(UNTITLED)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84-00951R000200200021-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 78
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 22, 2000
• Sequence Number: 21
• Content Type: REPORT

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I. Introduction
This chapter, to be written last, will explain
the arrangement of the CRS History, noting that it
begins (Chapter II) with a summary of the
iece which is an account of the functional
history of OCD from 1946 through 1952; then returns
to 1946 to trace OCD's organizational development
from Chapter III onward.
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II. Early Functional History and Development to 1953
A. The Liaison Function
Throughout their histories, the Office of
Collection and Wssemination and its forebears
had actually performed two basiclunctions:
liaison and reference. The functions had come
into being together as part of the earliest planning
for the Central Intelli4ence Group (CIG), and were
considered vital to the proposed development of the
new central intelligence concept.
Operating in tandem from the time of their
inception, the liaison activities (requirements,
collection and dissemination) in effect sustained
the reference function which was embodied in the
original Reference Center.
The latter was envisioned as a focal point
where the intelligence officer would find "all"
of the pertinent information bearing on a given
problem.
The liaison function, on the other hand,
represented the beginning of the requirements-
collection-dissemination-reference cycle.
4
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OLIJALig
cow? 2 ?
Thus, in January 1946 when CIG was directed to
"correlate and evaluate intelligence related to
national security" and to assure appropriate
AIlir
dissemination, two of the princip44 actions required
to execute this directive were embodied in the liaison
function - i.e., collection and dissemination. In
other words, someone had to determine what information
was needed by the intelligence producers, that it
would be collected for them and, finally, that it
would reach them.
Against this background, two independent units,
the Office of Collection and the Office of Dissemination,
were established in July 1946, both directly under the.
Director of Central Intelligence but operating "within the
cognizance" of the Interdepartmental Coordination and
Planning Staff (ICAPS). the former acted for the Director
in "collecting" foreign intelligence and establishinc,,
coordination with the other collection agencies to
"determine the means and methods most appropriate" ic
obtaining such information to support the production of
national intelligence by the Office of Research and
Ltr., 12 thillik1/054,para.V!""Pa rErTAMC .102 (d) 3 ,
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laird (a); and NSCID-1, paras 7110,11.
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Evaluation (ORE).* Similarly empowered as the DCI's
agent, the Office of Dissemination was responsible
for disseminating the "evaluated strategic and
national policy intelligence" produced by ORE.
(Responsibility for disseminating the flow of incominq
intelligence documents from the other intelligence
agencies was assigned later.)
- Aost
-firt neither Office was involved in
"collection" and "dissemination" in the sense in
which the terms.are traditionally understood in
the profession - i.e., actual collection of informa-
tion in the field and deciding to whom the intelligence
should or should not be disseminated. Rather, the
"collection" activity had to do with broad planning
and coordination within the US intelligence collection
apparatus; while "dissemination" was similarly
concerned with broad decisions reached on an inter-
agency basis regarding permissable distribution of
evaluated national intelligence. In short, liaison
activities were treated as unique types of interagency
* Renamed the Office of Reports and Estimates in
October 1946.
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coordination, an activity supervised in general by
ICAPS.
For whatever reason, the two Offices failed to
survive two months. Presumably management almost
immediately recognized as artificial the adminis-
trative barrier separating the two closely
igned
functions. At any rate, on 10 September 1946 they
were combined into a single Office of Collection and
Dissemination, working directly under the DCI for
Reports and Estimates on the one hand and for ICAPS
4\e7 the non-CIG agencies on the other.
The mission was generally the same although, in
retrospect, it appears to have been slightly more
realistic. The Requirements Branch was responsible
for determining what each agency wanted to know; th,.
Collection Branch assigned field collection respon-
sibility; and tte Dissemination Branch assured p:copr
distribution of ORE- ro intelligence.
-,,
Under the circumstances prevailing at that t_g
however, OCD could, at best, only limp along. Like
-3 the other CIG components, it wasE!ill seriousl
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undermanned and just ars:-&-ecTi-Ou,O; lacking in the
experience required to
the
proposed centralized service. For kits-Lance, the
question of central control - even guidance - of
requirements and collection was far from intra-
agency, let alone inter-agency accord.
Even in dissemination the staff-hungry Office had
to have help disseminating ORE's production. To
further complicate matters, the Office had been
assigned the additional responsibility of
"reading" and distributing all incoming intel-
ligence documents received from the other agencies.
By mid-1947, however, OCD was fairly well into
its developmental period and was putting together
a callow but reasonably effective liaison operation.
Intense recruitment and training programs were
beginning to alleviate its staffing problem and all
three branches (Requirements, Collection and
Dissemination) were hard-pressed to keep up with
the rapidly mounting volume of business.
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In January of the same year (1947), its sister
organization, the Reference Center, had been formed
and was experiencing the same administrative and
operational problems common to all new (and first-
of-its-kind) organizations (discussed below).
Of the two parallel operations, OCD's six
months of seniority had given it a slight jump on
the Reference Center and although it seemed well on
the road toward carrying out its assigned mission,
the consolidated office was fast approaching
another reorganization - one which, however,
would be the last organizational upheaval for
almost two decades.*
* In 1967 the functionally arranged Office of Central
Reference (0CD's new name from 1955) was drastically
reorganized into the area-oriented Central Reference
Service (CRS).
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B. The Reference Function
Development of OCD's liaison function, however,
was only part of the story. For while the require-
ments, collection and dissemination machine was being
assembled and put into operation, management was
simultaneously companion piece that was
equally important
to the new
central intelligence
concept--a central reference system.
As noted previously, the 1946 Presidential
Directive to CIG to "correlate and evaluate intel-
ligence related to national security" and to assure
appropriate dissemination, had resulted ultimately
in the formation of OCD, the new Agency's liaison arm
for requirements, collection and dissemination.
But the Office of Collection and Dissemination,
as organized in September of 1946, did not represent
even in theory, a complete answer to the problem it
was designed to solve. In addition to the information
collected through the mechanism of OCD, there already
existed large stores of information in the files of
other Government agencies. All this somehow had to
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be brought brought together and made accessible to the
estimates officer. Thus, the original CIG planners
in early 1946 envisioned the creation of a reference
centeiagill', a "total library" where, 'for the first 1,
time, an officer could find in a single place all
information bearing on any given problem, and not
have to consult ahy other source. The CIG planners
rightfully considered the creation of such a reference
center an essentially vital part of the mission-1407.
They also recognized the problem that faced them in
determining the nature of the beast to be developed--
i.e.,. either a system that guaranteed access to the
files of participating agencies; or a common library
where, in fact, all national security intelligence
would be deposiZred; or a compEse arrangement
according to which required intelligence would be
released at the holder's discretion. In other words;
would it be an interagency effort operated for the
benefit of all concerned or a CIG-oriented system
developed within the context of "correlation and
evartation of national security intelligence 51, ORg7"?
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At the policy level, early signs indicated a
preference for the latter.
SUch policy matters notwithstanding, the
practical planners* who were designing the reference
center were faced with a task for which there was no
precedent or experience upon which they could draw.
The problems were formidable and the solutions had
to be created, not borrowed. ,For a library of such,
hitherto unknown complexity, for? example, the
problem of systemizing the mass of information
for specialized control was, in itself, almoit.
overwhelming..
The problems of designing the central reference
facility remained with the organization's architects
until the close of 1946 when they adopted what they
hoped. would be a workable solUtion. They had decided
that the required degree of specialization was too
unusual for librAT terms and would necessitate semi-
autonomous satellite libraries: for graphics, foreign
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* (an ORE senior officer and ,
later Executive, OCD) and
0,,Adviser for Organizational Management) were
primarily responsible for planning the reference
center.
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industrial installations and biographies. In
addition, there would be a traditional library for
all other material. Probably the most important
part of the over-all solution, however, was the
decision in favor of unlimited use of business
machines wherever applicable in the operations of
the new reference center.
On 1 January 1947, the CIA Library, then known
as the Intelligence Document Division, was organized.
The Central Index (later the Machine Techniques
Branch and then the Machine Division) came into being
on 17 March; the Foreign Industrial Register in June,
and the Graphics Register in July. Actual formation
of the Biographic Register was delayed until unique
interagency problems could be solved.
In March the planners submitted their blueprint
for a reference center to ICAPS. They were approved
with modificatias in June.
