CIA ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORY IN BRIEF

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP89B00552R000800030010-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 30, 2004
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: March 1, 1975
• Content Type: REPORT

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March 1975
CIA ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORY
IN BRIEF
Summary
During the nearly three decades of its existence; the Central Intelligence
Agency has continuously adjusted its organizational structure to cope with.
changing conditions and responsibilities. Within the pattern of constant
change,. however, there have been four points at which major reorganizations
have occurred. In its first two years, CIA took on numerous new activities
and shifted responsibilities for those activities frequently. In 1951-52, two
separate entities engaged in overseas operations were merged and the rapidly
growing intelligence production function was reorganized. Another massive
change occurred in 1962.. A new Directorate was established to take over the
many projects for technical, as opposed to clandestine human source, collection
of information that were already underway and to assume the responsibility for
conceiving and developing future technical collection systems. Concurrently,
the remainder of the Agency was reorganized and important command and
control functions were centered in an Executive Director-Comptroller. In.
1973 a number of activities were transferred organizationally, with emphasis
on grouping together similar functions, and the Executive Director-Comptroller
functions were dispersed.
Initial Organization
A Central Intelligence Group (CIG) headed by a Director of Central
Intelligence (DCI) was established in January 1946 by President Truman,
and it immediately began assuming intelligence functions carried out by,
various agencies during World War II. Concurrently, Congress was
engaged in a review of the entire national security structure, including
intelligence, which resulted in the National Security Act of 1947 directing
establishment of a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The CIG was accordingly
transformed into the CIA, which began with an organizational structure
that included a number of administrative functions and four major operating
components: *
--The Office of Reports and Estimates, which was initially responsible
for all finished intelligence production. The direct forerunner of all the
producing offices now in existence, it was subdivided repeatedly as the
*See the 1947 organization chart.
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low
production function grew in size and diversified in responsibility. It
was initially formed in the Central Intelligence Group by personnel
transferred from State and the military services. _
-- The Office of Special Operations, derived from what remained of the
wartime Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which had been. attached to the
War Department as the Strategic Services Unit in the immediate postwar
period. It was responsible for espionage and counterespionage. Follow-,
ing.OSS practice, worldwide communications and security support also
were assigned to this operating Office. STATINTL
-- The Office of Operations, responsible for overti collection
of foreign intelligence. It, too, was formed partly out of the remnants of the
OSS structure that had been attached to the Pentagon and included a coordinated
domestic collection activity which became the Contact Division. It also incorporate
foreign document centers taken over
from the Army and Navy and merged into the Foreign Documents Division.
-- The Office of Collection and Dissemination, responsible for establishing
intelligence collection priorities, coordinating the collection efforts of the
various agencies, and organizing the dissemination of both raw intelligence
and finished reports. It soon assumed control of reference and records
centers as well.
As additional activities and assets were transferred to CIA, they were added.
on to the existing structure. For example, joint military intelligence surveys
became a CIA responsibility in October 1947, accordingly, the National Intelligence
Survey program was organized in a Basic Intelligence Division of the Office of
Reports and Estimates.
The National Security Council, established concurrently with the CIA,
began issuing a series of directives in December of 1947 which shaped the
subsequent structure and missions of CIA. One of the most significant ordered
immediate expansion of covert operations and paramilitary activities. In
response, on 1 September 1948, the Office of Policy Coordination was estab-
lished. * It had an anomalous relationship with the rest of the Agency, since
the NSC ordered it to remain as independent of the remainder of CIA as
possible and placed it under the policy direction of the Departments of State
and Defense. For OPC's first two years, policy guidance came directly from
*See the 1950 organization chart.
