REFORMING INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00845R000200810001-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 16, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: August 1, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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_\ationa-1
A Report on the Congress and National Security Affair
THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION ? 513 C STREET, N.E. ? WASHINGTON, D.C. ? 20002 ? [phone]
Reforming Intelligence Analysis
Currently Congress has approved or is considering a
number of measures to correct the damage done to the
U.S. intelligence community in the past decade. Under the
leadership of Senator Frank Church and other prominent
legislators, Congress enacted a number of hastily con-
ceived restrictions which effectively dismantled America's
capacity for covert intelligence operations. Measures now
being considered to rectify the problems include repeal of
the Hughes-Ryan amendment, which established extensive
congressional oversight of covert intelligence activities,
repeal or extensive modification of the Freedom of Infor-
mation Act and adoption of an Intelligence Identities Pro-
tection Act. The Reagan Administration also is studying
means to restore the intelligence community to its former
importance, such as re-establishing the President's Foreign
Intelligence Advisory Committee (PFIAB), which was
abolished by President Carter in 1977.
Such steps are badly needed if the United States is ever
to regain its ability to conduct covert operations, or indeed
to collect data from sources other than technical means of
surveillance. Yet, taken on their own they do nothing to
help, and may even impede correction of the most signifi-
cant problem facing the U.S. intelligence community-
correctly analyzing and assessing the data it possesses. This
is a long-standing problem that has intensified in recent
years, especially under the Carter Administration.
A RECORD OF FAILURE
Discussion of faulty intelligence assessments must focus
on the Central Intelligence Agency, the designated pro-
ducer of National Intelligence Estimates for the President
and other top policymakers. Although the Defense Intelli-
gence Agency, the National Security Agency, the military
intelligence services, and the State Department Bureau of
Intelligence and Research contribute to the NIE, their own
reports are more specialized to fit the in-house needs of the
Departments of Defense and State, respectively. By con-
trast, CIA reports are considered "national"; the
analytical branch of the agency is the National Foreign
Assessment Center, and the section heads for regional and
topical analysis are termed National Intelligence Officers.
When an NIE is produced, the CIA selects the precise topic
and assigns the principal drafter, whose task is to produce
a paper reflecting a consensus of the views of the intelli-
gence community. Although agencies may register a for-
mal dissent on particular points, a high value is placed on
consensus. Even under the best of circumstances this
emphasis results in an enshrinement of the lowest common
denominator of intelligence opinion, and all too often
leads to "party-lining" or anticipating the views of policy-
makers.
However, this process of forced consensus is not suffi-
cient to explain these staggering failures of the intelligence
community:
? Until 1979 the NIEs contended that the Soviet Union
would not place offensive weapons in Cuba. To contend
otherwise was to assert that the Soviet Union was violating
the 1962 agreement ending the Cuban missile crisis
(amended in 1970). Therefore the stationing of MiG-23
and MiG-27 fighter-bombers, the construction of sub-
marine pens, and the frequent visits of major Soviet naval
units were noted but not assessed as being of any
significance. Only the revelation of the presence of a Soviet
combat brigade in Cuba just prior to the 1980 election
campaign forced modification of this assessment.
? Until December 1979 it was contended that the Soviet
Union would not invade Third World countries, such as
Afghanistan, with its own troops. Attention was focused
instead on "proxy wars," which enormously improved the
strategic situation of the U.S.S.R. in the Third World.
? The intelligence community predicted well into 1978
that the Shah of Iran would remain in power for the dura-
tion of the 1980s and that Iran was not in a pre-
revolutionary state. Challenging this assumption meant
questioning American reliance on Iran as the "policeman
of the Gulf."
? In 1981, after the Reagan Administration called atten-
tion to Soviet use of terrorism as a weapon against Western
nations and pro-Western Third World governments, the
CIA retroactively identified over a thousand terrorist acts
in the previous year that it had not counted earlier.
? The CIA produced a study on Soviet oil production in
1977 predicting a major oil crisis within a decade. This
study was not substantiated by other analyses-either by
the oil industry, European research centers, or the DIA-
and yet was perfectly suited for President Carter's conten-
tion that increased Soviet need of Western drilling techno-
logy would strengthen detente. The 1977 predictions
proved embarrassingly inaccurate, and were drastically
revised in January 1981.
Yet it is in the area of assessing the extent of the Soviet
strategic buildup during the 1960s and 1970s, and in
estimating Soviet defense expenditures, that the intelli-
gence community has accumulated its most dismal record.
