NOMINATION OF LAWRENCE K. GERSHWIN FOR A DISTINGUISHED OFFICER STIPEND

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T00153R000200070018-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 25, 2007
• Sequence Number: 18
• Publication Date: November 4, 1983
• Content Type: MEMO

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The Director of Central Intelligence
National Intelligence Council
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director of Central Intelligence
THROUGH . Deputy Director of Central Intelligence
Chairman, Executive Career Service
FROM . Charles E. Waterman, Vice Chairman
National Intelligence Council
SUBJECT . Nomination of Lawrence K. Gershwin for a Distinguished
Officer Stipend
1. This memorandum recommends that Dr. Lawrence K. Gershwin,
National Intelligence Officer for Strategic Programs, be awarded a
Distinguished Officer Stipend for 1983. Dr. Gershwin is 41 years old
and has four years of federal service.
2. Dr. Gershwin is being nominated for this stipend for his
outstanding work in producing National Intelligence Estimates and other
assessments of the highest quality on subjects of the greatest
importance to the security of the United States: the capabilities,
force structures, and plans of the strategic forces of the USSR and
China. Under his leadership, the Intelligence Community has tackled
successfully some of the most urgent strategic questions this nation
faces today -- and will face tomorrow. In addition, as an NIO he has
done much at the personal level to inform many ranking US civilian and
military leaders of the nature and magnitude of the strategic challenges
we face.
3. A respected nuclear scientist with an established reputation as
a distinguished analyst before joining CIA, Dr. Gershwin has proven
singularly effective as the NIO in charge of what unquestionably is the
Intelligence Community's most complex and most demanding intelligence
account. The depth of his personal knowledge in the nuclear and space
areas has enabled him to make important substantive contributions in his
own right to Estimates on these subjects. His leadership of the
Community involved in producing such assessments has been nothing short
of inspired, thereby facilitating the smooth production of estimates on
subjects that, by definition, are fraught with the potential for
interagency friction and contention.
CONFIDENTIAL
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4. 1983 has been a particularly busy year for Dr. Gershwin.
During its first ten months, he and his small staff have managed the
production of five major National Intelligence Estimates in addition to
having carried a heavy load insofar as special briefings, Congressional
testimony, and participation in interagency policy-planning sessions on
strategic programs are concerned. A few words about some of the major
papers he presided over seem in order.
5. The 1982 version of NIE 11-3/8, the annual encyclopedic Soviet
strategic estimate, was approved in February 1983 and published (in
three volumes) between March and May after a typical gestation period of
nearly a year. This mammoth undertaking -- always a difficult
organization and managerial task -- was even more complicated in the
1982 edition because Dr. Gershwin started, in effect, "from scratch" in
putting the estimate together, rather than adding incrementally to a
base remaining from previous editions. The resulting estimate was not
only technically the first new assessment on these subjects done in some
time, but it also addressed strategic issues not covered in earlier
estimates. This was accomplished in a way that clearly brought out the
differences in judgments among the contributing agencies without
producing the rancor or divisiveness that might have resulted if a less
skillful NIE chairman had been involved.
7. The three remaining estimates of particular importance and
immediacy that have been completed under Dr. Gershwin's leadership thus
far this year are:
. Added to the heavy workload
required to produce the annual Soviet strategic estimate, the production
of these papers in the same year would represent a singular achievement
if Dr. Gershwin's office had done nothing else during the year.
8. But such was far from the case. In addition to the papers
already enumerated, several other regular interagency estimates are now
in the process of being produced under Dr. Gershwin's aegis. These
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Beyond these. Dr. Gershwin and his
staff have contributed much of the data and judgments on Soviet forces
for a CIA-DoD Joint Net Assessment -- long an unattainable goal of the
Community -- that is about to be published. Finally, Dr. Gershwin has
somehow found the time to engage in an extremely active high-level
briefing schedule. He has personally briefed many of the top US
leaders -- including the President, Congressional leaders, and cabinet
officers -- on the full range of Soviet strategic plans, capabilities,
and activities at home and abroad.
9. The foregoing details are an illustrative but by no means
exhaustive account of the many accomplishments made by Dr. Gewrshwin
during the past year. His contribution to the success of the DCI's
estimative program has simply been enormous. it is very difficult to
imagine someone else being able to complete half of the major projects
he took on, and very successfully completed, during 1983. We strongly
believe that if any CIA officer has earned a Distinguished Officer
Stipend in 1983, Dr. Gershwin certainly has.
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