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State and Defense, although the chain of command was through the Director
of Central Intelligence. It was during this period, under OPC, that such
activities as Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty,
Agency began.
and the youth, student, and labor programs of the STAtINTL
Shortly after the establishment of OPC, a Hoover Commission Task Force
began making recommendations on national security organization; they were
partially. endorsed by the Commission itself in February 1949. A separate
National Intelligence Survey Group headed by Allen Dulles filed its own
report to the NSC in January 1949. The NSC subsequently directed merger
of the Office of Special Operations, the Office of Policy Coordination. and the
Contact Branch. This could not be accomplished under the original charter
of OPC, however, and no major change was made until General Walter Bedell
Smith took over as DCI in October 1950.
The existence of both OSO and OPC meant that two clandestine organizations
were responding to separate chains of command while working within many of
the same foreign countries. They had caused continual difficulties--especially
by competing for the same potential agents--and General Smith immediately
insisted that all orders to OPC be passed through him. He also designated a
number of Senior Representatives abroad to coordinate the separate activities.
By mid-1951, integration of the two organizations had begun; complete integration
was ordered in July 1952, although some overseas stations continued to report
directly to the DCI through overseas Senior Representatives until 1954. The new
joint organization was renamed the Clandestine Services; within it, an International
Organizations Division was activated in June 1954 to handle student, youth and
labor programs.
General Smith also created two new Deputy Directors, one for Administration
and one for Operations; the latter, redesignated the Deputy Director for-Plans
(DDP) in January 1951, headed what became the Clandestine Services,
Meanwhile reorganization of intelligence production offices was being
undertaken. The Office of Research and Estimates was divided into the
Office of National Estimates, responsible for national-level policy-related
papers that projected analysis into the future, and the Office of Research and
Reports (ORR), which handled economic and geographic intelligence and the
National Intelligence Survey program. A new Office of Current Intelligence
was added in January 1951. A year later, a Deputy Director for Intelligence (DDI)
was named, with supervision over the above cffices as well as the- Office of
Scientific Intelligence, the Office of Collection and Dissemination, and the Office
of Intelligence Coordination which had been directly under the DCI. In March
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of 1952, the Office of Operations (engaged in overt functions:
E nd Foreign Documents
1VlSlon was placed under the DDI. An( t at November the Photographic
Intelligence Division was established within ORR's Geographic Research
Area. A separate Office of Basic Intelligence was formed in 1955.
Between 1950 and 1952 the Agency grew markedly. Administrative
support functions increased along with other activities. In February 1955,
responsibilities for training, personnel administration and communications
were centralized in the Directorate for Administration and the Directorate
was renamed the Directorate for Support. By 1955, therefore, the basic
structure of the current agency had been established.' The Director had
three functional deputies, each in charge of a Directorate. Overt collection,
analysis, and production of finished intelligence were centralized in the
Intelligence Directorate. Other intelligence collection--both espionage and
rapidly growing technical forms--was in the Plans Directorate. The Support
Directorate provided administrative services of common concern as well as
specialized support for the various units.
Much of this structure still exists, Over time, however, functions have
been shifted from one Directorate to another, realigned within Directorates
or eliminated--usually for one of two reasons:
--Decisions or recommendations have been received from other parts
of the governmental structure: the President, the NSC, Congress,
and a succession of special commissions and internal study groups.
--Organizational philosophy has changed as personnel have changed.
Various approaches have been taken to organization--grouping
similar functions, grouping organizations by common interest (such
as a geographical region) or forming close organizational links
between the "supplier of a service and the principal customer. These
changes have been shifts in emphasis; the organization has always
been a combination of the three approaches.
Changes in the priorities given to particular missions or intelligence
targets have also resulted in changes in the size and authority of organizational
components. Growth in a substantive area has led to occasional divisions of
one unit into smaller ones, providing more reasonable spans of control.
*See the 1955 organization chart.
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In the half dozen years following establishment of this framework,
most changes were minor. The DCI's Senior Representatives abroad were
eliminated in 1957. A Photo Interpretation Center was established within
the DDI in 1958, combining functions from several. components including
the Photo Intelligence Division. It was replaced in 1961 by the National
Photographic Interpretation Center. And the personnel and responsibilities
involved in the development of technical collection devices--primarily
aircraft--were transferred from the office of the DCI to the Plans
Directorate.