Albert Wohlstetter's documentation of continual annual
CIA strategic underestimates during the 1960s goes far
toward explaining the deplorable U.S. experience with
arms control, including CIA's failure to recognize Soviet
SALT deception, and the current radical change in the
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world correlation of forces. What is less well known is the
documentation by former intelligence analysts William Lee
and David Sullivan, which demonstrates that well into the
1970s the CIA estimators continued to avoid "worst-case"
assumptions about Soviet military intentions. As a result
under-estimates of the scale and pace of the Soviet
strategic build-up continued, as illustrated below in Chart
1. (None of the estimates comes close to being accurate.)
Chart 1: Accuracy of Intelligence Forecasts
Soviet Strategic Weapons Under- Over-
Systems Deployments estimate estimate
3rd Generation ICBMs .................... X
2nd Generation SLBMs .................... X
ABM Deployments ....................... X
Advanced ASW Submarine Force ........... X
MIRV Accuracy .......................... X
MIRV Yield .............................
SLBM MIRVs ........................... X
Defense Spending 1960-76 ................. X
Defense Spending 1976-80 ................. X
By the same token, the Central Intelligence Agency
reported annually from the mid-1960s until 1976 that the
Soviet Union was spending about 6 percent of its "Gross
National Product" on its military, or in absolute terms,
about half of what the United States was spending in the
same period. Yet this was in a period of drastic American
decline in military strength, while at the same time the
Soviet Union was embarking on the greatest military
buildup in history.
In 1976 the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory
Board belatedly became aware of these failings and recom-
mended to President Ford that an exercise in competitive
intelligence estimates of the degree of the Soviet strategic
threat be undertaken. Distinguished outside experts on the
so-called B-Team correctly estimated that Soviet ICBM
MIRVing rates and accuracy improvements would increase
so rapidly in the late 1970s that by as early as 1980 U.S.
strategic land-based forces would be vulnerable to a Soviet
first strike. They also correctly predicted that the Soviet
leadership, not content with nuclear parity, was striving
for strategic superiority.
The results of the B-Team exercise and other pressure
put on the intelligence community included some revisions
in estimates of Soviet defense spending and some con-
sideration of the possibility of a Soviet counterforce threat
in the 1980s. But the chief result of the B-Team was the
Carter decision to dismantle PFIAB and completely ignore
the compelling results of the competitive estimates. The
Carter Administration then proceeded to cancel, cut back,
or delay every single strategic force program inherited
from the Ford Administration. Last December, outgoing
Undersecretary of Defense William Perry conceded that
the Carter Administration had grossly underestimated the
Soviet counterforce threat for 1980 in 1977. Yet consistent
with over two decades of underestimating Soviet strategic
forces and defense expenditures, and continually placing
the most benign interpretation on Soviet actions and inten-
tions, the U.S. intelligence community is still unwilling to
concede that Soviet actions world wide are planned and
coordinated to further a considered and articulated pro-
gram to weaken and lull the West in the face of continual
Soviet expansion. Questioning the fundamental set-up of
CIA analysis is long overdue.
UNAVOIDABLE PROBLEMS-AVOIDABLE BIASES
Any suggested remedies to the major deficiencies in
American intelligence analysis must take into account the
myriad uncertainties involved in evaluating, processing,
and analyzing intelligence data. These uncertainties
preclude anything approaching complete accuracy in
intelligence analysis. A review of the means by which in-
telligence is collected and weighed will demonstrate this,
and also reveals the institutionalized reasons for the con-
tinued poor performance of American intelligence.
There are three principal sources of raw intelligence
data: the so-called national technical means of surveillance
(NTMs), human intelligence, and open sources. National
technical means of surveillance have recently been much
discussed owing to the key role they were assigned in assur-
ing the verifiability of the SALT II treaty. National
technical means of surveillance are essentially mechanical:
aerial and satellite photography, monitoring stations in
countries bordering the Soviet Union, seismographic
records of explosions, and so forth. In the United States a
premium is placed upon these sorts of data, as their
reliability is considered to be high. A photograph, after all,
is an incontrovertible fact that can be displayed to a policy-
maker in a much more convincing manner than a message
from an agent, who could easily be a plant.
However, NTMs have many drawbacks that are mini-
mized by the American intelligence community to avoid
questioning our reliance on them:
? NTMs can never provide negative proof; as Amrom
Katz, former Assistant Director of ACDA puts it, no one
has ever found anything that has been successfully hidden.
