POLICY WITH RESPECT TO INDIVIDUAL SPECIALIZATION AND GENERALIZATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01826R000400020006-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 21, 2000
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: December 1, 1953
• Content Type: MEMO

CONFIDENTIAL
Approved For Release 2000/09/12 : CIA-F?fPA 26R000400 2 _ 06-4
1 December 1953
TO: Chairman, CIA. Career Service Board
SUBJECT: Policy with Respect to Individual Specialization and
Generalization
1. The existing divergence of viewpoint in respect to administra-
tion designation Jeopardizes the whole conception and dictates the
need for resolution and demonstration in use before proceeding further.
Administration and training present the easiest and most logical appli-
cation of designation, and demonstration in use may or may not provide
criteria for other components. Therefore, the proposition here below
is to lay a base upon which resolution of the easiest designation
aligirients can rest as well as to thereby subsequently service the
possible extension to "operatingtt components.
1.. The short and long term interests of the Agency (in varying
degrees) are paramount and overriding in respect to individual preference.
2. Due consideration shall be given to individual preference when
not incompatible with Agency interests.
3. The functions of the Agency as a whole is to operate in the
fields of - -
Intelligence (NE, CD, RR, CI, SI, 00)
Plans (FI, PP, PM)*
The rest of the Agency is supportive thereto i.e., the auxiliary or
ttSpecial Staff" function.
Administration (Personnel, Proc and Supply, General
Services, Medical, Legal, Security)
Training
Communications
TSS is an intra-DD/p operation support unit much as CM and Cover.
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a. These supporting functions are technical in nature -
as much or more so in most cases as any operating. function.
25X1A
25X1A
DISCUSSION.
1. The Agency is late in recognizing the factor of expertese or
needed continually developed technical proficiency in many of these
supporting or special staff functions. It's taken for granted in the
doctor, the lawyer, and the communicator.
2. The Agency is late in recognizing that psychologically as well
as in terms of real interest, the operator is characteristically and
commonly, here and elsewhere, not proficient in these supporting fields.
3. The Agency stops short of fully implementing the conception of
accomplishment as a product of two equal efforts, the operation per se
in the first place and support per se. Failure to delinepte this leads,
of course, to a lost opportunity to disabuse the operators mind of wide-
spread concern as to ('administration for administration sake"
a. While occupying equally important functions, support action
is always "with but after" the operating responsibility; therefore,
the inferred usefullness of the conception of operating staff and
special or supporting staff to carry this connotation.
A enc disseminations (examples: CIA... Notice and
quoted below) distort the interest of the individual
versus the responsibilities of the Director.
a. CIA Notic
"2.b. Changing Career Designations
"Career Designations shall be subject to continuing
review, and there shall be a uniform Agency-wide procedure
for changing Career Designations of individuals whose train-
ing, personal desire, or experience make such a change appro-
priate. A request for change in Career Designation may be
initiated by any career employee and shall be forwarded by
his Career Service Board, with comment, through the Assistant
Director (Personnel) to the appropriate Career Service
Board for its consideration."
b. It is suggested that this paragraph should read somewhat
as follows: (New material underlined)
(1) Career Designations shall be subject to continuing
review for the purpose of providing progressive development of
general Agency competence and the progressive development of the
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individual to the end that trained and nutured competence
strains toward the top. There shall be a uniform Agency-
wide procedure for changing Career Designations of individuals
in over-all Agency interest where the individuals trainigs,
and experience serve a riorit or genera zed need and also
where anexpression of personal desire is compatible under
the above-stated broader premise.
(2) A request for change in Career Designation may be
initiated by any career employee and shall be forwarded by
his Career Service Board with positive or negative endorse-
ment through the Assistant Director ersonnel to the appro-
priate Career Service Board for its consideration. The
function of the Assistant Director (Personnel) in this case
is to act in a ecct,ffor the g y- Career Service Board to
guard over-all Agency interest as expressed heretofore.
ii. Regulation
114. The CIA Career Service Board
"The CIA Career Service Board supervises the Career
Service Program and is responsible for providing advice to
the Director on making the Agency a better place in which to
work. t1
"5.
Component Career Service Boards
"a. General
"..... These Career Service Boards are respon-
sible for advice to their respective chiefs on making
the components better places in which to work."
(1) To "make the Agency (or its components) a better
place to work" is the least of the responsibilities of these
Boards. This sentence should not stand alone as it does and
should be rewritten to show the Agency interest in the first
place possibly as shown below: (See reasoning in the proposed
rewrite in be above)
(New material underlined)
The CIA Career Service Board supervises the Career
Service Program and is responsible for providing advice
to the Director on the progressive development of Agency
personnel for future needs for increasingly better
per ormance and to make the Agency a better place in which
to wor cr?
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5. In respect to the operating function the Agency is, of course,
the sum total of all such offices. Support is a common cuzcern to each.
Responsibility for the development of competent support must rest with
the basic technical service office; that is the only place it can come
from and that is the only way wherein the Director ss demand for increas-
ingly better performance can be effectuated. It necessarily follows
that the people who perform support belong professionally to the home-
plate technical service headquarters and when transferred to operations
to perform in a particular support service are transferred to another
administrative jurisdiction. The Designation remains the same and the
individual carries it with him.
It is suggested that to operate otherwise is an attempt to
manage a hydra headed complex which cannot be grasped and further is
closing our eyes to outside common experience, both military and industrial.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
1. Correct the misalignments in previous disseminations as suggested
in the Discussion above.
2. Reclassify the work of the Agency to show two functions -
operating and support as outlined in Premise 3.
3. Select, at this time, the functions of administration (six parts),
training and communications., and professionalize the support function
by recognizing that basic policy control of support rests with the techni-
cal service concerned and is sent from home plate, so to speak, to the
operating functionaries. Day-to-day administrative control rests with
the operating office of assignment. The Designation is to remain that
of the support service while the employee performs that service.
Approved For Release 2000/09/12 : Cl
Special Assistant, DD/P
IDEI\j'TIAL