The modifications, however, were important
because, among other things, they changed a funda-
mental principle upon which the original proposals
The Contact Control Register was also originally
placed in the reference center but was transferred
to the Office of Operations in August 1948. ARIZ/-;423/-
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had been based and reflected continued policy-
level preference for a CIG-oriented service
organization.
'According to the March proposals, the basic
duty of the new organization's chief would be to
establish "central reference activities for CIG
and the member agencies." The ICAPS version
as approved in June, however, directed him to
"Establish the central reference activities for CIG*
and maintain apprqpriate liaison, administrative
and policy-making activities."
It was, obvious that the approving authorities
wanted an independent reference center whose prime
(but not exclusive) function was to serve CIG, a -
concept which wouid subsequently prevail.
* Italics ours.
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own..
Actually the central reference "mission"
that was approved by ICAPS.in June 1947 was to
remain basically unchanged for both the Office
of Collection and Dissemination and the Office
of Central Reference* throughout their
histories.
Specifically, the statement of mission
authorized the Reference Center (RC)
To be the repository for all.
intelligence and intelligence in-
formation to be permanently filed
by CIG, to maintain records of all
available intelligence sources,
intelligence information and
intelligence; to provide a reference
OCD's new name, adopted August 1955 as being
more descriptive of the Office mission.
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library for CIG; and to establish, in
coordination with OCD, procedures for
utilization of its materials and
catalogs by other agencies.
Operations of the Center were closely coordinated
with and, in fact, "fed" by those of OCD. As
indicated above, the latter functioned indepen-
dently under the director "and the cognizance of
ICAPS" while the Reference Center was attached to
the Office of Reports and Estimates (ORE) "for
administrative support "1-19-8-/l/11'TC-ORE organiza-
tional arrangement lasted barely three months.
In September the Center was transferred to the C#A4
Executive for Administration and Management (A&M)
for various reasons. First, subordination of a
reference unit to a particular production office
tended to inordinately channel the reference efforts
into that particular form of production. More
important, however, was the fact of life that ORE
had ite- own problems and considered administraLiw'
support to the Reference Center incidental to its
own function. There were frequent conflicts between
satisfying RC and ORE support requirements and whe,,
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pe4 794/7, 6-64/5 0 /6..
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such conflicts occurred, the Center almost invariably
received second priority. The Center's plans were
ambitious, including expensive machines and people
to operate them, and management was pressuring the
1947 staff of 172 people for speedy development of
the basically sound plan of operation. Second
priorities, then, particularly in budgetary matters,
sowed that development and justified the Center's
transfer to A&M in September.
For eight months after the Center's transfer,
it continued to operate in close parallel with OCD,
receiving the intelligence Collected by the latter
office and performing the final function of the
collection - dissemination - reference cycle.
By early 1948, however, flaws in the over-all
system had become evident.
In 1946, CIG planners had decided that the
liaison functions of requirements, collection and
dissemination were sufficiently important to require
a separate office where the functions could be
concentrated upon exclusively. Although plausible
in theory, the scheme did not work out in practice
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It
because the arrangement isolated OCD's liaison
function from both the people who generated
requirements (production), and the reference
people who knew what was already available. Thus,
liaison tended to operate in a vacuum and its staff
became increasingly divorced from the realities of
both production and reference. Further, their
contacts with other offices had become formalized
,and ritualisitc, creating too much paperwork delay
and inefficiency. -=ZISEV
Th two-year-old fledgling needed corrective,
--medicine and the Director. obliged. In May 1948
General Orders merged the functions of the Reference
Center and OCD into a new Office of Collection and
Dissemination* and confirmed
as the Assistant Director.
Along with the Reference Center, A&M's Central
Records Division, Services Branch, was also
merged into the new OCD. Of the services
involved, however, the messenger and courier
service and management of the Agency's adminis-
trative records and archives were transferred
back to A&M's successor (Deputy Director for
Adminip.tration) in December 19,(1, while
3tUPiJrMuw(-44A 1/441
retained Top secret Control and "custody
registered documents."pv4...i4
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an enthusiastic advocate of
the use of business machines (Electrical Accounting
Machines or EAM) for the indexing and retrieval.
of information, had been brought. in from Harvard
University in January 1948 to head up the Reference'
Center.4011:17
In the new Office of Collection and Dissemination,
the liaison function of, OCD' (old) was now reconstituted
as the Liaison Division. The remainder of the Office -
with the exception of administrative support staffs-
was entirely comprised of the Reference Center elements
which remained unchanged: The CIA Library and the
Machine Division; the Liaison Division and the
Biographic, Industrial and Graphic S Registers.*;
The arrangement was new but the mission remained
unchanged: providing liaison and reference service
first and foremost to.Agency customers and, secondly,
to other departments.
Immediately following the consolidation, the
Machine Techniques Branch was renamed the
Machine Division and the Liaison Branch became,
the Liaison Division.
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C. Liaison and Reference Merged
The consolidation of liaison and reference
was especially important in the development of the
collection-dissemination-reference function in
CIA. In effect, it recognized the distinction
between the theoretical and practical realities
of the three activities. That is, major decisions
regarding allowable dissemination, allocation of
field collection responsibilities and the extent
of reference service responsibility, rightly
belonged to the higher levels of policy-making
and was not to be confused with the practical,
day-to-day routines. Rather, the latter should
be solely concerned with making paper move
from one point to another; assuring that analysts'
collection requirements were properly coordinated
and that they received the information they needed.
Two years' experience had also shown that collection
and dissemination (i.e., distribution) were routine
activities which should not operate as a separate
organizational entity but were inseparably bound up
with reference. To wit, the "collection" man was
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supposed to know what the analyst needed and where
it could be obtained. The "reference" people, on
the other hand, knew what was already available
and need not therefore be collected. Thus, OCD's
July 1948 "Statement of Functions" was far more
realfs'tic than preceding charters and the organ-
izational set-up more workable. Further, the.
mission statement clearly indicated that OCD would,
become more a facility for CIA alone than a truly
centralized file where the intelligence officer
could find all the necessary information without
having to check other sources..?
First, as the system had developed up to A48,
there had been no call for Central Intelligence to
establish a collection or reference system for the
entire intelligence community.* Further, any attempt
to "coordinate"--that is, to determine the contents
of other agencies' files in order to. obtain pertinent
*? Later there would be a few exceptions, such as
the delegation of responsibility to CIA for
biographic intelligence under NSCID-8 of
28 May 1948.
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information--would involve the Director's "right
of inspection" (apparently never invoked by any DCI)
as well as the issuance and enforcement of interagency
compliance directives. To these and other policy
reasons was added a clinching, practical argument:
surveys conducted in 1946 and 1947 had clearly
indicated that such an interagency "library" would
be too extensive and complex to permit effective
central management. 'FIE.7,/7"A'Qf
Thus, the dilemma that had plagued early CIG
planners had now been resolved. Finally cast aside
Was any idea of an OCD "super" file. Instead, the
decision had been made to continue the system's
development within the context of "correlation and
evaluation of national security intelligence'
that is, as produced by ORE.
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Although arranged somewhat differently, the
functions of the OCD units remained basically
unchanged. The Library would continue to serve
as a general repository for the machine-indexed
collection of intelligence documents; the Biographic,
Graphics and Industrial Registers would maintain files
and provide service within their respective fields of
responsibility; and the Machine Division would provide
machine support and develop new EAM techniques as
required. The Liaison Division would continue its
liaison functions of requirements, collection and
dissemination.
In short, the mission statement removed any
confusion about prerogatives and functional res-
ponsibilities. The keyword was "service."
Any douTlFabout the Office's mission
quickly dispelled ?-1.1 November 1948 in a "Memorandum
for All Hands, OCD" from the new Assistant Director.
In what was a total statement of policy, dynamic
"Jamie" Andrews flatly identified service to Agency
requesters as the Office's "major function" and
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specified that such requests would never be denied
unless "compliance would work harm to the Agency by
interfering with other gita2.7 services..." Burying .
the old ritualistic approach for all time was his
typically brusque warning that "No hint of this
approach will be tolerated today." Channels and
procedures, as far as Dr. Andrews was concerned,
were worthless if they failed to yield "practical
results." In short, Andrews held that OCD
primarily existed to provide service to CIA
customers and would not concern itself with
questions of policy, prestige or prerogatives.
The OCD that emerged from the May 1948 reorgan-
ization was a viable, service-dedicated organization.
