UNCLASSIFIED LECTURE ON 'THE ROLE OF CIA'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000100210001-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 2, 1998
• Sequence Number: 1
• Content Type: REPORT

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UNCLASSIFIED LECTURE ON "THE ROLE OF CIA"
By:
THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE
A. Colonial Days - Committees for Secret Correspondence.
B. Benjamin Franklin and his secretary, Edward Bancroft.
C. Washington's counter-intelligence network on Long
Island.
D. Civil War Activities - Allan Pinkerton; Rosa Greenhowe.
E. World War I - Best intelligence operations in Naval
field - e.g., British competence in breaking German
Naval code.
F. Between World Wars - Reluctance to continue intelligence
activities. The "Black Chamber". Stimson's Classic
remark - "Gentlemen don't read other people's mail".
G. General Donovan's missions just prior to World War II.
He returned with a healthy respect for-the British
Intelligence system.
H. World War II - Donovan becomes COI - then head of OSS.
Although OSS overseas activities have been greatly
exploited, it played an important role here in Washington
in producing the finiphed intelligence product.
I. The CIG - 1946-47.
II. THE NSC
The National Security Council was created in 1947 to
provide the Executive Branch with a high-level planning
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group to assist in making important decisions in the area
of national security policy. The membership of the NSC
consists of the President, the Vice-President, the Secretary
of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the Director of
the Office of Emergency Planning. Events occurring during
the post-war years have required opinions and advice from
a number of interested departments and agencies before a
final decision can be made.
The Director of Central Intelligence, the Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Special Assistant
for National Security Affairs, serve as advisers to the
Council. Many decisions of far-reaching importance to our
national security effort come out of NSC deliberations.
III. INTELLIGENCE AN INTER-AGENCY RESPONSIBILITY
Many agencies share in the responsibilities for the
collection, production and dissemination of intelligence -
as some agencies are better equipped to handle certain
jobs than others.
For example, the FBI is particularly
well-suited to handle domestic counter-intelligence activi-
ties within the United States and therefore has been given
this job. It has the sole legal intelligence responsibility
here. Other agencies having major intelligence responsi-
bilities include the D.I.A., N.S.A., Department of State/INR,
and A.E.C.
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The Director of Central Intelligence has been given
the responsibility of coordinating all the foreign intelli-
gence activities of the U.S. Government. In this capacity,
he must make sure that the intelligence which is needed by
the policy makers is coming in from the proper agencies,
in accordance with the proper priorities and requirements.
He thus actually serves in three capacities: first, as
the intelligence adviser to the National Security Council;
second, , as, head of the Central Intelligence Agency; and
third, as the coordinator of the entire foreign intelli-
gence effort as Chairman of the U.S.I.B. He does not,
of course, have operational control over any agency other
than CIA.
IV. THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF CIA
A. CIA was created by the National Security Act of
1947 - the same act which created the National
Security Council and the Department of Defense.
It was set up to perform four functions:
(1)
to ADVISE the National Security Council
on intelligence matters relating to our
National Security.
(2) to COORDINATE the various foreign intelligence
(3)
activities of the Federal Government.
to produce NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE. Taking the
contributions of
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into consideration, CIA produces intelli-
gence estimates to be used by the policy
makers. Usually if the National Security
Council is considering a certain policy
regarding a certain country, it calls upon
the CIA to present an estimate of the effects
such a policy is likely to have. The final
estimates submitted represent a cross-section
of the judgments of various top intelligence
officials in a number of different agencies
which make contributions to the overall effort.
(4) to provide certain SERVICES of COMMON CONCERN
which can best be performed by a single agency.
Since we are by definition a Central Intelligence
Agency, we are assigned certain jobs in the
collection, production, storage and dissemina-
tion of intelligence which can best be handled
in this way.
B. What CIA Cannot Do.
(1) We are not in any sense a police agency, and
have no arrest or subpoena powers.
(2) We have no authority to conduct strictly
departmental intelligence activities for other
agencies, such as those specifically assigned
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to the military departments. We do however,
coordinate their activities in the national
intelligence field.
(3) We have no authority to conduct intelligence
operations within the confines of the U.S. Anti-
Communist activities within this country are the
strict prerogative of the FBI.
(4) We have no investigative authority outside our
own Agency.
C. Our Most Vital Job - Producing national intelligence,
both estimative (long-range) and current (for use in
day-to-day decisions of the policy makers). In
estimative intelligence, we predict the long-range
probabilities of what will happen in a given situation;
in current intelligence reporting, we must make a
quick analysis and evaluation of facts coming in from
many sources - sometimes almost as soon as they are
received.
D. The Methodology of Intelligence
Utilizing all available sources readily available
and not so readily available, we must continually
gather and evaluate information coming in from around
the world. Intelligence people are utilizing more
and-more the methods of automation and technology to
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meet the ever-increasing requirements being placed
upon them. The most important asset in intelligence,
of course, is professional, skilled manpower. We are
always seeking out young men with backgrounds in many
different skills and professions as career employees
to meet the demands of intelligence, which itself is
a most challenging profession.
E. Clearing-up Some Misconceptions
It should be kept in mind that CIA is in the
intelligence-gathering and intelligence-producing
business. It obtains the facts, evaluates them and
p-roduces finished intelligence for our policy people.
We have no policy functions; as a matter of fact,
we are forbidden by law from getting into the business
of policy formulation.
There have been reports also that CIA operates
independently from the rest of the Government. The
very law which created us put the Agency directly
under the National Security Council, of which the
President himself is chairman. In addition, the
Agency's activities are carefully checked by several
congressional committees, and by the President's
Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, an independent
group of informed and knowledgeable citizens
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consisting of:
Mr. Clark M. Clifford (Chairman)
Dr. William 0. Baker
Mr. Gordon Gray
Dr. Edwin H. Land
Dr. William L. Langer
Mr. Robert D. Murphy
Mr. Frank Pace, Jr.
Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, USA Ret.
Adm. John H. Sides, USN Ret.
Mr. Augustus C. Long
Mr. Patrick Coyne, Exec. Sec.
F. Summary: Why aCIA is Needed Today
In the complexity of modern foreign relations,
the number of important decisions to be made by the
Executive Branch are tremendous. Unless the policy
maker has access to all the facts, obtained from
all possible reliable sources, processed and evaluated
in a systematic way, the chances and risks are greater
that an erroneous decision may be made.
For this reason a highly professional centralized
intelligence organization is an absolutely essential
supporting arm to our policy makers in a world in which
many nations continue to offer serious threats and
challenges to our way of life, our system of Government
and in the final analysis, to our very survival.
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