REPORT AND RECOMMENDTIONS DATED 19 APRIL 1951 BY <SANITIZED> CONSULTANT; AND COVER MEMO ON THIS REPORT DATED 25 APRIL 1951

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 02294461
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: July 13, 2023
• Document Release Date: August 18, 2022
• Case Number: F-2021-00970
• Publication Date: May 15, 1951

STANDARD FORM NO. 134
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'Amin. I
Office Memorandum � UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
TO : Director of Training
FROM : William J. Morgan
DATE: 15 May 1951
SUBJECT: Report and recommendations dated 19 April 1951 by
nnnanitant. and cover memo on this report dated 25 April
1951 by addressed to Director of Training.
1. In compliance
C oncerning
with your request I have the following comments to make
report:
Paragraph 1, b: "...assessment...enjoys only vague approval from
above and general non-acceptance from below."
(b)(3)
(h)(3)
(b)(3)
(b)(3)
The Assessment Unit which resigned in 1948 was overworked;
staffed by a number of academically-minded psychologists. For
the most part, however, they did good work but suffered poor
public relations.
Prior to the activation of the present Assessment Unit*, the
Deputy Chief, TRS, prepared a detailed report outlining the condi-
tions for effective assessment programs. Very few of these condi-
tions were bought by the Agency at the time; many of them have been
granted since 1949; a few are still lacking. But, for the most
part, I would say that the present Assessment Unit enjoys much better
public relations than the last one. Its staff members have had mili-
tary experience; most of them are qualified and practical psychologists;
some of them have received instruction on assessment. Many staff and
division chiefs in OSO and OPC have repeatedly stressed the value of
assessment and they have, time and again, requested more and more serv-
ices. I was under the impression that they were very cordial to the
work and to the staff members of Assessment. Of course, there are
always dissenters: Mediocre persons who want mediocre men around them;
ambitious empire-builders who hire on the basis of selfish, personal
loyalty rather than Agency loyalty. To the best of my knowledge,
Admiral Hillenkoeter, Mr. Lyle Shannon, Mr. William Kelly, Mr. Frank
Wisner, and Colonel Robert Schow have all been in favor of assessment.
The weekly Wednesday conferences with important Agency personnel
which were held by the Assessment Staff aided greatly in explaining
and selling the purposes and procedures of assessment. More of this
needs to be done. There is nothing mysterious about assessment.
It is both a practical and scientific approach to aptitude diagnosis.
I have found that when it is fully explained, it is readily accepted.
4r. alarm
The present Assessment Unit was activated in May 1949 by Colonel Schow and/
at the request of Mr. Wisner, AD/PC.
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aEUDE. 1
4210.
The prestige of the Assessment Staff will rise high as soon as
the present staff members have obtained actual operational
field experience as Intelligence Officers for at least two years.
They were hired with the understanding that this was one of the
conditions of their employment. No psychologist, however competent
he may be, can hope to achieve insight into intelligence operations
without actual job experience in intelligence.
I therefore do not accept as valid the statement which 1 have
quoted. However, I believe there are many ways in which assessment
can play a more important role in CIA. I believe that in time these
ways will be achieved. Assessment is most effective, for example,
if it is an Agency-wide program sponsored directly from the very top
of CIA. This is recognized by outstanding management firms, some of
which, like RHR of Chicago, refuse to accept an "assessment" contract
unless they can first assess the big boss himself, discuss their find-
ings with him, and then work down to the lower echelons progressively.
The Chief of Assessment should be answerable to the big boss only,
otherwise assessment findings are subject to lack of emphasis and
sometimes deliberate misuse. In my opinion assessment is the most
important and the most useful managerial tool which the big boss can
have.
Second paragraph (not numberedi on page 2: "ASSESSMENT MEANS ADVANCEMENT"
Assessment also means termination. I believe that personnel in
this Agency are too sophisticated and intelligent not to realize that
assessment is a managerial tool that is to their advantage only when
their aptitudes, skills, and attitudes are serving Agency purposes.
Third paragraph (not numbered) on page 2: "Within the Assessment Unit
itself there still remains..."
I believe that this observation is well founded. The present
assessment psychologists have had no WOSB, SOE/SAB or OSS/assessment
experience. Some of them have had no previous clinical experience in
psychology. It is constantly necessary to orient their thinking so
that they will substitute practical situation tests for psychometric
or for paper and pencil approaches. But their attitudes are the natural
result of their background and training in psychology--and psychology
as a profession has not realized the tremendous value of the assessment
concept. When assessment is merely psychometric, it ceases to be assess-
ment. However, there are dozens of situation tests on file with the
Assessment Unit and it is up to the psychologists to exploit them to
the full and to devise others as they are needed and as time will per-
mit to use them. The Interview, the Stress Interview, the Group Dis-
cussion, the Topic Talk, the Lunch Situation, the Communist Briefing
are some of the more commonly used situation tests in the two-day
assessment program. Situation tests should always be selected in terms
of the projected job assignment. As the psychologists obtain intelli-
gence experience, they will find it easier to devise appropriate situa-
tion tests for the different CIA field and headquarter assignments.