By the end of the year, it had fully absorbed the
May changes and was already proving itself to be
aft-elliel=171-401117 work`able organization. The organi-
zational structure, in fact, was to remain basically
unchanged throughout the Hillenkoetter and Smith
administrations* despite the impact of major
* Admiral Hillenkoetter served as DCI from May 1947
to October 1950 and General Smith from October 1950
to February 1953.
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investigations by the Eberstadt Committee and the
Dulles Committee. Ironically, both committees
surveyed OCD during and immediately after the
reorganization and both came to similar conclusions.
The Eberstadt Committee* in its December 1948
report acknowledged that OCD appeared to be an
efficient operation under its "new head" although
it had sometimes acted as a "bottleneck" in the
past. The Committee suggested, however, that the
title "OCD" was a misnomer, that it should become
purely a
functions
reference service, and that its liaison
14/144-e-2er
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d be 'split off."
The Dulles group's survey report of January 1949**
similarly recommended that OCD's collection and dis-
semination functions be transferred to a new "Coordination
Division" (an expanded ICAPS) and that the "library, index
and register functions" be placed in a "centralized
Research and Reports Division (ORE) .11' The survey team
The Hoover Commission's Task Force on National Security
Organization headed by Ferdinand Eberstadt.
The committee of consultants chaired by Allan Dulles
had been established n February 1948 to survey CIA
and the US intelligen e community. The committee
began its survey of QD about mid-1948.
/45c.
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was thus urging return to an organizational set-up
which had already proved unworkable. However, the
Dulles Committee had begun its investigation
immediately after the OCD reorganization and therefore
had neither the opportunity to observe how the
functions (collection, dissemination and reference)
had operated separately, nor what the consolidated
Office was capable of achieving after its "shake down"
period. Under such circumstances, the Committee's
conclusions wore understandable--i.e., viewing
collection and dissemination as functions of coordin-
ation (ICAPS) to be managed apart from reference which
they considered adjunctive to research (ORE),.V-/' 3z)(
The report, tirerrcromiisi-oftel--dive-eit-emAy
kimtvomy=ct=elteepam=W in essencelconstituted a plan
to dismember OCD and parcel out its functions to
other Agency components.
The reply to the Dulles Committee report by the
AD/CD (Andrews) to the Diri,ctor was immediate and
characteristically devastating. In his memorandum
of rebuttal, Dr. Andrews zeroed in on the obvious
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fact that the proposed functional separation had
already been tried and found wanting. He cited
the reasons why the arrangement had failed and
emphasized; contrary to le Committee's view,
the close inter-relationsVp of liaison and
reference. It was only after lengthy and often
painful experience, Andrews held, that the Agency
had indisputably learned that the
two functions
were indeed so closely related that thy were
performed best by a single, independen adminis-
trative unit. In his words, it was
too early to say that the present is the
best of all possible organizational
patterns for these functions, but it is
not too early to say that it represents
an improvement over the older and more
obvious pattern which is now proposed
anew.
The Director agreed and in his February 1949
comments to the National Security Council (NSC),
rejected the Dulles Committee's recommendations.
The NSC, in turn, endorsed the Committee's plan.
It was, however, a limited endorsement since it
contained the reservation that "there may be other
E
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methods of organization which will accomplish the
same objectives. 1 p33/
In July of 1950 (three months prior to his
departure), Hillenkoetter received still another
reorganization plan for OCD, this one having been
prepared by his Management Staff after a year's
study. The plan affected only two of OCD's six
divisions (the Liaison and Machine Divisions),
would transfer some of their functions to other
Agency components and reconstitute the remaining
functions, along with the Library and the three
Registers, as the Office of Reference and Dis-
semination. The so-called ORD Plan proposed that
LD's collection requirements function be re-established
under the "joint control" of the requirements staffs
of ORE and OSI; and that LD's work of obtaining
information from the files of other Government
agencies as well as maintenance of its Control
Register of CIA contacts with other Government agencies
be transferred, respectively, to the Office of
Operations (00) and the Inspection and Security Staff.
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With regard to the Machine Division's responsibility
for providing EAM support to all Agency units, the
Staff proposed that since machine work for 00's
Contact Division had recently been decentralized
to 00,that now the indexing of Agency employees
(especially for the finance and personnel offices)
be transferred to.the Special Support Staff. The
reM(lAing OCD functions that would be assigned,
along with the Library and the three Registers, to
the proposed ORD consisted of MD's primary work with
indexed intelligence documents, and such administrative
services as the courier and messenger activity, the
records management program and custodianship of
archives. . Although Admiral Hillenkoetter asked
the Assistant Directors who would be involved for
their comments, he expressed concern that the proposed
"dismemberment of OCD" would be more costly than the
oxisting arrangement. 'T.137A0/ Still other OCD
organizational problems which had been under study
from mid-1950 onward, included centralized procurement
of foreign language publications, the creation of
consumer-oriented branch libraries and the handling
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of "special intelligence" documentatioh.
Resolution of these and other problems regarding
OCD depended, to a considerable degree, on the
impending reorganization of the production offices
which, of course, was being held for consideration by
the new Director.
General Walter B. Smith succeeded Admiral Hillenkoetter
on 7 October 1950. He very quickly announced formation
of a new Office of Research and Reports (ORR) on
13 November* and, a few days later, an
ligence coordination (01;C).**
* *
Office of Intel-
In this production office reorganization, ORE was
replaced by ORR (first under Theodore Babbitt and
shortly afterward, Max F. Millikan) and the Office
of National Estimates (ONE) under William L. Langer.
Less than two months later, on 15 January 1951, tile
Office of Current Intelligence (OCI) was established
under Kingman Douglass. The Office of Scientific
Intelligence (organized in December 1948) remained
under Marshall ff. Chadwell. u-saanar5C51,1p,_3.9./
ICAPS, established in July 1946, had been renamed
COAPS (Coordination, Operations and Policy Staff)
in July of 1950. The new OIC thus replaced COAPS.
41chxonu_Vo1.7=I p. 37/
SEMI'
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4gD_77-11
Since General Smith, immediately after taking
office, had announced his intention of implementing
the Dulles Plan, it now appeared certain that ORR
and OIC would absorb the functions of the Office of
Collection and Dissemination. (0CD'5 reference and
machine support functions even appeared in a
proposed ORR organizational chart.) 43&47
After a month of deliberation, however, just
as Admiral Hillenkoetter had decided to leave OCD
essentially intact (despite or partly because of
NSC's limited endorsement of the Dulles Plan), so
too did General Smith.
On 1 December 1950, it was announced that OCD
would remain essentially intact organizationally
and functionally. On the same date, the new CIA
organizational chart again showed OCD, but this time
grouped with the production offices under the new
Deputy. Director for Central Intelligence William H.
Jackson. The only functional changes were minor
and involved the transfer of administrative support
activities to the DD/A (see footnote on page
above). 75:2
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Beginning with General Smith's administration,
OCD embarked on a long period of organizational and
functional stability that was also characterized by
growth, especially during the first two years
(1951 and 1952). In that relatively short time
span, the office's staff5,
almost doubled in size from about 400 people in 1950
to nearly 700 by February 1953 and the files more
than doubled to a total of over a million regularly
classified documents -- a total which included
neither the large holdings of Top Secret and
specially classified material nor the Library's
already extensive unclassified collectionspv 47/
With the operation stabilized and the "central
reference" concept generating a rapidly increasing
workload, management turned its attention to OCD
organizational problems which had been under study
since the summer of 1950. The problems, none of
which had been mentioned in either the Dulles
recommendations or in the "ORD Plan," revolved
about OCD's jurisdiction over certain types of
?
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tVg1:1- 13
materials, expansion of its documentary holdings
and further demands for specialized services.
As a result of management's studies, the
problems were largely resolved but the resultant
changes did not effect either OCD's basic charter
or organizational structure. Relatively incon-
spicuous as the changes were, they nonetheless
significantly bolstered OCD's jurisdiction as
the Agency's central reference facility. 0,,Cp'VS21
For 'example, the, responsibility for distr
all 1-A177-d-ab es wit 1 CI as ans erre
_7(not yet reorganited into ORR) to OCD and re-
buting
established as a Cable Branch in the Liaison Divison
in February of 1951. .1.6c7-5-2--kicrzf-1/
Similarly, OCD's Agency-wide responsibility for
the procurement of foreign language publications was
affirmed in December 1950 and early the following
year the function was centralized within the Library.
