NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE OBJECTIVES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79R00904A000100050005-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 5, 2005
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: December 1, 1954
• Content Type: MF

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'CONFIDENTIAL'
-99;WT,
CENTRAL I NTELLI LIEN CE AGENCY
OFFICE OF NATIONAL ESTIMATES
1 December 195
MEMORANDUM FOR THE-DIRECTOR
(Draft for Board consideration)
SUBJECT: National Intelligence Objectives
REFERENCE: IACDD-5O/3,. 30 November 1954
1Q IAC-D-50/3, as submitted to the TAC, contains no analysis
supporting its recommendations. The draft adopted by the Board and
submitted to the IAC representatives did contain such an analysis
(attached hereto as Tab A) and two additional recommendations
derived therefrom:
a. That the recommende6 annual review of priority national
intelligence objectives be conducted by the Board of National.
Estimates in conjunction with IAC representatives.
b. That your Special Assistant for Planning and Coordi.
nations in conjunction with IAC representatives, be directed to
review existing Provisions for the development and coordination
of specific information re;.uirements and collection tasks in
conformity with established priority objectives and to submit
recommendations to the IACQ
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2, The Board found it impossible to secure general concurrence in
this analysis and these recommendations for reasons discussed in Tab. Bo
However, the ZAC representatives have stated that they anticipate no
objection to the Director's adoption and implementation of the fore-
going recommendations on the Board's recommendation and his own
authority.
3o The Board believes the implementation of these two additional
recommendations to be essential to the effective implementation of
the recommendations in IAC.D.50/3, Accordingly, the Board recommends
that, following the adoption of IAC.D?5O/3, the Director inform the IAC
that he hast
a, Designated the Board of National Estimates to conduct
the annual review of priority national estimates, in conjunction
with IAC representatives.
by Instructed his Special Assistant for Planning and Coor-
dination, in conjunction with IAC representatives, to review
existing provisions for the development and coordination of
specific information requirements and collection tasks in conformity
with established priority national intelligence objectives and to
submit recommendations to the IAC.
loo The Board further recommends that discreet means be found to
impress upon individual members of the IAC the desirability of their
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being represented, in the review of priority national intelligence
objectives, by persons more broadly informed regarding substantive
intelligence problems and more deeply imbued with the community spirit
than those who have represented them hitherto. In the opinion of the
Hoard, such representatives can now be found only in the estimates
staffs of the several IAC agencies.
o3~
-- *BeREW16.
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DISCUSSION AND CONCL06IOPS OMITTED FROM
IAC-Dh?50/3
Text would consist of paragraphs 6-23 and 31033 from the 20
October draft on national intelligence objectives, with an explanation
that paragraphs 2430 are in IAC?D. O/3 as Appendix C.
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TAB B
FACTORS AFFECTING THE 000RDIWATION OF IAC?Da50/3
1. The problem presented in IAC4Da.5O/3 is, essentially: how to
provide long-term guidance from policy planners (the NSC Planning Board)
and intelligence estimators (the Board of National Estimates and the
TAC representatives with 'whom it normally collaborates) to intelligence
collection and research. It is axiomatic that collection and research
personnel need such guidance and are not in a position to supply it to
themselves. For years it has been their complaint that no effective
means have been devised to provide it for them, despite occasional
earnest efforts on the part of several full-time intelligence planning
staffs. Reference of the problem to the Board of National Estimates
implied an TAC desire for a radically new approach from a more compre-
hensive point of view than that of those who had hitherto failed to
solve it.
20 The Board reviewed the history of the subject, since 19469 and,
although not eager to add to its own burdens, concluded that estimates
personnel (itself and its colleagues in the departmental agencies)
were in the best position to translate plannerst intelligence require-
ments into priority national intelligence objectives through the
identification of the critical substantive intelligence problems.
