DATA BASE SUPPORT FOR SURGE REQUIREMENTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86M00886R000800020014-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 18, 2008
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: June 4, 1984
• Content Type: MEMO

.t. 1
Approved For Release 2008/11/18: CIA-RDP86M00886R000800020014-0 R 84-2507
4 JUN 19811
rv17D,C)RANDUM FOR: Deputy Director for Intelligence
SUBJECT: Data Base Support for Surge Requirements
1. One of the four goals emphasized in the 1984 Addendum to
the Strategic Plan involves strengthening our surge capability.
The goal was described as follows in the Addendum: "To ensure
that we can react rapidly and effectively to hotspot crisis or
contingency situations in areas not covered in depth by the
Intelligence Community." The Addendum calls for a study by the
four Directorates, jointly managed by you and the DDO, to
identify needed improvements in the Community's surge capability
and to determine which of them should be addressed at the
Community level and which we should handle ourselves. The study
should be completed by October.
2. Adequate data base support is indispensible to an
effective surge capability. As the Addendum notes, we must be
able to exploit quickly what we know so that we can identify and
collect only against what we need to know in rapidly breaking
situations. The need for such data base support has been a
recurring theme, both at conferences last August and
December and in budEet and planning' iterations before and after
those sessions.
3. From what was said at the December ~~onferenee, your
Third World data base project is the most ambitious existing
undertaking in this area in the Community. Given the semi-
experimental nature of the project, the experience you have
gained from developmental activities with it thus far, and the
tie-in with the study called for in the Addendum to the Agency's
Strategic Plan, I wonder if now might be a good time to revisit
-- as an Agency, th scope of activities such a data base
should support.
4. 1 was thinking of devoting one of our Friday morning
sessions to the data base issue, but I would appreciate your
views before notifying the other Deputies. The attached list of
questions outlines some of the areas I believe we could
profitably address. I also would appreciate your comments on the
questions and any additions or deletions you might suggest.F__1
Distribution:
Orig - Addressee w/att
1 Dir w/att
1 =-E w?/att (- 0 N r -?r) ; ., 1
.l - PS (Actions on Addendum) w/att
ws/.tar,Approved For Release 2008/11/18: CIA-RDP86M00886R000800020014-0 ' 1-11
 Approved For Release 2008/11/18: CIA-RDP86M00886R000800020014-0
4 JUN 1,084
Questions on Data Base Support
for Surge Requirements
The terms "encycloypedic data base" and "surge capability"
became popular in the wake of the Community's 1985 Intelligence
Capabilities Study which was published in October 1981 and
reaffirmed in October 1983. The study defined the data base need
as follows:
Comprehensive, Worldwide Intelligence Foundation:
Data Base and Analytic Capability
In order to ensure the U.S. a capability to
anticipate and respond to major contingency
situations throughout the world, particularly in
geographic areas not normally of major interest to
the U.S., an intelligence foundation is required
worldwide to permit rapid and knowledgeable
augmentation in the event of a crisis involving U.S.
interests. This encyclopedic data base must be
sufficiently comprehensive to provide U.S. policy-
makers initial current intelligence and accurate
estimates on the political, economic, societal,
geographic, scientific and technologoical, and
military charecterists and capabilities of the
country and its changing alliances and inter-
dependencies; it should be of sufficient scope and
depth that additional intelligence resources can be
targeted against the area rapidly and effectively.
If so, what does this mean in terms of new or modified
automated and manual data bases from CIA's perspective?
Should we be considering a Directorate-wide, Agency-wide,
or Community-wide approach to the problem?
Should the Third World data base project support only
analysis, or should it be geared to provide operational support
as well in the sense of serving DO, OSO, and DoD, for example,
or for facilitating the retargeting of overhead systems? (A
data base system to support operational planning would probably
be vastly different from one for analytic support.)
Should it be tailored to support only crises or surge
needs, or should it be a general support mechanism containing
everything we know about the area?
ALL POPTIONS CONFIDENTIA1.
Approved For Release 2008/11/18: CIA-RDP86M00886R000800020014-0
 Approved For Release 2008/11/18: CIA-RDP86M00886R000800020014-0
Should it incorporate only those areas we consciously
decide not to cover in depth (are there many of these, given
Agency growth)?
Depending on the answers to the above:
What is the appropriate scope and level of detail of
the data content?
How and by whom will the data base(s) be maintained,
and what resources will be required?
How will our overall approach to data base
development be affected?
CO FI LENT I U
Approved For Release 2008/11/18: CIA-RDP86M00886R000800020014-0