RESPONSE TO THE MURPHY COMMISSION LETTER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80M01133A001000060024-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 72
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 28, 2003
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: November 2, 1973
• Content Type: MF

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2 November 1973
MEMORANDUM FOR:
SUBJECT Response to the Murphy Commission Letter
1. The attached unclassified response to the Murphy
Commission letter has been agreed to by all four CIA
directorates, ASD (I) staff (Al Hall will probably follow their
recommendation) , and State. Very minor alterations were
suggested. ASD(I) staff thought it an excellent tutorial paper,
and not only agreed but were "pleased with it."
2. The Commission Staff could make the best use of the
statement if they received it on Monday, 5 November. They
will send it to the Commissioners to study before the intelligence
hearings on 19 and 20 November. The Commissioners have
already received a package containing the Murphy to Colby letter
of 15 October, a copy of the Colby confirmation testimony, Lyman
K:irkpatrick's book The U.S. Intelligence Community: Foreign
Policy and Domestic Activity, and Harry Howe Ransom's mono-
graph "Strategic Intelligence."
3. A new issue is posed by the fact that the Commission's
Deputy Staff Director, Fisher Howe, has changed signals. He
has asked for a "comprehensive" classified response to the Murphy
letter. This even though the Commission will have a classified
transcript of the DCI's remarks, and probably a comprehensive
statement from the ASD(I) and from the Director/DIA. It would
be very time consuming to produce a classified response, and
even more difficult to coordinate it throughout the Community.
In fact, a good response could cause friction in the Community.
I do not believe that the Commission staff (Fisher Howe mainly)
fully appreciates the volume of information they have requested.
STATINTL According to I Howe is worried that something
will be held back if he doesn't draw a line and dig in here.
For instance, he seems unwilling to accept the suggestion that
a series of follow-up questions after the intelligence hearings
would focus his inquiry more usefully.
NSC Referral Not Required
Dept of State review(s) completed.
STATINTL
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4. Obviously we do not want to appear reluctant to
cooperate with the Commission. I recommend that we send
the attached unclassified statement by 5 November. I also
recommend that we strongly urge the Commission to ask us
follow-up questions, after the intelligence hearings, which
are more specific than the present broadside. If we do a
classified response to the Murphy letter, I think it should
be based upon written contributions from the members of
the Community. We should not then try to meet the 19
November deadline, but should take the time to do a careful
job.
STATINTL
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INTELLIGENCE AND POLICYMAKING
IN AN INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT
by
Comimxission on the Organization of the
United States Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy
November 18, 1974
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Summary - i -
Introduction - 1 -
The Raw Material of Intelligence Production 7 -
The Structure and Production of the
Intelligence Community -1 6-
The Role of Intelligence in the Policy
Makin; Process -2 2-
Key Issues in the Intelligence-Policy
Making Relationship -3 3-
Establishing Requirements for Collectors -3 3-
Guiding and Evaluating the Reporting of
U.S. Embassies -3 6-
Policy Guidance to the Intelligence
Community -3 8-
Evaluating Intelligence Production -3 9-
Coordination or Competition in Intelligence
Activities --4 1-
The National Intelligence Officer (NIO) System -4 4-
Intelligence Support for U.S. Foreign Economic
Policy -4 7-
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SUMMARY
1. The U.S. intelligence system remains heavily focused on military
considerations and upon discovering and evaluating potential. military
threats. However, changing conditions in the world have added new
tasks, particularly in the area of economic intelligence, without
reducing old responsibilities significantly -- a trend that presents
growing problems in a time of fiscal stringency. (pp. 1-6).
2. The information collected for processing and analyzing by the
intelligence community comes from a variety of sources ranging from
the mundane to the esoteric. There has been a rapid rise in the
importance of technological collection methods in the past decade
or so, especially on military matters involving Communist states.
Nonetheless, material. in the public domain, reports of U.S. officials
stationed abroad, and reports from foreign agents continue to play an
important role in the intelligence process. (pp. 7-16).
3. The structure of the intelligence community reflects the basic
decision made shortly after the Second World War that, while departments
with policy responsibilities should have an intelligence capability
of their own, there should also be a central agency to produce its own
studies as well as to coordinate the work of the community as a whole.
