UNITED STATES INTELLIGENCE BOARD COMMITTEE ON DOCUMENTATION STAGE 1 REPORT OF THE STAFF FOR THE COMMUNITY INFORMATION PROCESSING STUDY (SCIPS)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79M00097A000100010001-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 17
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 5, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Content Type: REPORT

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SECRET
UNITED STATES INTELLIGENCE BOARD
COMMITTEE ON DOCUMENTATION
Stage 1 Report of the Staff for the Community
Information Processing Study (SCIPS)
USIB-D-39.7/5 CODIB-D-82/28
SECRET
GROUP 1
Excluded from automotic
doangrodi.g and
declouif cotion
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This material contains information affecting
the National Defense of the United States
within the meaning of the espionage laws,
Title 18, USC, Secs. 793 and 794, the trans-
mission or revelation of which in any manner
to an unauthorized person is prohibited by law.
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1. Names appear in most incoming information documents (with
exception of special sources such as FLINT, SEISMINT, ACOUSTINT). More
generally, information used in the Intelligence Community deals with
foreign activities, capabilities and intentions. People are always the
agents of these activities or intelligence events. For the collector,
in addition, people are the means by which information about events is
obtained. It follows that almost every organization processing or
producing intelligence receives a vast amount of information on people
and is in turn interested in biographic data on those people.
2. As in other areas, there has been a tendency for each organization
or major command to survey existing information processing centers,
find that none produces exactly the type of information needed--and then
to proceed to set up its own biographic processing system, large or small.
This may, of course, be necessary. There may also be a considerable
amount of overlap and duplication present.
3. There is a great variety in the uses to which biographic
information is put (e.g. name-tracing for derogatory information, back-
ground for contact, searching for individuals with particular skills or
accesses, assessment of research potential by studying personalities
known to be engaged in an effort, etc). This has also tended to create
a number of different processing systems. However, two further facts
may be noted: first, many of these uses require the same kind of bio-
graphic information inputs; second, there are only a limited number of
ways to control biographic information for retrieval, only a limited.-
number of possible control fields. So although many organizations have
SE NET
ILLEGIB
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radically different uses for biographic information, there may be overlap
in inputs processed towards these different ends and overlap in types of
processing.
4. A particular manifestation of this problem can be seen in the
exploitation of open literature. Biographic information for intelligence
uses depends to a very great extent on this type of source. As a result
of the great dependence of many different organization on biographic
information, a number of different exploitation systems for open literature
in the biographic field have been established. There is considerable
duplication or potential duplication here:
The time is propitious,
therefore, for an examination of the biographic information processing
throughout the Community. In addition to the directive features of DCID 1/9,
a permissive clause states that any organization may set up biographic files
provided that the results of the effort are made available to the agency
of prime concern. Therefore' in addition to the changes which have
recently taken place or which might be planned for the near future:'-in
basic assigned biographic processing coverage, other biographic systems
continue to exist and new ones contemplated (e.g. biographic indexing is
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part of the plan for SAC'S 438 L, is being considered for ACSI's ACSIMATIC,
etc). An examination now into the various biographic processing systems,
their input, their purpose, their processing and output, would therefore
serve a real need.
SECRET
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those overseas units and processes needing study-
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ccu nication is not axclusiv.L bioom&lc processing
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fact-gathering forces not fill is h.
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be included in S Investigation and tact-gain order
study the biographic nobles in its context. Such CI
system includes
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u'htch leads to Tanks J amend I y~ guidelines and ti
y ee total system i--gaIng and sw4yeia. It also
p st poses Z wk F and Task tl (state-ofthe-art and. cations')
In other VOr s: solutions to biographic probleto My lie In par%
outside the rather artificially defined " aphic world' of the
above scope notes. The solutions should ideally stets 3'xhoea total
syatma analysis plus state-of -the-art anions.
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S-E-C-R-E-T
USIB-D-39.7 /5 CODIB-D-82/28
26 February 1964
UNITED STATES INTELLIGENCE BOARD
Stage I Report of the Staff for the Community Information
Processing Study (SCIPS)
REFERENCES: (a) USIB-D-39.7/1, 24 July 1961
(b) USIB-D-39.7/3, 23 February 1962
(c) USIB-M-202, 23 February 1962
1 . This is a report on Stage I of the Community Information Processing study
which was undertaken by CODIB pursuant to USIB direction contained in Reference (c).
The original terms of reference were set forth in Reference (a) and modified and
reduced in scope in Reference (b), which constitutes the Stage I plan for this study,
completion of which is now reported.
2. Information processing, as used in the SCIPS Stage I Report and in this
report, includes those activities sequentially following initial or field acquisition
and preceding intelligence analysis, except that language translation and photo
interpretation activities are included. Thus the term as used by SCIPS is primarily
concerned with receipt, dissemination, indexing, storage and retrieval functions.
GROUP I
Excluded from autom.!ti,
downgrading and
declassification
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3. The directive to the Staff called !.ssentially for doing four things:
a.. To inventory intelligence information holdings;
b . To measure the flow of information between intelligence activities;
c. To recommend format and indexing specifications, particularly as
required by automated systems;
ci. To recommend what further study should be made in the information
processing area (defined as the portion of the intelligence cycle
between the collection of information and the production of
intelligence therefrom).
