COMMENTS ON A REVIEW OF THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86B00269R000400070010-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 28, 2003
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: April 15, 1971
• Content Type: PAPER

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COMMENTS ON
A REVIEW OF THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY
15 April 1971
Copy No.
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COMMENTS ON OMB'S REVIEW OF THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY
Introduction
1. The Review of the Intelligence Community by OMB is a
serious, well-informed, perceptive and in the main accurate assess-
ment of where the community now stands. It is a fair and forceful
paper and deserves the most earnest consideration and thoughtful
response. While it identifies a number of salient problems facing
the community, the study properly devotes the greater part of its
inspection to CIA and particularly to the position of the DCI. It
calls on the Agency and the Director to take greater leadership of
the community and presents both the necessity and the opportunity
to do so.
2. There are a number of points in the first five sections of
the paper which are open to varying interpretations and differing
explanations, but it is not the purpose of these comments to take
these up in detail. The important thing is to address the thrust and
purpose of the paper and the important changes which must be made.
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Central Points
3. The Review recognizes that the basic layout of the intelligence
community, dating from the National Security Act of 1947 and from
the fundamental reorganization of CIA in 1950, has become out of date
under the impact of rapidly advancing technology and the organizational
adjustments to its effects. This prompts the reviewers to hold that
the growth of the community has been largely "unplanned and unguided".
The present outcome is a series of complicated interlocking
responsibilities and relationships which, while they may appear chaotic
to outside scrutiny, nevertheless work--and in the main, have worked
well. There are many associations and interactions essential to the
productivity of the system which will not appear on a descriptive chart.
4. The very complexity of the present intelligence system
argues against a broadside reorganization, and this the. review wisely
understands. Rather, as the report agrees, the answer more
properly lies in an approach of thoughtful gradualism, establishing
first the point of leadership, providing the authority and responsibility
for change, and then allowing the changes to evolve, guided by those
inside the system who comprehend the origins of the system and the
direction it should move in.
5. This central point is convincing argument that most of the
inefficiencies and malalignments in the present system are more
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surely correctible by central authority and leadership than by
recourse to legislation, the outcome of which could very well be
unintentionally destructive or, at the least, less informed and
sensitive to the means of productive change.
6. The best, most efficient and least disruptive way to bring
about improvement and modernization of the community is to confer
by Presidential directive to the DCI the authority and responsibility
to effect the changes required. This is truest for the field of
resource management.
7. Legislation, directives and Presidential letters to the DCI
have focussed on the substantive authority of the DCI. These orders
have been silent as to the DCI's role in resource management, while
at the same time resource problems have multiplied and grown in
size and cost until they are now the main concern of the community
and the principal reason for the Review.
8. The key need is for the President to indicate in writing and
beyond question that the DCI has his full and virtually unquestioning
support and that he looks to him to make the necessary decisions for
the community as acting in the President's behalf. The President',s
intent must be instilled in the heads of the community's principal
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components so that it is clear that circumventions through whatever
channels will not be condoned and that independent activity without
the concurrence of the DCI will not be acceptable. Given this kind
of Presidential support and a wide general sense of common purpose
throughout the community, the way is open to achieving the
President's objectives.
The Options
9. The options presented in the Review, while only three in
number, well exhaust the range of possibilities and problems inherent
in a change of the scope proposed:
a. Option 3 - A Coordinator of National Intelligence - is
generally considered ineffective. While some of the suggested functions
would be needed by a powerful DCI, they should not be performed by
the DCI himself. The disadvantages cited in the report by themselves
effectively demolish this alternative.
b. Option 1 - A Director of National Intelligence - would
certainly require major legislation and a complex review and
re-enactment of most of the directives governing the community. As
the report observes, the concentration of such sensitive power in
one man would not go unnoticed by the press and public and would be
fiercely resisted by State and Defense--with good reason. The political
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vulnerability of such a position promises a sequence of holders and
disruptive repercussions each time a new man is named.
c. Option 2 - A Director of Central Intelligence - with
part of what is now CIA set apart. This aspect alone involves new
legislation with its attendant drawbacks. It is worth noting that in
the National Security Act of 1947, much of the power of the DCI and
CIA in combination is conferred on the Agency, not the DCI. This
in the law will need change. The proposal for separation also
overlooks what will not appear in diagrams--the productive two-way
relationships between producers and collectors which in many
instances has been at the heart of the Agency's success.
Another Option
10. Although much of what is proposed in Option 2 is wise and
beneficial, a modification of it, retaining its central objective of a
strong DCI, might be more feasible and effective.
11. Essentially what is offered here-is a strong DCI, as in
Option 2, with clear and explicit Presidential authority and community
staff mechanisms to assist him. The lack of a DCI role of this
character heretofore does not derive from a failure to delegate
responsibility for CIA and to take active part in resource management.
Rather it results from the absence of clear authority to enter the
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resource area beyond CIA's borders and a recognition that to do so
would have been to bring on a series of unproductive skirmishes and'
adversary actions with those holding clearer title to those assets.
12. With this bar out of the way, the DCI would be free, if
not required, not only to move into community matters of substance,
as heretofore, but into resources as well. As stated in Option No. 2,
he would have senior status in the community, would serve as
principal intelligence adviser to the President and the NSC, would
produce national intelligence (as now) and would, in addition, make
recommendations to the President on intelligence programs and
budgets of CIA and of the Department of Defense, present a consolidated
intelligence budget to OMB and participate in resource decisions on
acquisition, allocation; evaluation and discontinuance. To accomplish
all this, the DCI quite obviously would find it necessary to delegate
much more of his day-to-day management of the Agency than has been
necessary up to now.