(Procurement had provioutily been split among the
Library, 00's Foreign Document Division and the
DD/A's Procurement Office. In addition, most
operating offices had ordered such publications
independently.) TtJUL1 521
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tdin
Another issue concerned further development
i/
of facilities for exploiting "special intelligence
e--
(SI)-- in this instance, choosing between local
(decentralized) control of SI indexing and reference
services by the originating office, or merging the
services into OCD's centralized system and thus
continue movement toward the ideal of "all-source"
coverage. To assure that storage techniques
used for special intelligence would be compatible
with those used for collateral intelligence,
responsibility for the SI indexing and reference
functions (but not for requirements and dissemination)
was transferred to OCD in June 1951. The activities,
which previously had been handled by the CIA Ad-iiisory
Council (for communications intelligence), were now
re-established in OCD's new Special Register on a
compartmented basis-- that is, physically located
within OCI's* "closed" area. 1-?V1,1 52,74/
* OCI, as noted previously, had just been organized
in January of the same year.
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I stact.
OrmiL5
Also in the same year, OCD responded to
increasing demands from Agency components outside
the production area by establishing three branch
libraries: one located in K Building to serve DDP
components; another in Central Building for the
Medical Office; and. the third in Alcott Hall to
serve the Office of Training. The satellite
branches were designed to make the main library's
specialized holdings more immediately accessible
to offices located away from the main collection.
,WC:7517/P
In addition, there were yet two unresolved "problems"
involving the Industrial Register and the Biographic
Register which did effect OCD's basic charter.
Under consideration, for instance, were plans
to obtain an NSC charter that would formally recognize
the Industrial Register (IR) as a service of common
concern and strengthen its jurisdiction in order to
eliminate duplication of files and effort in other US
agencies.
Similarly, other efforts had been under way to
extend the NSC-approved charter of the Biographic
Register (BR) to include responsibility for coverage
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or foreign, nonscientific personalities. The
Register was the only OCD component that was armed
with an NSC directive. The directive, NSCID-8,
promulgated 25 May 1948, was a "common concern"
charter that made CIA responsible for biographic
coverage of foreign scientific and technical types.
In practice however, the pressure of requester
demands from both CIA and non-CIA offices had
virtually forced BR to extend its coverage to
include all types of foreign personalities. It was
for this broader biographic responsibility that the
planners sought authority in a revised NSCID-8.
After General Smith became DCI (in October 1950),
plans for NSC formalization of the Industrial
Register's function were apparently shelved as a
matter of official inter-agency discussion. The
biographic problem,%bowever, was referred to the Office
of Intelligence Coordination early in 1951 for study.
After more than six months of investigation, OIC
in September reported an agreement among the IAC
agencies to enlarge the scope of A s biographic
responsibilities but only to include foreign personalities
of "economic concern." The principle of a completely
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-OCD - 17,
centralized biographic reference facility was
rejected as "not at present practicable" and the
committee limited itself to expressing the hope,
somewhat piously, that there would be
completely free access, subject only to
legitimate security considerations...
among the departmental biographic
facili-
ties, so that all the resources of the
intelligence community will be exploited
to meet the requirements of any department.
V42k8 0 a24
By the close of 1952, then, OCD had absorbed
the effects of several reorganizations and had been
progressively developed into,worthwhile central
reference facility for CIA and (secondarily) for
the rest of the intelligence community.
Much had been accomplished by the Office's
architects and leadership. Singularly fortunate
was the fact that the leadership had not only been
highly capable but continuous from tIW be inning,
particul ly with regard to Dr. n Tews-ar As noted
er.44";
above,t e ad been brought in to head up the
Reference Center in January 1948 and four months
later (in May) was selected to lead the merged
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25X1A
25X1A
SECRET
operation as Assistant Director for Collection and
Dissemination. In both jobs, Andrews put into
highly successful and pioneering practice his
enthusiasm for the use of business machines (EAM)
for the indexing and retrieval of information. He
was to continue his forceful leadership as AD/CD
until his resignation in August 1957. Dr. Andrews'
principal assistants had also held key positions
from the earliest years of OCD's development. His
Deputy was
who, prior to his
appointment as DAD in April 1951, had been assistant
chief of the Liaison Division from Octbber 1949.
His first Executive was
25X1A
originally a senior officer in ORE. 25X1A
and were the chief designers of the
original Reference Center.) When was
reassigned in August 1952, he was succeeded by
the CIA Librarian since June 14Y.
Andrews' principle of centralized service was
the driving force behind OCD's operations and would
continue as the dominant theme of its successor
25X1A
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c
-075372;1 19
organizations. There would always be administrative
conflict with the proponents of decentralization but
the trend toward the goal of complete centralization
would continue during the years to come.
Thus, as OCD moved into a period of consolidation,
its role as a central reference facility at the end of
1952 was broadly recognized and the authors of the
1950-1953 OCD history noted ?that
-
The development of OCD's reference
facilities as an inter-Agency support
organization, available alike to the
departmental intelligence agencies and
to the CIA offices, was also advanced,
between 1950 and 1953, but progress was
made less by organizational change and
formal directive than by continuing CIA/
OCD policy to proffer its services to the
IAC member agencies, and to extend its,
assistance to them in all possible cases,
limited only by priority demands for
service from within the Agency. Under
this policy, reaffirmed in January 1951
and March 1953, there was no reference
division in OCD that did not have an
_extensive clientele among the other
agencies, and only in rare cases was it
necessary to deny their requests because
of priority demands within the Agency.
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III. OCD Stabilizes--1953
By 1953 the Office of Collection and Dissemination
(OCD) had stabilized and after more than half a decade
of early growth turmoil, its unique "central reference"
concept had been engineered into an effective, first-
of-its-kind centralized reference facility, primarily
for CIA but also for the other members of the
Intelligence Advisory Committee (IAC). Although at
last standing on steady feet and entering a period of
consolidation--improving operational procedures,
restructuring organizationally and attacking problem
areas?OCD would continue to be plagued by staffing
and training problems and by rapidly increasing
service demands. It would also continue to be
perennially beset by the forces of decentralization.
The ideal of complete, Community-wide centralization,
although it would never be fully realized, would
remain a goal for years to come, particularly with
the advent of the computer age.
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25X1A
/
,CONS-01, - -2, -
Nonetheless, unharassed during the preceding
cwo-year period of relative organizational stability,
by 1951 DCDIs leadership had successfully put
together an organization which, however unsophisticated
was basically capable of fulfilling the mission for
which it had been established: providing central
requirements, collection, dissemination and reference
facilities.
Dr. James M. Andrews was still the Assistant 25X1A
Director and would continue in that assignment until
his resignation in August 1957.
and continued to serve, respectively,
as Deputy Assistant Director and Executive Officer.
In retrospect, it appears that much of the credit
for the design and development of OCD and, in fact, for
its very existence, belonged to Jamie Andrews. First
his pioneering and enthusiastic belief in harnessing
polonildl or honilit,.. m whinq Inr in oait,?ly ovw
iield--that is, converting existing EAM equipment to
apply to the problems of libraries and intelligence
files--had resulted in the development of a prototype
automated system for informAtion storage and retrieval
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addition, it appears indisputable that it was James
Andvews alone who, at tho tine of tho major Agency
''organization in late 1950, convinced the DCI
(coneral Smith) that OCD should not be dismembered
and subordinated to ORR. Another Agency historian
of the period contends that General Smith was so
impressed with Andrews' "persuasive powers.. .spirit
and his grasp of his business," that he decided "to
leave Andrews and OCD exactly as he had found them,"
even though it meant reversing his own (Smith's)
Deputy, William H. Jackson. 3/
At the division command level, however, several
key personnel changes had been made during the
25X1A previous year. the Assistant
25X1A Librarian, had succeeded as the CIA
25X1A
25X1A
Librarian in August 1952 when the latter was named
Andrews' Executive. Previously (in February),
, Chief of the Industrial Register,
25X1A
Ihld been reassigned and in July, had
replaced as Chief of the Biographic
Register.
25X1A
* 11111 formerly a senior officer with the Library of
Congress for eleven years, had served as the Foreign
Service's first Publications Procurement Officer and
ove4Meyers 00003/V'e MoPRIZIP84-100961F100112010200421 -7
Appr
1111 cIA in March of 1948.
