LETTER TO THE DIRECTOR CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY FROM DONALD P. O'BOYLE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84-00780R002000260026-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 3, 2007
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: May 21, 1968
• Content Type: LETTER

Approved For Release 2007/01/03: CIA-RDP84-0078
The Director
Central Intelligence Agency
McLean, Virginia 22101
21 May 1968
I recently read in the May edition of "American Education" an
article entitled "A Close Look at the CIA", by Jeanette H. Sofokddis.
In this article a reference was made to a high speed facsimile trans-
mitter which allows an untrained operator to encipher and transmit a
document at more than six minutes per page. The article stated that
this equipment was developed with CIA initiative.
This office has investigated several communication systems over
the past few years including both facsimile and close-circuit T.V. with
positive security protection.
If available and releasable to the Air Force, I would appreciate
more information on this subject such as cost, manufacturer, and any
brochure that may be reviewed.
Respectfully,
i - OB
DONALD P. O'B0YLE
Chief, SAFAAE
Executive Support Division
DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE
WASHINGTON 20330
 Approved For Release 2007/01/03: CIA-RDP84-00780R002000260026-6
a close look
at the CIA
Reprinted from
AMERICAN
EDUCATION
By JEANETTE H. SOFOKIDIS
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 Approved For Release 2007/01/03: CIA-RDP84-0078OR002000260026-6
Caps and gowns-not cloaks and daggers-hang
in the guarded halls of "spy" headquarters
actually a great center of area studies
J n two and a half years of working with
these men I have yet to meet a '007,' "
said President Johnson in June 1966, re-
ferring to the personnel of the Central
Intelligence Agency. "In a real sense they are
America's professional students; they are un-
sung just as they are invaluable."
Appreciation from the White House. But
sometimes a cooler reception from the college
campuses which furnish much of the man-
power the CIA needs. At Stanford University
last November, for example, 10 students drew
disciplinary action for their activities in trying
to block Agency recruiters. At Northern Illi-
nois University, 20 students marched for a
short time in bitter February weather in a
protest demonstration. A few other colleges
have experienced similar disruptive efforts
this year, sometimes tied in with general anti-
war or "student power" manifestations.
The problem seems to be basically one of
communication. CIA doesn't exactly advertise.
"The CIA doesn't need defending," said
Charles J. Minich, the recruiter who en-
countered problems at Northern Illinois. He
pointed out that the CIA is not a secret organ-
ization and that libraries have many books
about the Agency, citing as an example The
Real CIA by Lyman Kirkpatrick, a professor
of political science at Brown University who
formerly held a high post at CIA. Still, many
people think about the Central Intelligence
Agency in terms of glamorous fiction charac-
ters, exotic foreign assignments, clandestine
meetings, and secrets passed in the dark.
As support to national policy, prelude to
decision, or guide to action, our Nation's top
officials must know what other nations are
doing. They need to know the accuracy and
reliability of the ICBM's of the USSR and Red
China. They must be aware of Soviet advances
in radar, and they must know just how much
the Soviets know about our own progress or
there can be no rational planning of Amer-
ica's prodigiously costly defense effort.
CIA has the responsibility of reporting to
the President, the Secretaries of State and De-
fense, and other senior national security ad-
visors on events abroad. Its staff reads nearly
everything that comes into official Washington
and covers the American and foreign press.
They distill information into brief, accurate
reports, arrange it in context, and present it
in concise nonbureaucratic English. Each top
policy officer exercises a priority call on CIA's
services, and each is entitled to have his par-
ticular interest satisfied in the terms most con-
venient to him.
Responsibility such as this places on CIA a
burden for a high degree of quality as well as
variety in its manpower. So CIA from its be-
ginnings a quarter of a century ago developed
close ties with the field of higher education.
Colonel William J. Donovan, in designing the
Office of Strategic Services as a national intelli-
gence unit, turned first to the academic com-
munity for an organizational nucleus. He
brought into the OSS such distinguished edu-
cators as Professors William Langer and Ed-
ward S. Mason of Harvard and Presidents
James Phinney Baxter of Williams College
and Walter McConaughy of Wesleyan Uni-
versity. Others from the field of education who
served the Agency in its early days were
Barnaby Keeney, now chairman of the Na-
tional Endowment for the Humanities; Presi-
dential advisors Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and
Walt W. Rostow; and John W. Gardner, until
recently Secretary of Health, Education, and
Welfare and now chairman of the Urban
Coalition.
