BIOGRAPHIC REGISTER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84-00951R000400050007-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 17
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 9, 1998
• Sequence Number: 7
• Content Type: REPORT

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BIOGRAPHIC REGISTER
Background
By the end of World War II duplication of biographic
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information on foreign nationals was widespread in the US
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Government because no attempt had ever been made to coorF-
n
dinate the activities of the various intelligence agencies
in Washington and their representatives abroad concerned
with the collection, control and production of such infor-
mation.
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Appr~
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In November 19+7 a management team mmx wjud conducted an
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services of many professional employees. (13 Nov 47
or
organizational survey ofthe Reference Ceter. They proposed
a T/0 of ^ for BIR, while noting that a substantial saving
in personnel could be achieved if register activity was
confined exclusively to punch card recording. The survey team
noted that the establishment of files and the extracting and
annotating of reports for file purposes that occurred in BIR
and other registers was time-consuming and required the
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By late September 1.9+8 Dr. Andrews was quite concerned
about BR, describing it as "in poor shape, working ineffec-
tively, and suffering from poor morale." For that reason,
he considered it of utmost importance that "a proper head
man" be located for the Register as soon as possible. His
App
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Management conducted another survey of BR in 19+9
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and found a number of problems. Once again, they advocated that
BR analysts cease writing reports and merely assemblq available
information
Rata in dossiers, leaving it to the analysts in the production
offices to make sense of it. Again,
xmD/CD rejected
the idea, noting that the information contained in various
r eference volumes used by BR analysts could not, without great
output of time and effort, be typed out, clipped and put in
the dossiers, and the customers would not be pleased if instead
of getting reports from BR, they were handed quantities of
information and told to sort it out for themselves. (dossier on BR and
memo of 23 Feb 50 from Andrews)
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In ,kagc July 1950 Maj. Gen. S. LeRoy Irwin, Assistant
Chief of Staff, G-2, Department of the Army, requested that
the IAC consider what steps might be taken to achieve a cen-
tral biographic facility, handling all categories of biographic
in a memo
intelligence data. The AD/CD, in commenting on this request/to
the Chief, COAPS, and the Acting Executive, CIA, noted that the
need for such a facility had long been recongized, but that this
was the first time that anyone currently performing biographic
work had called for centralization. (mamo of 10 Aug 50)
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1950
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Despite the approved/T/O calling for M slots in the
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nothing seems to have been done about actually making any
changes. In February 1952 the Chief of BR submitted to the
AD/CD a resume of current BR problems. The first he listed
was that of lack of quitable distribution of workloaJd.s within
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Other major problems facing BR were dependence on a system
of processing data that was 3& inefficient and a staff that, with
several exceptions, was weak, especially in the administrative
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echelons. attributed the latter problem to various
factors. One of these was that clerks were assigned to BR without
previous screening by the Division's administrators. Often, these
clerks were college graduates who were not trained in clerical
functions add who, armed with college degrees, were not satisfied
with clerical duties. Theee people usually left, unless rapidly
promoted into professional positions, and were a constant source of
demoralizing remarks to their associates and supervisors as long
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WnotlB r source of personnel difficutties surrounded
the recruitment of employees for the professional positions.
During the initial growth of the Agency, the competition for
first-class employees was keen, and BR was rather low in
priority for persons of top caliber. It therefore accumulated
a staff that wax considered "only slightly above averaged" Most
of the exceptions to this characterization, he said., had "come
in through the back door" or had been only recently recruited
under the Agency's expanded and improved recruitment program.
Because the Agency maintained a policy of promoting employees
on duty in preference to filling vacancies from the outside, the
"slightly above average" persons were often moved up into
positions with which they could not cope. (memo 26 Feb 52)
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also listed various other personnel problems
with which he contended.
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No major upheavals occurred in BR for the next 9
years. The 1952-61 period was devoted to developing
new files, as needs for tpecial collections arose, and
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expanding services.
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~ 0 14----
In its first year of operation after the merger
BR became deeply involved in E support to offices con-
25X1Xrned with the situation in Cuba. In its directory
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the
, a repository for
German documents from the Nazi period, most of which
were captured by American forces at the end of World
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