Developed nations, especially states such as the Soviet
Union, are adept at concealing or falsifying important in-
formation, especially if they have learned how the
monitoring devices work. Recent disclosures that Soviet
agents have successfully acquired the operational manuals
for sophisticated American surveillance satellites underline
this point.
? NTMs provide such massive quantities of low-grade
data that they cannot all be minutely analyzed. Generally
they are scanned to find interesting anomolies that will
lead to extensive examination of certain areas or facilities.
The vaunted high-resolution satellite cameras and sensors
are actually capable of monitoring only extremely limited
areas and times.
? NTMs provide evidence of capabilities only; they are
no guide to intent. Only human intelligence or open
sources can reveal exactly what an opponent's leadership
actually intends to do. To be sure, intentions are constrained
by one's capability to carry them out, and acquisition of
new capabilities can be an indicator of future intensions.
Yet in the final analysis, NTMs are limited in this ex-
tremely important area of data collection.
The second source of raw data is human intelligence.
This includes information received from espionage agents,
defectors, diplomatic personnel, military attaches, and
theft of classified documents. Human intelligence is not
regarded as highly as technical data by the U.S. intelligence
community. There are several reasons for this beyond the
one mentioned above. To begin with, the KGB and other
intelligence agencies maintain active policies of planting
disinformation and forgeries, which tends to discredit
reports not backed by technical data. Yet it is not felt that
technical data require this cross-checking, although they are
equally susceptible to disinformation. Then again, those
nations the United States is most interested in monitoring
are generally closed societies where it is extremely difficult
to maintain covert sources. Finally, the campaign waged
against the CIA in recent years has in many instances made
it impossible to maintain covert sources without eventual
disclosure. This inhibits foreign nationals and friendly
intelligence services alike from cooperation.
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The final source of data is open sources, which include
press reports, books and manuals, research of scholars and
researchers, radio and television broadcasts, accidental
divulsions by officials, and accounts by emigres and
tourists. In terms of their evaluation priority by the U.S.
intelligence community, open sources have the dual disad-
vantage of being as suspect as covert human intelligence,
and as massively plentiful as technical data. As a result,
even highly useful material is ignored, to a degree that
would appear astonishing to the non-specialist.
Bad or wrong data can be a major source of mispercep-
tion, but when institutionalized bias appears in the form of
consistent error on one side of an issue or in overreliance
on one sort of data the intelligence community is suffering
from major problems. One such bias appears throughout
the community: minimizing the threat from the Soviet
Union. In evaluations of Soviet defense spending, oil pro-
duction, military presence in Latin America, KGB penetra-
tion of the European or U.S. political establishment, in-
stability in the Middle East, Socialist control of NATO
governments, or any other issue, suggestions that
American security might be affected are downplayed.
Above all, there is little to no recognition of the fact that
all such issues are linked, in that the Soviet Union follows a
deliberate policy of exploiting weakness and instability
globally. Not only is there no U.S. long-range planning to
deal with this, but no recognition that the Soviet Union is
engaged in long-range planning.
One important reason why such biases can pervade the
entire intelligence community is that one cannot make a
successful career out of intelligence analysis. Supergrade
(GS 16-18) intelligence analysts are non-existent, and rare
in the GS 13-15 ranks. The Central Intelligence Agency
possesses relatively more high-ranking slots than do the
other agencies, but even in the CIA there are relatively few
GS 13-15 analysts. To obtain promotion, it is necessary for
an ambitious intelligence officer to get into analysis
management. Other problems with analysis include inade-
quate attention to Soviet intentions and foreign policy
planning, insufficient understanding of Soviet doctrines,
and a propensity to "mirror image" U.S. strategic policy
and planning; and inadequate quality control, with no in-
house box score kept on the accuracy of past predictions
and assessments.
SOLUTIONS AND OBSTACLES TO SOLUTIONS
The present-day situation, where the intelligence com-
munity faces major questions of competence in the areas
of political responsiveness, internal bias, and managerial
dominance of the analytical staffs, would not have arisen
if good intelligence were highly regarded and demanded by
the American political system. Nations where intelligence
is considered important, such as the Soviet Union or Israel,
do not face such problems. Yet in the United States, far
too often the primary use of intelligence has been to bolster
decisions already made for political purposes or to provide
simplistic "score cards" for busy policymakers.
