COORDINATION OF REQUIREMENTS FOR COLLECTION OF INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP61S00750A000600020004-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 7, 2001
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: January 26, 1955
• Content Type: REQ

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Coordination of Requirements for
Collection of Intelligence Information
1. What is Meant by the Coordination of Requirements ?
Judgments on the following questions are required before re-
quirements for field collection can be said to be adequately
coordinated at headquarters. -Many -wbo_.,AXr_ concerned with
this-4 bjex,V4requentiy forget or overlook the fact that' he
eventual responsibility for making these judgments falls not
upon researchers but upon middlemen known as. "require-
! 4a t. .. 11.., r
ments officers" in research offices or upon .?se associated
directly with the managers of the collection facilities.
(a) Can the Answer to the Requirements be Found in
Washington? In general, requirements officers press re-
searchers with regard to whether this material has already
been placed in finished intelligence and the more competent
analysts are fully aware of the existing literature, both un-
classified and classified. However, it is the requirements
officers, either directly attached to research offices or a....=i
c ardMal facility s 1 Jas tha s# le~ti and Dissem-
Aeatfon (OCD) in CIA, who zan-~ the availa-
bility of the material in Washington and whose knowledge and
experience in locating materials provides some expertise in
this regard.
1,1- can W `
tkat;rn the last several years
there has been an increased effort to construct bibliographies
of materials such as, for example, the monthly accessions
list of Soviet publications put out by the Library of Congress
under contract with, Q&A as well as increased efforts to ex-
ploit `? ystematically such literature 4hrough the use of Foreign
Documents Divisiop[CIA (FDD) and certain external contract
arrangements.
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(b) Has a Requirement for this Information Al-
ready been Levied? The requirements officers in the re-
search offices, committees which levy requirements, the
separately established offices such as, CIA/OCD and finally
the offices administering the collection programs should
recognize,$,- duplicating requirement; However, it should
be noted that there is no mechanism to assure against du-
25X1X U a 'on say, for example, of collection 25X1X
I I against identical requirements levied by different
consumers. It is true that, in theory, once information
against a requirement is collected and disseminated that
other similar requirements will either be dropped or not
levied. CIA/OCD is planning a central register of those
requirements which they handle to assure interalia against
ILLEGIB
.
tions arise where clandestine capabilities have been developed 25X1 C
and are available Planning the over-
all direction of clandestine collection does receive coordinated
interagency guidance and reflects the priorities of National
Intelligence objectives as stated in DCID 4/4.
(d) Does the Requirement Reflect the Immediately
Related Needs of Others than the Originator? In the main
such correlation, if any, is a responsibility shouldered by the
requirements officers or the staffs of the collection facility
itself, Some improvements in this regard have been made as
(c) Which C J.lection Facility Should Receive the
Assignment? Any judgment made initially by the research
analyst may be checked by the requirements officers and
tested by the staff of the administrator of the collection
facility to which it is assigned. Clandestine collection, be-
cause of its hazards and expense, is normally not under-
taken until collection from overt sources fails or can be
anticipated to fail and the matter, is of importance
Exce -
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a result of advances in the coordination of research.
Thus, requirements which take account of related needs
may emerge, for example, from the vVatch Committee,
the EIC, the JAEIC and from the NIS program and, stated
in broader form, from the IAC post mortem procedures
managed by ONE. In addition, recently a statement of re-
quirements for intelligence information for support of
propaganda and psywar activities of the Government has
been made.
(e) Is the Requirement Properly Handled in Keep-
ing With its Importance and the Capabilities of the Collec-
tion Facility to Which it has been Assigned? This is fre-
quently called the "priorities" problem and is one which
has proved fascinating to explore theoretically. National
Intelligence Objectives and Priorities (DCID 4/3 and
DCID 4/4) are the most authoritative overall guidance on
intelligence matters relating to national security. (It is
generally felt that matters which can be labeled as relating
to national security are ipso facto more important than
those requirements which are immediately responsive to
departmental needs. However, "National Security" needs
existed before that phrase acquired its present usage and
there was a time when there was no real distinction between
departmental needs and national security needs. This is
still true today, at least to a great degree.) While national
inte, .ligence objectives can provide some guidance in plan-
ning various collection programs three qualifications should
be kept in mind with respect to judging the importance of
collection requirements in the light of national intelligence
objectives:
(.l) That a given collection facility may
have relatively little capability at the time of re-
ceipt to collect on requirements directly related
to national intelligence objectives;
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(2) That such facilities may have great
capability on matters not directly related to na-
tional intelligence objectives. Those analysts work-
ing on subject matter which is readily identified with
major national intelligence objectives thus may seek
to impose the theory that such objectives should
guide all collection, although when they find their own
work to be related to a subordinate objective they are
inclined to point out the importance of exploitation of
"incidental" capabilities while major objectives are
being pursued.
(3) That national intelligence objectives are
in the main most meaningful to the researcher. A
proper translation by the researcher of those national
intelligence objectives eventually into collection re-
quirements which exclude intelligence already col-
lected or produced is the way in which objectives are
meaningful to the collector. There is of course the
possibility that a lower priority might be given to
minor supplementary information on a high priority
item than to major basic information necessary to a
lower priority item.
2. Will a Coordinated Research and Estimating Program
Produce Coordinated Requirements ? To a considerable extent
this.is true. The development of a national estimating program
on an annual, semi-annual and quarterly basis has definitely
affected and given direction to research work in the IAC agencies
even though no doubt the same subjects would have been the ob-
ject of investigation even if national estimates were not produced.
This is because the policy problems which require intelligence
support would still exist. The Economic Intelligence Committee,
which coordinates the production of economic intelligence related
to the national security, is charged (IAC-D-22/1) with reviewing
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the adequacy of available data, and recommending priorities
and allocation of responsibilities for collection to fill speci-
fic gaps. Accordingly the EIC publishes a series of syste-
matic surveys of priority deficiencies in collection, designed
to cover each braod sub-area of economic intelligence. Those
surveys are transmitted to requirements and collection officers
of the IAC agencies for coordinated consideration, and for a
report back as to the extent to which the various items listed
are receiving special attention by collection channels most
likely to produce results.
The NIS program, while not strictly in response to a list
of priority national intelligence objectives, is designed to meet
the priority needs of the JCS for area coverage of basic intelli-
gence. Guidance to collectors from this program is to ensure
that gaps in the program are closed.
However, it should be kept clear that even where research
is coordinated that each agency may have a need for and levy
requirements for identical information necessary to develop
similar parts of difference research programs.
3. Is There an Identifiable Gap in the Coordination of Re-
quirements Process? As outlined previously, each research
office in the intelligence community, for practical purposes,
deals separately and independently with the collection offices
which serve and support it. Conversely, each collection office
independently looks to the various research components for re-
quirements and guidance. For certain categories of information
more than .one collector frequently possesses a collection po-
tential. It sometimes happens, therefore, that the several
agencies, in order to meet their own needs, are devoting time
and effort to building up sources and collecting information in
the same subject area. This phenomena can be identified most
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411
25X1A
clearly in the case o the Foreign Service, and the
service attaches in severs aspects of the economic field;
it may well exist in other cases. It may be argued that the
desirability of obtaining confirmation from other sources of
items of intelligence makes the duplication of effort worth-
while. In some instances confirmation from other sources
is desirable, but these instances could be treated separately
and may not justify the present degree of duplication of
effort.
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