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25X1A
25X1A
25X1A
25X1A
25X1A
25X1A
,GONSOL 4
25X1A
In March of 1953, was chosen to
succeed as Chief, Industrial Register. The
other 1953 division chiefs were 25X1A
the Graphics Register; the
Special Register; the Liaison Division;
and the Machine Division. 25X1A
headed the OCD Administrative Staff and
the Operations Staff, igr
In addition to organizational stability, the
period 1950 to 1953 was also characterized by growth.
As service demands shot u pw2g&the OCD staff almost
doublelk55kilAsize from about employees in 1950 to
about 1. by early 1953.* Indicative of the rate of
growth was the fact that while OCD almost doubled
in size during this period, the intelligence group
which it served---that is, the prolvifAon, operations
and 7gRfh offices---increased by... from
about in
February 1953. Similarly indicative of the increasing
magnitude of OCD's reference problem was the surging
25X1A
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(31s1S-OL ? 5--
growth of the Office's files during the same period,
more than doubling in size to reach a total of over
a million regularly classified intelligence items----
not including the large unclassif' Library collection
and other specially classified 4/
As OCD and its customer offices had increased
in size, so too had their need for space. Crammed
into "M" Building (the old "temporary" government
office building close to Constitution Avenue on 26th
Street) was practically all of OCD, ORR, 051 and
other elements. The already creaking "M" Building
was dangerously overtaxed and the need for additional
space in the area was urgent. Unfortunately, the
only available, nearby space was in Riverside Stadium,
an unused skating rink across from "M" Building at
350 - 26th Street. Th interior of the Stadium
was one vastribken expans oorly ligh4 //
.-4-b141-14y
ventilated and in sad disrepair. Nonetheless, a major
program of repair and renovation was undertaken to
make the unlikely site suitable for office use and or,
the weekend of 4 April 1952, the major portion of OCD
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CONSOL
moved into "The Stadium" and was open for business
on Monday,
5 25X1A
Resettling people in the Stadium J in the
course of one weekend (along with their office
equipment and furniture, the Registers' already
bulky files and the Machine Division's heavy
equipment) without noticeably disturbing service
was an herculean task. Virtually all OCD personnel
were involved in the operation. Many worked until
midnight for three successive days and by Monday
noon, 7 April, OCD was again in full operation,
having achieved a not inconsiderable logistical
feat. 7/
A few OCD elements remained in place and were
not shifted to the Stadium. The Library's main files
and the Office of the Assistant Director stayed in
11m111
Building. The Special Register continued to
operate within OCI space in "Q" Building (behind "M"),
the Graphics Register remained in Building 14 ac
23rd Street and Constitution Avenue. (There were also
six OCD people working in the branch libraries at "K"
Building 'Mir ADDlq and Alcott Hal1)149-r?t-iire?Gfttte o
rainTn7
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C&NgGL---3-
So, with the exception of the Biographic
Register, which soon would move "up the hill" to
North Building on E Street, Riverside Stadium
would remain "home" to most of OCD for nine years
until its relocation in the new Headquarters
Building.
And it would prove to be an unsettling home.
The old building was fraught with safety and health
hazards. Despite the extensive and very costly
rebuilding operation preceding the move, the
building was to remain in a constant state of repair
for most of the years of OCD's occupancy. One month
after the move, a four-page memorandum to the Chief
of General Services listed 19 deficiencies in the
building. Most of the defects were serious in nature,
such as faulty plumbing, buckle floors, defective
electrical wirinq,\s-t-a11atior1 of fire extinguisherb
and grossly inadequate ventilation. Not the least of
tne complaints concerned bad odors emanating from "a
stagnant pool of water under the north end of the
building" and, at the other end, from the adjoining
rr? T
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stables! And then there were the ladies' rest rooms,
where the defective plumbing and absence of mirrors,
soap dispensers and "bolts on doors" inspired the
following message "To The Powers That Be, From The
Gals In OCD":
Oh, the restroom isn't restful anymore,
There's water six feet deep upon the floor,
The walls are blue and slimy,
The faucets dry and grimy,
And the restroom ain't the best room anymore.
If you like privacy behind the little door,
Then this room, girls, you surely will deplore:
We cannot comb our hair,
For the mirror, it ain't there--
Oh, the restroom ain't the best room anymore.
9/
Most critical, however, was the oppressive heat
that developed in the badly ventilated building witn
the advent of summer.- During the worst of the heat
spells, a nurse from the Medical Staff took up her
duty station within the Stadium from about 1100 hours
onward, as would ,a technician swinging a sling
cyclometer to obtain temperature and humidity readings.
Their daily tours weren't lengthy, however. All
personnel were frequently released by noon, leaving
behind a volUnteer skeleton force.
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;
CONSOL - -
kCe.dt;:ta
General Servicesarrarrged an-emergancy--
,inatallation of air conditioning equipment and
work crews gradually overcame the host of other
defects. It was months, however, before the
situation could be described as even close to
normal. In fact, as late as August 1955, water
Leaks repeatedly flooded the EAM punched card file
room and the microfilm laboratory 10/ and, in one
instance, the building had to be sand-bagged when
the flooded Potomac River threatened to overflow its
banks.
In time conditions became more bearable. With
constant attention, the old building served its
purpose until the move to Headquarters and many
still in CRS remember the unused electrical sign
that hung on one wall of their "office." Although
never lighted, jAs message was clearly visible:
"All Skate"!
Although almosL toLtlly relocated physically,
\c`46-e-eireeleat4
OCD'S 195rNet-eactufal'scheme was still functional
and would remain fundamentally unchanged for some
15 years. It consisted of the CIA Library and the
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CONSOL-
Liaison Division, the four Registers, the Machine
Division and the Administrative and Operations
Staffs. The requirements, collection and dissemin-
ation functions were primarily carried out by the
Liaison Division. The collection and reference
functions, however, were also implicit in the
Library's maintenance and servicing responsibilities
for its general book and monograph collection and
the rapidly growing classified intelligence document
files. Finally, each of the four specialized
Registers amassed files and provided reference
service on specific subjects of foreign intelligence
interest: personalities of scientific and technical
significance (the Biographic Register); industrial
installations (the Industrial Register); graphics,
both still photography and motion picture films
(the Graphics Register); and personality, subject
and commodity data from special intelligence (the
Reginter).
OCD's organizational structure in 1953 has becl
likened to a wheel with the Library and the four
Registers closely grouped around the "hub" which
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provided their EAM support--the Machine Division
(see chart). Off to one side was the Liaison
Division s7.1= as clearing house for inter-agency
_ <
contacts (lOn-rtiffTvinformatIOn sources for Agency
customers and channeling CIA data to external users).
In effect, OCD was the "middleman" between the
Agency's research and production offices on the one
hand, and the sources of information on the other.
The Liaison Division stood at the beginning
of the cycle: coordinating and issuing collection
requirements; and receiving and disseminating the
vast flow of incoming intelligence data which, by
law, flowed into CIA from the other intelligence
agencies. The Machine Division electrically processed
copies of all incoming documents after they had been
indexed by the Library according to the Intelligence
Subject Code (ISC), and the material was then stored
in the Library's master file where it, along with tne
conventional book and monograph collection, remained
available to Agency analysts. At the same time, copies
of the documents were also routed to the four reference
Registers where, after selective processing, they
remained similarly available from the specialized
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IV. Early Organizational History and Development to 1953
Such was the Office of Collection and Dissemination
in 1953, its operational cycle still comprised of the
two original functions: liaison (requirements, col-
lection and dissemination) and reference;. together
with the machine data processing which had rapidly
become the third major function.
The genesis and.4enerfil.development of the
4
three functions had been the work of policy makers
and senior planners. It was OCD's line divisions,
however, which had borne the brunt of making the plans
work by successf fly rating the practical machine.
- ,tigt
Theirs had beetiahectic)o en painfa and frus ra
eNperience07*creating a new world of information
handling while they grew almost bewilderingly in
size, responsibility and sophistication. As with
any new activity, they had begun with a directive
and a handful of people and had traveled the
pathfinder's route of invention, challenge and
change before finally achieving operational maturity.
'FOY'Ltn
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This odyssey--the organizational evolution of
OCD's divisions and registers--has never been formally
chronicled. The only extant official history of the
Office of Collection and Dissemination* is morean
office-level, functional survey of OCD which only
treats of the working level units referentially.