A good example of this last point is the major effort in-
vested by the CIA in estimating Soviet defense expen-
ditures. Great pains are taken, involving an important pro-
portion of the analytical resources focused on the Soviet
Union, to assess accurate "prices" of the various elements
of the Soviet military establishment, to fit these elements
into an elaborate model of the Soviet economy, and to
determine what impact this "spending" has on the model.
Many critiques have been made of the methodologies
employed, or the certitude with which estimates are pro-
duced in the absence of hard data. Yet the most important
objection to this whole process is that important intelli-
gence assets, including many highly trained analysts, have
been tasked to produce a relatively minor set of estimates.
When faced with enormously enhanced Soviet military
capabilities, inquiry into how much funding was invested
into its acquistion should not interfere with assessment of
the threat this poses to U.S. security. This is especially true
when the results of the inquiry are at the very best broad
estimates. Yet the CIA, when faced with strong congres-
sional pressure to produce "the figures on Soviet defense
spending," felt compelled to do the best work possible.
Before major reforms can be initiated, an appreciation for
good intelligence must be cultivated in both the Congress
and the Executive branch of government.
Recent events have demonstrated that the Reagan Ad-
ministration is not greatly concerned with these problems
at the present. Just as there has been a failure to initiate
new defense policies, reforming the intelligence communi-
ty appears to have low priority. There is a feeling among
many people in the government and other influential
public positions that the problems with the intelligence
community stem from political interference by Congress
and the Carter Administration, and the optimum solution
is for the "intelligence professionals" to be given a free
hand. This belief is held in ignorance of the long-standing
institutional problems faced by the intelligence community,
which are strengthened by the fact that the intelligence
community does not want major reform. It has come to
associate any outside efforts to reform the analysis process
with heavy-handed attempts to politicize intelligence
analysis. Then, too, the leadership of the intelligence com-
munity was selected by the Carter Administration and to a
certain extent carries over Carter views on the nature of the
international political situation. In spite of the events
which discredited this world view, it will continue to flavor
intelligence estimates for some time to come.
To drive through needed change, a high-powered, in-
dependent commission is essential. A reconstituted PFIAB
might not be capable of carrying out this function, but it
would be able to initiate such a commission in consultation
with the Director of Central Intelligence. This commission
would have to possess political power and dedication to
carry out a difficult and complicated task. It would
require:
? direct access to the President and a commitment from
him to implement its recommendations;
? total access to the work of the intelligence community.
Because of this, the commission would have to include
proven analysts as well as critics of the agency. It cannot be
a repository for political hacks.
? The commission would have to be appointed to its
work for long duration-two years would probably be the
minimum time needed. The commission members would
have to devote their full attentions to its work.
? In appointing the board, it will have to be
remembered that there will be objections to any nominee
worth including.
The major role of this commission would be to deter-
mine how best to institutionalize the principle of the
B-Team. Competitive analysis and estimates should not
take place merely between the CIA and a team of
distinguished outsiders, but within the community as well,
both inter-agency and intra-agency. The difficult but
necessary task of the commission will be to reconcile this
principle of competitive estimation with the need to pro-
duce crisp and coherent intelligence reports. It will also
have to determine what safeguards can be established to
protect the competitive process from political exploitation.
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s d ff~ w 'bk~~ fl ~~ Jay ?~1v., Alllr k
Diverting Attention from Intelligence Reform
L
The outcry which led to the resignation of Max Hugel,
third ranking official at the Central Intelligence Agency,
and which has badly weakened the prestige and effec-
tiveness of William Casey, Director of Central In-
telligence, is rooted in public and congressional concern
over the effectiveness of the intelligence community. The
fact that both of these officials lacked contemporary in-
telligence experience and were appointed because of their
work in the 1980 presidential campaign has been publicly
deplored by prominent public officials, and there has been
pressure for "intelligence professionals" to fill both posi-
tions. Mr. Hugel's successor, John Stein, is such a profes-
sional, a veteran of the operations directorate of the CIA.
There is a strong consensus both in Congress and among
the general public to improve the quality of American in-
telligence, and a feeling that this can best be achieved by
removing restrictions from the professionals in the com-
munity. This interest is demonstrated by the careful man-
ner in which the Senate is approaching the issue of exempt-
ing the intelligence community from the provisions of the
Freedom of Information Act. Currently two bills, S.1273
introduced by Senator John Chafee, and S.1235 sponsored
by Senator Alphonse D'Amato, are being considered by
the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Both of these
bills are designed to help the intelligence community
preserve necessary secrecy while doing as little violence as
possible to the principle of freedom of information.
In other actions, Congress is moving closer to adopting
the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (S.391 and H.R.