Each of the intelligence organizations has its particular strengths
and weaknesses, but the basic structure of the intelligence community
in the area of intelligence production is sound. (pp. 16-21; 27-28).
4. The functions of intelligence in the policy process are: (1) alerting
policy makers to events abroad; (2) estimating future developments;
(3) appraising the likely consequences of possible U.S. courses of action;
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and (4) monitoring conditions that affect U.S. policies or agreements
with foreign governments. Both intelligence officers and policy
makers must perform certain tasks if the relationship is to be success-
ful. However, differences in viewpoint about the appropriate relation-
ship between intelligence officers and policy makers -- and between
their respective, organizations -- remain widespread. Some stress
that this should be an arms-length relationship so as to assure objective
intelligence judgments; others stress the need for continuing contact
and interaction so that intelligence will be relevant to the policy
maker's concerns. (pp. 22-27).
5. Three broad conclusions about the performance of the tasks required
for an effective intelligence-policy making relationship seem warranted;
First, several of them are being performed in an inadequate manner,
than
Second, the situation is better/it was a few years ago, when distrust
and lack of confidence characterized the relationship. Third, substantial
improvements are possible without major reorganizations or drastic in-
creases in the workloads of busy men, although some changes in working
styles would be required. (pp. 27-31).
6. Despite recent efforts at improvement, deficiencies exist in the
establishment of realistic collection requirements -- a problem which
will become more serious as more sophisticated technologies permit the
collection of an ever-growing volume of information. (pp. 29; 33-36).
7. Policy makers do an uneven job of providing guidance to the intel-
ligence community and evaluation of the intelligence product. The
Nixon Administration's dissatisfaction with intelligence production
led it to establish the National Security Council Intelligence Committee
to guide and evaluate the work of the intelligence community, but this
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body --- which could and should provide guidance and evaluation
by policy makers has remained a paper organization. The National
Intelligence Officer system is one attempt to bridge this gap. The
President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) could usefully
direct its attention to the problems of guidance and evaluation,
(pp. 29; 31-32; 38-41; 44-46).
.8. An even more serious weakness is the failure of high-level Policy
makers to keep the intelligence community informed of U.S. policies
under consideration. Under such circumstances the intelligence officer
must try to estimate what his own as well as foreign governments are
doing. There is no satisfactory solution to this problem unless policy
makers are less secretive about their activities and their longer-term
priorities and goals. (pp. 30-32).
9. Adequate arrangements for the organization and coordination of
foreign economic policy -- which involve a large number of powerful
departments -- have, yet to he established. Policy formulation and
coordination have fallen partly to the Council on International Eco-
nomic Policy (CIEP) and partly to the National Security Council ---
a system that satisfies virtually no one. At the present time most
economic intelligence reporting and analysis are done by the Central
Intelligence Agency, whose work in this area is highly regarded through-
out the government. In view of the lack of any consensus about the
appropriate U.S. government organizational structure and procedural
arrangements for dealing with foreign economic policy, it would be more
sensible to build upon the present arrangements for economic intelligence
than to make any major organizational changes. One procedural arrange-
ment that might be appropriate, however, would be to make sure that
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there are adequate provisions for the TDCI to report to the CIEP --
and for the latter body (as well as departments outside the intel-
ligence community) to have the authority to task the intelligence
community. (pp. 47--51).
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. 1.
Introduction
The development of the Cold War and the withdrawal of the European
colonial powers from Asia in the late 1940s made it clear to American
leaders that the United States would be drawn into a deeper and more last-
ing involvement in world affairs than had ever been the case in peacetime.
During World War II the hastily expanded U.S. intelligence organizations
had given top priority to Germany, Italy, and Japan. Thus, little was
known about America's principal adversary, the Soviet Union, or about the
vast array of new nations stretching from North Africa through the Middle
East and the Indian subcontinent to the South China Sea.
The confusion and uncertainty about the appropriate foreign policies
to adopt regarding the bewildering series of problems facing the United
were
States / intensified by the lack of institutions and procedures within
the U.S. government necessary to formulate and execute an effective policy.