1961-1963
Late in 1961, the new DCI, John McCone, established a working
group chaired by the Agency Inspector General, Lyman Kirkpatrick, to
study Agency and Intelligence Community organization and activities.
Final recommendations were submitted in April 1962 and led to the last
major reorganization of the Agency.
Even before the study was completed, one major decision was made.
Technological advances had been numerous and very rapid during the 1950's,
and they had presented new opportunities for intelligence collection by
machines. Reconnaissance aircraft had been developed within the Agency;
collection of electronic intelligence by interception devices was another
fast-growing area. Technology had also made new kinds of information
available for analysis and created a need for more analysis by scientifically
trained people. Mr. McCone designated a Deputy Director for Research,
with initial responsibility for elements drawn from the DDP and additional
responsibilities to await completion of the study, in February 1962. The
Office of Research and Development, the Office of Electronic Intelligence,
and the Office of Special Activities (responsible for overhead reconnaissance
activities) were established immediately. The Office of Scientific Intelli-
gence (from the DDI) and automatic data processing activities (from Support
and the Comptroller) were added in 1963. With the establishment late that
year of the Foreign Missile and Space Analysis Center, the renamed
Directorate of Science and Technology assumed the basic form it still
maintains.
The Kirkpatrick study also resulted in a major strengthening of the
Office of the Director. The General Counsel's office, Audit Staff, Comptroller,
Office of Budget, Program Analysis and Manpower and the US Intelligence
Board Secretariat were added to it. By late 1962, the position of an
Executive Director-Comptroller had been established and his role as third
in command of the Agency had been delineated. And the Kirkpatrick study
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led to centralization of paramilitary activities, an organization to provi STATINTL
de
a command mechanism for future contingencies, and establishment of a
By the end of 1963, the organization had settled into the pattern it
kept for the next decade."' Four directorates existed. They were primarily
differentiated by function, but units performing services frequently were
co-located with their customers. Central direction was strong, with an
Executive Director-Comptroller playing a major role in all Agency activities
and the Board of National Estimates reporting directly to the DCI, although
the supporting Office of National Estimates remained in the Intelligence
Directorate for about another year.
1964-1972
Organizational arrangements remained largely static for the next decade,
though growing emphasis on analysis led to further subdivision of analytical
offices. The DDI's Office of Operations was reorganized and renamed the
Domestic Contact Service in mid-1965. The Office of Basic Intelligence was
enlarged and took over geographic responsibilities from the Office of
Research and Reports. The latter was divided in 1967 into the Office of
Economic Research and the Office of Strategic Research. In the DDS&T,
the Office of Special Projects was established in 1965 to conduct overhead
reconnaissance, a duty that had been previously handled by a Staff. Staffs
to address special needs were added in the Plans Directorate. Responsibility
for
ro
rieF-.
- - ^
organ
p
p
ry
izati
Division to other DDP components in December 1971, and the Division was
-p -- .++++c 11116; %.L l CLI 8J..71t!
for coordinating and evaluating national foreign intelligence activities had
existed since the establishment of the Agency; in 1972
this took the fo
,
rm
of the Intelligence Community Staff in the Office of the DCI. -
Activities related to Southeast Asia grew and subsequently contracted
during this period. Organizationally, such changes were reflected in the
creation of a Special Assistant to the DCI for Vietnam Affairs with a
supporting staff and in formation of a number of new low-level components
throughout the Agency.
1973-1975
The most recent series of changes began when James Schlesinger was
named DCI in early 1973. He put in train a number of organizational
`See the 1964 organization chart.
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studies and directed a number of transfers; some were accomplished during
his tenure and some were carried out after William Colby replaced Mr.
Schlesinger as DCI in mid-1973.
