INTELLIGENCE PRODUCTION REQUIREMENTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84-00022R000200040050-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 21, 2000
• Sequence Number: 50
• Publication Date: April 13, 1949
• Content Type: MEMO

Approved For Release 2000/09/14: CIA-RDP84-000221
Transcribed for AHD 0 S List? O ".
M cord CC :y{ hen bnn
31 August 1953
Mee= to Mwz
THE, ASSIS'L.NT DIRECTOR, R & E
THE
Chief, Global Survey Group
Intelligence Production Requirements
deference: Memorandum, 14 March 1949
the e)TORICAL R i~tf0{ Fri t~.~7 iIYT.
13 April 1919
1. Any effort to achieve greater foresight and coordination in
intelligence production planning is commendable. Admittedly such
planning hitherto has consisted primarily of the scheduling of specific
projects as the need became self-evident, as they were requested, or
as producing units volunteered to undertake them. Except as regards
specific requests, the governing consideration has been the willingness
and ability of producing units to produce acceptable results rather than
consideration of what they ought to be doing.
2. It would appear that recognition of the need for intelligence
production of the sort referred to in the Reference could occur only
in one of the following ways:
a. ORE's own perception of an emergent situation requiring
elucidation.
b. Communication to ORE of the immediate or anticipated
intelligence needs of such bodies as the NSC, NSRB, or Joint
Staff.
c. ORE's own realization of inadequacies in the body of
fundamental intelligence required by ORE as a point of departure
for specific estimates initiated as under a or b.
3. Manifestly, intelligence production requirements pertaining
to category a are not amenable to long-term planning. As obviously,
intelligence production requirements pertaining to category b can be
anticipated only insofar as the planning body concerned is itself able
to anticipate its future problems and intelligence needs. Experience
in this respect is not encouraging, especially with regard to the NSC.
The long-term program originally undertaken by the NSC Staff has been
entirely overridden by more urgent current projects, overtaken by
events, and discarded. The present agenda of the NSC affords no basis
for long-term production planning (nor does that of the policy Planning
Staff, whose function was supposed to be exclusively long-term). The
NSC Staff is presently seeking to devise a new long-term program for
itself, but, in the light of experience, the validity and viability of
such a program will be dubious. That being the case, it would be
presumptuous indeed for ORE to attempt to prescribe the long-term
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intelligence interests of the NSC. No realistic planning in that
respect is possible until the NSC Staff is able to furnish us a valid
basis.
I. ORE is capable of valid long-term planning with respect to
category c, but it must be recognized that, insofar as this category
refers to staff rather than basic intelligence, it is to staff intelli-
gence of a very basic character, and that its function is primarily
the clarification of ORE's own thought rather than the service of
such bodies as the NSC. Intelligence production of this sort might
be distributed to the offices of NSC members, but they could not be
expected to read it, and rightly so.
S. Considering the limitations upon valid long-term intelligence
production planning indicated above, I am concerned lest the emphasis
upon planned production indicated in the Reference result in a further
diversion of ORE effort from its primary missbn. The primary mission
of ORE is "final synthesis" (high level appreciation) in direct service
to the NSC and cognate bodies, precisely that area in which valid long-
term planning is impossible. It is already recognized that too much
effort is being diverted from this mission to the production of current
intelligence. The tendency of the program envisaged in the Reference
is an additional diversion of effort in the direction of basic intelli-
gence. The indicated result is failure to accomplish the primary
mission through greater emphasis upon incidental (and less difficult)
functions
6. Even sipposing that ORE could, from its own imagination,
devise a mean ingful "over-all list of national intelligence production
requirements", the procedure indicated in paragraph L of the
reference is incapable of producing a valid result. It is unrealistic
and presumptuous to suppose that the NSC itself will or should give
consideration to such a list. In any case, only a polite and perfunctory
acquiescence without serious consideration could be expected. In this
proposal the cart is before the horse, as a re-reading of the passage
cited in justification from the Eberstadt Report would show. What is
needed is not that CIA should tell the NSC what the NSC's intelligence
requirements are, but that CIA should participate in NSC deliberations
in such a way as to be able to learn from the NSC what NSC requirements
are and plan accordingly. And contact for this purpose must be
maintained on a level of substantive competence and participation, not
that of policy formulation.
7. Finally, I an concerned about the duplication of function
evident in the Reference, between the Plans and Policy Staff and the
Staff Intelligence Group. I find in the functional statements no
warrant for this intrusion by S/PP into the essential responsibilities
of G/SI. In times past when I have questioned unfortunate ambiguities
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in those statements, they have always been interpreted in a sense
contrary to the present development. It is only after years of
quiescence that S/PP has assumed this function, which on this account
alone must be regarded as a new departure. But, regardless of this
point, consider the practical, as opposed to the theoretical, aspects
of the matter. It is the normal practice of G/GS to submit to G/SI
intelligence production requirements as they become apparent to it
through either its surveillance of the situation or its contacts with
such bodies as the NSC Staff. (This seed too often falls on stony
ground by reason of the unwillingness or inability of the appropriate
producing unit to meet the requirement, but that is anotnerproblem.)
G/GS has nothing to submit to S/PP in response to the Reference that
has not already been submitted to G/SI. If and when the NSCC Staff
produces a new long-term program I will necessarily transmit it to G/SI
as a basis for the initiation of specific projects. What is to be
gained by its duplicate submission to S/PP for duplicate planning of
a rather abstract character?
8. In short, I regard the function assumed by S/PP in the
Reference as superfluous, and its specific proposals as highly un-
realistic and impractical. This sort of planning is an essential
function of the intelligence production process, in which S/PP has
no part. It can be done effectively only by persons having responsibilities
in that process, in relation to those responsibilities. As I believe
the Reference shows, it cannot be done realistically by what should be
essentially a secretariat for processing policy papers.
LUDWELL L. d:ONTAGUE
Chief, Global Survey Group
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