President Roosevelt's highly personalized and informal style of leadership
had obvious deficiencies and was, in any case, not congenial to his suc-
cessors. Institutions and procedures had to be established which would
enable the President to bring together the key U.S. officials who dealt
with the various aspects of foreign policy to consider the relevant facts,
appraise American interests and weigh alternative courses of actions,
make the necessary policy decisions and see that they were carried out.
These needs led to the creation of the National Security Council and
the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947. United States political leaders
recognized the need for government departments with policy responsibilities
to retain a capacity for intelligence research and analysis, but they
decided that the task of providing much of the reporting and analysis needed
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should rest with an organization with no direct policy responsibilities
and thus no departmental positions to defend. Thus the former. Research
and Analysis branch of 0SS, which had moved into the State 'Department after
World tar II,.was transferred to the CIA. A growing effort was launched
to collect information of all kinds in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union,
the Far East, and the former colonial territories. Information that would
be needed if war broke out received priority. However, the paucity of
knowledge on the world abroad meant that almost any information seemed
valuable, and thus a vast collection process was set up to gather data on
and
everything from factory locations, road and rail networks,/trade relations.
to the strength and attitudes of various political. forces in far-flung
countries. Arrangements for basic research, current reporting, and long-
range estimating were established, and extensive efforts were devoted to
thinking through and working out appropriate arrangements for the utiliza-
tion of intelligence in the policy-making process. Intelligence has had
its successes and its failures over the years, but even its critics acknowl.--
an
edge that it has and will continue to play/important role in American foreign
policy.
It is simple to state the formal responsibilities and to describe
the work, varied and voluminous though it is, of the U.S. intelligence
community in the area of intelligence production. It is to give the policy
makers judgments as to what the situation actually is in the world at any
given time, what it will be in the future, and (to a degree) what the impli-
cations of such judgments are. To carry out its responsibilities the U.S.
intelligence community has become one of the largest consumers and producers
of information in the world -- and thus in history. It gathers masses of
facts, rumors and opinions by reading everything from foreign newspapers
and the translations of foreign radio broadcasts to the cables of U.S.
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missions abroad and the reports of secret agents, and from the photographs
taken by satellites to the information in intercepted radio messages.
Selected pieces of this information go directly to policy makers in their
Y'
original form, but much of this data goes no farther than the intelligence
analysts themselves. The intelligence organizations, after evaluating and
analyzing it., regularly produce a variety of reports (National Intelligence
Estimates, daily and weekly intelligence journals, special. memoranda and
various studies in depth) and send them forth to compete for the attention
of the overburdened and harassed policy makers. These. reports deal with
affairs ih countries as far apart as Albania and Zambia and with subjects
ranging from the prospects of an insurgency movement in Iraq, to the impli?-
cations of Soviet research and development efforts for Soviet weaponry a
decade or more hence.
The .responsibility for political analysis has grown as new nations
have been born, and the need for such analysis seems unlikely to diminish.
The anount of effort devoted to scientific intelligence has increased many-
fold in the last fifteen years. In view of the seemingly inexorable march
of science in the industrialized nations and the growth of the scientific
capabilities of some of the new nations, the tasks in this area are likely
to grow in importance, complexity, and volume. The need for accurate
knowledge of the military forces of the major powers has always been sub-
stantial, and despite a somewhat reduced U.S. involvement in the affairs
of other continents it remains important to know the military capabilities
of dozens of countries. Even today the U.S. intelligence community's efforts
are focused heavily upon military considerations and toward discovering and
evaluating potential military threats.
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Changing conditions in the world have added new tasks without reducing
old responsibilities significantly -- a trend that presents growing problems
in a time of fiscal stringency. These new tasks are most striking in the
area of economic intelligence, for the international trade and monetary
upheaval of 1971 and the oil crisis of late 1973 highlight a major shift
In the focus of American foreign policy in recent years. This is the grow-
ing importance of international economic policy relative to the traditional
security concerns that dominated U.S. foreign policy for nearly three decades
after 1941. The decline of. American economic predominance by the late 1960s
as a result of more rapid Western European and Japanese economic growth was
one factor in this change, and the growing dependence on imported raw mate-
rials (especially petroleum) added another element. These trends have not
only undermined the structure and procedures of the international monetary
and trading systems that made possible the great postwar economic progress,
but have also raised serious questions about the likelihood of a worldwide
depression and about the economic viability of the resource-poor underdeveloped
nations. Thus the intelligence community must grapple with the analytical
problem of likely trends in U.S. dependence on imported oil, the uses likely
to be--made by the oil producers of their new wealth, and the ability of the
international monetary system to deal with new pressures. Intelligence
appraisals of the strengths and likely courses of action of such men as the
Shah of Iran and King Faisal of Saudi Arabia are of critical importance,
as are judgments about how they would react to various U.S. courses of action.
