TOWARD SMARTER USE OF INTELLIGENCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100620021-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: February 22, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100620021-1
WALL STREET JOURNAL
?TICLE k?IU- IM_i 22 February 1984
UK ?A;
Toward Smarter Use of Intelligence
Your Feb. 1 editorial on El Salvador,
"Trial by Ballot," erroneously states that:
"The House Intelligence Committee stud-
ied the matter (D'Aubuisson's documents)
and found no evidence to sustain a conclu-
sion that Mr. D'Aubuisson had Archbishop
Romero killed." The House Committee's
staff report made no judgments on the in-
nocence or guilt of Mr. D'Aubuisson or
anyone else. The report examined the in-
telligence process and how certain issues
such as the D'Aubuisson documents, Arch-
bishop Romero's assassination and rightist
violence were treated by the intelligence
community.
What the report did say was: "During
the two years since their capture, these
documents had been virtually ignored, not
only by policymakers who felt they had no
immediate use for them, but more impor-
tantly, by the Intelligence Community.
They did not receive the kind of routine
intelligence evaluation given to a large
number of the Salvadoran guerrilla docu-
ments captured later that year ...
The staff report examined the Arch-
bishop Romero assassination from the
standpoint of how it was treated in finished
intelligence analysis. The report noted the
dearth of hard data and systematic analy-
sis and that the references in intelligence
to the Romero killing had been quite incon-
sistent: "Intelligence analysts apparently
had not systematically retained and corre-
lated the data about killings and bombings
that were publicly available and pertinent
intelligence collection had not been
made.".
That the September 1982 staff report re-
mains topical is reflected in the following
judgment: ". . collection weaknesses in
the cases cited suggest that determining
the perpetrators and any others responsi-
ble for authorizing specific instances of
rightist terror has not been considered a
suitable task for intelligence. Without de-
liberate collection by all appropriate
means and without systematic correlation
of available data about specific terrorist
incidents, firm judgments about their sig-
nificance politically or in terms of the ac-
countability of particular security forces
or individuals have been difficult."
Recent initiatives by the Administration
to curb rightist violence in El Salvador
were made possible by improvements in
intelligence analysis and collection, im-
provements which the report urged in Sep-
tember, 1982.
EDWARD P. Boi.A.?vD (D., MAss.)
Washington
Chairman
Intelligence Committee
House of Representatives
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100620021-1