4). This act is attempt to frustrate a number of groups com-
mitted to destroying U.S. intelligence, which among other
efforts publish names of individuals which they claim are
CIA agents. Opposition to this act has come primarily
from the American Civil Liberties Union, which contends
that careful study of State Department records will reveal
the identity of CIA agents and that hence this information
is in the public domain. The recent Supreme Court deci-
sion, Haig vs. Agee, which ruled that the lifting of Philip
Agee's passport in 1974 was constitutional, concluded:
"Agee's disclosures, among other things, have the
declared purpose of obstructing intelligence operations
and the recruiting of intelligence personnel. They are clear-
ly not protected by the Constitution." This Supreme Court
decision is evidence that any effort to challenge the In-
telligence Identities Protection Act on constitutional
grounds will not be successful.
It is unfortunate that upgrading the performance of
American intelligence has become so firmly identified with
insulating the intelligence bureaucracy from outside com-
petition. This identification has been reinforced by the
Hugel affair. Before the election there had been recogni-
tion that within the intelligence community there were
severe problems with the analytical bureaucracy, and that
any effort to reform this would require at the very least
competitive assessment by experts taken from outside the
community. As the 1980 Republican Party platform stated:
We will reestablish the President's Foreign In-
telligence Advisory Board, abolished by the Carter Ad-
ministration, as a permanent non-partisan body of
distinguished Americans to perform a constant audit of
national intelligence research and performance. We will
propose methods of providing alternative intelligence
estimates in order to improve the quality of the
estimates by constructive competition.
Yet Mr. Casey's commitment to the competitive
estimates process has been lukewarm at best. In his first
address to the CIA staff, he stated:
I found in SALT I, for example, that some of the
judgements were soft. They leaned toward a kind of
benign interpretation rather than a harder interpretation
of assessing or viewing a situation as being more
dangerous .... At the PFIAB I supported a competitive
assessment process, but I am open as to how that can
best be done. Like anyone else I am in favor of improv-
ing our analytical capabilities-that is something easy to
be for.
Mr. Casey's actions since this address was made have
confirmed its tone. None of the important critics of the in-
telligence analytical process has been appointed to the CIA
staff. A special National Intelligence Council at the CIA,
formed to "upgrade the system under which national
intelligence estimates are produced," is dismissed by many
as decorative. They note that the chairman of the new
panel, Henry Rowen, was associated with many of the in-
telligence failures of the 1960s and early 1970s while presi-
dent of the RAND Corporation, even though in the late
1970s he criticized the "CIA's optimistic assessments of
Soviet military strength." They also point out that the
panel is empowered only to make minor changes in the
existing system, rather than radical improvements.
Of even more concern are the persistent reports that the
plans for reconstituting PFIAB will no longer give it direct
access to the President. Instead, it will report to the Direc-
tor of Central Intelligence. The "A-Team/B-Team" ex-
periment in competitive analysis would not have been car-
ried out if PFIAB had not had this access to the President,
and there are real concerns that if PFIAB is so constituted
it will become a prisoner to the intelligence bureaucracy.
It would appear as though the result of the Hugel
resignation and the criticism it brought upon Mr. Casey
has been to increase his dependence on the intelligence
bureaucracy. His ability to challenge established institu-
tions and mental patterns within the CIA has been under-
cut, and any confrontation with department heads or na-
tional intelligence officers would have a detrimental effect
on his image if leaked. Firm action is needed by the White
House in this situation. PFIAB should be immediately re-
established, and with its backing Mr. Casey should be
given the authority to make some badly needed institu-
tional changes.
J
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Checkli of Issues gomhadd 16
b ore Con reSS
Vwatch For:
Soviet ABM Breakout Possibility Feared: Senate concern
over the Soviet ABM-X-3 mobile phased array radar,
which was expressed to President Reagan in a May 12th
letter (see "Congress and the Abrogation of SALT," NSR
34, June 1981) has spurred the intelligence services to
expand their coverage of the Soviet defense establishment
to include greater surveillance of production lines for
evidence of this weapons system. The Administration fears
that the Soviet Union may be stockpiling the weapons
system in preparation for rapid deployment after abroga-
tion of the ABM treaty.
MX and the C-5: Reports circulating in Washington in
mid-July of a probable airborne basing mode for the MX
missile have come as a shock to knowledgeable members of
Congress and to Air Force officers in the Pentagon.