Ford Foundation's McGeorge Bundy in his
1964 book, The Dimensions of Diplomacy,
described the relationship between colleges
and the CIA in these words: "It is a curious
fact of academic history that the first great
center of area studies in the United States was
not located in any university, but in Wash-
ington, during the Second World War, in the
Office of Strategic Services. In very large
measure the area-study programs developed in
American universities in the years after the
war were manned, directed, or stimulated by
graduates of the-OSS.
"It is still true today, and I hope it always
will be," Bundy continued, "that there is a
high measure of interpenetration between
universities with area programs and the in-
formation-gathering agencies of the Govern-
ment of the United States."
Currently, about 18 percent of CIA's pro-
fessional employees have had experience in
education, and, according to a New York
Times report, the Agency would be able to
staff any college from among its corps of
analysts, half of whom have advanced de-
grees, 30 percent the doctorate. CIA's debt to
education is further shown in the fact that a
majority of all the Agency's employees have
earned baccalaureate degrees, 16 percent hold
master's degrees, and five percent have at-
tained Ph.D.'s. These academic degrees were
awarded by nearly 700 colleges and univer-
sities in the United States and by 60 univer-
sities abroad. They comprise 281 major fields
of specialization, the six most representative
disciplines being history, political science,
business administration, economics, English,
and international relations.
Considering the years required for under-
graduate and graduate study, the foreign ex-
perience amassed, and an average of 10 to 15
years of professional intelligence work on the
part of its employees, CIA represents an un-
matched reservoir of knowledge, competence,
and skills at the service of the Nation's policy-
makers. Little wonder that it believes its mis-
sions are being accomplished not by flashy
triumphs of espionage (it regards the occa-
sional Colonel Penkovsky as a windfall), but
by an enormous amount of painstaking work.
A prime need of the Central Intelligence
Agency, its recruiters say, is young men and
women with liberal arts training and a strong
sense of history. They should be keenly aware
of the forces of economics and politics and in
substantial command of at least one foreign
language. They must be intelligent and re-
sourceful, personable and persuasive. They
must be willing to work anonymously, and
they must be willing to serve in far places as
needs arise.
Research staffs of CIA require and work in
an intellectual environment conducive to
scholarly inquiry and contemplation. They are
supported by a collection of source materials
and library facilities that include 116,000
volumes; they have access to external consult-
ants and a foreign documents division that
supplies translations and editorial assistance.
CIA's responsibility for research, analysis,
and reporting on, for example, a particular,
phase of economics may involve the measure=
ment of the entire economic performance of
a country, or it may demand a detailed study
of a narrower segment of the subject-major
industries, transportation, communications,
agriculture, international trade, finances-
over a much-larger geographical area. These
assignments require graduate skills in eco-
nomics, economic history, economic geogra-
phy, area studies, and international trade.
0 ther components of the Agency call
for other skills. One office, for in-
stance, requires sensitivity to devel-
oping trends and the ability to syn-
thesize from political, economic, and military
intelligence, support for judgments regarding
the intentions and capabilities of foreign gov-
ernments. Many specialties of scientists, engi-
neers, and technicians are employed in the
study of space technology and missile systems.
The art and science of photogrammetry are
called upon in the critical interpretation and
analysis of aerial photographs, and, here, CIA
makes use of geologists, geodesists, geogra-
phers, foresters, architectural engineers, civil
engineers, and people talented in the graphic
and illustrative arts. The electronic engineer
may work on one of the communications
media so vital to the continuity of the intelli-
gence process. Physical and biological scien-
tists may he members of the research staffs
responsible for surveying foreign scientific lit-
erature.
Singularly active in the use of computers for
management applications, scientific and en-
gineering calculations, and information re-
trieval, CIA offers mathematicians, systems
analysts, computer programers, and electronic
engineers career opportunities in its unique
and progressive data processing complex. With
CIA initiative, a high-speed facsimile trans-
mitter has been developed with which an un-
Approved For Release 2007/01/03: CIA-RDP84-0078OR002000260026-6
 Approved For Release 2007/01/03: CIA-RDP84-0078OR002000260026-6
trained operator can encipher and transmit a
document at more than six pages per minute.
At that rate the entire Encyclopaedia Britan-
nica could be transmitted in about 60 hours.
