LETTER TO PETER SHARFMAN FROM CHARLES A. BRIGGS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90B01370R000300390001-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 6, 2008
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 28, 1984
• Content Type: LETTER

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Central Intclligpxe Agncy
2 1 DEC 1984
Mr. Peter Sharfman
Program Manager
International Security and Commerce Program
Office of Technology Assessment
United States Congress
Washington, D.C. 20510
COPY
I am writing in response to your letter of 28 November
1984 requesting additional support from the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) for the Office of Technology
Assessment (OTA) in connection with your study on Soviet
ballistic missile defense.
As you know, the CIA has provided OTA with a great deal
of assistance on this study. Since August 1984 some 17
Agency intelligence officers, including--at your specific
request--the National Intelligence Officers for Strategic
Programs and for the Soviet Union, have participated in
three separate briefings for you and your colleagues. The
most recent of these briefings occurred on 10 December,
involved seven Agency officers, and lasted three hours.
In your letter of 28 November you also requested access
to six classified Agency reports, including two National
Intelligence Estimates and a typescript manuscript whose
dissemination was limited to its requester. Senior managers
of the Agency have carefully considered your request for
access to these documents. It has been determined, however,
that your request must be denied because of the particularly
sensitive intelligence sources and methods used in preparing
the documents. As you know, the Director of Central
Intelligence is required by statute to protect intelligence
sources and methods, and this responsibility requires us to
withhold the documents in question. We note, however, that
the documents--with the exception of the limited
distribution typescript which is an internal document--are
available to the Congressional Committees (Senate Foreign
Relations and House Armed Services) that commissioned your
OTA study should they need to review them.
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In your letter you cited your experience in 1980 when
you and other OTA staffers were given special compartmented
clearances in connection with your study on the MX missile.
You have been able to retain these special clearances, but
retention of such clearances does not ensure your access to
reports bearing that classification. Indeed, access to
reports is governed on a strict need to know basis and by
the Director's statutory mandate to protect sensitive
intelligence sources and methods.
We hope that you and your associates have found your
briefings from CIA officers helpful to you in your study.
We regret that we cannot provide you additional assistance
at this time.
Sincerely,
/s/Chc.rles A. Eri;;;s
Charles A. Briggs
Director, Office of Legislative Liaison
Distribution:
Orig - Addressee
1 - OLL Record
1 - OLL.Chrono
1 - D/OLL
1 - DD/OLL
1 - DDI
1 - C/Legislation/OLL
2 - Liaison
OLL/L (14 Dec 84)
STAT
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MEMORANDUM FOR: " Chyer-,-' G N
S",
John thinks this letter is appropriate way to
handle this. He,s g thet rou odviseuour Oversight
Committees of the situation and tell them wemig `need
them to'intercede for us if Sharfman comes back again.
STAT
J ALL
A>D 75-
STAT
Date 21 December 1984
FORM
5-75 101 USE PREVIOUS
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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Director, Office of Legislative Liaison 19 December 1984
NOTE TO: EX DIR
DDCI
REF: Office of Technology Assessment Request
o I think you both ought to weigh in on this
issue.
o I have discovered several recent examples of
the absence of institutional memory here,
occasioned by reorganization and rapid
turnover of personnel, being the cause of
distrust between the Agency and the Congress.
o In fact, Ed and I have concluded that the
root cause of almost all of our current
difficulties is distrust: us of them in
a security context; them of us in a
information denial context.
o I'm asking, with regard to the attached
exchange with OTA,whether this is the
smartest way to go.
Charles A. Briggs
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STAT
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 T I
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ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET
SUBJECT: (Optional)
FROM:
OLL/LD ExrewsioN
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NO. OLL 84-4571/1 S
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FORM
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Office of legislative liaison
Routing Slip
3. Admin Officer
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? TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT BOARD
MORRIS K. UDALL. ARIZ.. CHAIRMAN
-TED STEVENS, ALASKA. VICE CHAIRMAN
ORRIN G MATCH. UTAH GEORGE E. BROWN. J. CALIF
CHARLES MCC. MATHIAS. in.. MD JOHN D. DINGELL, MICH
EDWARD M KENNEDY. MASS LARRY WINN. J... KANS
ERNEST F HOLLINGS. 5.C CLARENCE E. MILLER OHIO
CLAIBORNE FELL RI COOPER EVANS. IOWA
JOHN H. GIBBONS
Congrtgg of tfjt 11nittb btatts
OFFICE OF TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20510
JOHN H. GIBBONS
DIRECTOR
usau-nE LIAISON
07 -
November 28, 1984
Office of Legislative Liaison
Room 7BO2
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, DC 20505
STAT
STAT
This letter responds to our telephone conversation today,
in which you confirmed that "senior management" at CIA
(specifically the DDI) had instructed you to reject our requests
for documents, and to seek more information regarding our
requests for meetings. These requests are contained in our
letter of November 20, a copy of which is attached for reference.
