HISTORY OF THE CLANDESTINE SERVICES, A PRELIMINARY APPRAISAL OF THE PROBLEM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83-00764R000300090017-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 19, 2000
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: May 14, 1964
• Content Type: MF

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14 May 1964
SUBJECT
Chief, Historical Staff
History of the Clandestine Services,,
a Preliminary Appraisal of the
Problem
1. This me rendum is addressed to the problem of file
research which would be required for the preparation of a gen-
eral history of the Clandestine Services or as a basis for any
or gesso graphical area. It is based upon a survey,. necessarily
incomplete and imprescise, of filed material available for such
research.
2. Quite aside from the more obvious factors inhibiting
the preparation of history covering a highly classified and
compartmented organization and its activities, a number of
other troublesome problems merge upon inquiry. They include :
a. The Would-be chronicler today must start from
a foundation of nearly 18 years of virtual neglect in
effort, and very little effort of any description,. to
produce or prepare for the production of a history of
CIO-CIA secret activities abroad or of the organiza-
tional components erected to carry them out.
b. Certain aspects of the clandestine components
have been treated in existing histories of CIO-CIA
through 1953, but Ilmost always in Contexts whore such
mention was necess ,ry to frame or to fill in accounts
of other matters; prior historians were explicitly
barred from dealing with the Clandestine Services
mow, s___ p __
articular purposes but these are of limited value for
serious historical research.
c. For the t part, existing files are haphaz-
ardly organized and inadequately indexed, they are not
archives in _any acceptable sense of that to
3. Three general arategories of files are pertinent to
Clandestine Services history: (a) those which presumably
have been purged of extraneous material (but not of valuable
papers) and retired to Records Integration Division Central
Records here or to the (b) special
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pose files intended for ready reference, and (c) files of
whatever other description, not retired but held in the pos-
session of the several Clandestine Services components.
4.
January 1961,`, It also poses the knottiest prob-
The first category in of most interest and potential
a for the historian concerned with the period prior
low. The great bulk of! these files have been thrown together
by file clerks or junior; officers with little apparent sub-
stantive discrimination.,i A few are well organized and of
uniformly good quality. Most contain soae useful papers inter
singled with a preponderance of junk.
~e So ajrye~ u k from
start to finish. The indexing (or shelf-luting) ranges from
from
barely illuminating to outright misleading.
a. it: A Cinch-thick file folder labelled
"MI-79I rr.spondenc" consists almost entirely of
mutual platitudes.
b. Item: Another two-inch folder labelled t'DOP
It containing useful and useless material
.sly equal parts, has boon put together
d from the 0/ICI Executive Registry.
y without reference to subject matter; it
rue ri. Doon copy or a peraonai Lyr dic-
ing + me randum of conversation be-
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It boar to look).
olds elleed "Parking Perm ts, 1956-?5711 (1
ek is filed
without 25X1A
hip to anytb ng else therein.
d. Item: Solemnly entombed at re
e. Item: Twoutt-fivo folders are carefully
shelf-lis as "Correspondence on Personalities and
Subjects not Applicable to Any of Foregoing Titles.,"
And so on. Give or take a few hundred, there are 12, 000
cubic feet of those materials in storage on retirement from
the 1 area. At a rough estimate, another 8,000 cubic feet
of paper retired by other components may be guessed. to have
25X aertinencee to the Clandestine Cervices. (Total storage at was 81,497 cubic foot the day I was there; capac-~
ar
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5. The second category of files presents the least dif
culty for the practical reason that they have been filed by
25X1A responsible officers who nee thair business. Examples
are the publications files i ffice and the Special
Group agenda-minutes in Staff. Because they are adequately
indexed and available for ready reference, their bulk in incon-
sequential. Alone, however, they would suffice only for a bars-
bones chronological log and they are not reliable before 1953.
(Another example might be the 201 personality files, but these
are maintained for CICEpurposses and have little relevance to
our work.)
opt for special studies in depth, such an Ken
25X1A Cthe third category is not of immediate research
concern to us unless we wish to risk writing our history from
the present backwards. Most of these papers are evanescent
and comprehensible only to their present guardians. Our main
concern with them should be to take a few practical steps to
"sure that their residue does not become the bane of some
luckless wight tossed to the task of making historical sense
of them 18 years hence.
7. The job of winnowing the wheat from the, chaff of the
retired files will be time-consuming and largely, drudgery, but
not impossible if the authorities want it done. From my own
limited whirl at it, I would estimate that a fairly rapid,
discriminating reader could plow through them at an average
rate of about one cubic' foot per day. The figure of 20,000
(12,000 plus 8,000) cubic feet could probably be halved by
risking perusal of the shelf lists only. Another 5,000 might
be disposed of fairly quickly by skimpy scanning. That would
leave 5,000 cubic feet requiring serious reading which would
work out to roughly 20 person-years. What I envision emerging
from this process, if properly done, would be a relatively
compact, properly indexed not of true historical archives (I
doubt it would exceed V O cubic feet at the outside), plus a
remainder of material which probably should be kept for some
reason or other, but better indexed and better organized than
now and purged of most dross and duplication.
S. Because this work could be done perfectly well at the
GS-11 through 13 lev,l,Ithe total cost in salaries would be
lose than $300,000. If this figure should appear an extrava--
gance, lot it be sated that:
a. We pay a good deal more than that annually al-
to people engaged in hovering over these files;
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b. It is a tiny fraction of the money gone and
going into the Walnut retrieval system, which is not
needed for historical archives and in any case has its
input capacity over=taxed for the foreseeable future by
CICE requirements;
c. Although it would be nice to hire a qualified
archivist as a member of the team, the work could be done
without increasing the Agency payroll at all by reassign-
ments and adjustments of assignments;
d. The only practical alternative would be to have
the same work done by better-paid senior officers, to the
detriment of what presumably are more useful activities.
9. Therefore I recommend that:
a. Preferably at least four people, but certainly
no fewer than two, be assigned as soon as possible to the
Job of screening, indexing and placing in proper archival
form existing retired CS files--the assignments to be
made with the understanding that they would be adjusted if
the job proved either more or less onerous than anticipated;
during their tours of duty, these people would be under
the full supervision of the Historical Staff;
b. That a representative of the Historical Staff
concert soon with appropriate officers of the CS to
establish procedures so that proper historical archives
will be maintained in the future; this will not be easy
because there are many fingers in the pie, standards of
compliance vary widely, and RID is not master in its own
domain.
10. The foregoing is concerned only with the records re-
search end of the CS historical problem. It is not the whole
problem. Its solution is essential but not prerequisite.
Other work can proceed concurrently. In a shortly following
memorandum I shall round out this discussion, but it will be
academic unless we can gain approval of substantially what I
have proposed above.
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