ABBOT EMERSON SMITH

• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Collection: Declassified Articles from Studies in Intelligence: The IC’s Journal for the Intelligence Professional
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0000619199
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Release Date: July 30, 2014
• Case Number: F-2013-02322
• Publication Date: December 1, 1983

Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619199TITLE:AbbotEmerson SmithAUTHOR:(b)(3)(c)VOLUME:27ISSUE: WinterYEAR:1983Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 0006191990pproved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619199'STUDIES ININTELLIGENCE -A collection of articles on the historical, operational, doctrinal, and theoretical aspects of intelligence.All statements of fact, opinion or analysis expressed in Studies in Intelligence are those ofthe authors. They do not necessarily reflect official positions or views of the CentralIntelligence Agency or any other US Government entity, past or present. Nothing in thecontents should be construed as asserting or implying US Government endorsement of anarticle's factual statements and interpretations.Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619199Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619199A man of integrityABBOT EMERSON SMITH(b)(3)(c)CONF1QENTIALAnyone who knew Abbot Emerson Smith must have felt a twinge ofpersonal sorrow at hearing of his death at the age of seventy-five in April 1983.It is hard to write about Abbot without launching into superlatives, but thatwould have embarrassed him; he was an exceedingly modest man. Abbotretired from the Agency in 1971,having served for the last four yearsof his career as Director cf.-theOffice of National gstimates, Chair"-man of the Board of National Esti-mates, and Chairman of the Edi-torial Board of Studies in Intel-ligence.Abbot was born and raised inMaine, took great pride in being aMaine-man, and exemplified someof the better qualities associatedwith New Englanders. As a youth hehad a remarkable talent for music,playing the organ at the age oftwelve or so in the CongregationalChurch where his father was minis-ter, and later playing the piano onSaturday nights in the local moviehouse. In later years in ONE, underhis doctor's advice to take a half-hour of rest after lunch, Abbot normallystretched out on his couch to read a musical score, deriving as much pleasurefrom scanning Mozart or Bach as others would from a detective story. (He alsowas fond of mystery stories.)Abbot attended Colby College in Waterville, Maine, studied organ at theEastman School of Music, then went on to graduate studies in Americanhistory at Harvard. While there he learned of his selection as a RhodesScholar. He transferred to Oxford and attended Balliol College, where he metKathleen Mottram, a South African scholar whom he later married, and wherehe earned a doctorate in history. His thesis, Colonists in Bondage, is still theauthoritative work on indentured servitude in the American colonies. (I amtold that at Princeton University Library the ten dog-eared copies of Abbot'sbook are in constant demand by the students.) His second scholarly work,James Madison, never achieved as much acclaim but is still regarded asauthoritative by experts on that period.CONFl6ITIAL 43Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619199Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619199CO,N NTIAL Abbot SmithAbbot began a teaching career at Bard College, but after Pearl Harbor hewas commissioned in the Naval Reserve and called to active duty. Following alengthy course at Columbia's School of Military Government and Administra-tion, Abbot was sent to the US Naval Command in London, assigned to a USArmy unit, and on D-Day landed at Utah Beach to serve as civil affairs officer, 'first at Vaast-la-Hogue and later at Cancale. In his first experience inadministering a French town, he felt unsure of himself, but was reminded byhis commanding officer: -There's nothing to it. Just remember you are a USnaval officer." In later years he kept a photo of himself in full naval uniform,and in times of stress, would take out the picture and mutter, -Well, whatwould he do now?"After the German surrender, Abbot served on the US Control Council inVienna, then returned to London where he was assigned to the Historical Staffof the Commander, US Naval Forces, Europe. On his return to the US Ir?.as:sisted Samuel Eliot Morrison in the Office of Naval History', and attained therank of lieutenant commander.AnalystFor a brief period he returned to college teaching, but was attracted toCIA by his wartime friend, Paul Borel. Abbot came to CIA in 1948 as an intel-ligence analyst, serving first in the Special Staff of ORE, the Office ofResearch and Evaluation.In the autumn of 1950 in the early stages of the Korean War, GeneralWalter Bedell