The organizational moves and personnel reductions of that time led to
today's organization:
--The Domestic Contact Service was transferred from the DDI to
the DDP; the staff structure was reduced, and the Directorate was
redesignated the Directorate of Operations.
--Three technical activities--technical services, communications
research and development, and the National Photographic Interpreta-
tion Center were transferred to the Science and Technology Directorate,
S&T also merged certain functions of the Office of Scientific Intelligence
with the Foreign Missile and Space Analysis Center and established
the Office of Weapons Intelligence. The Office of Special Projects was
transformed into the Office of Development and Engineering, which
provides engineering and system development support Agency-wide.
--A new Office of Political Research was established in the DDI.
--Computer services, which had been fragmented but with their
largest manifestations in S&T, were transferred to the Support
Directorate.. And the Support Directorate itself went through two
name changes, first to Management and Services and subsequently
to the Directorate of Administration.
--The Board and Office of National Estimates were abolished and
replaced by a group of senior functional and geographic specialists
called National Intelligence Officers drawn partially from outside the
Agency. Both the senior NIO and the head of the Intelligence Community
Staff were named Deputies to the DCI.
--The position of Executive Director-Comptroller was abolished.
Many of its functions were redistributed within the Office of the DCI
and the Directorate of Administration. A Management Committee
composed of the DCI, his principal Deputy, the four Deputies in
charge of Directorates, the Comptroller, the General Counsel and
the Inspector General was established to advise the DCI on the
management policy questions.
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--For budgetary reasons, a decision was made to terminate the
National Intelligence Survey program in the Office of Basic and
Geographic Intelligence; accordingly, the geographic 'intelligence
unit was redesignated the Office of Geographic and Cartographic
Research.
As of February 1975, therefore, the directorate structure is generally
the same as it was in 1965.* However, there is a stricter adherence to
combining similar functions than in earlier periods. Management direction
and control is decentralized. The staff structure has been considerably
reduced and simplified. And the number of full time staff personnel has
been reduced substantially.
*See the 1975 organization chart.
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Intelligence Advisory
Committee
Interdepartmental
Coordinating and
Planning Staff
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE. AGENCY
Director. of Central Intelligence,
Director
Executive
Office of Reports Office: of Collection
and Estimates and Dissemination
Basic Intelligence
'Grout
Current Intelligence
Group
Estimates
Group ?
ORGANIZATION' AS OF SEPTEMBER 1947
General
Counsel:
Scientific
Group
Regional
Br ancres .
Map Intelligence
Dissemination :
Branch,
Executive. for. Executive for
Inspection and;, 'Administration and
Security Management
Advisor f
Council
Office. of
Operations
Foreign Document
.Branch
Contact
Branch'
Deputy
STATSPEC
Branch t ,': `"'a ;.? ~_::?, '
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ORGANIZATION AS OF JULY 1950
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
COOROINATIONI
OPERATIONS I POLICY STAFF
ADMINISTRATIVE
STArt
REOp1EMCNTS
STAFF
PLANS S POLCY
STAFF
NODS "CAN
DIVI SIGN
ICSTCRN EUROPE
DIVISION
of rice or
REPORTS R
ESTIMATES
EASTERN EUROPE
DIVISION
FAR EAST
ilYISION
TIONAL DITCLLIGI
SI.IRyCY DIVIIXID
LEGAL
STAFF
ADVISORY
COUNCIL
DIRECTOR
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
DEPUTY DIRECTOR
MEDICAL
STAFF
MANAOEIENT
STAFF
BUDGET
STAFF
,PERSONNEL
STAFF
INSPECTION
? SECURITY
STAFF
PUGLICATi0NS
DIVISION
GLOBAL
DIVISION
INTERNATIONAL
ORGANIZATIONS
*I III SION
TRANSPORTATION
OIVISIO1
INSPECTION
DIY1SgN
2R00080003.0010-8
ADMINISTRATIVE
STAFF
i FERSDNNEI FISCAL
avrslal nvala
SMtRCCS
P DFTICC OF
POLICY
COORDIRATION
EMPLOYEES
DIVISION
SPECIAL SUPPORT?