'.Finally, intelligence organizations have the task of weaving judgments
on political, economic, sociological, military, and scientific matters into
an integrated and complete view of an area or an issue. This is as difficult
and complex as integrating the modes of thought and expression of the polit-
ical scientists, historians, economists, military strategists, and scientists
whopp'oveedor Rie'lease"0e'4~2"~0111id24~~parat us
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of the government. Thus intelligence permeates the entire foreign policy
process. Intelligence-activities cost several billion dollars annually,
and intelligence judgments influence decisions involving the spending of
even larger sums and, on occasion, concerning war or peace.
Two developments have increased the difficulties facing intelligence
analysts In recent years. The first is the growing complexity of American
foreign policy. Intelligence organizations operate most easily when the
international system is stable and their government is pursuing a clearly
defined and well-articulated foreign policy. These conditions were charac-
teristic of the period when the Cold War was at its height, but they have
been less true for several years. The strength of America's principal
adversaries and allies (except the United Kingdom) have increased relative
to that of the United States, and so has their freedom of action in certain
areas. The U.S. remains in an essentially competitive relationship with
the Soviet Union, but the policy of "detente" injects elements of cooperation
into the relationship -- elements which will grow if the policy is successful.
This not only creates new intelligence requirements, such as monitoring
arms control agreements, but also complicates the task of appraising Soviet
policy. The same is true regarding China, with whom U.S. relations have
shifted even more dramatically, and whose policies have fluctuated sharply
in the past. And the rise of terrorism and drug use have resulted in new
demands on the intelligence community for analysis as well as collection of
information .
The second development is the information and knowledge explosion.
The growing interdependence of nations means that a particular event may
have very serious secondary and tertiary consequences which are difficult
to trace out in advance. New techniques and equipment for processing and
analyzing information should be a help to the analyst, and in some ways they
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are. However, they often provide a flood of information which. is more
than any individual can digest. Jobs are then broken up and greater
specialization ensues, but this increases the dangers of parochialism
in outlook and creates new problems in coordinating the work of specialists.
Moreover, neither "intelligence" nor "policy making" exist in dis':
embodied form. They represent the work of men and women, who are both
supported and constrained by the institutions which employ them. Loyalties,
ambitions, emotions, values, dedication, and vested interests are involved
in ways difficult for the various individuals themselves to disentangle.
Thus it is hardly surprising that the relationship between intelligence and
policy making ---- and between intelligence officers and policy makers of
various types And in many different situations --- is a difficult and complex
one. Major--General Kenneth Strong, long a senior official in the British
intelligence structure, has commented:
The relationship between Intelligence officers and
policy-makers is of course difficult and complex.
The generally accepted view that it is the duty of
the Intelligence officer to 'give just the facts,
please' has little relevance in a modern governmental
structure. In the first place, the facts are often
such that the policy-makers are unable to interpret
them without expert advice. Secondly, and obviously,
the choice of facts is critical, and the Intelligence
officer's decision as to which facts are relevant and
which should be presented to the policy--makers is often
the major initial step in the decision process. This
choice between the trivial and sensational, between
the unpleasant and pleasing, is by no means as easy as
it may appear. Intelligence officers are human, too,
and the temptations to prepare a logical story or to
serve personal prejudices cannot be overlooked, espe-
cially in areas where the facts themselves are often
in some doubt and the interpretation of them is as
much a matter of opinion as of logic.
On the other hand, there is a frequent temptation for
policy-makers to use Intelligence data selectively to
suit their own preconceived judgments or political
requirements.
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The relationship between intelligence and policy making is hardly
as central as a feature of the American system as is that between. Executive
and Legislature, nor is it as complex as the military-civilian relationship.