13. A critically important element in the DCI's new role in
resources would be his responsibility for a single coordinated
intelligence budget. It is not without significance that this role is
already considered to be his by Congress in suggestions that the
DCI might discuss the community's budget with the Appropriations
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Committees. Authority for the DCI in this regard already exists in
Section 5 of the CIA Act of 1949, amended. Inasmuch as the key
resource decisions are made in the budget stage, often reversing
the thrust of earlier program decisions, the DCI's overview of the
budgets of the community would put him squarely in the middle of the
key resource gateway.
14. An important first use of the DCI's budgetary authority
would be to deal with the costs of the community's activities. The
Review notes that these have become "exceedingly expensive".
Fragmented authority and weak resource controls are only two of
the reasons. Other causes are the desire for universality in coverage,
the pressure for currency, the drive of urgency and timeliness, the
multiplicity of contingency plans and their requirements, the
attractions of R&D and new systems and the lack of authority not to
do a number of things. It is not out of place to note that the impetus
behind many of these causes and pressures comes from outside the
community and not from'the "internal values" within the system.
15. The sphere of the DCI's power and responsibility would
be the national intelligence area--its assets and products; Defense
would remain responsible for tactical intelligence needs and means.
The dividing line between !'national!' and "tactical" has always been
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a shifting one and subject to bitterly contested claims. A strong,
Presidentially backed DCI would be able to do much to solve or
reduce this long-standing problem.
Substantive Aspects
16. The report devotes considerable attention to the substantive
production of the community, rightly, since it is in this that the
community establishes its value to the nation. The fact that the Review
says that improvement is needed is sufficient reason to accept the
proposition and attempt to meet the need.
17. A more sharply focussed and accurately relevant substantive
production effort depends in large part on knowing what the consumer
wants and being free to drop coverage of what he does not want.
Problems of direction in this sense originate outside the community in
considerable part. There has never been any satisfactory means of
feedback from the policy-level users; they are busy, unaware of the
cost and effort behind what they get, and have never been constrained
from asking for more. Likewise, there has never been any conscious,
authoritative and dependable release of the intelligence community
from covering all manner of areas, functions, developments and
.trends. As a result the predictable reaction has been to attempt to
be ready for any 'requests, any curiosities, any needs, just.in case.
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That this drives up costs and manpower needs from collection
through production is self-evident.
18. The basis for real substantive improvement lies in
concentration and in being permitted to concentrate when resources
are not enough to cover everything. Efforts now under way to
establish a modern, coherent system of objectives and priorities for
substantive effort are steps toward enabling a rational concentration
to come about in tune with current national objectives. This system
will be useful to identify and protect the areas of high importance
and to mark the areas of marginal use for re-examination and
discard. A strong DCI with good substantive advice can make these
selections stick, and he can extend this discrimination even into the
virtually sacrosanct precincts of efforts against the USSR and
Communist China. Not everything about these denied areas is worth
large outlays to collect and analyze; real savings of notable magnitude
can be realized from sharper scrutiny of what is being done on these
problems. To do this politically requires the DCI to be in the closest
touch with the concerns of the highest levels of decision making.
19. Because of the sensible proposition that the best talent of
the community should be put to the toughest problems and because a
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wide variety of explanations and interpretations needs to be considered,
as the Review aptly observes, it is useful to retain in national intelli-
gence production, particularly for National Estimates, the present
confederal process of reaching conclusions. True understanding of
the fragmentary evidence that can be obtained on the hard questions
is not so readily achieved that one can dispense with hearing all
parties concerned. Questions are often so technically complex
that all manner of expertise must be mustered to deal with them.
Thus a system of "competing centers", including some in the military
services, and a variety of participations in common substantive
analyses is useful and should be preserved. ? It is far wiser and is
preferable to a single "school solution" imposed from above which
prompts dissenting views to seek expression through channels outside
the intelligence community.
On the Department of Defense
20. It is not the purpose of these comments to respond to the
Review with detailed suggestions for the conduct of intelligence
activities in and by the Department of Defense. Nevertheless, certain
broad choices exist for the Secretary of Defense which can materially
affect the ability of the DCI, however strongly supported from the
White House, to fulfill his responsibilities to the President for national
intelligence.
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21. Major recent developments which have great potential to
assist the DCI are the assignment of intelligence resource responsibilities
to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Administration and the creation
of the position of a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence.
These actions have already brought about considerable progress toward
centralized management of DOD's large and scattered resources..
Continuation and expansion of these assignments, or the creation of
an Assistant Secretary of Defense or a Special Assistant for
Intelligence, is necessary to strengthen the DCI's authority over
Defense intelligence resources, operating through a ,strong central
official in Defense who responds to the DCI as acting for the President
for the whole community.
22. A number of'decisions regarding Defense intelligence must
be left to the Secretary of Defense: the decision to establish an
Assistant Secretary for Intelligence; the retention or merger of
individual Defense collection agencies; and the management of agreed
tactical intelligence operations. But the decisions of the DCI with
respect to the major realignments of function suggested in the Review
will have to be carried out by. Defense when ordered. Needless to say,
any judgments in this connection will require the fullest participation
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of Defense authorities at all levels. This decision process by
consensus and consent is. far preferable to a summary reshuffling
implied in the Review.
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