MEETING WITH THE INSPECTOR GENERAL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP74-00390R000300010002-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 6, 2002
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: May 18, 1970
• Content Type: MFR

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18 May 1970
MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD
SUBJECT: ' Meeting with the
Inspector General
1. On Friday 15 May 4t 10:-5 a.m. I met with the Agency
Inspector General, Mr. Gordon Stewart, in his office.
2. Following a few brief amenities Mr. Stewart stated he
was studying the rate information enters the Agency, the use of
Com uters our valuable records, and so forth.. He said he has. had
from his staff ~xamining the volume of material received 25X1A
from NSA and the material deeded for servicing our requirements.
He sai
ecently,completed a survey of the Office of
Computer Services. His staff also is doing a survey of
organization in the Clandestine Services and this includes e
Registry and Systems Groupo. Mr. Stewart said he w' dd
I to thesei
studies later as well as
2 5X1A
wao is still invo ved with1
the OCS survey. Hehas
25X1A
.working with these part-time.
3. Mr. Stewart'then said that seven months ago Mr. Hugh Cunningham
.visited him and suggested that Mr. Stewart take a serious interest in
the storage of .Agency records and the preservation of valuable Agency
documents. The Inspector General then addressed his question to me.
He said' would like to ask how you see our Records Problem".
responded that the Agency records problem was very large
and. extremely complex. I feel that records procedures have an
impact on every facet of the Agency both in the operational as well
as the administrative areas'. I said I felt the Agency records
systems were doing surprisingly well despite the low priority given
for his office. I mentioned that in 19681 a so 25X1A
did a survey for Mr. Bannerman.
5. In response to hi,s reference I explained the background, of
Mr. Hugh Cunningham being appointed by - Mr. Helms to coordinate
the Agency's Contribution to the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library.
We spoke of my work with Mr. Cunningham on that Project, his visits
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to the Records Center and our procedures. for transferring documents
to the National Archives Presidential Libraries or to our Records
Center when the documents were too sensitive to go.,to Houston.
During this Project Mr'. Cunningham had made references to me of
the need for preserving historical records.
6. Mr. Stewart asked if we were in contact with the Historical
Staff. I assured him we were and that Prof. Ehrmann had visited
the Records Center and that I have met with him frequently. I said
I felt we had a mutual interest in records preservation and our
experience with National Archives made our procedural concepts
somewhat compatible. I explained our mutual interest in establishizag
a formal Archives function in the Agency and that proposals for
such a possibility are being drafted. I said that Col. White and
Prof. Ehrmann were aware of this Agency Archives concept and did
not oppose the initial idea, although I emphasized the point that
this was still being developed and is one of several solutions.to
the records problems.
7. Mr. Stewart asked several questions about microfilming
systems, procedures, equipment, and space gains. This seemed a
personal interest and information development because considerable
time was spent on it and the questions concerned equipment details
unrelated to Agency activities. The conversation ranged the full
gamut of microforms from the traditional films on through aperture
cards, microfiche and on to super-fiche with specifics on related
equipment and examples of their use.
8. During the morning the discussion had many tangents and
asides including my American University doctoral studies, his
European experiences and friends (including the meaning of the word
"fiche" and one French researcher who always referred to the paper
"Fiche" he prepared, which were note slips just like the term
microfiche film slips). He took notes at various times, but it
seemed they were more often questions or instructions to himself
for other areas of study rather than a specific reference of mine.
Only when we spoke of records volumes and. statistics can I be_ certain
he noted, them, and I explained the constant fluctuations in these
statistics due to our dynamic records operations. He was interested
in the 200,000 Cu,. . ft. of records in Agency offices and the 100,000
cu. ft. in the Center. He was intrigued and pursued other minutfl.a e
of safe space, floor space, forms costs, microfilm reduction ratios,
and various types of records storage equipment. When I mildly
protested that such details were of concern to me but were taking
his time he rejected the notion and insisted that day-to-day manage-
ment had to make decisions under pressure but that he would be a poor
inspector if he made judgments to meet deadlines.
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9. He asked about the legal requirements of records retention.
He asked for copies of legal ~ocuments which specified the Agency
obligation:to keep certain documents. I explained the Federal
Records Act of 1950 and the General Records Schedule produced by
National Archives which governs disposal or retention of those
records ccanmon to several Agencies. I explained the procedure
we used to get special approval from National Archives and Congress
for records unique to our Agency. He wondered if we had gotten
approval for our CI records and I said I was not certain, that we
did have a schedule for several DDP records but there were some
files DDP did not want to have processed outside the Agency. He
asked if we have established "Offices of Record" for Agency files.
I said we were doing this in the "Retention Plans" but that only
DDS&T was finished. The DDP draft has been in coordination several
months and the DDI and DDS Retention Plans are being drafted. In
the interim the Records Control Schedules do indicate Office of-Record
requirements to a degree. He asked for a copy of the Federal General
Schedule and said he would get the one I gave to the
Executive Registry.
10. Mr. Stewart's Secretary interrupted at 11:50 to remind him
of his luncheon date. He asked if I would return at 1:30. I assured
him I would, but demurred over the intrusion on his time. He insisted
he was very interested and w'as getting a much better appreciation
of records ramifications. I said we should touch a few of the
positive actions that have been taken to meet the current records
problems. We adjourned.