Nonetheless, it does raise important issues, but these have received rela-
tively limited study. This is partly due to the fact that the relationship
in its present form is only a few decades old, but also stems from the
secrecy surrounding intelligence activities.
However, before examining the relationship itself and some of the
problems it poses, it is useful to discuss the sources and types of data
that intelligence is based upon as well as the organizations within the
U.S. government responsible for intelligence production.
The }taw Material of Inter enc e Production
Intelligence is a term which has different meanings for different
people. It has come to mean not only information on. foreign countries
which has been collected and evaluated, but also sometimes refers to
counterespionage and covert operations as well as espionage. At times
intelligence is used to describe a process, and at other times to describe
a product. Perhaps the most useful definition for the purposes of this
paper is a modification of the one found in the Dictionary of the United
States Military Terms for Joint Usage: Intelligence is the product
resulting from the collection, evaluation, and analysis of all available
information which concerns foreign nations or activities, and which is
immediately or Potentially_ significant to planning and decision-making.
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Thus intelligence is designed to provide policy makers with knowledge
concerning present conditions, trends, capabilities, and intentions of
foreign countries and g-roups within them. There are, of course, degrees
of knowledge -- or rather degrees of certainty about knowledge. Some
matters are known. Others may be unknown but (at least theoretically)
knowable with a high degree of certainty, such as the size and character-
istics of the Soviet strategic forces. It is the task of the intelligence
community to gather and interpret such facts. It is also possible, through
studying the Soviet research and development effort, its industrial produc-
tion capabilities and performance, and its general foreign policy, to pro-
vide fairly reliable estimates -- i.e. those within reasonable ranges --
of probable trends in Soviet military posture for the next several years.
Other matters are. not only unknown but unknowable. For example, it is not
possible to give more than a rough estimate of the likelihood of a war
between Greece and Turkey at a particular period in the future because this
depends upon the interaction of many contingent events as well as on the
intentions of leaders who probably have not made up their minds over what
course they will follow. Thus one of the important but difficult tasks
facing the intelligence officer is to indicate the degree of certainty (or
uncertainty) he attaches to his conclusions.
Intelligence can also be categorized as either strategic or tactical.
(Counterintelligence, or actions designed to counter the operations of foreign
intelligence services, is basically a police function. Neither counter-
intelligence nor covert operations will be considered in this paper.) Strate-
gic intelligence involves knowledge of the capabilities and intentions of
foreign powers which is required by United States leaders for making plans and
decisions regarding national security and foreign policy. This includes
intelligence on current developments as well as long-range forecasts on polit-
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ical, military, economic, and scientific trends in foreign countries.
Tactical (or departmental) intelligence is so designated because it involves,
in the first instance,--information needed by a military commander or a diplo-
mat in order to conduct his own operations. Yet it quickly becomes clear
that there is no dividiiig line between tactical and strategic intelligence
when we see how a single fact -- the placing of Soviet army units in East
Germany on the alert -- would be tactical intelligence to the U.S. army
commander in -Germany and strategic intelligence to U.S. leaders in Washington.
With.this limitation in mind, this paper concentrates on strategic or national
intelligence.
The information that is collected for processing and analyzin.a_ by the
intelligence community comes from a variety of sources ranging from the
mundane to the esoteric. Since the importance of different sources varies
with the country being studied and the issue under consideration, it is
difficult to provide a meaningful statement of the importance of each type
of data in the over-all intelligence process. The comments made on this
matter should thus be regarded as no more than very rough orders of magnitude,
A basic source of information for intelligence production is material
which is open and in the public domain. This includes newspaper and magazine
articles, scholarly journals, books, open radio broadcasts, and the published
documents of foreign governments and international organizations. These
are important sources of information on Communist as well as non-Communist
countries in many fields -- although seldom concerning Communist military
affairs. Open sources tend to be of more importance in developed or semi-
developed countries than in those parts of the world which have only rudi--
men.tary media facilities and statistics-producing systems. Perhaps 20-25
per cent of the information used by the intelligence community come from
open sources.
