LETTER TO MATHIAS F. CORREA, ESQ. FROM WILLIAM H. JACKSON

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86B00269R000500050046-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 1, 2003
• Sequence Number: 46
• Publication Date: May 28, 1948
• Content Type: LETTER

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J. Ii. WHITNEY F3 CO.
630 FIFTH AVENUE
NEW YORK 20, N. Y.
May 28, 1948
Mathias F. Correa, Esq.
63 Wall Street
New York 5, New York
In connection with a recent talk that I had with
idir. Sprague about his work for the survey committee, I gave
him a copy of an old letter which I wrote to Jim Forrestal.
The letter may have some points of interest to
you and I am therefore enclosing a copy.
With best personal regards,
Very sincerely,
STAT
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November 14, 1945
Non, James Forrestal
Secretary of the Navy
Navy Department
Washington, D. C.
Dear Jim:
In view of your recommendation of a central intelligence agency, I
am taking the liberty of summarizing some thoughts that I have previously ex-
pressed on this subject. Last spring, I made a report on the British system
of coordination of intelligence functions. You may have seen a copy of this
report which had a limited circulation in Washington. In any event, as a re-
sult of work on this subject I became interested in the various proposals for
a central intelligence agency in America.
The following summary expresses my views. Although these views have
been somewhat influenced by the study of the British system, you will notice
that I recommend a system for achieving coordination of intelligence functions
which is substantially different from the British system.
Consideration of most subjects starts today with the conjectural ef-
fects of the atomic bomb. This is surely appropriate when the subject is
intelligence. Assumptions are made as to these effects which are considered
basic in the planning of a modern intelligence system.
It is assumed that the atomic bomb will not relieve the United States
or any other first class military power of the need for a first class army, navy
and air force. If this assumption is justified, it follows that the commanding
officers of each of these forces should have an intelligence organization quali-
fied to render informed and reliable estimates as to potential enemy capabilities
affecting their respective missions. It is believed that air officers trained in
intelligence are best qualified to estimate the capabilities of enemy air forces
and that the same is true with respect to ground and naval forces. Each military
service should have responsibility for intelligence within the scope of its mis-
sion in the same manner that intelligence responsibility devolves down through
the lower echelons of a single military service. It is not believed that any
central intelligence agency should attempt to relieve the military service of
their appropriate intelligence responsibilities.
It does not follow, however, that each of the military services should
maintain complete, independent and isolated intelligence organizations. This
would involve needless duplication of facilities and confusion of intelligence
opinion on matters affecting two or more of the military services and, perhaps,
other departments of government. In the language of General Marshall, "The
national security is a single problem, and it cannot be provided on a piece meal
basie.e Intelligence, as an essential function of national security, can be
adequately provided only through a comprehensive and integrated intelligence
system. If the lessons of Pearl Harbor were not accepted as proof of the urgent
necessity for coordination of intelligence functions between branches of the
military service, and between the military services and other departments of
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government, the use of atomic energy and the threat of yet undeveloped products
of scientific research must now supply that proof beyond shadow of doubt.
The collection, evaluation and interpretation of information relating
to scientific, military, economic and political developments throughout the
world have now been recognized as presenting a major problem in the United States.
This problem cannot be solved by the separate military and civilian intelligence
agencies which functioned in the past with inadequate coordination under obsolete
and disintegrated intelligence procedures, unworthy of being described an an
American system of intelligence. We assume, then, that America must in some man-
ner achieve coordination of intelligence functions if foreign policy and military
preparation are to be synchronized on the basis of a common understanding of the
capabilities and intentions of potential enemies.
On these assumptions, we approach this problem with the objective, on
the one hand, of imposing intelligence responsibility on the military services
within the scope of their missions and, on the other hand, of compelling the co-
ordination of intelligence functions under one national intelligence system.
volveed:
There are, it is believed, four aspects of coordination which are in-
l) Coordination in the collection of information.
