IC STAFF COMMENTS OF DRAFT KIQS FOR FY 77

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91M00696R000200080003-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 9, 2006
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: October 22, 1976
• Content Type: MF

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22 October 1976
MEMORANDUM FOR:
Director , Office of Policy and Planning
IC Staff
Executive Officer, National Intelligence
SUBJECT . IC Staff Comments of Draft KIQs for FY 77
1. The NIOs have considered your comments and have changed
the KIQs as follows (amended copy attached):
a. The Introduction. We do not see that the new concept
of the KIQs emphasizes economies of operation, and we consider
any claim for management efficiencies arguable. In the
interest of further defining the new concept, we are,
nevertheless, willing to add instead: "Thus, the KIQs are
a managerial device for focusing attention and increased
effort on a small number of issues without altering the
broader set of intelligence priorities."
As for the role of the IC Staff in the formulation of
strategy reports, we believe your suggested use of the word
collaboration overstates what you have in mind and could be
misinterpreted. We have thus amended paragraph three to
read: "The National Intelligence Officers, in collaboration
with representatives of the NFIB agencies and with the advice
of the Intelligence Community Staff and others as appropriate,
will produce KIQ strategy reports aimed at developing special
collection and analytical strategies to enhance the information
gain and improve the analyses in each KIQ area of concern.
"The performance of the Intelligence Community on
the KIQs will be evaluated by the appropriate NIO to assess
the effectiveness of the actions taken. These evaluations
will be undertaken as part of a regular Intelligence
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Vow S E C R E T
Community Staff program which assesses the timeliness and
quality of the intelligence products in terms of the
requirements of major users."
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2. If you are content with our decisions, please forward
the KIQ paper to the DCI for approval and recommend that he refer
it to NFIB for comment.
Attachment
KIQs for FY 77
1(22 Oct 76)
Original - Addressee
1 /DCI/NI
- EO/DCI/NI Chrono
1 - File: KIQs
1 - RI
1 - A/EO/DCI/NI
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S E C R E T WNW
KEY INTELLIGENCE QUESTIONS FOR FY 1977
INTRODUCTION
The Key Intelligence Questions for Fiscal Year 1977, issued
by the Director of Central Intelligence pursuant to his responsibilities
in Executive Order 11905, represent a departure from past practice
dictated by experience. The new list is short and highly selective,
the questions having been chosen not only because they are important
to national consumers, but also because a real need for action by
the Intelligence Community exists and because action seems likely
to produce results. The KIQs represent the DCI's guidance to all
Intelligence Community collection and production managers on these
selected subjects.
The Key Intelligence Questions continue to be formulated by
the National Intelligence Officers. The primary purpose of the
KIQs is to improve intelligence production and collection by providing
a highly selective list of current, critical questions for a period
of special operational attention. The purposeful limitation on the
number of questions and their high degree of focus required that
difficult choices had to be made from the many current high priority
areas and questions. This meant that certain issues or problems,
although very important, have been excluded. If a problem were
considered likely to pass before a strategy for solving it could
be devised, it was excluded. Also excluded were key problems
of a critical nature which currently receive substantial and ongoing
attention and which were not considered to require or lend themselves
to Community action beyond that already underway. Examples are
SAL and verification, as well as individual current weapon systems.
Thus, the KIQs are a managerial device for focusing attention and
increased effort on a small number of issues without altering the
broader set of intelligence priorities.
The National Intelligence Officers, in collaboration with
representatives of the NFIB agencies and with the advice of the
Intelligence Community Staff and others as approl:iriate, will
produce KIQ strategy reports aimed at developing pecial collection
and analytical strategies to enhance the informaLion gain and improve
the analyses in each KIQ area of concern.
S E C R E T
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w~
S E C R E T
The performance of the Intelligence Community on the KIQs
will be evaluated by the appropriate NIO to assess the effectiveness
of the actions taken. These evaluations will be undertaken as
part of a regular Intelligence Community Staff program which assesses
the timeliness and quality of the intelligence products in terms
of the requirements of major users.
The KIQs and their performance evaluations cannot provide
systematic inputs for resource allocation decisions by program
managers due to their limited number, specificity, and emphasis
on current operations. However, they can provide valuable insights
for programming and planning. It is important to note that the
KIQs do not derive their priorities from those appearing in
attachment to DCID 1/2, "U.S. Foreign Intelligence Priorities: for
Fiscal Years 1979-1983." Broad national intelligence planning
priorities are based on a perspective of the foreign environment
for the planning pp;-iod and not on current operational needs.
Additions, deletions, or modifications to the Key Intelligence
Questions may be issued from time to time during FY 77, depending
on major changes in the international situation or if the foreign
intelligence environment should dictate. The order in which the
FY 77 questions are listed should not be regarded as implying an
internal priority: by definition all the Key Intelligence Questions
are of major importance, and are singled out for special operational
attention.
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