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Another major source of information comes from the reports of
civilian officials of U.S. government agencies (excluding CIA) stationed
abroad. The most important of these are the reports of the Foreign
Service Officers in embassies and consulates, but also included are the
reports from U.S. aid missions, attaches from the Treasury, Labor, and
Agricultural Departments, and USIS personnel. The cables and dispatches
of Foreign Service Officers,, containing as they do the results of con-
versations with high local. government officials (as well as background
studies) probably are the most -important sourcesof political information
available. Many extremely useful economic studies also come from American
officials, who integrate open source material with information picked up
in their discussions with local officials or provided by local governments.
Official reporting probably also provides 20-25 per cent of the total
material that goes into the intelligence process.
U. S. military officials stationed abroad (either as military attach'es
or as MAAG personnel to oversee the distribution and use of U.S. military
equipment) and routine military operations of U.S. forces abroad also pro-
vide information through their official reports. Naturally, these reports
deal largely with military matters. U.S. military officials provide much
more information on non-Communist than Communist forces. The operations
of U.S. forces abroad may provide information on the capabilities of allied
forces, as when joint maneuvers are held. They may also stimulate actions
on the part of Communist forces which provide useful information through
technical collection methods, a matter that will be discussed shortly.
Considerable tactical intelligence is obtained from these sources, but
probably only about 10 per cent of strategic intelligence originates with
them -?- although this figure increases sharply in wartime.
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The final source of information collected by human as against tech-
nical means is that obtained from clandestine collection.* This has been
declining for many decades for a variety of factors. Weapons have become
so complex that few spiez could evaluate a modern aircraft even if they
examined it. Even a scientist watching a nuclear explosion can tell. less
than an acoustic-listening device thousands of miles away. Moreover, many
societies have -become so complex that they must publish increased amounts of
information if they are to be managed. This process has gone very far in
the open democratic countries, which automatically reduces the potential
role of the spy. The police organizations of the Communist countries, espe-
cially the Soviet Union and China, make these societies extremely difficult
to penetrate. However, the death of Stalin and the Sino-Soviet split have
forced Soviet leaders to compete for the allegiance of foreign Communist
parties by providing information on Soviet thinking and policies. Thus
some success has been obtained against Communist countries by recruitment
of agents from the Communist parties of non-Communist countries. However,
there is always the danger that a seemingly good source will turn out to
be a double agent, who has provided some good information to establish his
credibility in order to mislead at a crucial point.
Nonetheless, agents can sometimes provide the missing pieces of information
that make it possible to answer key questions. They can be an important
source of information on the intentions as distinct from the capabilities of
a foreign power. However, as governments become larger, more complex, and
more bureaucratic, the amount of information that any single agent can provide
is limited by his contacts. This is why such importance is attached to secu-
ring an agent close to the center of power, who can provide a broader and
more inclusive picture of the plans and policies of his government. The
Some collection efforts involve both human and technical collection, as when
an agent makes a physical penetration to implant a technical device.
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difficulty of penetrating the Communist governments and the ease of open
and official contacts with the non-Communist industrial powers have made
agents most useful in the Third World countries, which are usually
not the primary concern of American foreign policy, Probably no more
than 5 per cent of the total information used by the intelligence/comes
from classical espionage operations.
Since World War II technological collection methods have increased
and -together these -probably account for over a third of the total information..
rapidly in scope and diversity,,( The scientific and technological revolution
of recent decades has not only made it possible to improve collection tech-
nology dramatically, but the increased power and range of modern weapons
have made them more vulnerable to technological collection methods. The
power of nuclear explosions can be detected around the globe, ICBM sites
can be observed by aerial photography, and a missile being tested emits
signals over the course of its several-thousand-mile flight that can he
picked up hundreds or even thousands of miles away.