4. The SCIPS Report does include an inventory of intelligence information
holdings (or files) in a large part of the Intelligence Community; and it identifies
and has measured the flow of information between the many components surveyed.
The study effort did not yield the hoped-for specifications, because automated
systems generally have not been implemented or in some cases even developed
to a level where input requirements are determinable. Recommendations are made
concerning what to do next.
5. Our plan of presentation in this paper is first, to comment on the study
effort itself, since this is necessary to an understanding of what the Report is or
is not; second, to summarize the major SCIPS findings with CODIB comment thereon,
giving cross -f eferences to the relevant portions of the SCIPS Report; third, to
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present some additional CODIB observations; fourth, to present our own (i.e.,
CODIB's) recommendations for USIB action.
COMMENTS ON THE STUDY EFFORT
6. The SCIPS Report consists of six volumes; its sheer bulk and various
classifications preclude its submission as a single unit. Volume I, which contains
the Summary, Conclusions, and Recommendations as well as a Table of Contents
for all volumes, is attached hereto as Tab A. The remaining volumes are being
forwarded separately to the USIB member agencies. A selection of 20 of 193
charts from the body of the report is also attached as Tab B. LTo minimize possible
misinterpretation of the charts, they should be studied together with the text of
Volume II, of which they are a part/
7. In spite of the necessary curtailment of the scope of the survey as originally
conceived, the results represent the most comprehensive fact-finding study of this
kind that has yet been undertaken in the Intelligence Community, covering perhaps
one half of the Community's information processing activities. The extensive data base
that has been created will continue for some time to yield information of considerable
value to the individual participating agencies as well as to the community as a whole.
This data base consists of the Stage I Report itself and, in addition, exhibits, survey
forms, punched cards, magnetic tape files, tally sheets, and machine listings.
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The machined portion contains statistical information on the kinds and quantities of
people, equipment, files, processes, documents and document movement in the
Intelligence Community. The analysis contained in the SCIPS report, although
appreciable, has not by any means exhausted the potential of the data.
8. Some 250 organizational components were considered to be of significance
in the total processing system; 62 were covered in the Stage I study. Of this number,
42 were surveyed on site by members of the SCIPS Staff who had themselves
participated in the formulation of the intricate and detailed survey system described
in the report. These surveyors', on assignment from the various USIB agencies,
were almost all experienced intelligence officers in the senior grades, some of
them with extensive backgrounds in the area of information processing, but
virtually none with previous experience in this type of systems study. Another
10 components were surveyed by SCIPS personnel from existing documents and the
10 remaining were surveyed on site by personnel provided by the component being
studied. The average size of the SCIPS Staff during this exercise was 15; a total of
81 persons participated in the Study for varying periods of time. A list of all of the
components covered is given in Volume V, Appendix G, Section XIV h.
9. Some conception. of the magnitude of the SCIPS effort may be obtained
by citing a few statistics from the report. Almost 3000 different units, many of
which are outside the Intelligence Community, were identified as sending or
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receiving intelligence items.
10. In order to obtain. the benefits of an objective and independent analysis
of the results of the Stage I study, a panel of outside experts in related fields
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was convened to review the data base and the findings over a period of five days.
The following served in this capacity:
Mr. Willard R. Fazar, Bureau of the Budget
Dr. John H. Kennedy, Weapons Systems Evaluation Group
In addition, Dr. William O. Baker, Vice President (Research), Pell Laboratories,
and a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, spent a
day at SCIPS headquarters while the panel was in session. The report of the panel
has been considered by CODIB in reaching its conclusions and is attached as Tab C
for information.
11. The members of CODIB, members of the SCIPS Staff, and others spent
two days at for the purpose of reviewing the report
and its findings. The group was unanimous in concluding that the SCIPS Staff,
and in particular its director, should be commended for
a useful job well done.
12. A word should be said about the factual data reported and the conclusions
reached by SCIPS. In the main, the information may be considered one year old,
though it varies in age from 8 to 24 months. However, since processing procedures
change more slowly than organizations or subject interests, it is believed that
these data will remain valid and useful for some time even if not updated. It should
further be noted that not all conclusions reached by SCIPS were derived directly
25X1
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from the factual data alone. Some conclusions were reached as a result of the broad
experience acquired by the Staff during their long and intensive exposure to the survey's
environment, supplemented by a high degree of expertise in this field that some of them
already possessed. Conclusions so reached may be no less valid or valuable, but
the reader should know that judgment as well as fact played parts in their formulation.
Those conclusions which seem less valid or even, in our judgment, invalid if based
on the data accumulated will be noted in the CODIB comments. The mixture of
subjective conclusions with a presentation perhaps sometimes overdrawn for purposes
of emphasis, presents a picture of the Intelligence Community which must be carefully
examined If misinterpretation or unsound action are to be avoided.
13. One further note. The study consists, virtually, of a picture of considerable
size of files and flows. By its terms of reference it did not study the analyst - the user
of these files and the recipient of these flows. Hence, some of the dynamics of the
situation are missing. We know a good deal about what goes on, but little about why.
Moreover, the study deals primarily with the flow of documents, not of information;
careful consideration must be given any recommended action to insure that its impact
would not impair the flow of information.
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