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At the same time, the Board recognized that intelligence objectives,
as thus determined, could not serve as the. final formulation of
specific collection requirements, In the Board+s concept, it irauld be
the function of estimates personnel to translate planners' requirements
into intelligence objectives, the function of research personnel to
translate such objectives into specific information requirements, and
the function of collection personnel to translate such requirements
into specific tanks of collection. Thus each would have his appropriate
function in the over-all plan - but it was essential to the concept
that the formulation of intelligence objectives is not a proper function
of collection personnel.
3a The Service agencies, however, treated the formulation of
national intelligence objectives as though it were primarily a collectors'
problem, Although the Board communicated with them through their respec-
tive estimates staffs (its normal channel), the matter was referred
internally to their chiefs of collection, who initially appeared as agency
representatives* Subsequently the task of representation was transferred
from collection to front office personnel, but the collection element
continued to dominate consideration of the subject in the Service
agencieso This circumstance had a severer adverse effect upon coor-
dination.
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ld. None of the IAC representatives with whom the Board had to
deal in this matter had ever acted with it before in the preparation
of a paper for IAC consideration. At the first meeting with them it
became shockingly apparent that the confidence in mutual good faith
which has beem developed among estimators since 1950 was altogether
lacking at the collectors' level. The atmosphere was like that which
pre`rai.led generally before 1950: the Service representatives frankly
assumed that any proposal by an element of CIA must ipso facto be
designed to entrap them. The tone of discussion improved materially
when front office personnel replaced the collectors as IAC representatives
that change alone made possible such progress as was achieved with
respect to the subject w- but by that time the Service agencies' position
had been strongly prejudiced, so that it was never possible to secure
candid consideration of the Board's draft in its entirety.
5. DCID.4/2, in effect, assured priority to any collection
requirem!nt proposed by a Service agency, regardless of its actual
importance in relation to national, security considered from an NSC point
of view. Service collection personnel were naturally loath to impair
the monopolistic position which they thus enjoyed. However, any review
of DCID-4/2 in the light oL" NSCID4, and consequently of NSC 162/2,
necessarily entailed an expansion of priority national intelligence
objectives to assure appropriate consideration for nonmilitary matters
or major Importance in the broader view of national security. The Board
a7m
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understood that that was precisely what the IAC had directed it to don
The original Service representatives, however, emphatically refused to
make any significant change whatever in DCID-4/2, The front office
personnel who replaced them withdrew from that untenable position and
accepted the Board's draft of Appendix B as a basis for coordination,
but their footnote on item f(c) is a manifest attempt to maintain the
advantage enjoyed under DCID-4/2 while acknowledging that other matters
not mentioned in DCID-4/2 are worthy of some secondary consideration,
6 The Service representatives were not well qualified to discuss
the relative importance of the items listed in Appendix B as substano
tive intelligence problems within the context of overall national
security interest. Consequently their consideration of relative priority
was governed almost entirely by calculation of procedural advantage or
disadvantage for their separate agencies, and the over-all national
interest went by default except insofar as it could be maintained by
the Board with some support from State.
7, The Service representatives, in effect, refused to act on the
analysis presented by the Board in support of its recommendations, except
that they accepted a portion of it as Appendix C, Their objections to
the remainder took the form of flat denial of demonstrable historical
fact and of questioning the relevance of matters which the Board supposed
the IAC would wish to know about in acting on the subject, The underlying
objection, however, was probably to the tendency of the analysis
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to demonstrate that the previous directives had been grossly inadequate,
that estimates personnel are beat qualified to formulate priority
national intelligence objectives, and that procedures for the application
of established priority objectives should be thoroughly reviewed, The
Board considers the specific objections raised to have been ill-informed
and invalid, but deemed it expedient not to prejudice such constructive
action as was possible by prolonging a hopeless argument,
8. Although it may cover corresponding substantive objections,
the position taken by the bervice representatives with respect to the
additional recommendations presented in the covering memorandum was
strictly legalistic: that it was inappropriate for IAC representatives
to make recommendations involving the assignment of tasks to component
elements of CIA, Having taken this position, they could not object to
the Board's direct submission of these recommendations to the Director.
They anticipated no IAC objection to the Director's adoption and imple.
mentation of then on his awn authority,
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