Before discussing those types of technical collection which have
arisen and grown in recent decades, it should be noted that there has been
some decline in the importance of the oldest form of intelligence collected
by technological methods. This is communications intelligence (CONNINT),
which became a major source of intelligence after the advent of radio
communications. The success achieved by the. United States in breaking the
Japanese codes before World War II was a major factor behind American success
in the Pacific War -- just as U.S. failure to utilize such intelligence made
possible Japanese success at Pearl Harbor,
The reason for the decline in importance of this source is that the
senders have come out ahead of the interceptors in the never-ending struggle
to encrypt messages so that they cannot be deciphered. Secure systems have
come to characterize not only the advanced nations -- non-Communist as well
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time, the volume of messages is so great that unbreakable systems are not
practical for all communications, even in the military area. Human and
mechanical errors are sometimes made which make not only individual messages
readable but, in at least some instanceS,can lead to the breaking of a sys-
tem. And communications security inevitably declines considerably during
the disarray of war. Finally, it is'not necessary to be able to read
messages to obtain valuable information from them by means of traffic
analysis. Communications between two points indicate there is a connection
between them; if what is taking place at one point is known this may provide
a clue to the activities of the other. LA rapid increase in communications r
between headquarters and a fleet at sea could mean an operation was about
to take place\ While most intercept activity can be carried out at a
distance from the target country, it is sometimes necessary to bargain in
order to secure listening posts within friendly countries adjacent to the
target area. The host country quite naturally tries to extract a high
price for its cooperation.
There has been a rapid rise in the importance of electronic intelligence
(ELI1fT) in the past few decades. This involves the interception of radio
waves of a non-communications type --- from radars and from new and sophisti-
cated weapons being tested. Radars must continually he in operation if they
are to be useful, and there are few countermeasures that can he taken to
maintain security. Locating the radars and determining their characteristics
often involves sending planes or ships close to a country's borders --- sometimes
approaching them as if one intended to penetrate national boundaries, which
can increase tensions and occasionally lead to international incidents.
When certain types of new weapons are tested they are equipped with instruments
which measure their performance and transmit the data to test sites by radio
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telemetry. [interception of these signals -- which can sometimes be done /
at great distances -- can provide important information on the character-:7
istics of the weapon Another type of FLINT is the use of radars to
monitor the actual flight of a missile (RADINT), which also provides
valuable information on the pattern of test firings,
The advent of nuclear weapons with their tremendous power brought
into being special types of technical receivers which detect the shock
waves carried through the earth and air provide information on the location
and size of the explosion --- seismic and acoustical. intelligence., Record-
ings of electromagnetic waves and collection of radioactive debris provide
other types of information, including the nature of the weapon. Since all
tests except those of China and France -- have been carried out under'--
ground since 1962 the possibility of collecting such radioactive debris,
has declined.
'Whatever the importance one attaches to the above technical collection
methods, there is widespread agreement that all are overshadowed by imagery
or photographic intelligence. This provides useful scientific, economic
and military information on the Communist countries that is not available
from other sources. It can even, by detecting the pattern of weapons
deployment, provide clues to political intentions. Emile photoreconnaissaPae
was performed by aircraft in. the past (as is to a limited extent even today)
the plane has largely been displaced by the satellite. There are two advan-
tages possessed by the satellite: (1) it can photograph a much wider area
much more quickly, and (2) the legality of satellite overflights is now
widely accepted Indeed, the SALT agreements signed in 1972 specifically
stated that neither side would interfere with national technical mean;-, of
collecting information to verify compliance with the agreements.
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Photoreconnaisance, while sometimes hampered by cloud cover, also
has the virtue of a high degree of reliability as long as the film is of
readable quality. Arnis control agreements would have been impossible with-
out it. Both photographic and imagery intelligence also provide important
information on the location of natural resources, industrial facilities
and on agricultural patterns. (New types of sensors which can detect
crop troubles or failures have been installed in some satellites, and the
Earth Resources Technology Satellite /F = / provides new capabilities for
detection of raw materials of various types.)
The most striking characteristics of the raw information gathered by
the collection process are its volume and. its variety -- both as to type
and to quality. Millions of words of open source information, tremendous
numbers of intercepted radio communications and telemetry signals, thousands
of reports from U.S. officials abroad, seemingly endless rolls of photographs,
and smaller numbers of agent reports reach Washington regularly for proces-
sing and transmission to intelligence analysts and policy makers. Some of
this, such as open source material, requires only routine categorization
and transmission to the appropriate analysts. Other materials,such as tele-
metry signals and most satellite photography, must be examined by specialists
with esoteric technical skills before being sent to analysts. Materialcol.-
lected by one agency or department is generally distributed throughout the
intelligence community, although some information that arises out of opera-
tional activities of the various departments is held much more closely.
