INR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP93T01132R000100010006-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: April 16, 1973
• Content Type: MEMO

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/03: CIA-RDP93T01132R000100010006-7
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16 April 1973
=70P=JUn FOR Deputy Director for Intelligence
SUBJECT
INR
1. You have asked me to consider whether the con-
tinued existence of INR is desirable. My answer would be
that INP. falls on the scale between "essential" and
'desirable', and on the high side.
2. INR has fallen on had times, and this tends to
obscure the issues at stake. Under Rogers it has lost
status in the Department; Cline is lashing about futilely
in an effort to recover, but has virtually. no chance of .
doing so as long as Rogers is Secretary. -Equally importan
INR 's people are not as strong as they used to be. The
number of long-term professionals is decreasing, while
the proportion of FSO's on perhaps their second assignment
is rising. The latter know little about intelligence and
are forever conscious of the Bureau to which they must
return glowering over their shoulders.
3. That does INR do?
a. For the Department internally, INR supplies
much the same services DDI wapplies to CIL. It
provides current intelligenee briefings and
research on request. Its officers are in daily
contact with the Bureaux and therefore acutely
conscious of current policy interests. IN is
also the custodian and purveyor of CISINT and
other sensitive intelligence.
b. ? For the_Department_externally, INR guards
its interests in the Intelligence Community..
This res7onsibilitv includes participation in
the NIE process (serious, but nnt as useful as
it once was) an6 in the CIB (perfunctory, but
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still occasionally useful). INR also renresents
the department in non-substantive matters, from
those of USIB and IRC
C. For the Secretary. In the pant Secretaries
have founa INRr:S?Independenee useful in balancing
the weight of the Bureaux. Under Rogers this has
been buried, but in the long-term interest of the
USC it should not be lost forever.
e. For the USG, INR provides another civilian
voic6-in-thi; fritellieence Community to balance
those of the military. Its influence in the
estimates process, though wealeer than in years
past, is still a healthy one, both for the Com-
munity and for CIA's central poeition.
4. There is little doubt that CIT. could furnish State
with most of the important substantive services that INP
does, and at a considerable saving in personnel through re-
duction of duplication. We would not have the same feel for
Bureaux needs, being too distant and detached, but we have
generally better people, more of them, and _a far better
information handling system. On the other hand, handling
the job would eliminate the minimal analytic base that State
now has, and thus destroy what rerains of INRs capability
to take an independent substantive Position in the USIB
arena and in the Department.
5. INR's staff function, rervr-esentine State in the
non-substantive intelligence business, is essential to the
Department and must continue. It is, lemeever, incieeendent
of INR's substantive funct-innq
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6. There seems to be general agreement that INR
is at present too weak, both in personnel and in prestige,
to do the things we expect of it and need from it. Thus
there is no convenient "Option B--leave things as they
are" of the sort the Department likes. We are left with:
Option A: After somehow circumventing the Rogers-
Cline impasse, (or allowing time to remove it) build
INF/ up. Staff it with long-term professionals having
civil service status and remove the FSO's. Restore
competence in political and economic fields for pur-
poses of research rather than current intelligence
support, and provide sufficient strength in military
field to enable State to carry its weight on that
subject matter also. Perhaps rely on OCI for current
intelligence initial reporting.
Option C: Allow INR to disappear as a substantive
organization. Retain a staff to maintain State's
voice in non-substantive intelligence matters, and
to provide a channel for the Bureaux to be heard on
substantive ones, particularly in the NIE process.
Turn the routine substantive support job largely
over to OCI, OSR, and OER, along with the better pro-
fessionals to carry this out and to maintain liaison
with the Bureaux.
7. Option C can be made to work, more or less. None-
theless it is generally felt in CIA to be a serious weaken-
ing of the national intelligence concept as we have come to
know it since what ought to be one of the principal centers
of competitive analytical effort would be eliminated. If
the old rules still apply, Option A rakes much better sense.
If, however, strictures on the evils of dunlication are to be
applied rigorously Community-wide, there are savings to be
found in Option C. In the real world, I suspect we will end
up with good old Option B.
Richard Lehman
Director of Current Intelligence
Distribution:
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1 - DOCI
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/03: CIA-RDP93T01132R000100010006-7