Historically essential, then, is the need to complement
that Office survey with individual histories of OCD's
component elements--their origins and subsequent
development. The individual chronicles, however,
must remain relatively brief. First, the scope of
this paper precludes essaying the exhaustive individual
studies which the units' importance and operational
complexity justify. In addition, there is a sometime
scarcity of historical documentation on some of the
divisions during various time periods. For the most
part, the high-level direction and enabling issuances
are generally available but it is the routine admin-
istrative paperwork, the in-house working level issuances-
25X1A
*The 1954 paper summarized in Chapter II.
EMU
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-50-
through which an organization's development can be
plotted, that are frequently unobtainable. The
scarcity of this type of documentation is especially
apparent for the earliest developmental years of the
several offices for collection and dissemination;
that is, from their inception in early 1946 to mid-
1948 when they were merged with the Reference Center.
Hopefully, the historical evidence must exist somewhere
but further, deeper research is necessary to determine
whether the documentation still survives, buried in
some highly unlikely crypt, or whether it was indeed
disposed of during one of the records reduction programs
which regularly sweep the Agency. At any rate, the
histories of OCD's organizational elements will be
brief--primarily because of the time factor rather
than lack of documentation--and, for reasons of
clarity and continuity, will follow the same pattern
of functional development which prevails in the
preceding chapter--that is, liaison and reference.
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SEMET
A. The Liaison Elements
Liaison (requirements, collection and dissemination)
was the primal element in the development of OCD. As
previously noted, almost immediately after the close of
World War II, the Presidential Memorandum of 22 January
1946 established, inter alia, the National Intelligence
Authority (NIA) and the Central Intelligence Group (CIG)
under a Director of Central Intelligence. it directed
the DCI to correlate:.and'eiralUate intelligence "relating
? I
to national security" and to assure appropriate dissem-
ination. 11/ The principal actions thus required to
execute the basic directive were collection (both in
the field and from other agencies' files), evaluation
and dissemination. Accordingly, in order to carry out
these activities, General Vandenberg on 19 July 1946
signed into existence the first four offices of the
new Central Intelligence Group to provide centralized
"services of common concern." 12/ The four offices,
shown on what is apparently the first CIG organizational
e
sr.o,
. ,
ti
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1
? 'It
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6W7/2 /994)
SECriETI
chart were the Office of Special Operations the
Office of Collection, the Office of Research and
Evaluation, and the Office of Dissemination
11/ of'
(Figure V).
The fundamental importance of collection and
dissemination to the new central .intelligence
operation, or to any intelligence operation for
that matter, is self-evident. Before intelligence
can be evaluated,' ,it'ha6 :Co be collected; and
the finished product produced therefrom has to
be distributed if it is to serve its purpose.
It is therefore not surprising that collection
and dissemination accounted for two of the first
four offices established by CIG and that each
* One previous chart, issued as Appendix "B" to the
NIA Directive of 8 February 1946, reflects CIG's
planning status at that time--the initial five4month
period under the first DCI, Admiral Sidney W. Souers.
With the exception of the Intelligence Advisory Board
(IAB), the chart,shows only an Administrative Section
and two operating staffs: the Central Planning Staff
(to design CIG); and the Central Reports Staff, the
ad interim producer of the President's daily intel-
ligence summary. The planned operating divisions are
simply forecast by the line "Central Intelligence
Services (To be determined)( '(Figure) Attachment
"A" lists the Group's initial personnel authorization,
totaling 165 slots, 43 each from State and Navy and
79 from the War Department. 12/
CITFT
rol.J
I
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SECRET.
6-3
was an independent office under an Assistant
Director who answered directly to the DCI.
The Office of Collection (OC) was responsible
for collecting intelligence "required for the
production of strategic and national policy
intelligence" and for coordinating the collection
of necessary foreign intelligence with other
government agencies. The Office of Dissemination
(OD), on the other hand, was to assure' proper
distribution of the "strategic and national policy
intelligence" produced by ORE. Thus, at the very
outset of Agency history, the ancestral elements
(0C and OD) of what one day would become the Office
of Central Reference, had been established--at least
on paper
As with all new organizations,,CIG's initial
period of existence was primarily devoted to planning
and organizational development. The only significant
line activity was carried out by the Central Reports
CCR3
StaffAAw ich had been hurriedly assembled to produce
daily intelligence reports for the President and
other top officials. By June 1946, when the first
SIM
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Sidneyji70ouers) submitted his Progress
Report to the NIA, ly he reported that CIG activities
since its activation on 8 February had been
...characterized principally by the
administrative details of organiza-
tion, the consideration of urgent
problems, and the basic planning
for a sound future intelligence
25X1A program.
25X1A
Noting that of the then authorized strength of III
people had been brought in from State and the Service
Departments, the Admiral reviewed the progress which
had been made toward achieving the major goals
established for CIG. Collection and dissemination
were among the problems for which, he said, "immediate
solutions are well advanced.* He concluded that since
the planning phase had been completed, "the operation of
centralized intelligence services should be undertaken
by CIG at the earliest practicable date."
* Included in the category was the "Central Register
of Intelligence Information," later to be known as
the Reference Center, whose parallel development
would merge with that of collection and dissemination
in 1948.
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,-
Thus the initial five-month planning phase under
Admiral Souers had come to an end and on 10 June 1946
Lt. General Hoyt S. Vandenberg became the second DCI,
generally coincidental with the outset of the actual
organization building period. Having started with
the most rudimentary set-up (Figure , the organizational
structure was now in a constant state of flux, changing
almost weekly as the new central intelligence machine
geared up to carry out its assignment. It was a period
of feverish activity and organized chaos for the new
agency's first members. New services were being
established to meet new at-War needs of the Intelligence
Community. At the same time, many of the functions of
the Strategic Services Unit, then undergoing liquidation,
were being absorbed. Personnel recruitment accelerated
quickly after the initial drafts had been supplied by
State, War and Navy. Personnel rosters, lists of
assignments and reassignments appeared almost daily.
By July, at least the basic structure,4ad Jgun to take
A411 40,k,
shape an set for in the July organizational chart
mentioned above.
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was issued "showing the tentative organization and
functions of the components of the Central Intelligence
Group down to and including the branch level." 12/
The more detailed nature of the 22 July charts (Figure 3)
dramatically illustrates the bewildering proliferation of
the new agency.* There were stll only four operating
our/
offices (OC, OD, ORE and OSO) each of which was now
broken down to the branch level with the exception of
OSO, for w sh,there was simply a sterile statement of
4ppt%
mission.4 The scope of responsibilities assigned to
the early Offices for Collection and Dissemination
is rather surprising and, as it developed, were quite
short-lived, particularly with regard to the former.
This is particularly true of the Director's Executive
Staff which, at this early point, has become a
veritable hodgepodge of nascent functional elements.
Plate No. 4 shows no less than 15 units and sub-units,
temporarily grouped under the Executive Director for '
developmental purposes, but nearly all of which will
subsequently become operating offices or major
divisions--for example, security, communications,
special intelligence (the Advisory Council), finance
and personnel.
SEMI'
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Pl7PrZT
ciA.,zALL.
The Office of Collection, as charted on Plate No. 6
(Figure 3), had six branches. Two of them, the
Information Control Branch (0C's Message Center for
receiving and distributing raw intelligence) and the
Personnel and Administration Branch, were supervised
by the Executive. In addition there were four
operating branches, one each for Security, Requirements,
Foreign Broadcast Intelligence and something called
"Special Intelligence." Thus, in addition to the
basic requirements and collection activities, the
original Office of Collection was assigned broad
security powers* including, but not restricted to
Top Secret Control and custodianship of registered
documents; responsibility for monitoring foreign
broadcasts; and some rather vague activity in the
field of "special intelligence."
For example, the Branch's primary responsibility
was to prescribe "such information controls,
counterintelligence measures, and over-all
security measures as may be required to secure
the operations of the CIG."
SECT
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The Office of Dissemination (Plate No. 8,
Figure 3) was composed of three branches: Distribution
(mail and reproduction services), Intelligence Control
and Surveys and Reports. The Intelligence Control
Branch applied to dissemination the "over-all security
measures prescribed by the Security Branch of the
Collection Office"--for example, authentication of
document classification and security control of
dissemination procedures. The main job of the Surveys
and Reports Branch was to assist ORE, primarily in the
dissemination of evaluated strategic and national policy
intelligence produced by the latter office. The Branch
was also assigned, inter alia, responsibility for the
maintenance of an "intelligence operations room"
and a briefing and presentations capability.
