqued. The purpose of such an
annex would not be to criticize or chastise but rather to throw light
on possible trends of misanalysis or mistaken judgments so that a
compounding of error by continuation into future intelligence estimates
can be avoided.
2. Concerning procedures.
A. Some, though undoubtedly not all of the methodological
shortcomings which Team "B" found in the National Intelligence Estimates
can be overcome by improving the process of their preparation and review.
The authors of the NIEs will always remain in some measure prone to
perceive the USSR in U.S. terms and to allow political considerations
to affect their judgments. Nevertheless by minimizing inherent
institutional biases and broadening the range of judgments brought to
bear on the NIEs it should be possible to weaken considerably the impact
of factors which have accounted in the past for NIE misperceptions.
B. Team "B" considers the organizational position of the NIE
function within the national defense - security - foreign policy complex
less than optimal for guarding against both policy and institutional
biases. Current and ~revious organizational entities charged with
preparation and processing of NIEs have been subordinate to the Director,
CIA, and staffed almost exclusively with CIA officials. This arrangement
was intended to compensate for the real or alleged biases of the
Departments of Defense and State, but it can over-compensate by encouraging
the institutional biases of the Central Intelligence Agency itself.
C. Team "B" recommends that some combination of the following three
steps be considered:
1) The first involves building as much immunity to
institutional pressures as possible into that entity which
is charged with preparing NIEs on Soviet strategic objectives.
There are various ways to accomplish this end. One attractive
possibility is to identify an official in the Executive Office
of the President who would be charged with assuring such immunity and
who would report directly to the President. His staff would be small
and guarded against acquiring an institutional life of its own.
Members of the staff would be drawn from the various intelligence
organizations and serve relatively short tenures (3-4 years). The
official charged with this function would be genuinely removed
from and independent of the operating membership of the NFIB by
the devices of a separate budget, a separate staff, and a separate
physical location. He should have the authority to subpoena
substantive intelligence officers from any agency and to require
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of pertinent departments and agencies such net assessments
as may-be necessary to the N[E process;
2) The second step involves the marshalling of
expertise in and out of government to offset the temptation
to mirror-image. The official charged with assuring the
objectivity of the NIEs (as specified above) should enlist
the part-time services of a panel of prominent outside
specialists for the purpose of reviewing estimates so as to
identify judgments that are based on questionable assumptions
concerning Soviet strategic doctrine an.d.b.ehavi,or. Such
reviews should be carried out immediately post facto, but
they should not form a part of the NIE preparation process
itself.
3) The third step involves periodic independent checks
on both the process and the substance of the NIEs by employing
procedures similar to the PFIAB-conceived Team "B" approach.
Intermittently, perhaps initially every second year, a team
of outside experts who owe no formal responsibility to the
existing governmental intelligence agencies would be assembled
to play the adversary role. The composition of the Team would
vary every time. Team members would have available all the
pertinent information from all the sources. The effort would
be reasonably time constrained. The report of the Team would
be subject neither to review nor to revision but would be
made available directly to the President, Secretary of State-,
and Secretary of Defense. (After the Team had made its report,
it would become available to other governmental agencies for
criticism but not for revision). While this step would not
eliminate the particular views and biases which the non-
governmental experts would bring to their study, it would be
free of the bureaucratic pressures or biases of the existing
governmental intelligence -- or indeed policy -- agencies.
D. Team "B" has not addressed itself to substantive national
intelligence issues other than Soviet strategic objectives. Should
similarly critical issues arise -- e.g., with regard to China or the
Middle East -- the abov.e recommended processes could help to ensure
objective intelligence support to top policy makers.
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