NOTES ON ORGANIZATION OF OCD FROM A CONVERSATION WITH (SANITIZED) 15 JANUARY 1952.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84-00951R000200200033-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 22, 2000
• Sequence Number: 33
• Publication Date: January 1, 1952
• Content Type: NOTES

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~dotcr~ on O~anization of OCD from a conversation with
15 January 1852.
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rollowing the ideas and su;gestions of and
then in CIG, and others, the decision was made
to establish a Reference Center. This grew out of the necessity of
` establishing contact with industrial leaders and other people in the
U.,S. w'no had or could obtain information of value to intelligence, and
frori the need for reference to the massive flaw of incoming intelligence
requiring extensive classification and indexing programs.
The result of these ideas and plans was the Reference Center. es-
tablished in the fall of lgl,.6, Its basic concept wa.s to set up and main-
twin files of useful information, keeping always in mind these two guides:
1. Ato unessential duplication of the holdings of other agencies.
2. Knowledge and registration of what material other agencies
and non--government sources held which was of interest.
Thus the Refcrer.~ce Center had three basic functions:
1. Build a collection of material and information not readily
available elsewhere.
2. Index the availability of other material, no matter where
it might be found.
3. Develop mechanical techniques to rapidly search for and
process intelligence information.
Tn brief, either have it ox lmow where to get it. The P,eference Center
was organised with four branches (in the Agencyrs switch of branch and
division designations in 1q~.8, these became divisions as follows:
t Y- ~~-
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33ia~ranhical Intel- Foreign Industrial. Contact Control Register Central Index
licence Register R,e~,ister
(Hiogxaphic Register} {industrial Register) (Now in 00/C as Contact (Tlachine Division)
Register)
(Present nerves are in parentheses}
The Reference Center, as a new concept of information or~;aniza.tion,
was temporarily placed in 01~ for .administrative support during 1q~.7. In
that year two more divisions evolved within the Reference Center. The
first of these was the Library, set up in January, 1947, as a service for
CIG. For a year there had been no such service; books were ordered and'
then sent directly to individual requesters in various offices. The
Central Index of the Reference Center had been conceived to perform machine
searching and tabulating and some of the functions of a library by a general
classifying and indexing of incoming intelligence material.. The Librs.ry
(now CIA Library) finally centralized all ordering, storing and distri-
bution of books and documents.
The second new division was the Grashics Register, set up in the
spring of 1g~.7 to register outside holdings and store CIA acquisitions
of photos, films and maps. The old photographic collection of R&A.
Branch of QSS was then in the possession of the State Department, but
inoperative due to lack of personnel. It was mutually decided that the
CIA Reference Center should -absorb this valuable file. In return, CIA
undertook to supply the State Department with all the photographic support
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it needed. This includes today not only reference and print services
but even camera and film loans to employees, who :are
briefed as to pictures needed and whose prints axe latex developed by
CIA and filed in the Graphics Register.
Also in the spring of 1947, the State-Department, fearing that the
budget allotment would not be sufficient, asked if CIG would take over
its Biographic and Map Divisions. The Reference Center at the request
of the Executive; AKcNI, began to make arrangements with the Acting Chief,
Biographic Intelligence Division, Dept. of StatP~ for the transfer of
the Biographic Division (even dawn to the selection of personnel). Thexe
was at this time,, of courses ~. Bi~xanhic Re;~ister in the Reference
Center, CIA and a Map Branch was included in the Graphics Register. How-
ever, State finally received a sufficient amount of the budget requested
for one of these two State Department functions and decided to keep the
Biographic Division while transferring the Map Division in toto to ORE
in July, 1947. It remains a separate division in ORR and the personnel
and holdings of the Map Branch of the Gra,r~hics Re _ iste;r were transferred
to it in 1947. The Map Division now supports State Department in map
services as the Graphics Register does in photograph services.
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January ,,?#5', l9L$, entered the Agency as Chief
of the Reference Centerra~r ~."~ vas separate from the administrative
support of ORE and set up as a seps,ra?te office under the~Executive,
Administration and Management; thus allowing the Reference Center to
operate as originally intended as a general service for the Agency.
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In T~fay, 1q1,.~, a general reorganization and. combining of offices took
place involving the old OCD, Reference Genter and certain Adn~.nistrative
Services. (There had been in CIG an office entitled OCD -not to be
.confused with the present office of that name but a titular ancestor of
it.) The original. OCD had three branches (divisions); Rec(~.irements,
Collccti,an and Dissemination.
Old OCD operations were analyzed, Rec~uix?erzents 1?rsnch was ordered
eliminated and the tatnl OCD T~0 was ordered cut. The old OCD was then
blended ~srith the Preference Canter and was named the Liaison Division -
with a T/0 one third of its original size, while the new combined office
bras reorganized and 'tools the name of OCD -Office of Collection and Di: -~
semination. The Liaison Division was reorganized into desks (branches)
which coordinated. Requirements, Collection and Dissemination far the
separate producer-consluner t~.gencies, i. e., Stste Desk (now State rranch)
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handles all requests from, dissemination to, and collection from that
departrient and its direct contacts axe limited to certain specified
liaison officers. There .axe now five Branches. Sta.tc, Defense, Non-
?'AC, CTA. and Cable. 7'].ze Cable Branch, formerly housed in ONE (anal in
13 Al v,
ORE before 1?ec~r 1950), was assigned to OCD as the logical place"for
its operation in the spxing of 1951. Tn the fall of that year, the
"Director's File" of cables was transferred from the CIA. L~_brary to
the Cable Branch thus centralizing the intelligence cable operations
of the Agency.
Tn 19,.6, OO had been started including the Contact Branch (later
Contact Division) and eventually taking in the Foreign. Documents Division
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and FBID which were brought into CIG in the. fall of 19L~6. In the OCD-
Reference Center-Administrative Services reorganization of Niay, 191~~3, the
Contact Control R,e~i.ster was moved~to OO~C under the title of Contact
Register, where it could be of more direct service to the Contact Division.
Also in the reorganization of May, 1945, certain administrative
services were given to OCD. These included Courier and Messenger Ser-
vice, Administrative I~'iles and Records Management. These were all re-
turned to Administrative Services in 1951, -along with the CIA Archives,
now the Vital. Documents Center, wlti.ch had been in the CIA .Library. A
last addition to OCD was made in 191, in the form of the Special Register
which does special register work in connection with OCI.
OGD also contains a noteworthy feature in the O~~era.tions Staff,
Wlllch advises and assists the Division Chiefs in various aspects of
their aperations and handles procedural and report services. Of its
nor~ual complement of thirteen, generally at least two-thirds are working
in the divisions. These people are shifted around as needed, or as a
proper slot is found for a particular person. 00~~?rations Staff serves
the dual function of getting personnel properly placed and of fauiil-
iarizing a corps of people with several of the operations of the various
div3.siaris, thus developing a nucleus of personnel qualified through ex-
perience to take over other positions in OCD should the necessity arise.
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