2) Coordination in the evaluation and collation of such information.
(3) Coordination through centralization of intelligence facilities of
use to two or more military services and departments of government.
(4) Coordination of intelligence opinion in general estimates of a
broad strategic nature.
Coordination in these four aspects can be achieved, it is submitted,
in an integrated intelligence system revolving around a central intelligence
agency set up along the following lines: Authority over this agency should be
vested in the Department of Defense if it is created, in the National Security
Council if the proposal of the Secretary of the Navy is adopted, or in the
Secretaries of State, War, Navy and the Assistant Secretary of War for Air if
the present military organization remains unchanged.
The active direction of the Central Intelligence Agency should be in
a Directorate of Intelligence, consisting of the chief intelligence officers
in the Army, Navy and Air Forces, a representative of the State Department and,
perhaps, representatives of other departments such as the Treasury and the De-
partment of Justice if they perform or are to perform intelligence functions
having a direct relationship to the national security.
Acting under the general supervision of the Directorate of Intelligence
would be the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. This Director, a man
of the highest intelligence qualifications available in the United States, regard-
less of military or civilian background, should be appointed by the President
upon the advice of the Department of Defense, or the Council, or the various
Secretaries described above.
The Central Intelligence Agency, which should be run by the Director,
would have various departments comprising the intelligence facilities and serv-
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ices of common usefulness. The number and scope of these services and facili-
ties should be determined on the initiative of the Director, with the supervision
and agreement of the Directorate, and subject to the final approval of the De-
partment of Defense. Their number and scope cannot be fixed at this time, nor
would they remain static in the future. In general, the Central Agency might
have departments of economic intelligence, political intelligence, scientific
intelligence, radio intercept, topography, a central photographic interpretation
unit, etc. Such a list is deliberately incomplete and may, on the other hand,
include fields; such as political intelligence which might better be placed in
the Department of State. The principle, however, would be to place intelligence
facilities and services of common usefulness in the Central Agency.
In addition to its function of centralization of certain intelligence
facilities and services, a second and equally important function of the Director
and the Central. Intelligence Agency would be the coordination, through the
Directorate, of the collection, evaluation and collation of all intelligence,
.and the submission over the signature of each member of the Directorate of
,general estimates of over-all enemy capabilities.
Returning, then, to the four aspects of coordinations
Collection. The Central Intelligence Agency would not supersede or
interfere with the normal collection machinery of the various services or govern-
mental departments. Coordination in collection should be achieved by the Director
through the Directorate of Intelligence. The essential elements of information
required by the various services and departments represented on the Directorate
should be discussed in meetings of the Directorate where collection procedures
should be coordinated with full knowledge of current plans of the Chiefs of Staff
and of American foreign policy. The Director would be responsible for seeing
that the collection procedures agreed upon in the Directorate are carried out
and that prompt and appropriate distribution of the collected information is ef-
fected both within and without the Central Agency. For example, the Director
must see that the Air Forces get raw intelligence bearing on enemy air capabili-
ties which may be collected outside of Air Force channels.
In general, the Central Agency would not itself handle collection. It
certainly should not be a central agency for collection. It is believed that
diversification in collection will be far more effective and that service respon-
sibility in intelligence cannot be maintained if the military services give up
their own collection machinery, such as the system of military and naval attaches.
This is predicated on the assumption that coordination in collection can be
achieved through the Directorate and that prompt and appropriate distribution can
be assured.
Specifically, in the case of radio intercept, the entire machinery of
collection should be centralized in the Central Intelligence Agency. In other
specific fields, such as economic and scientific intelligence, the Central Agency
might do its own above-cover collection.