For its administrative support arm to keep
all of its human and mechanical elements
functioning efficiently and effectively, the
Agency seeks out law graduates, business and
public administration majors, medical officers
and medical technicians, personnel manage-
ment specialists, communications engineers,
and technicians trained in wireless transmis-
sion, reception, and maintenance.
CIA celebrated its 20th birthday in 1967, so
it can no longer be considered a newcomer to
the national scene. Nearly half of its em-
ployees have now served more than 15 years,
and about 75 percent of its professionals are
over 35 years of age. This unusual depth of
experience, however, might sink into institu-
tional formalism were it not for a farsighted,
orderly, career development process.
As a deterrent to professional obsolescence,
each year several thousand CIA employees at-
tend some type of non-Agency program in
management, science and certain technical
fields, language and area studies, and in lib-
eral arts. In any one month employees spend
thousands of man-days participating in train-
ing, on a full- or part-time basis, at a univer-
sity, senior service school, commercial firm,
military facility, or another Government
agency. In addition, two universities in the
Washington area have established off-campus
centers at the CIA headquarters building,
where Agency students may enroll in courses
for credit in their off-duty hours.
While national security interests impose
some limitations on CIA employees, many
write for publication, attend professional
meetings, and take periodic leaves of absence
to teach and renew their cpntacts with the
business physical engineering biological intelligence
administration sciences life sciences & military
& math & related fields science
academic world. Many take up or return to
an academic career upon leaving the Agency.
In addition to its external education pro-
gram, CIA operates a number of programs of
internal instruction. Basic methods of acquir-
ing information are taught selected field per-
sonnel early in their careers. They are also
trained in such specialized skills as para-
military techniques and their application in
counterinsurgency situations such as Laos and
Vietnam. But since these "tradecraft" subjects
concern comparatively few CIA officers, per-
haps the most comprehensive example of in-
house training is Agency instruction in foreign
languages.
Overall, CIA employees are able to speak
and read more than 100 separate languages
and dialects, while nearly half of all Agency
personnel possess foreign language skills in
some degree. Thirty-eight percent of CIA's
professional employees speak one foreign lan-
guage, 18 percent have demonstrated capa-
bility in two languages, 14 percent in at least
three, and about five percent have facility in
sii or more languages. One CIA officer, who
must be unique in our Government, if not the
world, possesses abilities in 51 foreign lan-
guages, many of which were acquired under
CIA auspices.
raining in foreign languages is ac-
complished in a varied program that
ranges from 12-month, intensive, com-
prehensive courses to part-time famil-
iarization programs of only a few hours. It is
also undertaken through tutorial training and
programed assisted instruction. CIA's empha-
sis on spoken language skills originates from
a major requirement for Agency employees
who serve abroad-ability in oral communica-
tion. For these employees, the ability to read
or write a language is secondary. On the other
hand, intelligence production specialists more
often need to read and evaluate foreign docu-
ments, frequently in a recondite field.
Language school instructors use techniques
similar to those used in traditional academic
courses, but the subject matter and the techni-
cal level of foreign language materials are
quite different from those of most univer-
sities. The language- school has therefore de-
veloped additional techniques, tailored to the
Agency's interests. These include instructional
tape recordings in 60 different languages, a
large and modern language laboratory, and a
library of 4,000 language and area books.
The language faculty is made up of staff
employees, scientific linguists, and contract
employees, many of whom are employed on a
full-time basis. With this staff, CIA's language
school can provide full-time instruction in 20
languages and less intensive instruction in 35
others. About 40 percent of the students are
under full-time instruction.
Taken in all its aspects, CIA's language in-
struction program is believed to have few, if
any, rivals in the Free World.
And it is the Free World that CIA, in con-
cert with other departments of our Govern-
ment, is working to keep free. Twentieth cen-
tury technology-and ideology-have forced
the American intelligence system to grow in
size and importance; yet the end products of
this system remain information and judgment.
Thus, the ultimate success of American in-
telligence and, in turn, American foreign
policy, depends to a large extent upon the edu-
cational excellence of its responsible officers.
CIA's officials freely admit this. They stress,
though, that the responsibility is a two-way
street and that the lives and freedom of us all
could depend on the degree to which the
American academic community can continue
to fill this demanding requirement. ^
Educational Backgrounds of Professional Employees
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