According to these reports, Secretary of Defense Wein-
berger, in a move designed to solve the serious political
problems surrounding the land-basing plan for MX, has
tentatively decided to deploy the new ICBM aboard wide-
bodied aircraft. Under this proposal, these missiles would
eventually be carried by an Airmobile Patrol Force of 100
new-design, long-endurance aircraft, designed to remain in
the air for forty-eight hours without refueling and a week
with refueling. These aircraft would fly patrols over
designated areas of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at slow
speeds and, in the event of a Soviet attack, would jettison
their missiles. The MX missiles, whose engines would
ignite in mid-air, would be guided to their targets by a
combination of their inertial navigation systems and
course correction information provided by navigational
satellites. Because the new aircraft would not become
available until the early 1990s, in the interim, the MX
missiles would be deployed aboard 100 C-5A transports
built for this purpose. The proposed basing scheme worries
strategic analysts for a variety of technical reasons, in-
cluding the vulnerability of unhardened C-5s to the effects
of airburst nuclear explosions and the danger in relying on
satellites, themselves susceptible to destruction or jam-
ming, to provide the necessary navigational data so that
the MX missiles could hit their targets. In addition to these
technical flaws, experts are concerned about the very high
costs of such a deployment scheme ($40 billion plus).
Republic of China: Congressmen who carefully drafted the
Taiwan Relations Act over the objections of the Carter
Administration have expressed growing displeasure with
the failure of the Reagan Administration to alter previous
policies toward the Republic of China. In particular, while
agreeing to sell military equipment to the PRC, the Admin-
istration has refused to make available the FX advanced
fighter to the ROC. During the August recess, House
Foreign Affairs Committee members, led by Congressman
Zablocki, will go to the Republic of China to evaluate the
situation. But executive branch officials accompanying the
delegation to other countries in Asia have been prohibited
from visiting the ROC by the State Department.
Concern With Lack of DoD Appointments: Congressional
defense analysts are becoming increasingly concerned at
the slow rate of appointment to top-level Defense Depart-
ment positions. Three assistant secretaries of defense; the
Assistant to the Secretary for Atomic Energy; under
secretaries of the Army and Navy; nine assistant secretaries
of the Army, Navy, and Air Force; and a deputy secretary
of defense remain to be nominated. In addition, many of
the Administration's nominees remain to be confirmed.
This is partially due to the divestiture policy of the Senate
Armed Services Committee; many qualified candidates
literally cannot afford to serve in the Administration. But
another reason is that in the wake of the bitterness pro-
duced during the defense transition, many candidates are
not mutually acceptable to both the White House and the
Secretary of Defense. Congressional defense analysts point
out that this delay in appointments may have a major im-
pact on policy. The lack of conservative sub-cabinet level
appointees means that the office staffs are still manned by
Carter hold-overs.
Directed Energy Weapons: In testimony before the Senate
Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee in
hearings for his confirmation as director of the White
House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Presiden-
tial Science Advisor George Keyward strongly underlined
the need for more efficient coordination of high-energy
weapons programs. Keyward emphasized his belief that
"laser and directed-energy weapons technology represent
an enormous possibility for the future." He cautioned,
however, that the potential for a directed energy ballistic
missile defense system does not exist in the near future. He
expressed his concern that the United States might invest
too much short-range effort in an attempt to develop "a
technology that could obviate the need for an MX
system."
Afghanistan-A joint hearing on human rights violations
in Afghanistan held by the House Foreign Affairs Sub-
committee on Human Rights and International Organiza-
tions and the Commission on Security and Cooperation in
Europe on July 22nd heard first-hand testimony from
Afghan freedom fighters and a student who participated in
the April 1980 demonstration of school children in Kabul.
Of particular interest, Mali Muhammed Hissain Wardak,
a tribal leader from the Wardak Province, made many
references to the several different types of gases used by
the Soviets, including ones that burned the skin and
affected the central nervous system. Wardak spoke of the
Soviet weaponry used, including gas bombs, artillery,
MI-24 helicopters, and even mines disguised as toys and
pens, but capable of blowing off limbs. Other witnesses,
including American scholars on Afghanistan, indicated
that forces resisting Soviet occupation have increased in
recent months. They strongly recommend congressional
support for direct assistance to the Afghans as well as
increases in aid to Pakistan.
I
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Sources on Intelligence Reform:
Aspin, Les. "Debate over U.S. Strategic Forces: A Mixed
Record." Strategic Review, Vol. VIII, No. 3 (Summer
1980), pp. 29-43.
"CIA Head Accused of Tailoring Estimates to Policy:
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