This brings up the question of the organization of secret intelligence
and the use of under-cover agents. It is believed that secret intelligence, in-
cluding both positive intelligence and foreign counter--intelligence, should be
under the control of the State Department. Regardless of what cover might be
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used, an official of the State Department, presumably its representative on the
Directorate of Intelligence, should be responsible for secret intelligence. It
is obvious that coordination should be achieved between the State Department's,
work in secret intelligence and the counter-espionage work of the Federal Bureau
of Investigation. Further coordination could be achieved by having officers from
the Army, Navy and Air Forces assigned to work in secret intelligence. General
coordination of Secret Intelligence requirements in the light of full knowledge
of American military plans and foreign policy should be achieved on the initia-
tive.of the Director through the Directorate of Intelligence.
Coordination in the evaluation and collation of intelligence material.
In this aspect of coordination the function of the Director under the supervision
of the Directorate would be comparable to the function of coordinating collection.
For example, evaluation and collation of intelligence material directly affect-
ing enemy air capabilities should be handled by the intelligence organization in
the Air Forces. The same would be true in the case of the Army and Navy. In
some fields of common usefulness, evaluation and collation should be done in a
department of the Central Intelligence Agency. There will, of course, be border-
line cases such as scientific intelligence. Evaluation collation and final
interpretation of scientific material of general application should be done in
the Scientific Department of the Central Intelligence Agency. There will, never--
th:eless, be scientific intelligence of special application to enemy ground, sea
or air capabilities which should be handled by the intelligence organizations of
the respective American services. The Director, through the Directorate, must
insure a free flow of collated material and a free interchange of scientific
opinion between the various services and between the Scientific Department of the
Central. Agency and the military services and other interested departments of
government. S~l
oordin i through centralization of intelligence facilities or serv-
ices of common usefulness. As has been stated, this centralization would be
achieved through the various departments of the Central Intelligence Agency under
the principle of placing intelligence facilities and services of common useful-
ness in the Central Agency. The scope of the work of the various departments
would not be of equal extensiveness. For example, the departments dealing with
political, economic and scientific intelligence might properly evaluate, collate
and finally interpret all such intelligence. In the case of photographic inter-
pretation, the Department might only provide a central unit for expert and de-
tailed examination of photographs which would be forwarded to the appropriate
users, In the case of radio intercept, the departmental function of the Central
Agency might be restricted to collection and distribution within and without the
Central Intelligence Agency.
Coordination of intelligence opinion in general estimates of a broad
strategic nature.' In the Central Intelligence Agency the Director should have a
department or preferably a top staff consisting of military and civilian person-
nel qualified to assemble and draft general estimates of a strategic nature. An
example would be an estimate of the military capabilities and intentions of a
potential enemy country. The part of the estimate dealing with air capabilities
would be drafted in the first instance by the intelligence organization of the
Air Forces. The same would be true of the ground and naval services. The economic
political and scientific portions of the estimates would be drafted in the appro-
priate departments of the Central Intelligence Agency.
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Hon. Jam, Forrestal -5- Novem" y 14, 1945
All the parts comprising the estimate would be assembled, discussed
and, if necessary, revised and redrafted by the estimates section or staff of
the Central Agency. It should be recalled that this staff, should include com-
petent air, ground and naval officers who would doubtless be in close touch
with the original drafting of the portions of the estimate prepared by their
respective services. The entire estimate as revised and redrafted by the staff
of the Central Agency would be submitted to the Directorate. After full dis-
cussion in the Directorate the estimate, signed by each member of the Director-
ate, would be submitted to the Mate Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff or
other appropriate recipient. A member of the Directorate who disagreed with
the estimate in whole or in part should be required to append his dissent set-
ting forth the grounds on which it was based.
In this connection, the British system for achieving coordination of
intelligence functions might be studied. A report on this subject has been
submitted to Mr. Robert Lovett.
In conclusion, some obvious facts should be emphasised. The system
herein outlined will not work, nor will any other system work, unless there is
adequate training of intelligence officers, a willingness on the part of all
the military services to put their most capable officers in intelligence posi-
tions, and a general and sincere recognition that coordination of intelligence
functions is a vital necessity of national security.
Respectfully submitted,
(signed) William H. Jackson
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