Smith, the DCI, asked an aide for the latest estimate on Korea,Finding that CIA did not produce estimates, General Smith invited ProfessorWilliam Langer, an OSS veteran, to come down from Harvard to organize anOffice of National Estimates. Langer agreed, and persuaded an OSS colleague,Sherman Kent, to leave Yale and join him in Washington as his deputy.?Together, Langer and Kent interviewed prospective board and staff candi-dates, and brought into the newly formed ONE staff a number of the analystsfrom ORE, including Paul Borel, Ray Cline, and Abbot Smith. Sherman Kentsucceeded Langer as Director of National Estimates in 1952, with Ray Sontagas deputy, and when Sontag returned to academia the following year, AbbotSmith was selected as deputy to Kent. According to Sherman Kent, when thevacancy occurred, Miss Frances Douglas, the administrative officer of ONE,and herself an OSS veteran, suggested to Kent that Abbot Smith would be agood choice for deputy. -Her suggestions were usually worth listening to, andin this case it was excellent advice," Kent recalls.For fourteen years (1953-67) Sherman Kent and Abbot Smith workedtogether to build the Office of National Estimates into a highly respected,efficient producer of intelligence at the national level. They were an oddcouple in temperament: Sherman, a flamboyant, outspoken, dynamic person-ality; Abbot, a quiet, contemplative, patient, logical gentleman -of the old? See Harold P. Ford, -A Tribute to Sherman Kent,- Studies in Intelligence, Fall 1980,Volume 24, Number 3.44 CONNQENTIALApproved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619199Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619199Abbot Smith COtTIALschool.- Both men were brilliant writers, with excellent education andtraining, and an ability to recall selectively from their reading and experiencesome bit of logic or historical perspective to help resolve an intelligenceproblem. Sherman Kent, in a conversation with the author a few weeks afterAbbot's death, referred to Abbot Smith as "gentle, wise, and delightful?the,fastest mind and finest drafter of intelligence papers I have even known.- Hesaid, -I loved him like a brother.-Abbot Smith was the author of the fastest and probably the shortest formalintelligence estimate ever produced. On election eve, in November 1956, asthe Suez crisis was unraveling and the Hungarian uprising was in its finalstages, Premier Bulganin sent to the British and French Prime? Ministersidentical nasty, threatening letters. In late afternoon the fact of the letters wasknown in CIA, but the text was not yet available. Allen Dulles had gone up toNew York in order to vote the next day. Intelligence agency chiefs conlultedby phone and agreed to hold a USIB (predecessor of today's NFIB) ince-etitigthat, evening at 9 o'clock, to be chaired by the DDCI, Getieral Cabell. The-1translated text of the letters arrived from the State Department at 8:45 p.m.Abbot Smith read the messages, jotted down on a yellow pad his impressions oftheir significance, and had his notes mimeographed and distributed to theassembled USIB members at 9. By the time Allan Dulles arrived by train fromNew York around midnight, the USIB members had agreed to an amendedversion of Abbot's draft. This was reviewed and approved by Dulles, typedearly the next morning as a SNIE, and delivered to the prime customers atopening of business.A former member of the Board of National Estimates recalls anothercoordination meeting at which community representatives were wrestlingwith a complicated military estimate. By 8 o'clock of a Friday evening, after along day of haggling, the attendees were irritable, tired, and divided into twoapparently irreconcilable camps. Sherman Kent, chairing the paper, stoppedin mid-sentence to watch Abbot Smith at the other end of the table scribblingon his yellow pad. Conversation died away, and the others watched. WhenAbbot put his pencil down, Sherman said, "Read it, Abbot.- Abbot slowly readoff three perfect sentences. Everyone at the table gathered up papers and thenfiled out. Abbot's sentences did the trick. A few minutes later, a boardmember stopped off in Sherman's office. Sherman was leaning back in hischair with thumbs hooked in his "naked lady- suspenders. "That Abbot,- hesaid, "if he wants my watch, he can have it."HistorianAbbot's historical training served him well over the years, and left itsmark on the estimates process. In a meeting in the late 1960s on the prospectsfor a civil war in Nigeria, State Department representatives were arguing thatthe training that the British had given the Nigerians in parliamentarygovernment would prevent any breakdown in Nigeria's version of theWestminster model. Abbot pointed out that we had had the same training andhad had a first-rate civil war.CONF1.E.TIAL 45Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619199Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619199CO)ENTIAL