1L.. At 1:3\ Mr. Stewart and. I resumed our discussion in his
office. As in the morning, his questions followed no d.ecernable
pattern and his interests seemed very general. The focus was not
particularly on records, papers, nor automation, neither was it
data processing or information storage and retrieval. It was all
of these without emphasis as to programs, policies, personnel, or
systems. The meeting was more a discussion than a series of
questions. He ventured several opinions and speculations without
intending a response, somewhat as though he was organizing some of
his own yet undeveloped ideas about the complexity of office records
systems. Among these were his views on possible past miscalculations
in the volumes of records the DDI could store and in'the WALNUT
system. He also mused about contradictions in satellites and Laos.
Since these were not questions I felt no need to respond..
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12. The new technologies were discussed and I said I felt confident
we would have more records than ever- in the future. The media
would be different but the volume would certainly increase. This
point he questioned-further and made note of.- I explained that I
was asked this question during the DDS examination of the records
problem several months ago. Since then I have double checked my
.position and I find many consultants and records experts hold that
same view. I explained about the rapid growth of magnetic tapes
volumes which now make up 10% of the Federal records Volume and
are still growing., our 20,000 tapes are about three and a half
percent of our records vol=e. My elaboration indicated the presence
of 3,000 cu. ft. of NPIC films in the Records Center. Their existence
was not anticipated in 1957 when the Center was built. I said I
expect a similar flood of material from projects currently being
planned. These multimillion dollar projects do examine and plan
for some of their side-effects but I don't think the plans go so
far as to include the consideration of funds for a storage facility
for their records and films after they become too inactive to keep
in the operations area but too valuable to destroy. I pointed out'
that we have 90,000 reels of microfilm in storage and explained
these films average 2,000 to 3,000 images per reel. Therefore,
since a cubic foot of records is about 2,000 pages we have about
90,000 cu. ft. of records on film and this is almost as much as we-
have of hard copy in storage. I said there are even greater amounts
of microfilm in the offices and I expect to see the amount increase
drastically in the next five years. Thus the media will chp.nge ii,'
some areas but they have to because the information volume and
requirements are growing. Thus they turn to new technologies to
cope with the heavier demands. But, despite the compaction the net
volumes increase with the activities instead of decreasing. The
temporary reduction following the conversion is very short-lived.
13. The problems of storage space led to a review of the Records
Center capacity and its evolution. The new motorized shelving led.
to other uses of it in the Agency and other equipment. A tangent
led to a discussion of the laser beam device as a mass memory storage
system for machine language data. This in turn prompted Mr. Stewart
to inquire about our advising labout such developments 25X1A
for his long-range planning. explained that had 25X1A
briefed and his staff about the records pro ems and the
result was a had agreed with our original contention
that it was more economical and efficient to build an addition
on the Records Center, but Col. White rejected any construction
proposals. I also.explained that I had arranged with 25X1A
staff to have the engineers come in and. give them a briefing on the
laser device and that I wrote an evaluation of the device which was
circulated to the Information Processing Coordinators last year.
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14. Another tangent developed from the storage discussion.
I said the volume of records on hand was a problem of immediate
concern but that I felt this was but the visible manifestation of
other records problems elsewhere. We can never expect to overcome
the records disposal problem until we manage the records creation
and records systems. All of which comes back to the need for a
,total records management program. The records are inanimate.
They do nothing. Someone must physically take action involving
records and this requires people. Unless the components assign
someone to cope with their records, nothing will happen. Our
Central Staff has the program and guidance to offer but too few
are available to carry it out Everyone carrying the title of
Records Officer has other more pressing duties..
15. Unless greater priority is given to full-time action in
the components no progress will result. For ten years our volume
increased 6,000 cu. ft. per year. In the last Fiscal year we had
a net decrease of 4,000 ft. and the trend this fiscal year is
towaxdanother net decrease of 2,000 ft. But thousands of employees 1 1.
were specifically challenged and assigned to the task during
this past year and a half. Will we-drop back to the previous net
growth or continue to decrease slightly? It depends on the
expressed interest of top management and people assigned to the
task, Mr. Stewart then asked about the specific people and staffs
in each Directorate and how good a job they were doing. I was
relieved when another tangent developed from still another question
because I did not feel inclined to enter upon so complex and delicate
an issue at such a session as this.-'To the question of the
Central Staff relations with the Components, I said that each
Directorate wished to preserve its autonomy and the question of
cantral 7,uGbority wfua di;ff:*Lcu1tp but the ^c was 8, raced ~'gr continuing
review of the records pr'ograrns in each area, I said our Central
Staff was doing this review to a degree but we were not reporting
our findings. In fact one of the alternatives we had considered
was to propose that Records Program reviews be included in IG Surveys.
Mr. Stewart answered that this was just going through his mind
at that very moment.
16. I had insisted on two different occasions and again at my
departure that Mr. Stewart meet withi to discuss the 25X1A
Agency records problem and. inl?ormation processing developments. I
explained that we had. worked together on the records problems these
past three years and several actions have been taken and several
other proposals are being developed. I said that position 25X1A
in the Support Directorate and his planning for s late
functions covered many issues to which I was not privy. I said I
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felt his overall requirements would provide a more tempered view
of records than mine. Mr. Stewart said he felt my position was
an objective one and he had not felt any undue pressure from me.
He said he would look forward to a meeting with
.I departed at 3:30 P.M.
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CIA Reco
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