(Some critics have charged that collection drives the system rather than
the other way around, and that masses of information are collected simply
because it is technically possible to do so.) While this probably is an
overstatement, the task of guiding and controlling the collection process
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is one that will become more difficult in the years ahead as more sophisticated
collection systems now under development become operational and greatly
increase the volume of data obtained.
An unending problem for the intelligence community is that of evaluating
the quality of information collected. How reliable have a particular agent's
reports been in the past, and does he have access to the type of information
in a particular report? Is the foreign minister of a particular country
telling the U.S. ambassador the truth when they talk or, more realistically,
how is he mixing; the truth with statements designed to entice or mislead?
Does an upsurge of unreadable communications between two points indicate
that an operation is about to begin, or is it an attempt to confuse or
mislead people in the National Security Agency engaged in traffic analysis?
.Are the statistics of agricultural production given the U.S. by a foreign
government accurate? If not, is it because their statistical techniques
are inadequate or because they want to create a particular impres.Mion?
Some of these questions can never be answered with certainty, but meticulous
cross-checking and comparison of reports from many types of sources dealing
with the same subject often enable the processor or the analyst to reduce
the uncertainties substantially.
The Structure and Production of the Intelligence Community
The "production" of the intelligence community ranges from oral inter-
pretations of a particular event by a single analyst in response to a policy
maker's informal query to the formal process involved in drafting and coordi-
nating National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) and having them approved by the
United States Intelligence Board (USIB).* Much of the production appears in
--.---hjectives (pp. 5-6, 33-36, infra);
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.
3
?
achievement of a quality product bow a l to organization (p.21);
significant weakliesses in the Dm m
7rrtreliligence Agency and
the Bureau of Intelligence and.' Re?seao
. (pp. 19-20);;
?
inadequate internal evaluation. f ieomnity performa;nee (p. 40);
?
difficulties v~.tlarfi~:;7mt, intelligence on. inter-
national economic problems (p..'?:+., ,. 47-51)
problems with recruiting a quali?? 27 ;staff created by the organ!-
zational propinquity of covert qr3er :tions and intelligence
research and analysis (p. 18)..
Cn the whole, however, Barnds beJ siew::~s that "the basic structure
of the intelligence community at the pre tiff t fume in the area of intelligence
reduction is sound" (p. 28). With respe?Lt to a problem he regards as
serious -- economic intelligence -- he recommends that. the government
"build upon the present arrangements for economic intelligence [rather
than] make any major organizational changes" (P. 51). He urges.continua-
tion and evaluation of community-initiated efforts to improve internal
management, such as evaluation efforts by the Intelligence Community (IC)
-8taff (p. 40), current attempts to improve collection guidance (p. 35),
and improvement and evaluation of the National Intelligence Officer (NiO)
system (p. 46-47), as well as use of the National Security Council
.intelligence Committee (NSCIC) to assist in improving internal management
2).
p.-lpiion.>hi.ns to Policy and Policy Makers
as,, es against his vie., of the' responsibilities of policy makers
and of 9~fo.lfA~~10122-QR[$~,8119Q~ ~~2~#~ problems
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with how well these responsibilities are b:-; rtn;: tint'." =:led . Though he fixes
responsibility for what he believes is thce present ?iansati : `actory state
of affairs on both intelligence officers and policy maker, both the
tone and the content of his paper point to policy makers as the more
culpable.. It is policy maker,s., -:t:bn e.: ore, who bear the.greater burden
i'sr ?ieving improverrie?nts .
In this regard, Barnds notes several Trey problems:
? Policy makers have failed to provide systematics guidance to
the intelligence community about goals, priorities, and
issues of concern (p. 18, 29, 32, 38).
? Policy makers have too often failed to keep the intelligence
community informed when they possess informatics of importance
to the intelligence function (p. 30).
? Policy makers serve too often as their own intelligence officers
or as country desk officers (p. 27).
? Policy makers provide. insufficient feedback and evaluation
to the intelligence community about its performance (pp. 29, 32
Barnds recommends no organizational changes to deal with these
problems. Rather, he urges that policy makers, starting with the President,
recognize in the carrying out of their responsibilities that more systematic
y:dE