Abbot SmithSimilarly, a gathering of community representatives in the early 1960sspas addressing the prospects for the new Gaullist constitution in France. Themembers were approaching a consensus that, according to the principles ofpolitical science, the constitution was a hopeless mess, certain to break downquickly. Abbot suggested that it was no better nor worse than its predecessorsand would last about as long. The problem was to consider how it might workin the next ten years. He knew enough about history to appreciate the elementof resilience in human societies, and the willingness of people to accept almosthopeless economic conditions and tolerate idiotic forms of government.For many years the members of the Office' of National Estimates metonce or twice a year with a board of consultants at a site near Princeton, NewJersey. Abbot Smith, during the years he was deputy office director, generallyorganized the proceedings. He wrote the invitations to the consultants byhand, and in the invitation notices to an old friend on the Princeton faculty, -Abbot normally wrote in Latin (and received the reply in the same language).This was not done in a showy fashion, and I doubt if many others knew of thisquaint practice. But to Abbot it was an opportunity to keep up his skills ilanguage of Cicero.At the conclusion of one of the consultants' meetings, Abbot and AllenDulles were having coffee in the lunchroom of the Trenton railway stationwhile waiting for the train to Washington. As Abbot was paying the bill, thecounterman said to him: -I know that man you are with, but I can't think ofthe name." Abbot said: -Yes, his name is Molotov."DullesMolotovAbbot Smith was a man of simple and frugal tastes. On the train trips tothe consultants' meetings at Princeton, he always passed up the opportunity todine on the train, stopping instead at a station lunch counter in eitherWashington or Trenton. His explanation was, "I'm just savinle government(b)(1) a little money." A former Agency official once stationed in emembers a(b)(3)(n) visit of Abbot Smith to The Station officer found Abbot in a dingy sec-ond-class hotel, and invited him out to his residence for a drink. No, he hadhad one. Dinner? No, he couldn't bear the thought of food. He had eatensomething strange for lunch that had upset his stomach. -Well," said theStation officer, -come out anyhow and my wife will fix you something you46 CONFI NTIALApproved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619199(b)(1)(b)(3)(n)Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619199Abbot Smith CiENTIALlike, no Middle East food." "Do you suppose she would have a can ofCampbell's vegetable soup?" asked Abbot. As it turned out, she did, Abbot ateit, and years later was still happily reminiscing about the best meal he everhad.Abbot was a quiet man, who, in the New England tradition, thought it,unseemly to display emotion. He was too polite to become an effectivebureaucrat, and hated the sort of infighting in which Sherman Kent excelled.His recreation was simple: long walks on weekends, reading or playing music,and especially reading. He re-read Gibbon during his ONE days, and afterretirement, found a place on Cape Cod within walking distance of a good bookstore.CraftsmanAnything Abbot wrote was beautifully crafted. Some of the substa.ntivememoranda he produced in ONE were used by the ONE staff to shoW new.,members how the job should be done. A piece he wrote' in 1963 on thefundamental problems of South Africa is as valid today as when it was written.So far as I know, there has never been a better explanation of what intelligenceestimates can and cannot do than Abbot's article "On the Accuracy ofNational Intelligence Estimates" in Volume 13, Number 4 of Studies inIntelligence.Abbot generally assumed that anyone in his office assigned to a task woulddo the job as well as humanly possible. If the product did not measure up to hisstandards, he would point out the weaknesses and suggest ways to make thedraft more effective. Not for him the "there's something wrong with thispaper, but I don't know what it is" approach. He had a respect for and a mas-tery of the English language and entertained the old-fashioned belief thatEnglish was a language whose prime quality was its clarity. One of his greatestcontributions to the Agency and to the estimates process was to set a standardof style and exposition; stressing clarity, simplicity, and logical presentation.This little memorial article can hardly do justice to the strength ofcharacter, the integrity, the extraordinary talents and skills, and unfailingkindness of Abbot Smith. Those who served with or under Abbot loved and re-spected him. In the age of the common man, Abbot Smith was a mostuncommon man.This article is classified CONF TIAL.CONFI NTIAL 47Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619199