The ideal setup would be to devote one day to straight psychometric and
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two days to situation testing and observation?with the candidates
living and working with the staff psychologists in a country house.
Such an assessment program has been recommended in the past. It
is especially pertinent to field personnel, both OSO and OPC.
Page 2, Paragraph 2a:
I agree. Perhaps the phrase Psychometric Testing would be
appropriate for the one-day program.
Page 2, Paragraph 2b:
A psychometric program is only one small part of an assessment
program, therefore the suggested redefinition would imply a delinea-
tion of function.
Page 3, Paragraph c:
Assessment should always be done in terms of the projected job
assignment; it is, therefore, highly individualized. A clerk-steno,
GS-51 who is going to serve as a letter-drop, cut-out, or courier
for intelligence operations in the Far East may require more assess-
ment time and attention than a Washington Headquarter's report writer.
Echelons of assessment are useful as administrative guides but the
psychologist, as a physician, must be left professionally free to chase
down and solve a problem that is uncovered during assessment; other-
wise he can only give a partial psychological diagnosis. Also, the
CIA Officer who requests the assessment must feel free to specify the
reasons for the referral. "Packaged" assessment programs are always
substitutes and advisable only when it is administratively desirable
for the sake of production to sacrifice accuracy.
Page 3, Paragraph d:
By all means. All incoming Agency personnel should either be
tested or assessed.
Page 3, Paragraph 3: "Requiring that all incoming Agency personnel be
assessed for a minimum number of characteristics to include MOTIVATIOA,
EFFECTIVE INTELLIGENCE and PERSONAL INTEGRITY."
It is impossible to assess all incoming Agency personnel for such
characteristics, assuming that psychologists are going to be used for
such an assessment program. It would be expensive; there are not
enough available and qualified psychologists in America for such a
mass job. Furthermore, a psychometric (i.e., purely testing) program
would not be valid for determining motivation, effective intelligence,
and personal integrity. However, I believe that well-trained assess-
ment psychologists, assigned to MS, working with and training I&S
personnel, could devise ways and means of rating the applicant's
motivation, effective intelligence, personal integrity and even
emotional stability and field adaptability. They would at least provide
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carefully thought out hunches. They would draw their information
from what the candidate writes about himself, from what others say
about him, from interviews with him, and from the polygraph records.
Psychological techniques applied to security screening would yield
some valuable assessment data and possibly shorten the time required
for clearance.
Page 3, Paragraph f:
First sentence: Why?
Second sentence: Yes. Alcohol was used in SAB/SOE and in
OSS/Assessment. The SAB/SOE alcohol test was more natural than the
OSS alcohol test. The alcohol test should not, I believe, be used
unless the candidates and the psychologists are working and living
together in a country house assessment area for three to four days.
Otherwise it is just too obvious and artificial.
Page 3, Paragraph g:
Of course. Much has already been done. In quite a few instances
CIA has its own norms, tests, psychological questionnaires, rating
scales, and other psychological procedures. More needs to be done
and Colonel Baird, I understand, plans to use some of the psychological
services of the Educational Testing Service for just such purposes.
Page 4, Paragraph h:
Absolutely. Also, we badly need assessment psychologists,
operationally trained in intelligence, who speak foreign languages
and who can assess prospective agents, agents who are showing signs
of stress or disloyalty, and defectors. We should set up a program
of assessment teams for satellite and soviet defectors. Members
of these teams would receive language training, assessment and TRD
training in Washington, and operational training overseas. These
teams would use techniques, when relevant, which would not be per-
missable with Americans, such as drugs, hypnotism, threat, force,
and punishment, combined with the polygraph. I have advocated
assessment-defector teams for many years. Mr. Harry Rositzke and
Mr. Dana Durand of OSO are interested. We have made a small start
in that direction with the assessment team assigned to ZRELOPE.
Page 4, Paragraph 3a:
A two-day assessment program is adequate for many different
positions in CIA. A four-day assessment program is justifiable in
terms of expense if it is carried out in a country house area with
emphasis on situation tests and restricted to imnortant Washington
Headquarter's personnel (e.g., AD'S, staff, division, and branch
chiefs) and personnel scheduled for overseas assignments. The
present Assessment Unit would be able to obtain considerably more
assessment information about candidates if they had more space in
which to work and more clerical and professional-psychological
assistance.
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"
Page 4, Paragraph 3b:
Yes and no. It all depends on how it is done and what the
problem happens to be.
Page 5, Paragraph d:
Yes, provided they: (a) are trained and have at least an M. A.
degree in psychology and (b) have had at least two years experience
on those jobs for which they are assessing candidates.
Page 5, Paragraph 3:
Yes, this should be done whenever there are salvage potentials
for CIA purposes. I did not know that it had been discontinued.
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