I understand that before you feel able to schedule the
requested meetings with CIA analysts regarding Soviet policies
and attitudes towards ballistic missile defense, you want a more
detailed statement of the questions we wish to discuss. We have
drawn up such a list, and it is attached to this letter. Of
course, we are quite aware that most of these questions cannot be
answered with high confidence, and that some of them are
difficult to answer at all. For our purposes, it is just as
important to gauge the degree of uncertainty and gaps in
information which confront American policy-makers as it is to
understand what it is that we do know. It is for this reason,
among others, that we want to talk at least briefly with some of
your most senior analysts.
With regard to the documents we wish to read before these
meetings, I am frankly astonished to encounter a response so
inconsistent with our previous experiences with the Agency. CIA
policy has been that OTA staff can have access to appropriate CIA
documents when these documents are pertinent to an ongoing OTA
assessment approved by the Congressional Technology Assessment
Board. While the CIA has never permitted us to review
intelligence products routinely in order to discover whether some
new development might call for a technology assessment, we have
never before been refused access when the specific need-to-know
was for an existing OTA project. It as been my understanding,
based on conversations with of your office at the time STAT
(1979-1980) when OTA staff first received codeword access, that
while CIA would not necessarily give us access to the most
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sensitive material, we could (given a bona fide need-to-know)
review any of the documents that are widely available within the
national security community, and that we might request access to
information in the smaller intelligence compartments on a case-
by-case basis. We have further understood that while CIA was
willing to let OTA have copies of less sensitive collateral
intelligence analyses, we would have to visit CIA headquarters to
read anything codeword and/or sensitive.
On the basis of this understanding, OTA staff members have
from time to time received access to NIEs and to documents of
roughly equivalent sensitivity. For example, in the summer of
1980 Jeremy Kaplan and I reviewed all the_volumesof NIE 11-3/8
in the course of OTA's study of MX Missile Basing. In the spring
of 1981, I reviewed a contractor report on Soviet silo design and
silo hardness in support of the same study. Approximately one
year ago, Bruce Blair (the Project Director of our study of
Strategic C31) reviewed sensitive materials relating to Soviet
command, control, communications and intelligence.
You mentioned on the telephone that it is CIA policy to
restrict access to sensitive materials to those Congressional
committees whose duties require such access. This is why our
November 20 letter called attention to the fact that our study of
ballistic missile defense technology is being carried out at the
request of two Committees (House Armed Services and Senate
Foreign Relations) whose staffs have routine access to sensitive
intelligence materials.
Finally, I call to your attention a provision of Public
Law 92-484, the "Technology Assessment Act of 1972," which
established OTA. Section 6 (d) reads as follows: "The office
[of Technology Assessment] is authorized to secure directly from
any executive department or agency information, suggestions,
estimates, statistics, and technical assistance for the purpose
of carrying out its functions under this Act. Each such
executive department or agency shall furnish the information,
suggestions, estimates, statistics, and technical assistance
directly to the Office upon its request." You will note the
inclusion of the word "estimates."
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I hope that you will be able to act expeditiously on this
request, in view of the fact that the requesting Committees have
imposed rather tight time constraints upon us. Please call me
(226-2020) if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Peter SaH'r an
Program Ma ager
International Security
and Commerce Program
cc: Alex Gliksman (Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff)
Warren Nelson (House Armed Services Committee staff)
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November 20, 1984
JOHN H. GOWNS
oNlcTOII
STAT
Office of Legislative Liaison
Room 7B02
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, DC 20505
As you may recall from my letter of August 10, 1984, we at
OTA are conducting a study of ballistic missile defense for the
House Armed Services Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee. Our visit to the CIA following that letter was
extremely helpful, and we would like to make at least one more
visit to read certain documents and to confer further with
appropriate CIA personnel. I understand that Dr. Robert Rochlin
telephoned you yesterday about our request.
We would like to neet info with Larry Gershwin, Fritz
Ermarth, and any other people you may STAT
suggest, to discuss Soviet policies and attitudes regarding
ballistic missile defense, the ABM Treaty, and strategic arms
control in general. There would be no need for formal briefings.
We would be glad to meet with these people either separately or
together, to suit their convenience. (Mr. Ermarth invited us to
visit him, and Messrs. Gershwin and 0 have also indicated STAT
willingness to meet with us, but no dates have been fixed as
yet.)
Before holding these discussions, we would like an
opportunity to read appropriate documents, including the six
listed below and any other available CIA reports which cover
Soviet ballistic missile defense activities and policies. If
possible, we would like to arrange to read the documents in the
morning and then meet with CIA experts that afternoon.
STAT
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The five OTA staff members who would like to make this visit
are as follows:
Gerald L. Epstein
Thomas H. Karas
Robert S. Rochlin
Peter J. Sharfman
Alan H. Shaw
I believe SI/TK clearances for all of them are on file at CIA.
Our preferred dates for this visit are December 3, 6, o
Please phone Dr. Rochlin (226-2021) or me (226-2014) to let us
know whether one of these dates would be satisfactory.
Thank you very much for your help.
Sincerely,
Thomas H. Karas
Project Director
STAT
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