Personnel records for both Offices are incomplete
for the period.25ft Acting Assistant Director for
RWRction was and Col.
was assigned to the26nrity Branch,
presumably as Chief. Navy Captain
was the Acting Assistant Director for Dissemination.
ar
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25X1A dNAA
25X1A
Other key personnel assignments to OD included Army
Colonels and
Lt. Col. initial CIG
assignment in February 1946 had been that of Acting
Assistant Chief of the Central Planning Staff.)
Both operations were housed in what was then known
as the "New" War Department Building at 21st Street
and Virginia Avenue, N.W., the site of today's State
Department headquarters building.
Such were the functions and organizational
structures of the original Offices of Collection
and Dissemination as officially described in July
of 1946. It is difficult to determine the extent
to which the Offices actually got under way in executing
all the functions initially assigned to them. Possibly,
some were never more than "paper assignments." The
charts themselves, as well as the Administrative Order
to which they were attached, were labeled "tentative."
The Administrative Order further declared that
Because of limited personnel presently
available, the Office of Collection and
the Office of Dissemination...activities
will necessarily be restricted largely
to planning for future operations.
.pPrer
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rih
-
One month later, another Administrative Order
setting forth the "Interim Policy and Procedure for
Dissemination" still specified that ORE would continue
to disseminate its own intelligence products until the
Office of Dissemination had obtained sufficient
personnel to function adequately. 12/
Whether or not the Offices actually did achieve
an operational mode by early September (at least,
personnel orders attest to the assignment of people
and rooms and daily security check duties), they
remained in a constant state of change. Within a
relatively short period, they not only lost numerous
of their originally-assigned functions but their
separate identities as well. The first change
concerned OC's relationship to the Office of Special
Operations. Included in the mission of the Office of
Collection was the following:
In conjunction with the InterdeEartmental
Coordinating and Planning Staff I.CAPS7 and
?the Office of Special Operations, conducts
constant research into the field of collec-
tion of information, and recommends new
means, methods and techniques for improving
the over-all intelligence coverage by
United States governmental collecting
agencies. (Plate No. 6, Figure 3)
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nil
But the original clandestine services people would
have none of this. They considered their collection
operation sacrosanct. As a result, a change order
appeared on 6 August 1946 which deleted the words
"and the Office of Special Operations" from the OC
statement of mission. 12/
Then, on 10 September, presumably for obvious
administrative reasons, the separate Offices of
Collection and Dissemination and all their functions
were merged into a single Office of Collection and
Dissemination (OCD). 19/ Excepted from the merger
were the functions of the former Office of Dissemination
"pertaining to maintaining an operations room, and
briefings and presentations in connection therewith,"
which were transferred to ORE. STATSPEC
STAT?Ncthe nw Of fir lost the
Office of Operations when
the latter was activated on 17 October 1946 ay and,
on 1 July of the following year, the OCD Security
Branch, originally in OC was abolished and its
functions transferred to the Executive for Inspections
SFCEET
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f
and Security (I&E). ,Left unexplained by
available historical documentation is the nature
and fate of the original OC's Special Intelligence
Branch, whose mission was to determine
...the utilization of such special
means and mdthods of collecting
information as may be placed at the
disposal of,. the Director of Central
Intelligence. (Plate No. 6,
Figure 3)
Both the Branch's title and mission statement thus
suggest communications intelligence but that special
field was handled at that time by the Advisory Council
under the Executive Director. (Plate No.
However, General Vandenberg, in discussing CIG's
progress at the Fourth NIA Meeting on 17 July 1946,
observed that CIG was receiving daily requests to
take over functions performed by other departments,
including one suggestion that "CIG centralize the
handling of codes and ciphers to improve, their
Presumably, Top Secret Control and custodianship
of registered documents were among the functions
transferred but both would be assigned back to
OCD in May 1948.
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-62.1-
security." Another source recalls ?a February
1947 briefing which mentioned a planned "censorship,
function" for OCD. It is also possible that the
Branch's function was intended to support the
activities of the Office of Special Operations in
some manner. None of these suggested propqsals
ever materialized, qf core--at least not within
OCD--and whatever itgc-pu-rpose, the Special Intel-
ligence Branch appeared only on that first CIG
organizational chart of 22 July 1946.
charts contained such a unit.
. A,7
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%).:1PLIT
- 3
By late summer of 1946 the mission--now charged
to a consolidated Office of Collection and Dissemina-
tion--had been pared back to its primary liaison
functions of requirements, collection and dissemination.
(Actually, its security functions would remain until
their transfer to the I&E Staff some six months later.)
The new Office was structured into three branches--
one each for Requirements, Collection and Dissemination
(Figure 4)*--and its assigned basic mission was
To determine the collection and
dissemination requirements for
strategic and national policy
intelligence information and
intelligence; and to formulate
and supervise the implementation
of operating plans, policies and
procedures in connection therewith...
21/
On this undated organizational chart, the time of
which has been established as October 1946, the
projection of an Office of Security was premature.
The particular security conception envisioned here
was never realized. Instead, an Inspections and
Security Staff under the Executive Director was
organized on 1 July 1946. (See also Flgure 5.)
The Office of Security, as such, actually did not
appear until February 1955.
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25X1A
Navy Captain OD Chief, was
named the first Assistant Director for Collection
and Dl?semination. Chosen for the Deputy job was
25X1A
25X1A Col. also from OD. Col.
25X1A
25X1A
25X1A
the only hold-over from OC, was named to
head up the new Office's Collection Branch and
Col. the Requirements Branch. The
third branch (Dissemination) was set up under
who had originally been assigned from
State to CIG and slotted as the Acting Administrative
Officer. (Col.
Chief of the Office
of Collection, was reassigned to the Office of the
Director and shortly thereafter returned to the War
Department.) 3.2/
The Office had emerged from its incubation stage
and was struggling to solve the problems inherent in
all newly achieved operational capabilities. Not
surprisingly, the most immediate collection and
dissemination problems involved OSO and 00. Especially
irritating to OSO, for example, was the fledgling
OCD's habit of simultaneously levying collection
requirements upon overt and covert sources. OSO
rightfully held that overt possibilities (rio clandestine
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overseas sources as well as headquarters' files) should
be exhausted before their limited covert resources
were approached. Among other matters worrying both
OSO 2.1c1 00 was the ever-present danger of having one
of their sources compromised by OCD Collection
Directives levied on other agencies concerning reports
which had originated with 00/C or OSO.
Far more basic, however, were the two major
problems of coordinating field collection and, secondly,
defining OCD's collection and dissemination role. With
regard to the first problem, the field representatives
of the several U.S. Departments had always reacted
solely to home office collection requirements irrespective
of category. To conform to the new centralized intel-
ligence concept, the NIA sought to coordinate field
activities--namely, to maximize the collection capa-
bility by avoiding unproductive duplication and
improper channeling--by allocating Agency collection
responsibilities within certain broad categories.
Thus, the Department of State was assigned respon-
sibility for political, cultural and sociological
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subjects, and the War and Navy Departments for,
respectively, military and naval matters.. Each
agency was free to collect economic and scientific
information according to their respective needs. ay
Confusion resulted among the field collectors.
Generally, the provisions of the NIA directive
were in conflict with, or at best not in consonance
with outstanding departmental collection directives.
Washington itself first had to be coordinated
through the issuance of revised departmental
collection directives reflecting the NIA pattern.
Further, field collectors were reluctant to conform
because of basic loyalties. They had to be assured
that copies of anything they collected outside of
their delegated sphere of interest and then turned
over to the primary agent, would indeed also be made
available to their home office. Or, more broadly,
that the collateral or secondary intelligence needs
of no Washington department would suffer from the
elimination of duplicate reporting. Continued
pressure from Washington eventually achieved working
effectiveness in coordinated collection but it was
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to take a long time. In fact it would never be
completely achieved.