STAFF
FINANCE
DIVISION
DrFICC
OF
OPERATIONS
AOMINISTRATIVC CONTACT
STAFF DIVISION
PLL`0000 G FOREIGN
COORYNATINO DOCUMENTS
STAFF ffi DIVISION
PROCUIIEMENT
A SUPPLY
OVISION
1. ,
OFFICE
OF
IAL OPERATIONS
STATSPEC
 Office of Collection
and Dissemination
Office of Research
and Reports
Office of
National Estimates
Offico of
Currant Intofligenco
H
Office of
Scientific InteiIigonco
OffIce of Operations
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ORGANIZATION AS OF MARCH 1955
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE;'AGENCY",
DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
? fnspoctor
General
DEPUTY DIRECTOR
(PLANS)
(SUPPbRT)
ASSISTANT DEPUTY
Office of Logistics
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Intciilflance
Advisory
Committoo
Special Assistant for
Planning and Cootdinatlon
30 000:96:1 Rocurity
1
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ORGANIZATION AS OF MARCH 1964
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
COLLECTION
GUIDANCE STAFF
BOARD OF
NATIONAL
ESTIMATES
CABLE
SECRETARIAT
DEPUTY DIRECTOR
FOR INTELLIGENCE
OFFICE OF
NATIONAL ESTIMATES
OFFICE OF
CENTRAL REFERENCE
. DIRECTOR OF CENTRAI, INTELLIGENCE
DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR-COMPTROLLER
DEPUTY DIRECTOR
FOR PLANS
COMDR STAFF
DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR
SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY
DEPUTY TO.DCI FOR NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE
PROGRAMS EVALUATION
OFFICE OF BUDGET, PROGRAM ANALYSIS,
AND MANPOWER
RESEARCH AND
DEVELOPMENT
OFFICE OF
COMPUTER SERVICES
OFFICE OF ELINT
OFFICE OF
RESEARCH AND REPORTS
OFFICE OF
CURRENT INTELLIGENCE
OFFICE OF
OPERATIONS
OFFICE OF
DASIC INTELLIGENCE
NATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHIC
INTERPRETATION CENTER
OFFICE OF RESEARCH
AND DEVELOPMENT
OFFICE OF
SPECIAL ACTIVITIES
OFFICE OF
1SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE
FOREIGN MISSILE
AND SPACE ANALYSIS
CENTER
DEPUTY DIRECTOR
FOR SUPPORT
MEDICAL STAFF
OFFICE OF
COMMUNICATIONS
OFFICE OF
LOG STICS
SPECIAL SUPPORT
ASSISTANT
OFFICE OF
PERSONNEL
OFFICE OF
SECURITY
OFFICE OF
TRAINING
OFFICE OF
FINANCE
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ORGANIZATION AS OF FEBRUARY 1975
Central Intelligence Agency
Deputy for National
Intelligence Officers
DIRECTOR
OF
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
Deputy Director of
Central Intelligence
. Deputy for the
Intelligence Community
Agency Management
Committee
Directorate of intelligence
Coll:ction Guidance LJ Office of
Directorate of Operations
Directorate of
Administration
Office of
Communications
Office of ELINT ft_oHiue of Logistics
Office of Research . Office of
and Devefcpmenf Nledicai Services
Office of LJ Office of Geographic &
Political Research 1 1 Cartographic Research
Central
Reference Service
STATSPEC
Directorate of
Science & Technology
Office of
Weapors intelligence'
Office of
Scientific Intelligence
Office of Development
and Engineering
National Photographic
Interpretation Center
Office of Technical
Service
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Office of Security
Office of Training
Office of Finance
Office of Jain-,
Computer Support