The other major problem was defining OCD's role
in collection and dissemination--particularly with
regard to the latter. From the outset, OCD's
collection function was generally understood to
be one of broad planning and coordination with
respect to the government's intelligence collection
system--i.e., a liaison activity--rather than direct
involvement in field collection. OCD's function,
in other words, was that of a middle-man allocating
responsibility for field collection of required
intelligence. There were, however, officially,
recognized exceptions to even this rather mundane
role. The Office of Special Operations dealt
directly with the FBI and other counterparts and
would, in fact, accept from OCD only requirements
of demonstrated importance which could not be
collected through overt channels. Similarly, 00
frequently by-passed the OCD mechanism and worked
directly with its own sources, as would the Office
of Scientific Intelligence (WI) with the AEC a
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short time later. Moreover, even within the
"middle-man" sphere, OCD's authority was further
dichotomized in that it handled only "specific"
collection requirements. Responsibility for
"general" or "standing" types of requirements
belonged to the Interdepartmental Coordinating
and Planning Staff (ICAPS).*
Contrary to the relatively clear cut status
of OCD in the sphere of collection, however, its
dissemination role was surrounded by confusion
from the beginning. To avoid another Pearl Harbor,
the NSC had placed a positive obligation upon the
DCI to keep the policy and operational echelons of
the Government informed with timely and accurate
warnings through the fullest exchange of information.
This was basically a positive charge devoid of
exceptions. Thus, the CIG Administrative Order
which, in August 1946, set forth an interim policy
for the dissemination of CIG-produced intelligence,
* ICAPS had replaced the Central Planning Staff (CPS)
in July 1946.
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in effect effect directed that all such intelligence would
be disseminated by OCD "in close collaboration with
ORE and interested offices and staffs." 32/ The
intelligence dissemination principle, however, also
implied a negative system of controls to safeguard
the information. The Administrative Order had also
stated that desirable changes giou1l7 be made to
meet organizational requirements. The "interested
offices and staffs" began pressuring for the
"desirable changes"--i.e., negative controls to
safeguard the intelligence to be disseminated.
In the process that would take place over the next
half-dozen years, OCD's role as a disseminator
of "all" intelligence would change to that of
disseminator of only that intelligence which could
safely be disseminated on a "need to know" basis.
The function moved toward decentralization, in
contrast to the basic, fundamental principle of
centralization. Offices such as OSO and 00
naturally wanted to protect their sources and
methods and their material was "sanitized" prior
to dissemination, or, as in the case of the former's
counterespionage reports, withheld altogether.
SEM
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Within a short period of time many other types of
reports would be exempt from the OCD channels.
Nonetheless, most types of Agency-produced reports
as well as the largest bulk of incoming material
came witi?in the purview of OCD's dissemination
system. Dissemination, even with all the exceptions,
rapidly became the largest and most meaningful of
OCD's functions. As previously noted, it was soon
afterward described as "the single most important
tool for carrying out the Director's continuing
obligation to insure exchange of intelligence..."
Dissemination, in fact, was to remain an OCD function
long after the other two original activities (require-
ments and collection) had been transferred to other
offices.* Given the broad and ill-defined terms
of its original mandate, and the fact that only
some of the functional conflicts were essentially
Domestic collection (from US Government sources)
went to 00/C in July 1961; the requirements function
to the Collection Guidance Staff (CGS), 0/DDI in
June 1963; and the remaining pure liaison activities
to CGS and the Domestic Contact Service (formerly 00)
in January 1967.
S?'
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..., 71
resolved during its first year of operation, OCD
came to be recognized simply as,an intermediary
between the collector and the producer;* and as
a distribution center within CIG and a central
clearing house for the routing of intelligence
within the government.
By early 1947, then, the operation in the new
Office of Collection and Dissemination had settled
down as much as any operation could in that early,
tumultuous period. If the Office's mission was
more plelan than was originally envisaged, its
services were nonetheless, vital to the Government's
new centralized intelligence operation. In
January 1947 when General Vandenberg presented his
Year-End Report (for 1946) to the NIA, he highlighted,
among other things, the increasing workloads of OCD's
Collection and Dissemination Branches. He noted that
the former was already handling collection requests
from seven Government agencies in addition to the
internal CIG requests, and that the other agencies
had "come more and more to call on L902.7 to assist
41.0~0
olAt
There would/be minor exceptions in the future when,
as in 1950 OCD was to engage in direct field "
collection by sending survey and microfilming teams
to Western Europe to collect overt industrial and
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in locating and supplying their required intelligence
material." 2..q/ 2gxTArch the Office's on-board
stinvgi stood at against an authorized ceiling
22/ and in June Admiral Hillenkoetter's*
first report to the NIA emphasized CIG's (0CD's)
expenditure of "much time" for the coordination of
U.S. collection efforts "through clearing house
arrangements and central reading panels." 28/
At about this time--mid-1947 or shortly thereafter--
OCD's by now noticeably lumbering operation was
moved from the War Department location on 21st
Street to South Building in the 2430 E Street, N.W.
complex and to "M" Building on 26th Street, N.W.
near Constitution Avenue. 29/
Throughout the second half of the year, personnel
and work statistics continued to climb. By October
the on-board strength had risen to and the
25X1A
authorized ceiling tom 22/ In the same month, 25X1A
* Hillenkoetter replaced Vandenberg in May 1947
as the third DCI.
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the Office received about 325 Requirements compared
to 175 in August; and issued almost 400 Collection
Directives against the August total of 250. 21/
As the end of the year approached, it was becoming
alarmingly evident that something was wrong with
the OCD operation; that the system as originally
conceived, was sound in theory only. In practice
it was unworkable.
As previously noted, one of the basic objectives
of the central intelligence concept was the establish-
ment of an equally centralized reference system where
"all" pertinent information would be readily available
to the intelligence estimators and producers. By
the close of 1947 the resultant Reference Center had
generally completed its first year of operation and
it had become obvious that its function was vitally
interwoven with that of OCD. Yet the two functions
were organizationally separated. The liaison
officers in OCD who collected the required information
were isolated from the production people who needed
the information as well as from the reference people
who knew what information was already available and
therefore need not be collected. In consequence,
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OCD's collection and dissemination activities were
operating in a vacuum, artificially isolated from
the Agency's practical operations which they were
designed to support. In addition, OCD's procedures
had become pompously ritualistic and all business
was conducted through formal channels and memoranda.
The inevitable results were "inefficiency, time-
consuming delays, and much invective." 22/ In
short, after some two years of actual experience,
CIA* management had concluded that dissemination
and collection coordination were routine activities
which hardly justified a separate office; that most
of OCD was sinking in its own morass of paper; and
that the system which had evolved was self-defeating
and ineffective. (Apparently, the Dissemination
Branch, unconcerned by questions of prestige or
prerogatives, was the only part of OCD that was doing
an effective, down-to-earth job and it was seriously
overworked--or understaffed, depending on one's
point of view.)
* The name change from CIG became effective in
September 1947.
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the 0/DCI had become increasingly disenchanted
with the OCD situation, they must have been happier
with :the Reference Center's managemeht. It appears
that who had been primarily respon7
sible for the design and development of the Reference
:Center and was then its Acting Chief, 33/ was called
in by Executive Director in late 1947 and
quietly informed that he
had found the iian
he wanted to head up the Reference Center and that he
further=intpnded to merge the Center and OCD. ".The
ma
f course, was Jamie Andrews who arrived less
than two months later in January 1948 and immediately
took up his assignment as Chief, Reference Center.
By this time, although the Center had been in operation
less than a year and was OCD's junior. by about six
months, it was already larger than OCD and, apparently,
boasted effective operation. The plan that
Andrews, and their staff worked on for
several months was subsequently approved and in May
1948,, as we have seen, General Orders merged the two
operations into a new Office of Collection and
uidaac-er. 221/ .
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Along With the Reference Center, the Central Records
Division was also brought in from the A & M Executive
,and placed under the OCD umbrella, thus returning the
Top Secret and registered document control functions.
Actually then, it was the Reference Center which
had absorbed OCD but, decording to .one source, 35/
the latter title was retained because it was more
widely recognized throughout the Intelligence
Community. Thus, as previously described, the new
OCD containqd the six original' divisions from
e,
Reference Center plus a seventh, the Liaisongis.?.
into which had been compressed the old OCD liaison
functions of requirements, collection and dissemination.
Such was the organizational development of OCD's
liaison function up to the 1948 reorganization. There
remains now the need to similarly trace the organiza-
tional development of the reference elements, from
the beginning to 1948, in order to better understand
the evolution of the Office of Collection and
Dissemination.
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